Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Air Liquide Q1 2024 revenue conference call. All participants are currently in listen mode only. Until we conduct a question-and-answer session, instructions will be given at that time. I will now hand over to the Air Liquide team. Please begin your meeting, and I will be standing by.
Well, thank you. Good morning, everyone. This is Aude Rodriguez, head of investor relations. Thank you very much for attending the call today. François Jackow and Jérôme Pelletan will present the first quarter revenue. For the Q&A session, they will be joined by Pascal Vinet, Executive VP overseeing the Europe industries and the Africa Middle East hubs, the industrial merchant activity, and group safety. Marcelo Fioranelli, Group VP, CEO of Airgas, is on the phone with us from the U.S. In the agenda, our next announcement is on July 26 for our half-year 2024 results. Let me now hand you over to François.
Thank you, Aude, and good morning, everyone. It is my pleasure to be with you today to share the highlights of the first quarter of 2024. In a few words, we delivered a strong operational performance, which put us on the right track to deliver our 2024 guidance and 2025 objectives. Market demand was globally a mixed bag. As you will see with Jérôme, no strong negatives, but no clear positive catalyst yet in line with our anticipation. Our sales growth was resilient this quarter at +2%, which is a solid number given the context and the high comparison basis with +7% in Q1 last year. The actions we are taking are bearing fruits.
IM pricing kept increasing at +4% in Q1, coming on top of a +13% in Q1 2023, which is a clear, strong performance in a context of energy cost sharp decrease and slowdown of inflation. The momentum on efficiencies is very positive, with a +22% growth compared to Q1 last year. At EUR 112 million, it marks a strong start of the year with a clear contribution to the margin. Another sign of good momentum is the cash flow growing at +6%, showing strong leverage when sales are increasing by +2%. Finally, the backlog, which remains at a very high level above EUR 4 billion. This is a great indicator of future growth when the projects currently under construction will start up.
So again, a very solid quarter, as expected in terms of top line, and showing clear signs that we are on the right track to deliver our commitments in terms of performance for the year and beyond. How did we manage it? I am now on slide four. We continue our steady commitment to take proactive actions as the current uncertainty leads markets to take a wait-and-see approach. No need for me to come back on the characteristic of the current economic or geopolitical context that you know very well. Most importantly, we are on track because we follow a clear, disciplined, and structured action plan. First, we built on a resilient business model well balanced by geographies and activities, serving all economic sectors, long-term contracts, take-or-pay, indexation.
A good illustration of the role of our balanced portfolio is our healthcare activity, posting +8% growth this quarter in this macroeconomic context. Second, pricing management and further value creation through innovation in IM in particular, but also across all business lines. Jérôme will detail our strong performance on pricing shortly. Third, cost savings, looking systematically at ways to do things better and more effectively, leveraging a new culture of continuous improvement, but also, and this is the fourth point, structural efficiencies. One recent example is the launch of a single ERP in Europe, replacing 10 systems. It's too early to see the full benefits of such a massive project, which has been prepared for the last two years and handles more than 4.5 million invoices per year in 20 countries. We know that benefits for such projects will ramp up continuously in the next two to three years.
Fifth, portfolio management. For example, you have seen our recent press release on the sales of our activities in 12 African countries, but also selected bolt-on acquisitions. This action plan gives us full confidence to deliver on our performance commitment. It also positions us very well for the future. Looking ahead on slide 5, we see that despite several unit startups this quarter, the backlog remains at a high level above EUR 4 billion. Let's note that this backlog is well diversified with more than 80 projects, which dilutes the overall risk. It is also well balanced among activities, sectors, and geographies. Regarding business development, our portfolio remains very active in all regions of the world. To conclude, thanks to our agility, discipline, and execution plan, we delivered a very solid first quarter despite an uncertain environment. Q1 confirms that we are on the right track.
We have confidence, confidence in our ability to deliver on our commitments in terms of performance and growth for 2024, as well as on our enhanced advance objectives of doubling the initial margin improvement ambition by 2025. Thank you very much for your attention. I will now ask Jérôme to present the details of our financial performance in Q1.
Thank you, François, and good morning, everyone. So we will now review our key figures on slide 8. So as you see, comparable sales have been resilient overall in Q1, and this was achieved despite the difficult environment that you know. So gas and services sales for the quarter showed a solid +2% increase versus last year, despite a high comparable basis in Q1 last year with sales that were up +7%. Engineering and construction third-party sales have increased by +6.5% compared to an already strong base last year. Order intake is at EUR 332 million year to date, with group project representing 80% of this. Global market and technology are up +4.7%, with order intake reaching EUR 172 million year to date.
