Morning, everyone. Welcome to the video conference to discuss the results regarding Iochpe-Maxion's Results of the First Quarter of 2022. Today's conference has a Q&A session that is available. We are going to have Mr. Marcos Oliveira, our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Elcio Ito, Chief Financial and Investor Relations Officer, and Mr. Luis Fernando Abreu, Investor Relations, Strategy and M&A Officer. We inform you that this video conference is being recorded and will be made available on the company website. The respective presentation will also be available, as is available for your reference today. I emphasize that for those who need simultaneous interpreting, we have this tool available on the globe icon that says Interpretation on the lower part of your screen. When selecting, choose your preferred language, Portuguese or English.
For those listening to the video conference in English, there is the option to mute the original Portuguese audio by clicking on Mute Original Audio. For the Q&A part, questions and answers sessions, we will advise you to submit via the Q&A icon. On the bottom of your screen, there is a Q&A button. By default, dynamically, your names will be announced for you to speak when needed, and at this point, a prompt to activate a microphone will appear on the screen. Turn off the microphone at the end of the question, then. We emphasize that the company encourages participants to ask questions live, giving priority to this format, this voice questions and answers. Questions submitted in the Q&A will not necessarily be answered live and will therefore be answered by email later.
Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any statement that may be made during this video conference regarding the company's business prospects, projections, and operational and financial goals constitute the beliefs and the assumptions of Iochpe-Maxion's management or board, as well as information currently available to the company. Forward considerations are not guarantees, and they involve risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and they refer to future events, and therefore, they depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Now, we'd like to give the floor to Mr. Marcos Oliveira, President of Iochpe-Maxion. You may proceed, Mr. Oliveira.
Good morning, and welcome to our results video conference for 1Q 2022. The first quarter has presented a dynamic that's very similar to last year's.
We're still facing some uncertainties that have been generated by the pandemics with irregular supply and irregularities coming from different sectors and also the war between Russia and Ukraine. Now, we see a robust development and resilience of our operation despite the uncertainties and challenges we've been facing. The results of the company should be a business model that is diverse and gives highlights to the operational performance with geography of products and commercial and heavy vehicles. The consumer markets, they have all been determining factors for the results of 1Q22. Despite the volatile scenario, the agility and robustness of our operation has been playing an important role for our business results.
We have closed the first quarter of 2022 with another reduction of financial leverage, reaching the lowest levels since 2012, which has been measured by the net indebtedness to EBITDA of the same period. We had a reduction of seven, or sevenfold decrease. In comparison to this, it's a twofold reduction. This shows a cash generation of BRL 323 million in the first three months of this year, and also with the discipline in the allocation of capital. We are now going to present you the slides of our presentation. In slide number two, you see a forecast of high and low IMX.
We see that despite what we see forecast and despite the offer that is being decreased in supply, the production of vehicles is of around 81 million vehicles in 2022 with a growth of 7% if you compare the production excluding the numbers from China. The global production of commercial vehicles is 3,276,000 vehicles in 2022 with an increase of 5% if you compare the same period last year also when we exclude China from these numbers. Now slide number three, the main highlight from our company for this first quarter. We had a net revenue of BRL 4.3 billion with an increase of 36.5% when you compare to the numbers of the first quarter in 2021.
Our EBITDA shows BRL 548.2 million with 12.8% margin and an increase of 49% compared to the same period last year. The gross profit shows BRL 611 million with an increase of 49.1% when compared to last year's same period. When you talk about leverage, we see that the net debt per EBITDA of 2.06 shows a reduction compared to the same period last year. The reduction was 7.58 x last year, and the previous quarter shows a reduction of 2.33 fold. Our net income shows BRL 160.2 million in the first quarter with an increase of 211.1 compared to the same period last year. Slide number four.
For the net operating revenue, we have BRL 404,277 for this quarter when you compare the numbers from the last year in the same period. In the first quarter, we see that the increase in revenues due to the launch of new programs or products and greater sales mix to the commercial vehicle segment. North America and South America have shown, for North America 31% and South America 28%, and Europe with 31%. Slide number five shows the net operating revenue breakdown. When we talk about the net per product, we see the participation of structural components for commercial vehicles. That is a reflection of the diversified business model.
