Good morning, everybody. This is Martin Möllmann of adesso IR speaking. First of all, I'd like to thank you for joining our Q2 and Half Year One Earnings Call regarding our half year report we have published today. Within our release this morning, you read that adesso continued its rapid organic growth with a 12% increase in sales to EUR 709.5 million. This is particularly remarkable in a difficult macroeconomic environment such as the current one. Operating profit improved even more strongly, rising by 34% to EUR 37.2 million. After a solid second quarter, adesso sees its original forecast assumptions confirmed and is well on track to achieve its full year forecast. This represents another step back towards better profitability.
I'd now like to welcome as well our CFO, Michael Knopp, who will give us a deeper insight into the figures of the first half of the year and the outlook for the remainder of the current year. As always, I'd like you to mute yourself during the presentation. Feel free to open up the channels for the Q&A session afterwards. Participants on phones may want to mute or unmute their microphones via their star key, followed by the number 6 of their phones. Thank you so far. Michael, please go ahead.
Thank you, Martin Möllmann. Good morning also from my side. Yeah, today we have published our figures, in the next few minutes, I will guide you through the major results. Let's start as always with our revenues. Revenues have grown by 12% to EUR 709 million. That's a very nice increase. Actually, if we look at Q1, we have seen revenues of EUR 353 million, which was an increase of 11%. In Q2, growth has slightly accelerated. We have seen revenues of EUR 356 million, which is growth of 13%. Total for the half year is 12%.
If we look at Q2 is always a pretty challenging quarter for us because there we have all the holidays, Easter break, and also the whole Easter break was this year in Q2. We have all the bank holidays, bridge days. Despite that, we were able to grow our revenues by 13%. Compared to last year, there was also 1 working day less. We are pretty satisfied with this growth. If we look at our environment, I mean, there has not much changed since the beginning of the year. The beginning of the year, we were pretty optimistic that maybe economy will turn around. We will slight growth of our gross domestic product.
Now it turned out, it will be for sure the third year in a recession. In this difficult environment, we have achieved a growth of 12%, so we are pretty happy with that. If we look at the market, if we look at our peers, it shows as well this is a very exceptional result. If we look at our headcount growth of the average FTE, first half last year with first half this year, we have seen a growth of 6%. This is a reduced growth rate compared to prior years. This was our decision last year to slow our growth of the, of the headcount a little bit down to improve our margins.
Therefore, also this figure is actually within our plans and expectations. If we look at our headcount at the end of June, it was 10,794 FTEs. Compared to June last year, that's a growth of 693, and almost half of this growth was achieved abroad, especially in those countries where we increase our shoring capabilities. At the moment, almost 10,800 employees, 2,200 are abroad, and 8,600 are in Germany. Let's have a look at our sales split, and as always, we start with sales by industry. If we look at our different industries, almost all of them were able to increase revenues, some of them quite significantly.
The only industry where we see slight decrease is automotive. That's not really surprising. I mean, the market for these companies, for our customers is pretty challenging, and therefore, they are a little bit reluctant to award new orders. However, 7% is still okay, and it's one of our smaller sectors so it does not have a tremendous impact on the overall figure. Insurance, pretty strong growth, 17%. If you look at last year's Q2, it was comparatively weak quarter for insurance. This is this accelerated growth rate for insurance is mainly due to that. The growth was also supported by some license sales for our in|sure product line. Banking, growth of 6%. Health continues strong growth of 27%.
Already last year we have seen strong growth. This growth continues. It's mainly our bread and butter business. We were also able to win a strategic customer for the statutory health insurance in Germany. A strategic win which does not have an impact on these figures but will have a nice impact in the future. Public growth rate 9%. It's our most important sector. In the first three months it was 11%, it has a little bit slowed down. Actually, what we see is that orders and new budgets are still pushed out.
