Good evening to everyone, or good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for our annual results presentation. I'm with Yves Chapot, the co-partner, and we'll spend an hour with you. Let me start first with our sales, that we're up 20.2% in 2022. Michelin in a very, I would say, hectic environment, has delivered an operating income of EUR 3.4 billion, which is in line with our guidance. Amid market turbulence and a highly inflationary context, Michelin sales increased to EUR 28.6 billion, and the segment operating income, as I just said, has reached EUR 3.4 billion.
The free cash flow was punctually impacted by inflation and the year-end tread timing, and we will have ample explanation later on. Over the 2019 to 2022 period, the group has demonstrated the resilience of its business model. Coming back to last year events, the sales were up 20.2%, lifted by the firm pricing discipline and the fast-growing non-tire sales. The tire markets were up slightly in 2022, supported mainly by OE, from a low comparison basis, and sustained demand in truck and mining markets. The tire sales volume were down, mainly impacted by the conflict in Ukraine, the COVID consequences in China, and reflecting as well the group priority to maintain the margin per unit. The price mix effect came to 13.7%, demonstrating the group's determination to offset all cost inflators.
Non-tire sales grew by 22% at constant exchange rate, confirming their strong momentum. Finally, we had a 6.2% positive currency effect, led mainly by the U.S. dollar. Our segment operating income totaled EUR 3.4 billion, or 11.9% of our sales, driven by the dynamic pricing management and mix effect. The pricing maintained unit margin integrity, offsetting a record EUR 2.7 billion in higher costs, which is really an unprecedented rise in 2022. Operating margin reflected a 1.2% dilutive effect from price increases. Each reporting segment contributed to improved segment operating income with Specialties RS3, our Segment 3, margin reaching 16.2% in H2 2022. The reported free cash flow before acquisitions was minus EUR 104 million.
The structural free cash flow was at EUR 378 million, down from the revised guidance we gave a few months ago. With a one-off impact of inflation on working capital, the reducing structural free cash flow was down EUR 500 million. The Q4 has been penalized by two events, one purchasing cut and the stronger December sales. That equal to EUR 300 million down on our free cash flow. All of that will be offset by timing effect in the Q1 2023. That's why we say it was punctual. Yves will come back in more details on this.
The overall group performance improved in line with Michelin in Motion 2030 strategic plan, which sets, which sits on three main pillars: people, profit, and planet, and managing the best equilibrium of those three pillars at the same time. Our net income reached EUR 2 billion. The dividend has been set and will be proposed at the AGM at EUR 1.25 per share. Looking at the projected environment in 2023, we've taken a conservative stance at the year that just started. That's why we have conservative guidance of EUR 3.2 billion in the segment operating income at constant exchange rates, and in excess of EUR 1.6 billion in the reported free cash flow before acquisitions. Once again, this is a conservative stance.
If we rewind a little bit over the period, what has happened between the results 2019 up to the results in 2022? In the first three columns, you see the effect of volume, price mix, and basically cost of inflation. You've seen the unprecedented swing in the price mix effect with the cost inflation. That was offset by volume down, mainly due to Ukraine, China, and the determination to make sure that we offset every cost through to protect our margin per unit. Of course, we have improved our performance, and that's what explains the major increase we had in our full year results.
Industrial performance, SG&A performance, and all performances in every type of businesses that were driven even through this unprecedented crisis period we went through over the past three years. I just want to take the opportunity to congratulate all our teams that really did a fantastic job during this period. Now I leave the floor to Yves, that will give you greater details on our results.
Thank you, Florent. Good evening, everyone. To rebound on Florent introduction, I will start to share with you an holistic view of the group achievements in 2022. I will later zoom on the profit KPIs that I will cover in detail in my presentation. Looking at the people and the planet KPIs, you can see that we have reached all our targets in 2022. On the people side, the percentage of women in management improved by 0.5 points to reach 29.4%. Our associate engagement improved by 3 points versus 2021 to reach 83%, and we have seen the number of labor-related accidents decreasing in ratio from 1.29- 1.07.
On the planet side, our Scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions, so basically the energy we produce or the energy we purchase, have been decreasing by 17%, thanks to partially production reduction, also efficiency improvement and our ability to source renewable electricity in several countries. In 2022, 52% of the electricity we purchase is from a renewable origin. It's an increase of 10 points versus 2021. You can see that both the i-MEP or the environmental impact of our factories and the sustainable material rate has also improved versus 2021. Moving to the activity, I will start by sharing with you the situation of tire markets around the world in a year that has been heavily perturbed by both the conflict in Ukraine and also the outbreaks and the lockdown due to the COVID-19.
Passenger car and light truck tire markets landed 1 point above 2021, but still below 2019. Thanks to a dynamic OE market, the OE market grew by 7%, but is 8% below 2019, and a sluggish replacement market which decreased slightly by 1%. The seasonality by market has been very contrasted. OE market was below 2019 during the first half, -1, and has seen a sharp rebound in the second half, +15%. On the other side, the replacement market, which is overall back to 2019 level, have seen a sharp drop in the Q4, -11%. This phenomenon is both due to poor winter season, particularly in Europe and also in North America, but mostly to the destocking in distribution. Distributors have received important quantities of budget tire brands during Q3.