They have represented 17% of the net operating revenue, and these numbers are from the first quarter last year, but we have increased it to 23% for the first period this year. First quarter shows 23%. Steel wheels represent 24% in comparison to the 26% last year, and steel wheels, 25% for commercial vehicles against the 23% last year the same period. For commercial vehicles with net revenue per segment shows 41% for commercial vehicles last year, but this year we have 48% with commercial vehicles. The participation per division shows for structural components, 20% in the first quarter 2021. We had an increase to 26% for the same period. Slide number six, when we talk about the net operating revenue per client, we see a growth of commercial vehicles and new incoming businesses.
Slide number seven breaks down into more details per region. In South America, we have reached a net operating revenue of BRL 1.195 billion, and it represents an increase of 52.3% when you compare to the first quarter last year, which is prominent. With light vehicles, we had 30.5% increase, and with commercial vehicles, we had 64% increase. We can see a decrease of 8.5% in the production of light vehicles and an increase of 4.8% for commercial vehicles when you compare the same period last year's numbers with today's numbers. The increase in participation in consolidated net operating revenue is 25% for 1Q 2021.
The increase shown 27.9% for 1Q 2022, and this is due to the strong performance of commercial vehicles. When we look at the North America operational performance, we see that we had BRL 1.332 million for the first quarter this year, which represents an increase of 53.2% when you compare it to the same period last year. Representing 30.6% with light vehicles and 83.6% for commercial vehicles. The number of produced vehicles in North America, we see a drop of 1.8% for light vehicles and a growth of 4.4% for commercial vehicles. This is a comparison year over year for the first quarter of this year.
Slide number nine shows the operational performance in Europe, which is the region that has been more affected when you compare the whole of the company. They have been more affected by the lack of supplies of semiconductors. We still see an increase of 17.4% year-over-year for this quarter. A decrease in variation of 17.9% for light vehicles and a decrease of 9.2% for commercial vehicles, representing 8.6% revenue increase in light vehicles and 41.6% in commercial vehicles.
We do see an increase of 17.4% year-over-year, but we still see a decrease in numbers when you consider the participation in consolidated net operating revenue of 35.8%, down to 30.8% for this year's first quarter. Now, looking at Asia and other, we see an increase of 21.3%, representing BRL 434 million when you compare to the BRL 357 million of the previous quarter. The previous year's same quarter. These 21.3% represent 22% in light vehicles and 19.8% on commercial vehicles.
We do see a decrease of 2.2% in the production of light vehicles in India, an increase in the production of commercial vehicles in India, and a decrease of 2.4% in the production of light vehicles in Thailand. All of them, of course, for 1Q22 when you compare to the numbers of 1Q21. Slide 11 shows the gross profit and the gross margin of the company. We see an increase, a growth of 49.1% when you compare 1Q21 to one Q22. The gross margin was 13.1% last year first quarter, and now we see 14.3% for 1Q22. An increase in gross profit is due to the better mix of products sold and greater operational efficiency.
In slide 12, we can see the company's EBITDA at BRL 448 million, a growth of 49% compared to the first quarter of 2021. 12.8% in the first quarter of 2022, compared to 11.7% in the first quarter of 2021. In slide 13, we can see the net income of the company of BRL 160 million in the first quarter of 2022 when compared to BRL 52 million of the first quarter of 2021. In slide 14, we can see the investments of the company in the amount of BRL 81 million in the first quarter of 2022, compared to BRL 59 million in the first quarter of 2021. The main investments were related to health, safety, maintenance, launching of new products, and productivity improvement.
In slide 15, we can see the financial leverage and liquidity ratio of the company. We can see that our leverage, measured by the net debt over EBITDA, was 2.2x in the fourth quarter of 2019, went up to 9.45x without adjustments in the fourth quarter of 2020. We have observed a consistent reduction throughout the year of 2021 and in the first quarter of 2022, reaching a level of 2.06x at the end of the first quarter of 2022. In slide 16, we now see the liquidity ratio of the company with liquidity ratio stability in the fourth quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022 reaching 0.69.
