Good afternoon, and thank you very much all of you for taking the time to attend Gestamp's half 2022 results presentation. I am Ana Fuentes, Director of Investor Relations. Before proceeding, let me refer you to the disclaimer on Slide two of this presentation that has been posted on our website, and which sets out the legal framework under which this presentation must be considered. The conference call will be led by our executive chairman, Mr. Francisco Riberas, and our new CFO, Mr. Ignacio Mosquera. At the end of the conference, we will open up for a Q&A session. Now, please let me turn the call to our executive chairman, Mr. Riberas.
Okay. Thank you, Ana, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us in this call in which we will be presenting the H1 and Q2 results. If we start with the Slide four of our presentation. First message is that, despite the very challenging market conditions, we have been able to deliver in Gestamp a very solid set of results. With revenues up to EUR 4,871 million, which means in reported basis an increase compared with the previous year of 19.5%, after an increase of 7.7% if we exclude from this the impact of the increase of the steel prices. Of course, we have been able to outperform the market by 9.2 percentage points.
In terms of EBITDA margins, we have been able to improve by 40 basis points comparing with H1 2021 and again, excluding the impact of raw materials. We have been able, of course, to offset inflation and the energy cost pressures. In terms of free cash flow, we have been able to generate a healthy EUR 22 million positive free cash flow. We have ended up this first half of the year with a leverage of 2.2x EBITDA, which is the lowest net debt to EBITDA ratio achieved since 2019. Of course, for the rest of the year, we will keep on focusing in preserving our profitability with a clear target in mind of 12.5%-13% EBITDA margin, excluding the impact of the steel prices.
Being able to generate an important free cash flow with a target of EUR 200 million during this year, but at the same time, being able to accelerate together with the trend of electrification. If we move to the set of results to the page number 5 and starting with the Q2 results. Total revenue in this quarter has been EUR 2,615 million, which compares with EUR 1,967 million in the Q2 2021, which means an increase by 32.9%. If we adjust due to the increase of the raw materials prices, this increase compared with the quarter of 2021 has been 17.5%.
In terms of EBITDA, we have generated in this second quarter EUR 301 million EBITDA, compared with EUR 240 million in the second quarter 2021, which means an EBITDA margin of 11.5%. Where we adjusted due to the increase of the steel prices, it will lead us to a margin of 13%, which compares with 12.2% margin in second quarter 2021. We have generated in this second quarter EUR 139 million EBIT, which means a clear improvement from EUR 96 million we generated in the previous year second quarter. A margin of 5.3% above the one we obtained in the second quarter 2021.
We have also obtained a net income of EUR 72 million, which compares quite favorably, again, versus the EUR 32 million net profit we generated in the second quarter 2021. The CapEx in this second quarter has increased substantially up to EUR 290 million, compared with EUR 102 million that we spent during second quarter 2021. If we move to the analysis of our financial performance in the H1. Let us start with revenues. We have generated revenues of EUR 4,871 million, which means an increase compared with the previous year of 19.5%. If we deduct the impact of the steel prices, this increase is just 7.7%.
In terms of EBITDA, we have generated in this first half EUR 554 million, compared with EUR 498 million in the first half 2021. In this case, we have generated an EBITDA margin of 11.4% as reported, but adjusted with increase of the steel prices, our EBITDA margin is 12.6%, which is above the 12.2% we generated in the first half 2021. In terms of EBIT, we have generated in this first half EUR 240 million, compared with EUR 208 million in the first half of 2021. Net income of EUR 117 million compared with EUR 83 million. CapEx of EUR 376 million compared with the EUR 219 that we had during the first half of 2021.
In terms of net debt, we ended up this period with EUR 2,300 million, which is EUR 180 million less than one year ago. Moving to the Slide seven, it will refer to the market volumes and focusing on the activity in Q2. We can see in the graph that in our footprint, the volumes in terms of manufacturing of light commercial vehicles have been decreasing from 18 million in the first quarter of this year to 17 million in the second quarter 2022. On quarter-on-quarter, the manufacturing of vehicles has been reduced by 5.7%.