So overall, group sales are up +2.1% on a comparable basis, while published sales are down at -7.3%, impacted by negative energy effects at -5.5% and a negative forex effect at -3.9%. So our comparable sales were resilient despite, again, a very strong comparable base in Q1 last year at +6.2%. I am now on page 9. Our growth in Q1 for gas and services has been mainly driven by the Americas and, to a lesser extent, by the Middle East and Africa. On a business line standpoint, we can see that Healthcare drove growth in Q1, while Large Industries showed a mixed performance. Merchant and electronics must be put in perspective with a very strong comparable basis last year. This, again, highlights the value of our diversified global development strategy, capitalizing on the complementary and right balance among our different business lines and geographies.
Let us now review the activity for each of our main geographies. I'm now on page 10. After an already strong Q4, sales in the Americas have grown in all business lines to reach a +6% growth on a comparable basis, benefited from proactive price increases, particularly in the United States and Argentina to counter hyperinflation. Large Industries volume has been soft overall in hydrogen. Activity has been impacted by large customer turnaround during the quarter in the U.S. On the other hand, we benefited from startup and ramp-up positive contribution and from a sequential improvement of base volume following the January freeze event. In merchant, sales have been driven by a strong pricing effect at +6.5% year-on-year, supported by active pricing management and campaign-added gas at Airgas, sorry, and in LATAM, especially in Argentina, to address local hyperinflation.
Gas volume at Airgas has been flat overall, excluding hard goods. Growth in healthcare has been strong, supported by high pricing in proximity care in the U.S. Home healthcare has been strong in LATAM with positive volume and very strong pricing. Finally, electronic sales have grown at +3.3%, supported by high sales in carrier gases and equipment and installation, while materials have been low. Now, in Europe, sales are slightly down with strong healthcare and lower merchant pricing as we anticipated. In Large Industries in Europe, demand in hydrogen has slightly improved, while air gases for steel and chemical customers were stable at low level. Note that the energy combined effect impacted negatively this quarter by -0.5% due to higher volume with lower energy price. Sales were also impacted negatively by the sale of a cogen unit.
In merchant, sales have been impacted by reduced price in bulk compared to a significant pricing effect last year. This decrease in price in bulk was expected due to the partial energy indexation in our contract in the context of the sharp decline in energy prices. On the other hand, pricing in packaged gas has stayed positive, and solid volumes were also impacted by one less working day. Finally, healthcare growth was very solid at +4%. Sales have been supported by both strong home healthcare activity, notably in diabetes and sleep apnea, and by strong growth in medical gases with good volumes and a sustained price effect in response to inflation. In Q1, activity in Asia has been contrasted. In large industries, sales and volume remain affected by low demand and customer stoppage in China.
On the positive side, activity benefited from a major startup in China in March that will start to fully contribute next quarter. Sales in merchant have been impacted by one less working day and softened pricing at +1.3% with +4% volume growth excluding helium in China. Electronics sales have benefited from carrier gases startup and ramp-ups and have been impacted by low activity in specialty materials and equipment in installation. Advanced Materials showed a positive trend. In Africa and Middle East, we have seen, again, strong growth in all business lines. In Large Industries, the activity remained solid in air gases in South Africa, and hydrogen volumes were strong in Saudi Arabia. Merchant growth is vigorous thanks to strong pricing at +8% and robust volume in bulk and cylinder. I will now comment on our Q1 activity by business lines. I am now on page 12.
In merchant, we continue to see solid pricing, albeit moderating as we expected. Volumes overall have softened. Pricing is moderating, especially in Europe, as I explained later. Markets such as energy, food and beverage, research, and automotive are driving growth. In large industry, activity, although still low, has stabilized on a sequential basis. Activity has been impacted by turnarounds on the sale of a cogen unit in Europe, as I said. Two startups have positively contributed in China and in the U.S. On a market standpoint, metals have grown in the U.S. while chemical is stable and oil and gas more contrasted. Page 13. Electronics should be put in perspective against a very high comparable basis last year. Sales of material are still impacted by the slowdown in memory market. Carrier gases sales remain very solid at +6%, supported by startup and ramp-up contribution.