Truck and buses markets tires is down by 4%. If we exclude China, the market is up 7% versus 2021. This is mostly due to the original equipment market, which is down 19%, up 12% if we exclude the Chinese market. I remind you that in 2021, the China six norms have led to massive new vehicle purchase from fleets, when 2022 have been penalized by COVID lockdowns and outbreaks. Europe and North American markets are well-oriented, as lack of drivers and strong demand in freight constitute a strong incentive for fleets to renew their vehicles. The replacement market is up 1% globally and 6% outside China, led by strong freight demands all along the year.
In Specialties, market has been overall well-oriented, pulled by the demand in mining, the recovery of commercial aviation in Europe and North America, and a strong demand in material handling and conveyor belts. Construction and agriculture offer a more contrasted picture according to the different segment and geographies. In this market, our sales reach a new record at EUR 28.6 billion. Volumes were down by 2% for the full year, with a better Q4 than expected, -0.9%, thanks to SR2 and SR3, when our SR1 sales have been down by 4.1% in Q4. We have seen a better sell out than sell-in in our distribution entities. We benefited from a scope effect, mostly driven by Allopneus integration.
Price mix reached EUR 3.25 billion, of which EUR 3 billion is coming from price effect or 12.8%, when mix contributed to the eighth of nearly EUR 200 million. The price effect was 11.4% during the last quarter, with the lag effect of raw material adjustments on our long-term contract businesses. Non-tire businesses overall grew by 22% and contributed to, by 1 point to our overall turnover improvement. We benefited from a strong tailwind from Forex, including 5.5% effect in the last quarter. In this context, our segment operating income increased by EUR 430 million, of which EUR 184 million is due to Forex effect, and nearly EUR 250 million is coming from the progress of the company.
Volumes effect was negatively high due to a sharp slowdown of our activity in the last quarter. If our overall sales were down by 2%, our selling tire volumes were down by 3%, and our tire production was down by 5.8%, with sharp reduction in the last quarter in order to manage our inventory level. Price and mix have more than offset all our inflators. In these inflators, you can see that raw materials accounted by nearly EUR 1.2 billion. Logistics, EUR 600 million. Energy, nearly EUR 500 million. And labor cost, EUR 200 million. The non-tire activities, high-tech materials, mobility experience, and fleet management, contributed to 26% of our segment operating income improvement, although they account only for around 5% of our sales.
Other effect are a sum of different amounts, of which the most important is the reduction in variable pay, as we have not reached our free cash flow targets. Looking at the performance by segment, I think there is three key takeaway. The first one is you can see that all segment contributed to our segment operating income improvement. Second one is that the dilutive effect due to the price increase represent nearly 120 basic points when the overall group operating margin has only reduced by 60 basic points between 2021 and 2022. The third message is that SR3 is nearly reaching 15% in SOI at the end of the year and was at 16.2% in the second half of the year.
Our free cash flow is landing at EUR -104 million before M&A and after the financing of our joint venture, has been heavily impacted by the inflation and the seasonality of our transactions. Most of the increase in inventory, more than EUR 1 billion, is due to inflation. We landed with the same level on inventory and finished product than in 2021, with slightly higher raw material and semi-finished inventory to compensate for the disruptions in procurement all along the year. Inflation impacted our accounts receivable as well, better sales than expected in the last months have contributed also to an increase in accounts receivable. As we sharply reduced production and raw material purchasing during Q4, our accounts payable landed despite inflation at a level which is slightly ahead of 2021, lower than what we were expecting initially.
These last two effects are temporary, we are already seeing an improvement in free cash flow versus standard years in the first months of 2023. As mentioned in our previous call, CapEx are catching up after the decision to reduce them in 2020, and the challenge we encounter in order to restart the CapEx in 2021. The other element contributing to the free cash flow, interest cost, taxes, are in line with our forecast. Looking now at the evolution of our net financial debts, you will see that the net financial debt increased and is mostly pulled by the payment of dividend, share buyback. We buy EUR 120 million of our shares during 2022.
but stay at a very healthy level, with a gearing at 25%. At the same time, all our credit ratings, short-term and long-term, has been renewed by the rating agencies. Looking now at the return on capital employed, which is one of our strategic KPIs, you can notice that despite inflation, which heavily impacted our capital employed, the ROCE, return on capital employed, improved by 50 basic points over 2022, thanks to a better asset turnover ratio and a slight reduction of our NOPAT due to the price increase. 10.8% is above the target we have set for the group within our Michelin in Motion strategy and is above our weighted average cost of capital, which has been consistently the case since 2019, except of course in 2020.
It shows the ability of the group to create value even in this highly inflationary environment. Our net results has progressed by EUR 164 million, although interest rates increase weighed down on our financial results. We must remind that in 2022, we have recorded more than EUR 160 million of provision due to the stop of our operation in Russia. At the same time in 2021, we have recorded a strong positive result for the sales of 51% of Solesis, our medical subsidiary.