If we go by geographies, we see that, it's been a clear impact, negative impact in the case of Russia for obvious reasons, and also in China due to the COVID-19 lockdowns in March and April. It's been a quite strong performance quarter-on-quarter in Western Europe and also in Mercosur, but in the case of NAFTA, it's been quite a flat evolution quarter-on-quarter. Moving to the Slide eight, in this case, talking about markets for the first half of the year at constant FX and also in our Gestamp footprint. We can see here that we have been able to outperform the market in every single geography. So at the end of the day, in total, FX constant, we have been able to increase our sales by 18.5%.
At the same time, the market has increased by 2.5% at FX constant. If we deduct the impact of the increase in steel prices, this increase has been 6.7%, outperforming the market by 9.2%. From my side, if I move into Slide nine, just first the message around the evolution of our EBITDA during 2022. We have, I think a very favorable quarter, and also H1, because if we compare with, for instance, the second quarter 2019 before the COVID-19, we have been able really to outperform.
Because in second quarter 2019, the manufacturing of light commercial vehicle reached 20 million units, and we have in our footprint this year 17 million units. That means we are missing 3 million units, which is close to 15% decrease compared with 2019. At the same time, we have been able to increase our EBITDA margin up to a 13% excluding the impact of raw materials. We have been able to do that offsetting the inflationary pressures on energy and labor costs. We have done a 13% EBITDA margin comparing with 2019, with 3 million units less in terms of global manufacturing. I think with this now, I hand it over to Ignacio Mosquera.
Thank you very much, Paco. First of all, and before we enter into the content, allow me to express that I'm honored to be here in front of you to present Gestamp's results as CFO. As most of you know, I've joined the company at the end of May, and I hope to get the chance to meet you over the coming months. Moving to Slide 11, it reflects the performance on a quarter-on-quarter basis for easier comparison purposes as market conditions during both quarters in terms of raw materials pricing and macro situation have been similar. For year-on-year comparison, you can find it in the annex of this presentation. The performance on a quarter-on-quarter basis reflects significant improvement across all regions except Asia.
Looking at each region in detail, in Western Europe, revenues have grown by 10.7% year-on-year to almost EUR 1.1 billion, leading to an EBITDA increase of almost 22% to EUR 116 million. On a country basis, Spain and France have shown sequential improvement. In terms of profitability, EBITDA margin reached 10.8% in the quarter, 1 percentage point above last quarter, thanks to the volume recovery and the flexibility of our business in the region. In Eastern Europe has delivered a strong performance this quarter, once more proving the success of our strategy in the region. Both revenues and EBITDA have grown by approximately 14%. Despite the geopolitical complications in the region, particularly in the regions close to Ukraine, the situation has somehow stabilized, with countries such as Poland, Czech Republic, and Turkey performing strongly.
As a reminder, our operations in Russia are on hold since mid-March, as our client's plants have also stopped operations. In NAFTA, as Paco has previously mentioned, production volumes have not improved quarter-on-quarter in the region. However, our revenues in the region have grown by approximately 17% quarter-on-quarter, fostered by growth in both Mexico and U.S. Despite we're still in ramp-up phase for some key projects in the region, EBITDA has grown by almost 21%, leading to a margin expansion of 30 BPS or 8.6%. In Mercosur, market conditions have generally improved in the quarter, and this, together with our solid market positioning, has allowed us to grow by almost 67%. As a result, EBITDA has more than doubled, and our profitability in the region has strongly recovered with EBITDA margin standing at 15.2%.
Lastly, Asia. As you know, China is one of our most important countries in the region. During April, there have been selective lockdowns related to COVID-19 that have affected our business, as we have been forced to stop our production during the lockdowns. As a result, our profitability in the region was penalized during the quarter as we have kept our cost structure in the region without revenue and as we resume production volumes increase substantially, and therefore, we need to increase our workforce to be able to deliver.
We remain optimistic in the region and confident on our business mix, cost structure, and we expect to see recovery during half two if there are no further lockdowns. Overall revenue growth, together with our improved flexibility and the efficiency measures implemented during the last years, have allowed us to reach an EBITDA margin, excluding raw materials impact of 13% or 13.4% when adjusted for Forex. This gives us a good visibility on our targets for the remaining of the year. If we turn to page 12, thanks to the solid operating performance during the quarter, we are back to positive free cash flow generation. We have generated EUR 83 million of positive free cash flow, and as a result, we have more than offset the negative free cash flow generated during Q1, which was related to our normal business seasonality.