Given this contrasted performance by segment of activity, the semiconductor market context and the high comparable basis last year were very resilient electronic sales in Q1. In addition, we can say that we continue to see strong momentum in project development. Finally, in healthcare, we had strong and well-balanced growth in all segments with high pricing and volume increase. Home healthcare was, again, very robust, all therapies growing, especially diabetes and sleep apnea. In med gas activity, sales growth was solid with pricing addressing inflation in Americas, including air gas, and in Europe with solid volume and pricing. I am now on page 14. As you can see, we got about EUR 53 million of sales contribution in Q1 2024, coming mainly from three major startups in Q1.
For full year 2024, we expect the contribution to be in the range of EUR 270 million-EUR 290 million as the quarterly contribution is expected to increase over the year. As highlighted by François, we are on track to deliver our commitments in terms of performance. On pricing first, we have been delivering a +3.7% increase on top of a very high +13% in Q1 2023. I will comment more on this on the next page. We have also significantly accelerated our efficiencies to reach EUR 112 million in Q1 2024, that is, +22% versus last year. And finally, we continue to deliver on our active portfolio management strategy. We performed three acquisitions and executed two divestitures, to which we can add the sale of a cogen asset in Europe. We also announced the divestiture for operations in 12 countries in Africa that should close later in 2024.
Pricing, efficiencies, and portfolio management contributed to a strong cash flow again this quarter, growing at +6% year to date, excluding FX, a strong leverage compared to sales growth. As I said and we said earlier, we keep a very strong focus on margin and performance improvement, working on all possible levers. Those Q1 results give a good indication for performance and margin improvement at the start of the year. So next slide. On the left, you see the contribution of each region to the +3.7% IM pricing this quarter. Active management of pricing is supported in all our operations by value-added offers and service quality focus to our customers.
Americas is the region that contributes the most to the price effect with +6.5%, mainly thanks to proactive campaigns, in particular in the United States, Airgas accounts for +3%, and, of course, in Argentina to counter hyperinflation for another +3%. Focusing now on Europe, where the price effect turned slightly negative this quarter. This is due to the partial indexation of two energy price evolutions in the bulk business. Indeed, keep in mind that the typical European industrial energy index used in our bulk contract decreased on average versus Q1 2023 by around -50%. We estimate this energy impact on bulk pricing to weigh about around -8%, while overall pricing, excluding that specific energy effect, reached around +6%, notably with a strong contribution from packaged gases activities. This is a remarkable performance by the teams.
Importantly, this -2% net pricing doesn't trigger the dilutive impact on margin. We manage carefully the pace of decrease of the energy cost and the alignment of our pricing and our costs. So all in all, we are confident that active management of IM pricing will continue to deliver an accretive margin contribution this year. I am now on page 17. On the left, efficiencies have been growing over the last few years and stand now at EUR 112 million, up +22% versus last year. This is a key contributor to our margin improvement. We have, indeed, more than 800 ongoing industrial efficiencies projects that deal with production, supply chain, energy optimization, and leverage on data and digital when it makes sense to do so. 40,000 employees have now been onboarded on continuous improvement projects, and we organize recognition awards for good practice replication.
Then, procurement efficiency also contributes in the context of still high inflation. More importantly, we are accelerating structural efficiency. We have a few recent examples: the enlarged scope of shared service center, the ongoing home healthcare transformation in France, and, as François said, the launch of one single European ERP. We have many projects ongoing, and we have recently launched new initiatives that will contribute in the next quarter. We are, again, very confident that efficiency will be also a key contributor to our margin improvement ambition. Page 18. Our 12-month portfolio of opportunities is stable at a very high level, amounting to EUR 3.4 billion, supported mainly by energy transition projects, which is about 40% of the portfolio, and electronics. In addition, our portfolio of opportunities beyond 12 months remains very solid and strong. Our industrial and financial decisions are at EUR 0.9 billion.
Three main projects have been decided in our main business line. Finally, as highlighted earlier by François, our investment backlog is high at EUR 4.1 billion. It is very diversified and well-balanced among activities, sectors, and geographies. This is a good indicator, again, of future growth when the project currently under construction will start up. And with that summary of our strong positioning for the future, I have reached the end of my presentation. Thank you very much for your attention. And we will now open the Q&A session.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will take our first question, and your first question comes from the line of Alex Jones from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Great. Thanks. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Two, if I can. First, on the backlog. I think it's the first time it's moved down quarter-on-quarter for two years. As you mentioned, there are some major startups in there. But could you help us understand if there's anything else happening there this quarter and through the rest of the year, what you see the outlook is for backlog progression, especially with regards to energy transition projects coming through? And then the second question, just to follow up, Jérôme, on your comments on profits. I think cash flow, if you include FX, looks like it was perhaps +2% or so in Q1. Is there any phasing we should bear in mind on the margin improvement this year, whether it's weighted, first half, second half, and if so, any causes behind that? Thank you.