Earning per share increased by 9% in 2022. We are proposing a dividend increase by 11%, in line with our target to gradually reach 50% payout ratio. It represent a yield of 4.8% for shareholder who have acquired registered share in the last day of 2022 or 4.38% for shareholders who invested at the average 2022 share price. We'll pursue our share buyback programs, aiming to neutralize the effect of employee shareholderships program. Moving now to the guidance. We first build our 2023 guidance with the assumption that market will be stable or let's say, slightly around zero. Some markets will be slightly positive, but we'll have fundamentally a very different seasonality, a different market mix, and a different geographical mix than 2022.
I remind you that 2022 has been marked by an unprecedented volatility. We expect a strong decrease in the first quarter, looking at the market, followed by a rebound in the second quarter. We are also expecting more dynamic OE markets versus replacement, and probably a rebound in China from the second quarter. With these market assumptions, we have built our budget with conservative sales volumes due to all the uncertainties around us, and with an inflation in between EUR 600 million-EUR 1.2 billion. This funnel may appear wide, but I just remind you that last year at the same period, we were betting on an inflation of EUR 1.2 billion, and we land at EUR 2.7 billion at the end of the year.
We are looking to compensate this inflation with our pricing and retain the mix effect for the company. Our CapEx should reach between EUR 2.2 billion-2.4 billion to continue the catch-up of 2020 and 2021, integrating also some inflation in CapEx, with some components such as semiconductors, and also the necessity to accelerate our energy transition, particularly in Europe, and our digital manufacturing effort. You will see in the appendix that if we calculate the average CapEx between 2020 and 2022, you will found EUR 1.8 billion, which is the exact similar figure of our capital expenditure in average between 2016 and 2019. But of course, the distribution between the different years is pretty different.
In conclusion, we are aiming to generate a segment operating income above EUR 3.2 billion at constant exchange rate, and a free cash flow above EUR 1.6 billion. We have decided to abandon the notion of structural free cash flow, which was relevant when we were coping only with raw material prices increase, and to guide on free cash flow before M&A and after financing our joint venture that you can directly read in our financial statement. I thank you for your attention. I think that now it's time to take your questions.
Thank you, Yves.
Ladies, and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, press star and one on your phone keypad. Please ask your question in English. The first question is from Thomas Besson with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please, go ahead.
Thank you very much. I have three questions, please. First, on the guidance. I understand I think you've both repeated that twice, but this is a voluntarily cautious guidance today, in the context of limited visibility. Do you think it's really the best view you would have? Can you confirm as well that the EUR 1.6 billion free cash flow guide refers to the reported free cash flow pre-acquisition? If we use the former structural free cash flow and the reversal you're expecting, the reported free cash flow should be more in excess of EUR 2 billion. That the first question. The second, could you talk about the pricing environments by region?
I think you and a few competitors announced price hikes in December, January, North America, Europe, Japan. Others have not followed. Could you comment on that? Are they sticking? Did you see as well, tire distribution, more positioned for price cuts than price hikes now, ordering again? Last question, could you talk about the SR3 margin trends in 2023 and the lag effect from indexation? Is it fair to think that we get further support from that indexation in H1 before it wanes in H2, and therefore, should we maybe expect SR3 margins to eventually progress further from 2022 levels? Thanks.
Thank you, Thomas. I will answer. We'll alternate so it's more lively. On the first one, I think we've answered that already, but I will repeat. We've taken a conscious decision to be cautious for the year 2023 because there are many, still many uncertainties. We've taken, as Yves explained in details, a cautious stance on volume. We are still in a very volatile environment and we still operate under a crisis condition in many domains. That's why we've taken this. On the question number two.
The free cash flow, the guidance is on the reported free cash flow pre-acquisition, but after financing of our joint ventures. In an inflationary environment, the gap between this reported free cash flow and the structural free cash flow we use to report on is in the opposite way. Inflation tend to inflate, particularly the working capital, even if you stay with exactly the same level of activity, the same level of inventory. Generally in the past, structural free cash flow was above the reported free cash flow. We will guide you all along the year, and we'll give you, it will oblige us to better communicate, particularly on the impact of inflation on the working capital.
Inflation both from raw material that we capture pretty well in the past with the structural free cash flow. Also other inflation factors such energy cost, for example.
On question number three, on the price hikes, let me rewind a little bit. We were entering in 2022, thinking that we would not have to raise the prices, and we ended up by raising the prices three times. For the year 2023 now, we still have the follow-up of this coming. We still have some inflationary that will also lagging effect of inflation in many domains that will hit 2023. As far as we are concerned, we are not really looking at whether the prices are sticking or not. We are so far we are constantly monitoring our relative share versus our prices. So far, I would say it's okay.
Let me take an example. If we look at the U.S. Market, what we have seen is the Tier 1 players have been exactly following the market in term of volume. While the only segment, the Tier 2, the Tier 3, have decreased more heavily for the benefit of the Tier 4. Really the very cheap prices. I would say that if I look at the U.S. market, the Tier 1 premium brands are still holding their share because they are addressing a market that is less sensitive to prices than others. It's exactly the case for Michelin.
The anticipation from the distribution, what I can talk about is the level of inventories at the Michelin brand in every market on the worldwide basis. We are well positioned everywhere. There is still high inventory in winter in Europe. Apart from that, level of inventory are adequate. I don't see any really attempt from the distribution to anticipate price decrease. We will see, because as we have said constantly, in this environment, we are looking at, we have a three-month horizon, so we're looking ahead three months, and we are then deciding on what we should do in term of pricing. So far, I would say, we have zero reason to change our policy.