With this pro forma analysis considering the bonds issuance totaling BRL 750 million completed in the second quarter of 2021, we observe that this liquidity ratio would be 1.09. The funds obtained in this eleventh bond issuance will be used mainly to reduce the company's short-term indebtedness. In slide number 17, we see the gross debt breakdown at the end of the first quarter of 2022, which represented 50.2%
In reais, EUR 35.2, $10.5. Looking at the short and long term breakdown, we can see that by the end of 2021-2022, long-term would represent 64.4%. When we do a pro forma analysis of the 11th bond issuance, we can see that the long-term would represent now 77.6% and with an average term of 4.3 years. In slide 18, we can see some of our ESG highlights and other acknowledgments of the company. The launching of our Roadmap Zero, that represents our commitment in supporting the decarbonization of mobility. Our goal is to remove emissions from the life cycle of our companies, of our products, and motivate and encourage our partners and vendors to do the same.
We have received the first award from BNDES, all for sustainability in the category education, thanks to the social impact generated by the Formare program from the Iochpe Foundation. We have received the acknowledgment of the Manufacturing Leadership Council for our products in engineering technologies, sustainability and circular economy from our factories in Santo André and Saraburi in Thailand. We have received the Vendor of the Year award from Hyundai, thanks in the category Excellence in Sustainability. As we mentioned before, our the company's performance and resilience is due to the model of business that is diversified in our operational discipline. The participation of light and commercial vehicles, diverse geographies and products, and proximity of our production to our customers and consumer markets have been determinant for the results in the first quarter.
Despite still being in a volatile scenario, operational flexibility, agility have been extremely important for reaching solid operating results. We continue paying attention to all changes in the market, inflation, pressures and geopolitical events, always seeking to timely adapt to the impact of these factors. We continue focused on gaining productivity and operational efficiency, launching new products, developing advanced engineering, digitalization and innovation, strengthening our financial position and adding value to our products. Thank you very much, and now we will go on with the question and answer session. We'll now start the question and answer session.
We kindly ask you to ask all questions at once, waiting for the company's response.
We'd like to remind you to send your questions using the Q&A icon at the bottom of your Zoom screen, and we encourage you to ask your questions live. When we call your name, a request for you to open your microphone will show up on the screen. If you don't want to open your microphone and ask your question live, you can ask no microphone at the end of the question. However, the company favors live questions and give them priority. If you write your questions in the Q&A, you might receive your answer later via email. Our first question comes from Lucas. He's an analyst from sell-side from XP Investments. Lucas, we're going to open your audio so you can ask your question. Please proceed.
Good morning, Marcos, Elcio, Luis.
Congratulations for the strong results for this quarter. We have a couple of questions. First, regarding the evolution of revenues. In addition to the strong growth and sequential growth, when you compare the last two quarters and thinking of what has motivated this sequential revenues, we had a weaker seasonality last quarter, and this growth reflects. We want to know if it reflects this change in seasonality or if we really have a growth. We want to understand the breakdown of this revenue growth. The second question regards the position and evolution of net indebtedness in the next few quarters. Thinking of the regrowth of the light vehicle segment, can we think of gaining new investments in operating capital, or do you think this will grow?
Or will we have a reduction in leverage? Or do we think we will have more additions in net indebtedness? We have two things, growth of revenues and net indebtedness of the company. Thank you.
Lucas, good morning. Thank you for your questions. With regards to revenues, we have two main factors. First, we do have a seasonality element. Usually, the fourth quarter is a quarter where we have lower revenues, thanks to the OEMs stopping collective vacations in the end of the year. The first quarter is the quarter where production gradually grows. We do have a seasonality factor. The second is also related to adding new business to our operations. Obviously, the growth in commercial vehicles that we have observed in South America, Europe, Asia, and North America was important.
In addition to that, we added new programs that have positively impacted the company's revenues, especially in South America, Europe, and North America also. With this combination of new business and seasonality, this allowed our revenues to grow even in a scenario where we still observe a volatile demand. The availability of semiconductors has affected the production of some of our clients in various regions. The volatility can sometimes be anticipated with announcements for stoppages and timely announcements. We have adapted to these variations and try to use our production and add revenues without losing operational efficiency.
With regards to net indebtedness, Lucas, good morning. Let me answer your questions. I think indebtedness has been a great focus of the company.