Good morning, Alex. Thank you very much for your question. I will ask Jérôme to take, actually, the two questions. First, on the backlog, and then on the cash flow and the margin. Backlog first.
Yeah. Thank you very much. So you're right. The backlog has still decreased a bit versus last quarter, but that was expected because the way it works in the backlog, we have basically startups that are declining that make the backlog declining, and then you add up the investment decision. So the very good news is that we have startups that contributed positively, EUR 53 million for the Q1. So this is aligned with what we're expecting. We expect, basically, also to have a growing contribution in the next three quarters, especially when a big contribution in China has started in March and will have full effect in Q2. All in all, you have to bear into account that we have also significant investment decisions at very close to EUR 900 million, which is also an increase versus last year that will also feed the backlog.
So all in all, the backlog is at the level which is historically high. You have to bear in mind that it can change a bit and vary from quarter to quarter. I would say we are still very confident. The level that we see as well, not only in the backlog but of portfolio of opportunity, including as well still energy transition projects, is also very, very, very good. Now, to come back on the cash flow, I can say that we are very pleased with the cash flow. Clearly, we are at basically +2% in comparable sales, and we are at +6% excluding FX. So this is clearly a strong leverage from sales to cash flow. We are basically having it's a good proxy right from the operating margin improvement.
We do not, as you know, I would say, mention the operating margin improvement in Q1. But I can say it's totally aligned, and it's very much aligned with the good work which has been done on pricing to maintain very strong pricing, which is still to be accretive despite also what we see in Europe that was expected. We'll come back maybe later. And also very strong level of efficiency. So again, we are pretty pleased with the cash flow, and that's a good proxy, again, for a good start of margin improvement in Q1.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Next question, please.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Jean-Laurent Bonnafé from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Good morning. I've got two questions, please. The first one is on large industries in Europe. We've heard of several commodity chemical producers reporting increased levels of activities, and I guess we haven't seen that in your sales. Is it because you have businesses below take-or-pay levels, and you need further improvements in utilization rates to see high sales? Is this something that you're expecting in the coming months? And the second question is on helium. Sounds like the activity has been getting worse sequentially into Q1. I think you've mentioned it as a dragging factor, especially in Asia. Can you talk about the magnitude of the decline on both volumes and prices? And do you expect this to get worse, or do you think we are around the bottom? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Laurent. Good morning. I will ask Pascal to comment on the Large Industries in Europe, and I will come back to the helium part.
Yes. Good morning, and thank you for your question. Actually, the main impact in Europe on our sales is the sale of that cogen unit at the end of a contract. That's the main impact. It's portfolio management. We didn't see the perspectives, and we didn't like the CO2 emission of that unit. Otherwise, if I look at the underlying aspects, hydrogen volumes are up, especially in Benelux, and air gases are basically flat. Your question on take-or-pay is a good one. We have seen the number of customers at take-or-pay level decreasing a lot. It's only a very small number of customers now, very marginal. So on the signals from the chemical industry, yes, we have seen those positive signals. We have seen, again, a lot of customers going from take-or-pay level to above take-or-pay level.
Those signals, we'll see in the coming quarters if they turn into a definitive trend. But Q1 was, yes, confirming those signals.
Okay. Thank you very much, Pascal. On the helium overall, so first, I mean, keep in mind that helium was last year around 3% of the group sales. So just to put things in perspective, what we have seen in Q1 is still a positive contribution with around 3% of increase in the sales. That's a mix of pricing and volume. Volume has been slightly negative overall in the range of minus 3%-4%, and pricing has been positive, high single digit overall. But what you have to keep in mind to understand the situation is that it's quite contrasted by geographies. Clearly, we see in the Americas, and especially North America, that the volumes are strongly up, and the pricing is also quite positive, I mean, double digit for the pricing. In Europe, overall, it's flat, both in terms of volume and pricing.