For the last question about SR3, the SR3 margin improvement in the second half was due to two elements, the price and the lag effect from indexation that you capture very well, but also the fact that we were able to debottleneck our operations, particularly in the mining business, where we were able to debottleneck both production but also expeditions and logistics issues that has been handicapping us all along the first half of 2022. Of course, we will have, let's say, a favorable comparative for during H1 2023 and less favorable, less effect in the second half, as you mentioned.
The demand on SR3 is holding, especially on mining, is holding very well.
Thank you very much.
Next question.
The next question is from Philipp Koenig with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the presentation. My first question is just on the fixed cost absorption, which obviously weighed on your earnings in the second half of the year. Can you just describe the drivers? Was that mainly driven by the production in Europe, where you maybe scaled back to destock some of the inventory? Is that something that you continue to expect in 2023, or should we sort of assume a more normal drop through on the volumes? My second question is just on the cost drivers. I know you gave quite a wide range, but maybe you can maybe give a bit more of a breakdown of the different items between raw materials and other inflation.
Some of the raw mats obviously came down quite a bit in the second half of the year. Could we maybe expect potentially a bit of a tailwind actually from raw materials in the second half of the year? My last question is just generally on the volumes. I know you're being conservative, obviously you are guiding for markets rather flat and for Michelin's volumes to be down at the midpoint. You know, you made very clear that you will hold very firm on your pricing policy, just how long would you be willing to sort of grow below the markets, you know, in order to hold your price, maybe very keen to hear your thoughts there. Thank you very much.
I will start, and then Yves will complete. As far as the fixed cost absorption, we had a change in the market during the summer, which led to for us to have more inventory than what we wanted to have. Therefore in Q4 we had to sharply cut the production down. Again, this was to adjust the inventory in the second half, which we have done. Therefore, we expect to have less impact of fixed cost absorption in the year 2023 that what we had in the year 2022. As far as the volume and pricing element, it's like fine cooking. It's always a question of proportion.
So far we are okay with the way volumes are and margin per unit are evolving. Again, we have accepted the fact that we wanted to protect the margin per unit first. In a very hectic environment, there is no point of trying to chase market share, especially in this oversupplied market. We have to focus ourselves into extracting the value, demonstrating the value to our customers and insisting on the quality of our product. So far it's been it's proven to be right. Maybe, Yves, you want to...
What I can maybe on the inflation breakdown, I mentioned quite a wide funnel between EUR 600 million - EUR 1.2 billion. Because there is a lot of uncertainties. Who knows what will be the cost of energy during the summer and next fall. That's true that there was a slight relief in the past weeks versus the cost of energy in the month of October, for example. We have, let's say in accordance to our policy, we hedge part of our energy for 2023, but usually we hedge half. We still have uncertainties about the other half of the energy. We also expect some inflation in labor costs.
Regarding raw material, that's true that some raw materials such as natural rubber prices are going down. Versus the average acquisition price of 2022, some raw materials such as silica or other raw material that are energy intensive to produce, will be probably at a higher price in average in 2023 than 2022. That's a lot of elements on which there is plenty of uncertainties. And what we are aiming for is to hedge this inflation with our price and retain the mix effect for the company.
If I just, the last complement is, you mentioned energy, raw materials, labor, and the fourth element is logistics. On maritime, it's true that it is better, the environment is easing. However, on terrestrial transportation, it is still high, and the lack of drivers does not lead to excess capacity in that transportation. Therefore, we don't see, we don't foresee a massive decrease in that the transport prices on the ground.
Thank you both. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Michael Jacks with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is could you please comment on the velocity or run rate of Asian tire imports into the U.S. and Europe? Have you witnessed any moderation there, or are they still continuing at a similar pace? My second question is on pricing dynamics between Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 brands. I know you mentioned that there is an art to pricing, but do you perhaps have a sense for the magnitude of pricing divergence between Tier 1 prices, which have been going up, and Tier 2 prices, which could have been going down due to channel destocking in the past quarter? At what sort of level do you start becoming concerned that a further widening in this gap could drive a larger trade-down effect potentially? My last question is on share buybacks.
Your presentation suggests that additional opportunistic buybacks will be considered or a program will be considered. Is there any timeline on this in terms of when a decision might be taken? Are there any value parameters that you can comment on initially? Thank you.
Okay. On buybacks, I will leave Yves to answer. On the pricing dynamics and the question of the Asian imports. It is true that we have seen the Asian imports catching up heavily in the, especially in the second semester, everywhere around the world. Do we see anything easing there? The level of inventory in the dealership are high with the Asian tire import. Now I think they have taken the inventory they could take, so I don't foresee another still such a such a big influx of these Asian tire imports happening in 2023, but they would remain at a high level. In terms of the pricing dynamic, as I was explaining, we mainly sell Michelin brand.