As a result, during the first half, the company has generated a total of EUR 22 million of free cash flow. We continue working towards achieving our guidance for the year of reaching free cash flow of EUR 200 million. We have been able to end of the quarter with a net debt of EUR 2.3 billion below the one reported in Q1. As we turn to page 13, this implies a leverage ratio of 2.2 times net debt to EBITDA, which is the lowest level since 2019, and that we deem as comfortable leverage position for the company. Since 2020, we believe we have strengthened our balance sheet position significantly, which is now well-balanced and allows us to capture new strategic investment opportunities, which will bring further growth to the company.
If we turn to page 14, precisely, this is what we have started to do. We see that we have been able to achieve this solid leverage position despite having increased our CapEx investment during the first half. CapEx amounted to EUR 376 million, equal to 7.7% of revenues this first half. Being the majority of it for growth projects that we have seen an acceleration of electric vehicle related projects during the quarter, as we will detail further during this presentation. Recurring CapEx stood at EUR 130 million, a similar amount to previous years, as this is related to maintenance of our business. In revenue percentage, there is a decrease from 3.8% in 2020 to 2.3% in 2022.
In line with previous years in absolute terms, proving that we still have enough capacity for our business with limited need for new investments. If we turn to page 15, given the acceleration we are seeing in electric vehicle trends, as Paco will detail later, Gestamp has decided to invest alongside its clients to accelerate this transition towards EV. This will imply increasing our CapEx investments, but without compromising our financial discipline and solid balance sheet position. This means keeping our free cash flow target for the year. This year, we will continue to invest 7% of revenues, excluding raw materials, as guided at the beginning of the year. These investments are going on track and as planned. As previously explained, we have accelerated some projects related to our EV strategy.
Therefore, the company will invest 1%-2% of revenues of newly awarded EV strategic projects that Paco will detail later during this presentation. These new awards have somehow a different investment profile than the traditional ones, as industrialization phase is below one year. This means that the majority of investment will be executed during 2022, and the projects will generate revenues from 2023, reaching ramp up by 2024, but obviously depending on market volumes. To sum up, total CapEx by year-end, including both initial guided CapEx and new EV strategic projects, will end up below 9% of revenues excluding raw material. As said at the beginning of the slide, this does not mean we will not meet our target of EUR 200 million of free cash flow generation.
We're keeping this target, but we're benefiting of our improved cash conversion and leverage position to undertake some strategic investments, which will in the end reinforce our strategic positioning as Paco will detail later. Now let me hand over the presentation to him.
Okay, thank you, Nacho. If we move to Slide 17, for the future, of course, our company will look in order to be able to preserve our financial profitability. Of course, we will take opportunities on the market. It's true that we are facing a second half of the year, which is marked by high uncertainty. Of course, there are some risk around the gas supplies in Europe. There is of course concern around what is going to happen to the energy prices, inflation, additional supply chain disruptions, possible impact of COVID in China, and other kind of risk. Basically, we believe that we have already passed through that in the H1, and we will pass also through that in H2.
At the same time, we have this kind of difficult scenario at macro level. There is a very, very exciting moment in the industry because EV trend is accelerating. Of course, our aim in Gestamp is to be able to preserve our profitability and to take a very important part of this opportunity. Clearly, this electrification is moving on. It's accelerating. If we move to Slide 18, we will see that right now with the latest estimation coming out from IHS Markit, right now, there is a number of EV by 2029 will reach 40 million, 40.9 million units. Which means a very important growth from the 6.8 million units manufactured in 2021.
This estimation by IHS, in just one year has been increased by 30%, and right now they are considering that the global EV penetration by 2019 will be more than 40%. Clearly, government and companies and everybody's pushing in order to be able to accelerate this energy transition. Probably, this trend will keep accelerating, and especially in Europe, and especially after the approval of the latest legislation around Fit for 55. Clearly, moving to the Slide 19, what we see is an opportunity around electrification, and we want to be a key partner for our customers towards the electrification. We want to be not just part, we want to be leaders in the kind of products that we are delivering to our customers, because we have a very good positioning in terms of technology and new products.
Of course, we see that we wanna be involved in every single EV vehicle which is gonna be on the road in the next two, three years. On page 22, basically what we want to highlight is that, of course we are intending to invest to increase our CapEx. Yes, we are able to do that because we understand that this acceleration of the transition towards EV could bring us new opportunities. In terms of research and development, we have a very innovative and new and better products and solutions, not only battery boxes and battery-related products. We have a very important differential products around the, what we call Extreme Size Parts, that will allow us to support the needs of our customers in order to reduce the assembly time in their own factories.