We have been working on this side of the cash equation in terms of leveraging. As we can observe, we have been coming strong in the last 12 months, reaching BRL 12 million. Also reminding you that in 2019, pre-pandemic times, we had about BRL 1 billion. We had a very big growth in nominal terms. This reflects growth not only in terms of price increases and increases in the price of inputs and all factors that Marcos has talked about. In terms of net indebtedness, just a few pointers we want to call your attention to. In terms of operational activities for the company, this has been a very important quarter in terms of cash and capital, which is a recurring thing since last year with our stocks that we have started reducing.
It was kind of slow in terms of volume in the fourth quarter, and now in the first quarter, we have had a very important reduction in terms of tons. The numbers can even show you in the first quarter. When you look at our inventory, we had a reduction of over BRL 200 million. We had a reduction of volumes and even the price of commodities. A combination of all these, but when in fact, you look in terms of operational, from an operational perspective, we have changes in steel and aluminum in terms of stock. This is a component that has improved our operating capital in the last quarter with a smaller volume of purchase.
In terms of accounts payable, our capital had a different composition, but we are starting our sales and production, and that should increase in our accounts payable. When you look at the operational performance, we have a positive perspective in terms of CapEx, always controlled, working with the timing of investments. When you look historically at the first quarter, this is a quarter where we usually start a momentum in terms of operations and investments, looking at uncertainties, observing what's necessary, and then organizing everything in terms of all these factors. We also had the payment of dividends that has reduced our cash position. Also considering everything and all these things, we had a reduction of our net debt of BRL 199 million when compared to the fourth quarter.
This is a theme we are always focused on.
We know that reaching our goal, our leverage goal is 1.5 x or two has to go through an improvement in EBITDA, but it also goes through a reduction in net debt and generation of operational cash. We're paying a lot of attention to all our capital accounts, always also thinking of market and tech uncertainties, reduction of inventory, and thinking of the right time, so we are not vulnerable in terms of supply to our clients, which is a priority for us. Considering all aspects, this is the focus for the company. Of course, exchange variation is an important component, but we do not control this. It can vary up or down, but the idea is to keep on working on the cash generation and work on the indebtedness.
Thank you, Elcio.
Thank you for your very complete answer, and have a very good day, all of you.
Thank you, Lucas.
Our next question is from Ms. Renata Cabral, sell-side analyst from Citi. Renata, we are going to open your mic so that you can pose your question. You may proceed now.
Hello, everyone. Good morning. Thank you for letting me ask my question and congratulations on the results of this quarter. My first question is in regard to a growth dynamic and the selling of commercial vehicles in Europe. I know it's an important market for Maxion and Iochpe.
I see that in the first quarter in that continent, I saw your numbers, and I saw the last estimate of IHS forecast a 3.9% growth, which in my point of view, is a little bit optimistic because we'd have to accelerate in the next quarters, and the region is still suffering with this war conflict. I'd like to know how you see this and how you see everything in regard to constant reduction of growth and numbers in decrease. I'd like to know from you, how can you see this gaining some stability at some point? I'd like to know from you in regard to supply prices. You have mentioned the resulting reduction in stock and the optimization of company capital.
I'd like to know from you how you see if price increase is going to impact and how you see this price increase impacting your end client and pricing. I'd like to know how you see this for 2022 ahead. Thank you.
Renata, good morning. Thank you for your question or questions. In regard to the growth of vehicle sales in Europe, the main factors that have been affecting production worldwide, but particularly in Europe, has been the availability of semiconductors. Some logistics challenges in the movement of supplies among continents. The case of Europe is directly and indirectly being impacted by the Ukraine-Russia conflict. We saw that during February and March, some impact regarding supply of components such as electric wiring systems. The Ukrainian region is one of the main suppliers for Germany and especially.
Some challenges have been posed, and we had to adapt and source it differently from different regions of the world so that we could be receiving the supply that we needed to work. The semiconductor crisis has been posing challenges to the OEMs all over the world, especially in this semester. The demand in Europe and other parts of the world right now is not showing as a factor of concern. OEMs are still with low numbers of semiconductors available. Europe is still being consistent despite the lowering number, and we have been trying to work as more accelerated as possible to meet demands of clients. I believe that the main element of the first quarter entering into the second quarter of this semester is the availability of semiconductors and the indirect and direct effect of the war in Ukraine.