In Asia, and more specifically in China, we see a drastic decrease in the volume and also a decrease in the pricing. This is probably due to some helium coming from third parties sourcing in new parts of the world, especially from Russia. But at this stage, this is really very much contained to China. So when we look forward, as I mentioned, the helium volumes and pricing are going to be highly dependent on the speed of the recovery in the different geographies and, of course, of the different business lines, electronics and IM especially. We do expect, I mean, the trend to continue. So positive in the Americas, Europe being flat at least for the first part of the year, and still some pressure on China, of course, highly dependent on the IM activity and electronics, especially in Asia.
All in all, we do expect helium to have a positive contribution, both in terms of volume and margin to the group, of course.
Thank you. And so just to clarify, so far, you're not seeing the impact from this cheaper material from China or from Russia, I guess, via China spilling over into developed markets, into Europe and US?
Laurent, I did not understand the first part of your question. Can you repeat it, please?
Sorry. I meant, so far, you're not seeing the impact that we're seeing in China from that Russian material. You're not seeing this going into Europe or into the US given sanctions.
This is maybe a new trend that we see in the global helium market: we see more regional differences due to, I mean, local supply and local demand. As I mentioned, the market dynamics today are different from one region to another one. We don't see any impact today of sourcing from Russia in North America or in Europe, for example.
Excellent.
Thank you very much.
Next question, please.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Georgina Fraser from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning, François, Jérôme, and the IR team. I wondered if we could dig a little bit into electronics this morning. So my first question is, is there any way, or is it the wrong way, to think about splitting electronics growth into price and volume? And should we be thinking about the future growth a bit more differently in terms of should it be more CapEx-driven than production, given the kind of transition more towards advanced materials and carrier gases if we look at the split of your backlog? And then any comments that you can make about the kind of average profitability for electronics compared to the rest of the group would be helpful too. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Georgina, and good morning. Electronics overall, we have talked a lot about electronics last year. We know very well that the market demand has been decreasing sequentially in 2023. We do expect this to reverse, and we do expect to see a pickup in the second half of the year. Overall, clearly, the contribution of electronics in terms of sales and margin should be positive for 2024. We do expect this also to continue further in 2025, 2026. What is making us quite confident is what we see in terms of a level of investment, which is extremely active, especially in the memory segment, which has been quite impacted this year. We see significant CapEx being allocated both for construction and for equipment. Clearly, I mean, that's a very good trend for the electronics. All in all, the trend remains positive.
You have in mind that this semiconductor segment is going to probably double by 2030. So those are significant opportunities for Air Liquide. This translates into major opportunities in carrier gases, which are performing even in the current context very well today, with startups being planned also. And this is true in all the regions of the world, Asia, China being one of them, but also the U.S. with new investment coming online. Regarding your question in terms of mix of the business, I think we want to maintain the mix of the business that we see with a strong, solid base in the carrier gas, where we have clearly an advantage, and we want to continue to do so. But also develop advanced molecules and advanced solutions. You have seen investment in the past few months, capacity, especially in Asia, in Korea, in Singapore, in Japan also.
And there's more to come, which responds to market demand and customer contracts also for those molecules. So all this is quite positive. Again, even if we do expect, I mean, the recovery to come gradually during the year, the signals that we are getting from our customers are quite positive. But there again, it's probably a little bit too early to confirm exactly when the pickup is going to come. But we do expect that in the next few months. Regarding the profitability of electronics overall, it's well in line with the profitability of the group, above the average of the group and the strong contributor, again, in terms of profitability and growth.
Thank you very much.
Next question, please. Thank you, Georgina.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Jean-Luc Romain from CIC Market Solutions. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning. My question relates to some projects that were still pending FID in the previous quarters, like LOIST, for instance. Did you see some progress towards FID so that it can enter a new order book?
Good morning, Jean-Luc. I will ask Pascal to comment on this European project in the northern part of France.
Thank you for your question, Jean-Luc. I started globally. We still see a strong momentum continuing. We keep adding projects, especially in recent months with cement customers, for example, that want to decarbonize. Lhoist, the one you mentioned, is a lime producer. This project is continuing. This project has a very good momentum. Now, let's be clear. This is a medium-term project. It takes time to organize things. It takes time to prepare for such a project. You have to align quite a few elements. It's the capture at the site. It's the pipeline to take the CO2. It's a CO2 terminal in Dunkerque. All those pieces are going along. They are being worked on. Now, be patient. It takes time.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Pascal. This gives me the opportunity to comment on the portfolio of projects in the energy transition because we have questions being asked to us regarding, I mean, the momentum and the portfolio, given, I mean, the economic context, given, I mean, all the elections and uncertainties. What we see clearly is that there are still many requests from customers. Pascal mentioned, I mean, the cement. In the past six months, we have seen numerous requests from customers who want to decarbonize. We continue to see high interest in low-carbon hydrogen supply in different parts of the world. This is true that in the U.S., with the discussion regarding the Inflation Reduction Act, there has been a little bit of slowdown in terms of announcement. This being said, the most serious, solid projects are proceeding.