More than 83% of our tire business is on the Michelin brand. Overall, every year, on every segment. What I was explaining that the price war that exists on Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4 is for Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4, not for Tier 1 at this stage. We don't see at this stage any concern for us, even though there is a slight trading down, but it's mainly happening between Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 2 to Tier 3, Tier 3 to Tier 4, rather than Tier 1 to Tier 2, Tier 3 to Tier 4. We have seen, it is true also that we have seen a slight volume down, but for me, it's more inventory adjustment effect than anything else.
Back to inventory, for us, we see adequate inventory level everywhere in North America, Europe in summer tires. The only excess inventory that exists overall is for winter tire in Europe. I think it will over time fade away. As I was mentioning, the dealers are heavily loaded with Asian tire at this point. On buybacks? Yeah. On the buybacks, in fact, the strategy has not changed, right? It consists in neutralizing the effect of the shares that we are issuing for employee share ownership program or for the share that are given according to our long-term incentive program. Last year, we bought 120 million shares, and we give a mandate to a bank for a given period.
The decision for the this year program will be made in the coming, probably two months. Generally, we give to a bank a mandate for a period of four to six months to achieve this buyback. We have risen the dividend. We will propose an enhanced dividend per share. Yeah.
Understood. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Giulio Pescatore with BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. The first one on pricing. Don't you think there is a price difference at which brand almost doesn't matter anymore in tires? I understand that so far, trade down has only been limited to Tier 2 and Tier 3 segments. Don't you think there is a price difference at which brand cannot justify the, the gap? I mean, we're talking about tires, it's not really a luxury product in my view, but I could be wrong. Please, if you can elaborate on that. The second one on volumes. Volumes were really good in Q4. I was pleasantly surprised to see that, and especially given how much the market was down. At the same time, you managed to achieve a destocking.
Can you maybe help us to reconcile the things? You outperformed the market, and you also achieved the destocking. What led to demand being so strong in Q4? The last point, a bit more technical on this other line. What should we expect in 2023 from this other line, which was quite significant? Thank you.
Sorry, I missed the last portion. What can we expect from?
Sorry. The other line in the SOI, in the segment operating income bridge was a very significant portion of your SOI in 2022. Just wondering how should we think about this line in 2023?
Yeah. To the first element of your question, on pricing, at which point, do we become a luxury product? I don't know. So far, tires are still cheap in relative terms compared to what they do, and they are still indispensable, so. The quality product, especially in a time where you have a high inflation, is a much better investment than having a poor performing product at a relatively higher, high price. When we look at that, at this stage, we have not seen, especially in the premium and luxury segment, we have not seen trade downs. The tire is a very highly technical component in the vehicle.
It's an indispensable to your pleasure of riding, to your safety, to the performance of the vehicle. It is still relatively cheap. I think we are far from having reached the level where it becomes a so-called luxury product. For you, for the volumes, the outperformance in the second half was due to, first, the SR3, because our mining sales have been growing, and we know that in mining, we gain market share in the second half and in both in Q3 and Q4. The fact that our distribution companies, particularly in Europe, had a better sell out than the sell in.
They grew in term of volume versus the selling, what they purchased from tire manufacturers, of course, including Michelin. That was a good surprise of the last months of the year. Regarding the segment operating income bridge, generally we set the other element at zero because we build on our budget based, for example, on the assumption that bonuses will be reached. Because by definition, if we achieve our budget, the managers and people will get their bonus. Of course, all along the year, depending on the expectation, we can see for the landing, we might adjust this line mostly in the second half till the end of the summer.
It's very difficult to guess precisely where we are going precisely to land. But that's. There can be also other elements in 2020 and 2021, for example, we recorded there all the COVID-19, let's say, extra cost or specific costs, such as mask, all the devices that we bought to protect our employees. It's a line where you will find also, let's say, other activities, but that, let's say, either non-recurring or that we cannot include in the SG&A or the cost of goods sold.
Thank you.
Next question.
The next question is from Martino de Ambrogi, Equita. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good evening, everybody. The first question is on the free cashflow. Just to understand what's your expectation to recover what you lost and you consider one-off in 2022. So what is expected in 2023? The second, sorry, I'm asking you again on volumes, but if I take the midpoint of your guidance, in terms of your guidance, you have minus 2%, while if I look at your market projections, the midpoint is basically flat. So I was wondering if you can discuss where you are losing the volumes by division, by regions, as you prefer. The last question is on the car business return on sales.
I suppose the negative mix in terms of channel will put under pressure your margin in the car business, considering the equation that Specialty is recovering and maybe also trucks. Thank you.
On the mix, OE, RT, yes, it is true that we will have as OE will catch up, we will have a negative OE, RT mix. However, yeah, the mix are very complex in our business, you have to consider that OE is also under index contracts. As we go and as the inflators somewhat stabilize, we will have the backlog effect of all the index contract that will come into fruition. That will offset somewhat the negative OE, RT mix. As you said, as well, there is a segment mix amongst SR1, SR2, SR3, which will have a positive effect because SR3 right now is under a very strong dynamics.
Overall, it's very difficult to predict exactly what will happen in term of a mix. That's why we've taken a conservative stance. As far as the volume, the volumes are concerned, we have taken, as I said, a conservative stance. We have said, we just want to make sure that we over-deliver versus over-forecasting. That's this, that's the. Yves and I have had long discussion on this, and we said, "Okay, let's make sure that we forecast low, and we will see." We don't have enough time to describe what will happen in every market around the world. Basically, that's the look we've taken on this.