This is affecting the global logistics, of course, and the availability and strength of reaction from the OEMs. At Iochpe-Maxion, we see that we are well-positioned because we produce our products close to our suppliers. We have been less impacted and our footprint is being positive. We can react when the volume is increasing or decreasing, and we can adapt pretty fast to the realities of each region in South America, Asia, North America, and Europe. We do have to respond to the suppliers' availability of supplies that we use for production. We see that the semiconductor situation is going to gradually improve during the second quarter, but it's not going to be fully standardized or normal along the first portion of the year.
In regard to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, we are heading to the third month of conflict, and it's being extended much more than we have all expected, but we have to keep on monitoring and observing. We see that the main impact is the availability of semiconductors, and we do hope to see a gradual improvement in this situation, especially by the end of this year. In regard to raw material, the price of raw material has been increasing, especially the beginning of the first quarter, especially because of the aluminum availability and the fluctuation that the war has been causing. Also, numbers are fluctuating. We do now see that there has been a stabilization in numbers in price, and we are following up. We are following all of those factors.
We do depend on geopolitical factors, macroeconomic situations of different countries with the growth in China or the greater demand in North America. We do see that a positive or negative effect can be posed to OEMs. We are working in a timely manner so that we can pass on the prices to customers accordingly and not above or below those numbers. We have to be more precise in regard to the variation of raw material price. There are formulas that are based on indexes such as CRU or LME that carry out all these adjustments in raw material pricing. These are all negotiated with our clients. We do suffer the same impact as the OEMs. They, of course, are under different negotiation levels with the different suppliers, and they do understand these dynamics.
When there are some variation in regard to raw materials, we talk to our clients very rapidly so that we can pass on prices to them accordingly and fairly. This has worked well in 2021, especially with steel pricing. The increase in price have been very prominent, and we have managed to work the prices very correctly in 2021. Now in 2022, we are going to keep with the same policy in raw material price variation. We do have to follow this because it changes and it suffers impact from many aspects. Geopolitical and geoeconomical concerns are on the table, and we are going to keep the same effort in 2022.
Thank you for your answer, Marcos, and have a very good day. Good morning.
Thank you, Renata. Our next question is from Gabriel Rezende. He is a sell-side analyst at Itaú BBA. Gabriel, you are going to receive a prompt, and then you can open your mic and ask your question.
Hello, everyone. Can you hear me well?
Yes. Congratulations on your results. I'd like to ask a question regarding margin. Just to follow up on some of the questions that have already been posed. Specifically regarding steel. In the different semesters, we have seen some companies benefiting from mismatch between the steel prices being different from the current steel. Considering the interesting margin numbers that you've presented, I'd like to know if these factors are also helping out in your results. The second question is in regard to innovation and electrification. You have mentioned other products and new programs which explains part of the income growth. I'd like to know how much innovation is part of it. If you could please enlighten us with your new projects on electrification. Thank you.
Gabriel, good morning. Let me just answer your first question, and then the second question is going to be answered by Marcos. In regard to margin and stock, just to reinforce some of the aspects, the margin is the result of many variables in our business and the mix of products that we sell. When we compare it to last year, in our segment, it's always important to look at it year over year and comparing quarters. We see that there has been an advancement in commercial vehicles. In regard to margin, there is an average price and margins that are a little bit larger than average of other products in the company. This helps out in the constitution of prices overall when we talk about the volume that is larger than our capacity.
It's always very important to mention what you said about stock. In our experience, we do not have stock in a reference of a path of the market up or down. Last year, we had to work with stock, especially because of the OEMs stopping their production because of the crisis of the semiconductors. In our business, we have a purchase of two to three months ahead in regard to demand, that is posed by the OEMs. We do plan according to what we have ahead, but we had a break in the sequence by the OEMs because they had sudden paralyzations. We had to accommodate our stock, and as it got normal, as days went by, we had to re-accommodate all of our stock, and we moved towards normality.
We still face a few differences, but we are heading to normality expected for the third quarter this year. In regard to the amounts, we pass it on as the market adjusts the market prices. It's hard to say what the main component of the margin is because it's a compound of different factors that we have to consider. This is going to be the maintenance for the next semesters. With all the uncertainties of the market, we are going to work in a timely fashion to adjust what is necessary in our supply chain and our production chain to leverage everything as a whole.