We have opportunities around EVs reengineering chassis and new power systems or new power mechanisms for the EVs. Of course, there are opportunities for us in this transition to the EVs because there are opportunities also to work with the pure EV players, companies which usually tend to do a much more outsourcing, a trend which is gonna be growing during the next years. What we are gonna do in 2022, as Nacho has already mentioned, is that we have taken opportunity to do additional investments up to EUR 250 million, which probably the half of them will be deployed during 2022.
With this, of course, we will take important orders, but these orders are gonna be able to generate very quick, turnovers or revenues, around EUR 500 million-EUR 600 million revenues already in 2023, with some of them already still in ramp-up, and around EUR 750 million additional turnover by 2024. In a long-term basis, clearly what we are gonna do is to be able to keep on pushing this strategic products that I have already mentioned, Extreme Size Parts, the battery boxes, battery-related products and other chassis and mechanisms. Of course, trying to develop all these ideas and products in our key growth markets, and including inside our customers, not only our, let's say, traditional players, but also the pure EV players. Moving to Slide 22.
The idea is that we are gonna be able to meet all our commitments. We are gonna be able to to keep on moving towards generating value for our shareholders. We will focus on our new CapEx in terms of very much aligned with our strategy. Of course, inside this strategy means that increasing our product base in our capabilities around research and development for electric vehicles, for Asia, specifically for premium segment, and of course, trying to increase overall the efficiency of our operations. We will invest to further increase our strategic positioning, but of course, always preserving our financial discipline. Moving to Slide 23 about our guidance.
We can reiterate today that we are keeping or preserving the guidance provided at the beginning of the year with the exception of the CapEx that we have already mentioned. This guidance, of course, is not contemplating any further inflation or volume deterioration arising from some kind of eventual extraordinary supply disruptions. In any case, we believe that for the second half, we have a realistic scenario and not at all an optimistic scenario. Just going into the details of the guidance. In terms of revenues, we guided mid-single digits for 2022. In reported basis, probably it's gonna be 10%-15% more increase due to the increase of the steel prices.
In terms of our EBITDA margin, we guided 12.5%-13%, and in this case, probably in a reported basis, it's gonna be lower due to the impact of the steel prices. In any case, we clearly gave a specification in terms of absolute terms to grow our EBITDA compared with 2021 by EUR 130 million-EUR 150 million. In terms of CapEx, we guided in the beginning of the year some 7%, CapEx to revenues excluding the impact of the steel. We have added this 2% additional, CapEx, linked to strategic products. So that means that in a reported basis, we are gonna have a CapEx of around 8% of revenues reported. We are gonna do that, as mentioned by Nacho.
We are gonna increase this CapEx while we will preserve our commitment with the free cash flow that we guided in the beginning of the year, EUR 200 million free cash flow. Just to end up, in the closing remarks, we are absolutely convinced that we have been able to do quite well in this first half, 2022. It's been a very, very challenging moment, and I think all our teams have done a very good job with in presenting all this exceptional set of results. Of course, we will focus keep on focusing in increasing our profitability and controlling our debt, but we will take opportunities around this acceleration of the trend towards EV. Of course, to remain being the leader of our market.
In any case, we will never forget that we are committed to ESG in all the different aspects. With this, I am ending up this presentation, and now we are open for the questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Please be informed that there might be a short silence while questions are being registered. Thank you. The first question comes from Francisco Ruiz from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Hello, good afternoon. I have three questions. Well, first of all, congratulations for the excellent numbers in this tough moment. The first question is on the guidance. Mainly you reiterated the guidance in free cash flow, despite you have EUR 200 million of extra CapEx. That means that without this extra CapEx, you will be above EUR 400 million. Could you give us an idea on how is this possible? Are you including high level of factoring or, without increasing the EBITDA guidance, how it will be possible to double the free cash flow versus the previous estimate? The second question is on this new investment.