We've said, "Let's be conservative on our volume forecast, and overall, we should deliver." Now, the last point is, we are prepared to lose some market share to make sure that we maintain our unit, our margin per unit. Again, in this environment, there is no point in trying to chase market share at the expense of profitability. For free cashflow.
Yeah, maybe to complete on the volume, we also know that the first quarter will be lower than last year, because 2020, I remind you that 2022 has been, let's say, impacted by both, the start of the conflict in Ukraine at the end of February. The first two months was basically without this event.
Then there was a very strong effect of the lockdown in the second quarter in China, then another lockdown in the fall, and then when the opening of China, the outbreak of the COVID-19 in November, December. That's also the reason why we have built our guidance on the, let's say, conservative volume assumptions. Regarding free cash flow, I remind you last year we were betting on to reach free cash flow above EUR 1.2 billion. Basically, our free cash flow has been impacted by EUR 1 billion of inflation in the working capital, that we can, let's say, spread in half between raw material and other element of inflation. If you look just our inventory, they are hurt by EUR 1 billion.
Finished product inventory are exactly in tonnage at the same level than they were at the end of 2021. Inflation has heavily weighed on the working capital. On the other end, there is the calendar of our transaction at the end of the year that has also an impact. The fact that we reduced purchasing in the last 4 months, which has led to have less account payable than we were expecting. Better performance in term of sales in the last month that has also led to have higher account receivable than expected. This EUR 300 million should, let's say, mechanically be translated, transferred to the 1st quarter of 2023.
As far as inflation is concerned, of course, we might have to bear some inflation in 2023, but we have decided to take aggressive stance to control our level on inventory, better manage our payables and receivables, in order to generate free cash flow above EUR 1.6 billion, in 2023.
Okay, thank you.
The next question is from Jose Asumendi with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good evening. Just a couple of questions, please. Maybe three of them, please. Can you comment a little bit around the dynamics, volume dynamics in SR3, within agriculture, infrastructure and mining? How do you see that evolving? Second, can you comment on the revenue contribution from scope in 23? I'd love to hear a little bit around, you know, we have this debate on, you know, Asian tire imports, they are taking market share in China, and you've been, you know, excellent at, you know, passing on price increases of said raw mats and also adjusting capacity in Europe.
I'd love to listen a little more around your view as to how can you basically take the opportunity to take market share in China, and although you might lose some market share in Europe, how China is longer term, you know, structurally an opportunity for you to grow the business and offset some of these losses in market share in Europe. Thank you.
I will start with the last portion of your question on China. There is still a lot of uncertainty about when China will recover from where they are today. Again, as Yves mentioned, we went through zero COVID-19 policy to easing policy, which led to major disruption in the Chinese market and in the overall supply chain on a worldwide basis. When will that be over? That's the uncertainty in 2023. The fundamentals of the Chinese economy are strong. The number of people accessing to market and eager to access to mobility are still very high. There it is a big unknown for 2023, when China will be on a more stable basis.
If you look at, if you compare China right now, versus Europe or North America, the immunity, the collective immunity in the country is not yet known. That's the big uncertainty. On the positive side, It could offset some of the drawbacks in Europe, yes. At this stage, we said to ensure to bet on it right now. That's why, that's what we have said. Maybe, Yves, you want to talk, take SR3.
Yeah, on SR3, volume dynamics. For 2023, we are expecting a bit the continuity of what we have seen in the second half of, on, in 2022, in particular in the second half. We should see mining continuously growing, and particularly in the first half. We should also see the aircraft division growing, particularly if China is opening up, I mean, 2022, the commercial airlines have grown sharply in Europe, in North America. With the opening up of China, we can maybe come back not too far from, let's say, pre-COVID level. For the other segments such as construction, agriculture, material handling, we are a little bit more prudent, as these segment are also impacted by inventories building.
Which link to the evolution of GDP, particularly the material handling. Mostly we bet on strong growth in mining, commercial aircraft and, let's say, stable activities in overall in the other segments.
Thank you. scope should be 2% or so on revenues in 2023?
Scope, you mean, change of perimeter, change in scope? We did not perform huge acquisition in 2022, therefore, the scope effect should be minor. In 2021, just last day of 2021, we acquire 100% of Allopneus. In 2022, we did a couple of acquisition. We have RLU, the plantation in Indonesia. We had a operation in Australia for our conveyor belt division. It will not, let's say, it will not have a huge effect on the, on the scope, on the scope line.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from Sanjay Bhagwani with Citi, please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you. Thank you very much for taking my question also. My first one is on the pricing. I understand that you increased the prices earlier in January. Could you maybe remind what was the magnitude of this price increases? How much was of that is basically covering the backlog inflation of 2022? That is the inventory that is sitting at a higher raw material cost. My question is basically, let's say if this year we end up with inflation at the upper end of the guidance range, then how much of more price increases would you require? That is my first question, Maybe I'll just follow up with the next one after this.