Gabriel, hi. I think Elcio Ito has addressed some of the things that you asked, but I wanted to make additional comments about margin and tell you a little bit of what has been happening in the company since 2020. As a consequence of the drop in demand in the beginning of 2020 because of the pandemic, we have reviewed the volume of the industry for the next few years due to the uncertainties generated by those circumstances. We have tried to adjust our capacity and mix of products for the new reality, including the closing of our wheels plant in the United States and adjustments in all the plants all over the world. We're also into evaluating the markets all over the world with greatest potential for recovery.
For example, commercial vehicles, aluminum wheels in India, and we try to adjust to take advantage of these opportunities in the various regions. Additionally, we continue to work on our productivity improvement, aiming at lasting results to face uncertainties for the next few years. These actions have improved our operational efficiency, even in an environment with lower volumes than those of 2019. We continue working tirelessly to improve our productivity. For example, we just completely automated one of our production lines and implemented similar automation actions in structural component and steel wheel plants all over the world. These vary from one quarter to the others, depending on the demand for products and the forecast ability for the next quarters, in the environment of uncertainties and volatility we have been facing due to the crisis in semiconductors and geopolitical factors.
All these factors can change very rapidly. What we have observed is that the efficiency and agility of our processes, the quick adjustments in our productions depending on the moment in each regions, work close to the customers makes us less vulnerable to changes in demands. All this has been essential for us to effectively respond to so many variables. We intend to maintain this discipline and culture throughout the entire year of 2022. In this sense, the matter of electrification is very important. We started engineering and electrification work four or five years ago thinking of the future. The idea is that our products are inserted in the future of mobility. The advantage is that our products are inserted in the future of mobility. Regardless of the kind of vehicle you have, they all need wheels, structural components, steel and aluminum wheels.
We have strategized with priorities reducing weight of, for example, looking at raw materials, the consumption of energy and that, and the behavior of the industry. For example, we are developing components for batteries for electric vehicles and other components that we did not supply in the past, so we can provide them to the manufacturers working with electric vehicles. This has added new revenues and new business to the company and brought more credibility when thinking of the manufacturers. Because when they plan their future platforms and products, they come to us to talk about new ideas. Be that improving the application of our products to the future of their electric platforms and autonomous platforms or other adjustments.
The generation of data through all the production product and the use of products is very important also. We have been working tirelessly in the digitalization through the last three years also to improve operational efficiency in our plants. Generation and use of data to improve production parameters, to reduce waste, scrap, improve quality and reduce costs. All this has been very important. It's also important also in better efficiency in our production part. Using our generators and our supply systems for the companies in a more efficient manner with increases where we need to have demand and reducing availability when you have a lower demand. We adapt our production program, the production shifts together with the availability of power in the different plants.
The composition of all these factors into the production process and products we offer put us in a very interesting position to generate new business, as we have seen. We have gained many different things in the last few months. We have seen many of these changes already now in the beginning of 2022. We are also using the knowledge of our team to bring all these solutions to the industry, and we should be generating new solutions with the new manufacturers in the electrical platforms, but also with all the other manufacturers in the business. Thank you very much.
Thank you for such a complete answer. See you.
Thank you, Gabriel.
Our next question comes from Victor Mizusaki, analyst from Bradesco BBI. Victor, we are opening your audio. Please, you can proceed.
Hi, good morning. Congratulations on your result. I have a couple of questions. The first one has to do with the debt. At the end of 2019, our expectations were that the leverage would be below 2x in 2020, but then we had the pandemic. Then, still, this year, or 2023 the latest, we believe you're going to reach this goal of 1.5 or 2x leverage. I think this opens opportunities for M&A maybe with an increase of capacity in Asia, India or China. The second question is you didn't talk much about the forecast for 2022, but if you could give us more details regarding your lineup of production for the second quarter, that would be great.
Good morning, Victor. Thank you for the questions.