If you could tell us if there is a specific OEM in which you will dedicate this, and how the investment will be, if they're gonna be brownfields or greenfields, in order to have an idea of the ramp-up period. Last but not least, I mean, we have seen about repricing or increasing prices for suppliers by the OEMs compensating a little bit the other costs that you are suffering. Could we see something in the second half for Gestamp or this is something already included in these figures? Thank you.
Okay, thank you for your questions. I think we have two of them. I can start with the second one, but maybe Nacho, you can start with the first one about CapEx. Concerning the one around our relationship with the customer, of course, I think we have done, I think a very good job together with our customers in order to be able to pass through all this very substantial increase on the steel prices and also other raw material prices. I think this has been a process that we have been able to conclude during the first half, and it's been a quite successful and a good signal of cooperation and partnership with our customers, preserving the long-term agreement we have with them in that sense. We talk about the other concepts around inflation.
I can tell you that we have for many years this kind of system in place in some areas and countries, like for instance, countries like Brazil or Turkey and other places. This year is especially important because we have opened these negotiations also in the perimeter of Europe. To be honest, we have started this process by the end of the semester, and we are now opening this discussion with our customers, and we hope to have some very good conclusions that could help us to offset any additional possible impact in terms of inflation in the second half of the year.
Paco, with regards to the free cash flow generation, we expect to generate EUR 200 million during the year. That's absolutely correct. This obviously excludes M&A and minority acquisitions or dividend payments. Another thing to point out is that since already 2020, we've worked on different levers to improve our free cash flow. Among others, profitability, being selective on CapEx and improving working capital through better inventories, improving the collection and improving supplier payment terms, as well as optimizing financial costs. Therefore, we will continue working on this going forward and specifically on this second half of the year. We think that the target should be achievable by enhancing our working capital management.
There are several levers which we think we can work on, as well as taxes and financial expense.
Referring to the other questions around whether we are allocating this additional CapEx, it's basically the same message I have already said. It's basically for new products around EVs. Usually, as you know, I don't like too much to talk about our customers and how we allocate this CapEx to customers, but it's true that a very important part of it is allocated to some new player in EVs. In any case, most of the investment is done inside our existing plant. It's part of the plant that we have already opened, even though it's a very small one linked to a new facility, but nothing substantial. Basically, having investment in our existing footprint, working for different players. Most of it is linked to EVs and a very important part of it links to pure EV players.
Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question comes from Akshat Khandelwal from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Akshat from JP Morgan. Three questions from my side as well, please. First, coming back to the EV project and you reaching EUR 750 million turnover in 2024. Can you just talk about the key platforms that you have won here? I hear you talking about a pure EV player. Historically, you have talked about being nominated on the MEB platform. Has there been any success on the PPE or any other major platforms that you could disclose, please? That would be really helpful. The second part of that question on the EV projects is if you could talk about the EBITDA profile of this business, when it reaches full ramp-up in 2024 compared to the existing business margins of close to 13%. Those are two parts to the EV question. The second question is coming back to North America.
Last year you said that you would be targeting the 12% EBITDA margin for the region. In the first half, we are still less than 9%, and I completely agree that volumes have been lower than expected, which would have affected plant loading. What are your expectations for rest of the year and also going into next year, please? The last question is on gas supplies in Europe. Can you just talk about the actions you have taken to limit the impact of these rationing that might happen in Europe on your direct production processes, especially on hot stamping, please? Thank you.
Thanks for your questions. I think I mentioned that usually wouldn't like to talk too much about which platform or customer we are referring to. In any case, I can tell you that these new investments are all of them refer to two main products related to EVs. One of the product is battery boxes. We are right now increasing a lot our exposure to the new battery boxes, not only in Europe, but in this case a very important part of it in China and also in some extent also in North America. The second product, which is really growing for us is another EV related product, which is the Door Ring, which is one of the Extreme Size Part I have already mentioned in my presentation.
All these projects are related to this. Our projects that, again, as mentioned, is some very important part of them linked to a few EV players. I could not right now provide more details on this platform. What is important is that the process of investment and the ramp-up, which is expected, is quite fast compared with our normal kind of ramp-ups. That's why we are already expecting a very important turnover by 2023 and of course a full ramp-up by 2024. You have the one related to North America, and I think it's true, I guided that we were expecting North America to recover margins to more or less the area of the rest of the group by this year.