In some regions around the world, we've done already in 2023 a price increase where we needed to adjust. That's again to cover the three months horizon we have in front of us. We'll see. That covers every the lag effect plus every what we foresee, what we see in the inventory and the time it reaches the market, three months, basically. We've done what we needed to do. What else? We see how the inflation goes, it covers all the inflators. I want to remind you as well that we have the index contract that are still lagging between three months and sometime nine months behind.
All those price hikes in the contract will come into fruition during 2023. Now, if we look at the magnitude of what we have done already, basically, it comes back. If we look from 2019, the price mix effect has been EUR 4.6 billion, of which we had a nice mix effect, but the bulk is pricing, and we have offset 100% of the inflation. If you look at the inflation column, we had EUR 3.9 billion. If you divide by our revenue and you have the magnitude of a price increase. It has varied from 15% in some segments up to 45% or 50% in other segments.
Thank you. That is very helpful. Then my next question is on inflation. Maybe just to understand a bit more color on that. Let's say if raw materials stay where it is and the transportation goes down and energy goes down, so how should we think of, let's say, the sensitivity? Is it likely that you end up more towards the lower end of the guidance range? Then what should basically your higher end of the inflation range is incorporating? Maybe just a little bit more color on that.
Part of 2022, 2023 inflation is embarked in the valorization of our inventory at the end of 2022. What will lead to a lower end of the range might be if energy prices were staying at their current level, not fluctuating back to the level we have seen during the summer and fall of 2022. Mostly that. The rest, well, of course, if raw material prices were going down, but it's where also there is a lot of uncertainty. Back to Florence comment about the uncertainties about the way China will rebound. We know also that China rebound will have a favorable effect on our volume and our...
we have strong market share, particularly in SR1 there, but also will, might have also effect on the cost side because it will lead to increasing energy prices. that's where we have plenty of uncertainty in the equation.
Yes. Inflation is raw material, logistics, energy, and now labor.
Yeah.
After three years of high inflation, of course, labor is increasing. We have to factor this as well.
Maybe a last comment. Inflation has a different nature, for example, in Europe or in North America. In North America, we have a higher labor, in components. In Europe, part of inflation, a strong part of the inflation is imported through energy and raw materials. We have also to look at that with different geographical lens.
Thank you. That is very helpful. My last question is on the volumes. Q4 volumes came in better than expected. I think you mentioned it. Is it largely just because of the SR3 or partially because of SR1 and SR2 as well? I think you mentioned that Q1 volumes are likely to be lower than the full year. Did I catch it correctly?
Q1 is not over, 2023. We just had one month of three months. What we have seen in the last quarter of 2022 is it was mainly SR3. Within SR3, aircraft was high, mining was high, Beyond Road was slightly down. SR1 was down replacement, on the rise in OE and in SR, and SR2 was better than expected. Again, it's, we have 20 different business lines, so it's always difficult to agglomerate this. Are we seeing similar trend in Q1 2023? So far, it's in line with what we were anticipating.
Thank you. That is very, very helpful.
Thank you.
The next question is from Christoph Laskawi with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions as well. Quick ones, I would say. The first one, you've stressed plenty of times now that the guidance in itself is a bit cautious. So I'd like to understand if we take the low end of both volumes and the higher raw material headwind, is that still covered in the above EUR 3.2 billion, or is it more working with the midpoint? The second question would be, you've cut production a bit in late 2022. Are you still running on lower production rates right now? Would you keep that ongoing into the next couple of months, assuming that the market is not changing much from where it currently is?
Lastly, more or less on the logistics, we are hearing plenty of other companies complaining about especially truck deliveries not being on time, creating a lot of hiccups in the supply chains. Do you see the same, and is this to some degree impacting your production run rate and what you delivering to the dealers right now, or is it basically smoothing out, as you said, for SR3, which had the hiccups before? Thank you.
In term of reliability or logistics, it's very simple. It is still problematic. On maritime, it is improving, but on road transportation, it is still very hectic, for the main reason which is there is a lack of truck drivers in most of the countries around the world now. That is, for us, we anticipate that to be structural. It will not ease quickly, this. Now we constantly have a small perturbation in our plans due to this. The big slowdown we had to do in the Q4 is behind us.
Now we are coming back to more normal level in adequation with the level of the sales, which are, as Yves mentioned, the first quarter 2023, forecasted to be low, because the market has to absorb the inventories and the mileage. We have to wait for, to see what would be the real mileage driven, et cetera. At this stage, it's too early in the year to prognose anything. The utilization rate of our plants, it varies, it varies. We are still not where we would like to be, either because of logistic reliability issues or because of hiring or training or... We still have, for example, in North America, very high turnover. In China, we still have a lot of COVID cases.
One third of our staffing in China right now is with COVID. We have plenty of reasons why the production is not yet back to a more routine setup.
Yeah, for the working, the midpoint on inflation is-
Yeah, for the guidance, so of course, you can try to find the point where we set up our guidance. We work also with a range, because at the beginning of the year, there is such level of uncertainties that it's extremely difficult to communicate only on a single point.