With regards to the first question, we are very focused on 2022 in strengthening our financial results. We've had positive results, but we're still in a very volatile environment in terms of demand stability. Despite all the difficulties we have already mentioned, we've had a volume this year very similar to what we expected. Despite the stoppages in various manufacturers, we have been working very efficiently. We do understand the volatility, and our focus is to strengthen our financial position as to improve the effectiveness of the competitivity of our plants. We are still working on the ramp up of our aluminum wheels plant in India.
This is progressing very well, towards the capacity we have planned for that plant of two million wheels throughout the year, and we should be evolving through this in 2022 up to 2023. Our investments are very well aligned with the launching of new products, strengthening of our plants and working on all the areas we have opened. This is our great focus in 2022 before thinking of other different movements. With regards to volumes, as I said in the first quarter, the beginning of the year has behaved consistently with our planning. In the beginning of this second quarter, the volumes seem to be very in line with our planning for 2022.
So far, I'd say we have observed that despite some manufacturers having grown more than others, the demand continues consistent all over the world, and the volumes are very aligned to our planning. We believe that with the visibility we have of the manufacturers, this is the volume we see for the second quarter and the second semester also. The growth everybody imagined that might happen in 2021 and 2022 has been slower, but it's still aligned with the view we have way back there regarding the recovery of the industry from 2021 to 2024. We have been working efficiently despite being working with volumes that are still below the volumes we had in 2019.
At least so far, with the view we have of our clients for the future, it's still everything consistent with the planning and the analysis we had. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Marcelo Motta, sell-side analyst from J.P. Morgan. Marcelo, we're opening your audio so you can ask your question. Marcelo, please proceed.
Good morning. A question regarding the mix of products with the aluminum wheels losing a bit of share that has been really compensated by structural components, and there have been some launchings. We have a doubt and want to understand how you see the mix of products for the future. If we look at the past calls, you were saying that margins might go down depending on the mix. If you had the commercial vehicles, it might go down. For light vehicles go up.
What we wanted to see is how you see margin, if it's maintaining, especially regarding the recovery of the volume you said, considering that light vehicles could be weaker. Thank you.
Motta, with regards specifically to aluminum wheels that you mentioned, we think the main effect in revenues regarding aluminum wheels has more to do with the European market, where we have a greater production capacity. The Brazilian market also we have a greater capacity in aluminum wheels. These are markets where the light vehicle segment has suffered more in this beginning of this year. Aluminum wheels in these markets have suffered, which has caused effect in our revenues, which has been more pronounced in aluminum wheels.
We believe this has a lot to do with all the conditions and geopolitical factors we have already mentioned, and this should grow again in the next few quarters. The aluminum wheel plant in India that has been growing recently has been behaving very positively. The Indian market has recovered, and the mix of products in this area has behaved very well. We have been adding capacity for this product in India, and that has helped grow in this segment. We also have the new capacities that have been growing usually come with a more efficient footprint with margins that tend to be more positive than the historical margins in other markets. The issue of margins varies a lot depending on many factors.
Of course, it has to do with the mix of products, but we also have the issue of volume, and volume has an effect on leverage that is very important.
Also, the launching of new product has an effect on the margin. When we launch a new product, margin is different because it's coming from other technologies, other developments. It comes from another position in the market. It's difficult to say whether the margin is going to be larger, the same, or less because of all of these variables that we are talking about. It's not only about the mix of products. Of course, this is being helpful, but it's not only that accounts for it. I think it's the whole composition of the mix. It's the geographical situation, for example, where we are producing it and the margin of each of these products in these markets and the volume of production has been important.
We have also been investing in the automation and the development of products in the plant so that we can develop in the future. Thank you, Motta.
Thank you, Marcos.
Now, we are ending the Q&A session and we'll give the floor to Marcos Oliveira for his final remarks.
Once again, thank you very much for taking part. We don't have any remaining minutes. We'd like to reinforce that we are committed to improving the operational efficiency of all of our operations with new products and new programs. As we've been observed, not only for the vehicles that are now being produced, but the products that are going to be launched in the future. Whether in reduction or increase of demand in the long term, we are looking to producing efficiently, working for new clients and existing clients. We are looking, of course, every day looking into the mobility market all over the world. Thank you very much for your participation. Have a good day.
The video conference for 1Q22 Iochpe-Maxion is ended. We are available to answer your questions as they come due. Have a very good day.