It's true that even the first half volume has increased, but we have not been able really to increase our EBITDA. We believe that second half is gonna be better. Volumes in some areas like in Mexico are gonna improve. We are already ramping up some new launches, so our margin of EBITDA is gonna improve in the second part of the year. We are gonna be able to come back to the normal margin of EBITDA in the group in the next, I would say, probably months or quarters or maybe for 2023. Concerning gas supply, I think it's important to mention that our group is not intensive.
Our manufacturing processes are not intensive in terms of gas, so we are not very much impacted. The most important part of this risk in terms of gas supply is Central Europe, not in the south of Europe. We are basically covered. We have prepared a contingency plan. In any case, if there are any problems, we are not gonna be the first impacted. We are not gonna be the reason or the main reason in order to shut down any kind of production in our customers. We are not, let's say, the most impacted in gas supply. Of course, if anything happens in Central Europe, we'll have some impact in the total sector evolution.
Thank you so much. Just one follow-up on the EV projects. As you ramp up those contracts in 2023 and 2024, do you expect some learning in the first two years, some inefficiencies that could affect gross margin? Or do you expect them to be delivering at a group level or even at a higher level when they reach full ramp-up, please? Thank you.
Well, I think as we had the chance to talk in other times, I think clearly it's the margin of EBITDA is not only the only margin in terms of in order to show the profitability. Right now the criteria in terms of margins of EBITDA to sales, in terms of the battery boxes and for the Door Rings are not exactly the same as we had talked for the rest of our products. In any case, I can tell you that the margins in terms of EBITDA to sales are gonna be very sound.
Understood. Thank you for the details.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, just as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. The next question comes from Álvaro Lenze from Alantra Equities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on the excellent results. My first question would be again on the new investment programs for EVs. Just trying to make sense of the figures you've provided. It's EUR 200-EUR 250 incremental CapEx, but the revenue contribution that this could bring seems very high for this level of investment. I don't know whether this is due to the you are only making EUR 200 extra investment, but you are also diverting some of the CapEx that you had budgeted for other products, and you are taking CapEx away from that and redirecting it to these projects.
Is it that with just EUR 200-250 million investment can you achieve this EUR 750 million revenues, which to my estimates would seem like a much, much, much higher return on capital than traditional projects. Second, do these contracts have any sort of guaranteed minimum volumes or are these under similar terms to the type of investments that you made in the past that were highly subject to volumes? Another question. I know it's difficult to make the estimate in terms of just pure volumes for Q2, but I'm trying to make sense of what the level of outperformance has been during Q2 if we exclude, of course, the steel prices, but also probably the impact of inflation, which has likely been significant, especially in Turkey.
In terms of pure volumes, could you give us an indication of what the outperformance has been during Q2 alone? Thanks.
Okay. Yes, I think you are right. We have mentioned that we will invest around EUR 200-250 million, and the ratio from CapEx to sales is higher than the average that we have. I think we need to take into consideration that in this kind of project, in some of them, for instance, in the battery box, we are using a lot of aluminum, especially aluminum extrusion. So that means that the price of the aluminum, as you know, is much higher than the one of steel, and that's why in some cases this process has this kind of sales compared with the CapEx.
In any case, also it depending on what part of these added values we are gonna do in-house and what part is gonna be outsourced to some of our suppliers. In terms of guarantee of volumes, we have limited. These are not greenfield operations, so we have limited guarantee of volume. We have some prices adjustment whenever it comes to different volumes, but it's not the kind of long-term contracts we have whenever we build a greenfield. We feel very safe or safe enough when we talk about volumes for these projects, because we have seen a very good trajectory of this company throughout the years.
Regarding the outperformance with the market in terms of sales, I think we have been already quite proactive, let's say, trying to deduce what has been the impact of the increase of the steel prices. Regarding inflation in some of the countries, we have already had this kind of impact. As mentioned, in Europe it has been the real difference this year. We still need to do the work in order to be able to receive some kind of compensation by customers compared with the rest of the things. I would say that this outperformance that we have already guided is the correct one.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Anthony Dick from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi. Thanks for taking my question. My first one was on the battery box business. You've won an important contract now. I was just wondering, does that give you a bit of visibility into the market share that you're currently having on this type of business, and if it's more or if it's less than on your existing hot stamping business? My second question was on factoring. Maybe I missed it, but could you maybe just provide again the factoring level at Q2 end? Thank you.