Understood. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Ross MacDonald from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Ross MacDonald, Morgan Stanley. Thanks for taking the questions. I have three questions. Firstly, on free cash flow, I think you suggested the free cash flow is already improving in January, so I'm just curious to what extent we can expect free cash flow to be much less negative in the first half of this year, given the offsets from free cash flow seasonality. Secondly, on mix, I think you show in the slides that 56% of SR1 sales are 18-inch and above, up 500 basis points from 2021. How quickly do you think you can pivot on the mix side into larger rim size tires from here? Should we be expecting another such move in 2023? Lastly, you show very strong original equipment share for electric vehicles.
I'm just curious if you can share any observations around the length of the replacement cycle, for electric vehicles, or maybe the loyalty or pull-through demand that EV drivers are showing towards Michelin? Thank you.
On free cash flow, I will leave, Yves answer.
Yeah. For the free cash flow, we are not disclosing figure by months. You have already quarterly reporting. When I'm telling you that, we have seen already this transfer from Q4 to the first quarter, that's true that we have already seen part of this effect. Overall, we build our free cash flow guidance with the assumption that this one-off effect on the working capital that we have in the last quarter, and then the last two months of 2022, will not be reproduced in 2023. Don't forget that we have a huge seasonality. In a normal year, so a normal year is probably a year before 2019.
Between the highest and the lowest point of our working capital, you can have a fluctuation of EUR 1 billion. In 2022, this fluctuation was EUR 2.7 billion, and it's partially due to inflation, due to also the disruptions we have in the supply chain. We have, with, for example, with the war starting in Ukraine, we have accumulated inventories of some raw material that we were fearing missing in the second half of the year. All that has contributed to all the disruptions that we describe.
And that's why we are, if 2023 is, let's say, will not be a normal year, but is a year little bit less volatile, and with the fact that we want also to better manage our inventory, that's why we are also conservative on the, on the sales side. We should be able to generate more than EUR 1.6 billion of free cash flow.
As far as the 18-inch is concerned, and I'm glad you've noticed that, yes, they are still progressing in the share of everything we sell. We anticipate that we will have progression as well in 2023. However, we as Yves mentioned, we are increasing our level of capital expenditure, but we've been surprised by the speed at which we've been catching market share in 18-inch +. Therefore, we are here and there maxed out in terms of capacity. We are continuing our investment there. We will still have a dynamic mix in the segment 1, but to what level, it's too early to say at this stage.
What we can say is maybe 5 points is rather on the higher gain over the year. If you look the average over the past three to five years, we generally gain 3-4 points per year or per semester. 5 points is higher, is rather on the higher side of the range.
Yes. On replacement cycle for electric vehicles, in term of loyalty, at this stage, we have not seen any meaningful differences from what we have experienced on other type of vehicles. However, this is a very new market, so, it's probably too soon to understand really what will be the replacement low. Our share shows that it is still very interesting.
Here also we can add that we are relatively over index in premium electric vehicles, where we can expect to have, as in the premium IC vehicle, we should see the higher loyalty to original equipment brands. This will be the last question.
The last question is from Pierre-Yves Quemener with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Good evening to everyone. Good evening, Florent, Yves. I guess the first one would be to Yves, sorry, to come back to the breach of the segment operating income. I'm afraid I did not understand what was in that EUR 354 million positive impact of other, the breach on slide seven. The second question, if I shoot the three questions I have in a row, is related to net debt change. What's in the EUR 471 million that have, that has inflated the debts on slide 10, and how should we think of that into 2023? My last question would be rather simple. In your free cash flow guide of EUR 1.6 billion, at least, how much of working capital reversal is baked in? Thank you.
On the SOI bridge, I mentioned in the EUR 354 million, you have a lot of different effects. Some, let's say non-recurrent or extra expenses. For example, in the past, we used to have the COVID-19 cost that were recorded there. Of course, in 2022, this amount has dropped, so it has contributed positively to the effect. The other, the main effect is coming from the variable pay provision that we are recording at the end of the year, which is based on the performance of the current year. As you have noticed, in 2022, we have reached our target related to segment operating income, but not to the free cash flow.
Therefore, the variable pay for all employees, as is lower than it was in 2021. Regarding the change in net debt in the EUR 471 million, you have the new lease. It's a mechanical effect that you have every year. The reimbursement of the lease, in fact, in the EBITDA, the new lease, according to the IFRS standards, is recording in the net debt change. You have also the share buyback effect for EUR 120 million. You have also the debt from the company that we acquired. In the M&A, you have purely disposal and acquisitions, which was EUR 76 million, if I remember well.
When you acquire company, you also acquire some debt, and it's in this amount. The last question regarding free cash flow reversal, I'm sorry, I did not retain the.
That's very simple, Yves. How much is working cap reversal, the positive inflow you expect from working cap reversal in 2022? How much is baked in that EUR 1.6 billion? How much is that represent?
It's mostly the EUR 300 million that we comment that impacted negatively versus our guidance, the free cash flow of 2022 in the last quarter.
EUR 300 million.
earlier.
Okay. Thank you.
Very good. Thank you very much, Stifel, for your last question. Thank you all for your interest in Michelin. We will see you very soon, and at least in July. Thank you.
We have the capital market day.
Sorry. Yeah, you're right. Sorry. We have a capital market day in March.
On the 13th of March.
It's 13th of March. We expect a lot of you to be with us. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Bye-bye.