We have received in the past few months several orders to proceed in terms of engineering studies and preparation of the projects. I do expect that some of those projects will be officially announced when the horizon is a little bit more clear in terms of regulation and political context. I think this is very positive. Again, strong momentum on the portfolio, which will, of course, fill the backlog, as mentioned by Jérôme earlier. Next question, please.
Of course. Please stand by. Your next question comes from the line of Geoff Haire from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning. Actually, I was just going to ask about the political landscape and clean energy projects. You just answered the question. So I don't have another one. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much. I'm sorry to have preempted your question. Maybe we can move to the next question.
Of course. Please stand by. Your next question comes from the line of Peter Clark from Bernstein. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. Firstly, on the activity, I get the impression you think Q1 was the lowest part of the year for the activity, like Q3 was last year, obviously with the comps getting easier as well, I guess. And then drilling down into that, the industrial merchant volumes in Europe, I know you had one less working day. But you have to go back to 2020 when the volume effect was as weak as that. Just the underlying volumes, because you made the point, when you look at the underlying bulk and cylinders, actually, the underlying volumes in the air gases, etc., have been pretty solid. So just if you could drill into that. And then jumping across the pond to America and the pricing situation, obviously, very positive on the pricing. You've still got some local inflation, but you're pushing Airgas pricing.
The medical gases, again, seem to have gone up another leg. Just the outlook for that as you move forward from here? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Peter, and good morning. I will ask Pascal to comment on the underlying trends and the pricing in Europe. We'll reach out to Marcelo to comment on Airgas after that in the U.S.
Okay. Thank you, Peter. Good morning. So on IM in Europe, I would comment on three things. The one you mentioned, we have a negative impact of the delta in the working days. Of course, it will go the other way in Q2, but that has been a negative impact for Q1. We have that pricing effect that Jérôme mentioned and went into detail with. It's due to the energy indexes in our bulk contract, as Jérôme mentioned. This has no negative impact on our margins. But on the opposite, we have that underlying 6% positive pricing that is a continuing trend when we look at the previous quarters. And we want that trend to continue in the next ones, and we expect that trend to continue in the next quarters.
And third point, on the volumes directly, we do have bulk volumes that are slightly down on a daily basis, but our industrial packaged gases volumes are flat on a daily basis. So very strong resilience of our business overall in Europe in a somewhat difficult economic environment.
Thank you very much, Pascal. Marcelo, can you comment a little bit on what you see in terms of activity, momentum, and different segments in the North America market?
Yes, sure, François. And thank you, Peter, for your question. I think for Airgas, in general, I would say if you look to the context in the U.S. in terms of inflation, of course, prices are moderating following the slowdown of inflation, but it's still extremely resilient, the inflation in the U.S. and its core, which means we will continue to have a strong discipline in managing pricing as we've done in the first quarter. And you saw, Peter, +3% in Industrial Merchant. And if you had to isolate on Healthcare, the price impact was even higher, 5.5%. The positive note, I would say, is that we've been successfully managing through this process. It's not something new to us.
I think this will remain for the coming quarters with a lot of solid campaigns and pricing strategy in a way that we continue to see a positive impact in terms of pass-through of pricing to the market. In terms of activity, again, we had a Q1 that was pretty resilient overall in terms of volumes for industrial gases and a bit more soft in terms of hard goods. I think as soon as the situation improves in the U.S. in terms of reduction of interest rates for the future, I think this is going to unlock, again, a positive cycle in terms of investment in production capacity expansion in many industries, and we should profit from that. We also see some positive tailwinds coming in a few segments like government and defense.
That is also giving us positive expectations, I would say, mainly for the second part of 2024.
Thank you very much, Marcelo. Thank you, Peter. Next question, please.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Andreas Heine from Stifel. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Only two left. Peter has asked, actually, what I wanted to ask. On healthcare growth in Americas, we're standing 20%. Does that include also a dollarization from the Argentine peso? Because I think you have quite a decent Latin American business in Americas. And secondly, could you elaborate a little bit more on this price increase you mentioned in your Industrial Merchant market, especially in the packaged business? So is most of the price increase dedicated to that part of the IM in Europe? These are my two questions. Thanks.