Thank you. Concerning the battery box, we have been quite successful since we have started to develop this project. We have been very successful probably in Europe, but also very recently we have taken very important opportunities in China and also in North America. Still our market share in battery boxes, I would say is lower than the one we have in hot stamping, that we are clearly world leader in all kind of hot stamping, but especially for the most sophisticated applications of hot stamping, especially concerning this Extreme Size Part and Door Rings. If we talk to the battery boxes, I would say that in Europe, for the most relevant platforms, we are involved providing the battery boxes or sand covers and increasingly taking a very important market position in other areas.
We see, of course, an opportunity in areas like North America, but there's been some kind of delay in the introduction of the EVs in North America, but now it's really catching up. We see right now we are doing very important quotations concerning volumes for EVs and battery boxes in North American market. Maybe for the factoring also.
Yes, for the factoring in the course of Q2, we did roughly factoring for EUR 750 million, which is an increase versus the prior quarters. It's mainly driven because of the fact that we have a higher amount of receivables due to the raw material price increase. We expect that to remain structurally until the end of the year, precisely because of the raw material increase and increased volume of receivables.
Okay. Should we just assume that 750 level for year-end also?
Yeah, that would be a good assumption.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Manuel Lorente, from Mirabaud. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. My first question is on market positioning. I believe I'm a little bit lost in the sense of your market positioning because with an addressable market of 18 million vehicles, you deliver EUR 2 billion revenues, ex raw materials adjustments in Q1. In Q2, with an addressable market down from 18 to 17 million vehicles, you deliver a top line of EUR 2.3 billion. It has been a revenue expansion of roughly EUR 200 million with an addressable market down roughly 1 million vehicles. Is there any comment? Looking at your statement, looks like you have had an impressive quarter in Eastern Europe and in Mercosur.
Are you taking advantage of any specific, I don't know, deterioration from competitors or can you give a little more detail of these trends?
Okay, thanks for your question. I think this advance of topics, I would say probably that in this case, our exposure to some specific markets have helped us. For instance, in Mercosur has been a negative topic for some years, but this year is a positive one, and we are doing well in countries like Brazil that we are leaders. Of course, another important fact is that in the second quarter, the performance in China has been bad, negative, and our exposure to the Chinese market, compared with the part of the Chinese market in the global volumes, is lower. So that means that we have been less impacted in this area. It's true also that we usually are a growing company.
We always invest, so we have some projects ramping up in this period of time. We have additional sales coming up from China for some product that we have already started to invest during previous years. It's a mix. We have a better mix in terms of geographies that have performed better. We have some ramp ups of projects that we have been invested for a while. Also we have some FX that is also helping us, but it's also already deducted in our consideration in terms of our performance. Yes, I think it was a very good quarter. It's true that in some other periods, it impacted us negatively. For instance, when China was doing better than the rest of the geographies.
This time, in this quarter, we have been very well impacted by our mix of geographies.
I see. My second question is on your free cash flow guidance for the full year. To make things as simple as possible, you have delivered according to your free cash flow guidance definition a negative free cash flow of EUR 34 million on H1. For delivering your target, that implies then on H2 you have to deliver above 230-something million euros. That's correct?
Let me first speak clearly. We have not delivered negative EUR 34 million free cash flow in the quarter because you're considering there, as you can see on page 12 of the presentation, that we've had an impact of the, or a cash out due to minority and dividend. Our free cash flow definition is prior to minorities, acquisitions, M&A or dividends. Free cash flow for the first half stands at EUR 22 million. That would mean that we would need to generate in the next two quarters roughly EUR 160 million or EUR 180 million, which we are confident that we can do so.
The EUR 20 million in H1 compares with roughly EUR 180 million for H2.
That's correct, yes.
The driver of this improvement, I believe that according to what you have said, it's not going to be basically cash earnings. It's going to be also related to working capital issues, financials and tax related outflows.
Well, it's a combination of things. As you may have seen in the past, we've had seasonality with the second half of the year generating more cash than the first half. We expect that seasonality to stand also in the second half. On top of that, as mentioned, we have levers around working capital, some on financial expense and taxes that we think that we will deliver EUR 180 million.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you very much. There are no further questions. I give back the floor to the speakers for the conclusion.
Thank you very much for this call, and we appreciate your time and effort in discussing these results and looking forward to the next ones.
Thank you very much all.