Thank you very much, Andreas. So yes, indeed, for the med gas, what we have seen in the Americas includes, I mean, the contribution of Argentina. But I will probably make a comment overall on the healthcare activity, which has been strong this quarter. What we have seen is sales, as mentioned, close to 8%, a little higher, actually, in med gas and a little lower in the home healthcare part of the business, but still, I mean, both very strong. The main difference is that for the med gas overall, it's mostly driven by pricing in all the regions of the world. So you mentioned North America, but this is true also in Europe. And that's positive, and that's clearly a change.
For the home healthcare, you see that half of, basically, the growth is coming from pricing, and half of the growth is coming from volume, which, there again, is good because we understand, I mean, that the fundamental underlying trend is positive in most of the regions of the world. Maybe the last question, was that on the last part of your question? Was that on the Americas?
Yeah. The growth of healthcare of +20%, that was quite strong. I want to know whether there is a portion of that explained by the dollarization of the Latin American home care business.
I said it's yes, part of it.
Could you say, as you said, how much it is in the IM business, how much it was of the 20%? Is it sizable or a small part?
No. I think overall, I don't think we have this. But again, the main trend is pricing effective being both in North and South America. You have a little bit of distortion due to the local situation in LATAM. But again, as mentioned by Marcelo, strong pricing in the North American market.
The second question was the package business in Europe.
Next question, please. I think we have.
We will take our next question. Please stand by. Your next question comes from the line of Chetan Udeshi from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah. Hi. Morning. I had some weird question this time. I was just going through the numbers of the last few years for the Large Industries. If I take out the contribution that you usually have from the startup of new projects, which can be, say, around 2% on average on that business, it seems the underlying base volumes just haven't really grown. I think they were down last year. They were down in 2022, maybe a little bit up in 2021, 2020 down, 2019 down. I'm just wondering how that dynamic of no growth in the base volumes actually matter for the Large Industries' business in terms of both the operational gearing but just structural earnings growth in that business. Maybe my calculation might be wrong, but I'm just curious.
If the base volumes just don't grow, how should we think about the dynamics in the Large Industries in general from value creation perspective? Is it all driven by just the new projects? Because I thought there was that, as we call it, you should have some sort of a compounding effect from your existing asset base, which doesn't seem to be the case when I look at the base volumes. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much, Chetan. So maybe a few comments on this. I think the activity in large industry and the volume is highly related to the overall demand in the manufacturing sectors, being the steel, the chemical, and the refining. As we have already commented, largely, I mean, in the past few years, I mean, overall manufacturing capacity has not been running at its full potential from, I would say, the customer point of view. We have discussed already, I mean, the situation in Europe for chemical, for steel related to the economy, related also to the price of energy. But even if you are looking at the US Gulf Coast, which traditionally has been a very strong exporter also of product, the opening rate overall of the chemical industry is probably in the range of 80%, probably a little bit less than that.
So it's not at its full potential. China also, I mean, you know very well the situation. So I think the macro trend explains probably the lower volume growth that what you expect, taking into account that and then you need to go to the fundamental of the business. The growth in Large Industries is highly related, indeed, to the new projects. Because once you have signed a project, basically, you have the assumptions of the consumption from the customer between the take-or-pay and the maximum capacity of the project. So what does that mean for us in terms of lower demand overall in the past couple of years for Large Industries customers? We had indeed to adapt our operating mode to make sure that we are the most efficient in terms of energy consumption and also continue to be reliable for our customer.
That's one area where we try to find efficiencies and synergies between the different assets that we have. On the commercial point of view, the business model of large industry is extremely resilient because we have the monthly fee and the take-or-pay, meaning that when the load is coming below the take-or-pay, basically, the customer has to pay a minimum fee for us. The impact is very well mitigated from the business point of view. Now, looking ahead, because that's your question, what's the potential and what's the impact for the large industry overall? We are extremely positive for the potential of large industry. In the current context, post-COVID, with the lack of growth, with the uncertainty in the different parts of the world about decarbonization, it's clear that we have seen less overall investment for new production than what we have seen in the past.
However, we have a wave of projects that is unprecedented. Our portfolio remains extremely strong. Portfolio of opportunity is even stronger and continues to grow in all the parts of the world. It's going to be highly related to ways to produce with a lower carbon footprint and to make sure that the energy cost is fully embedded in the location and in the process being used by the customer. There is a strong reservoir of growth of the existing assets, as mentioned. There is a huge potential in terms of new investment. That's what we see in the backlog. That's what we see in the portfolio. That's, I would say, assurance of growth for the years to come in large industry. Thanks, François, for this comprehensive response. That was clear. Thank you, Chetan.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. We will take our next question. The question comes from the line of Jaideep Pandya from On Field Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Actually, it's on the lines of what just Chetan asked. If I look from a forward point of view, two of your key industries, steel and refining, are in heavy decarbonization mode, at least in Europe. A lot of the green or blue hydrogen projects have been announced by both these industries. And on top of that, there are capacity shutdowns. So how do you see the longer-term dynamic of at least the hydrogen world where potentially your customers could become also sort of your competitors if they have spare capacity on the green or the blue hydrogen? That's my first question. And then the second question, a little bit more short-term, it seems like because you have still momentum on package gas pricing in a falling sort of energy environment, you should have margin expansion.
But on the flip side, we have seen quite a lot of inflation in the labor market in Europe. So how do you tie those two cost elements? Should we see, therefore, stable margins this year, at least on the more package or industrial merchant side? Or should we still see margin expansion because the tailwind you have on the gas is significantly bigger than inflation on the labor side? Thanks a lot.
Thank you very much, Jaideep, for your question. I will ask Pascal to start with the second part of your question on the pricing versus inflation in Europe. Pascal.
Yes. Thank you for the question. So on the PG pricing and focusing specifically on Europe, I think we expect the trend that we have to continue along the next quarters for many, many reasons. Some because we have ongoing contracts with strong indexation, some because we have renewed those contracts with new pricing clauses. Now, you mentioned inflation in the labor market. We will pass that through to our customers through our pricing, either, again, through renegotiations or through indexes in our contracts, which have formulas to support this. So I am pretty sure that the trend will continue and will have a positive effect on the margins. And we'll have also, I think, a tendency to go down to inflation level. I mean, at the end of the day, we'll be tangent to inflation level. That's what we expect.
Thank you very much, Pascal. So to come back to your point about the midterm perspective on green, blue hydrogen, we remain extremely positive about the potential for us, where we see opportunities today are clearly in some of our key markets, maybe not in the order that you mentioned. Clearly, what we see today is first in refining, especially around the biofuels. And this is true in Europe. But not only in Europe, we see projects popping up in the Americas but also in Asia right now. And that's a need for low-carbon hydrogen. That's one. The second is clearly the chemical industry with the significant potential to decarbonize, I mean, the basic chemical value chain. And third, the steel industry. We talked a lot about the steel industry and the shift from the blast furnace integrated steel mills to the DRI type of units.
Those will take more time. There is really a challenge in terms of technical solution to achieve at the best cost the decarbonization. It's probably the most demanding and today where the premium for the low-carbon hydrogen is less easy, I would say, to justify. So those projects may take some time, maybe starting first with natural gas and then moving to hydrogen in the DRI unit, which could also be based on carbon capture. And that's another element in what we see in the market where we see a growing demand for carbon capture on existing processes, which could involve, I mean, the CO2 capture piece, the infrastructure, of course, but also, as mentioned by Pascal in the cement, the supply of a very large quantity of oxygen for the cement transformation. I think all in all, I mean, this is a combination of very valuable and significant opportunities.
You are asking the question, I mean, do we have a role to play? And are we going to be in competition with some of our customers? It could be the case. But overall, I do believe that we are recognized by our customers thanks to our technologies, our solutions, but also the assets that we have today and how we can leverage and facilitate this transition. That's what we are demonstrating today by already signing a long-term commitment with customers to help them to decarbonize their process. There is another consideration also to take and to have in mind is the fact that this energy transition will require a significant amount of CapEx from our customer viewpoint. Many of them have already told us that they want to focus on their core business.
They are looking forward to having specialized companies, professionals, to invest in what they consider not being their core business, taking into account that we don't want to be in the energy business. And we want to focus on where we bring value, the supply of low-carbon hydrogen, oxygen, capturing of CO2. So all that, in terms of midterm perspective, is very positive. I will stop here. I think we have reached the end of this session. So thank you very much for all your questions. To summarize, the very solid first quarter performance shows that we remain fully focused on execution and delivery of our advanced program. We are on track to deliver our commitments for this year and beyond, thus creating value for our shareholders. Next week, we have our general assembly in Paris. I may see some of you there.
In the meantime, I wish all of you a very good day. Thank you very much.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.