Originally we thought that after the German election in Q1, there will be a slight delay with awarding new orders, but then it would pick up at the end of Q2, beginning of Q3. Obviously, that's not the case. It takes a little bit longer. We are pretty optimistic that we will see increased activity and for this industry in Q3, Q4. By the way, 9% is still a nice growth rate. Manufacturing increase of 7%. Retail, 2%. Utilities continues to see strong growth rates, 22%, mainly driven by our SAP business. We have a very strong market position in the SAP area for utilities. Overall, I want to highlight that this is a very diversified portfolio, a very diversified customer structure.
If you look at the first 10, top 10 customers in the first half of the year, they have generated slightly more than 20% of our revenues, and the most important customer in the first half of the year has generated 3.3% of our revenues. It's highly diversified. If you also look at the sectors, there's no sector which contributes more than 20%. This is very good positioning, not being dependent on one sector or one technology. If we look at our sales split, actually on the first view it's maybe boring because Germany always has this 84%, 83%. If you look a little bit more in detail into it's pretty interesting.
I mean Germany, growing by 14%, even more than what we have seen for the whole group, where we have seen sales growth of 12%. If you look at the DACH region, Switzerland, Austria and Germany, they contribute 96% to our revenues. On the first view, the only disappointing thing is, if you look at the sales growth of our foreign activities, because that's only 6% to EUR 114 million. If you look a little bit more in detail into this, it's a different story because 50% of our foreign revenues are contributed by Switzerland, and Switzerland is showing a decrease by 7%.
If you exclude Switzerland from our foreign activities, they are showing a sales growth of 25%. That's a totally different story. It's exactly what we would like to see. Switzerland is a challenging environment, a little bit comparable to Germany. Our economy is also a little bit sluggish at the moment because of the currency exchange rates. We have won some very nice orders in the first half of the year, we're not able to generate revenues to at least keep the level of revenues. If you look at Austria, Netherlands, Italy and Turkey, all of these countries show very nice growth rates. Let's have a look at our EBITDA. EBITDA increased to EUR 37.2 million.
That's an increase of 34%. If you look a little bit at the split of the two quarters, first quarter was EUR 17.8 million. Second quarter now is EUR 19.3 million. It's even higher than what we have seen in the first quarter. This is a very nice result, especially as pointed out, where there was one working day less than compared to last year. Last year, Q2 only contributed EUR 9.9 million compared with EUR 19.3 million for this quarter. It's a very nice improvement. Why did we improve it that much? Key driver, improved billable capacity utilization. That's what we have already seen in the first quarter this year. It continued in the second quarter.
We have seen slight recovery of our product business. At the beginning of the year, we forecasted that we will see a turnaround of this business and that figures will improve step by step. That's happening now. It was supported by the sale of some licenses. Last year, license revenues for the first half of the year came in with EUR 1.5 million, this year with EUR 4.4 million, and a difference of EUR 3 million. These are licenses for our in|sure products. Last year, actually we got an additional contribution of EUR 2.6 million by the reversal of an accrual from warranty provisions. This was a result of a tax audit.
Despite this favorable input impact on the figures, this year we were able to achieve this very nice growth compared to last year. Also, I would like to highlight, material costs increased because one reason of that is we have reduced our hiring activities. The other reason is we are working. There is an increased collaboration with external partners and consortiums as we have an increased number of projects which are growing bigger, where you don't do the work just at adesso. You always have partners then involved. Let's have a look at the some other key figures. As we have improved our EBITDA margin improved as well. It is 5.2%.
Q2, it was 5.4% compared to 5.1% in Q1. It's a nice improvement, especially also compared to last year, where we have seen 4.4%. It's still far away from figures we have seen in the past. You see on the left side of this, of the screen, 9.3%, 11.8%. There's still some way to go, but the important message is we are making progress on that. Sales growth 12%. Gross profit, personnel costs grew by 10%, that's more or less in line with the sales growth. Other operating expenses, there we have only a growth rate of 4%.
Main drivers there for this increase are increased hiring expenses and more travel expenses, partially offset by less consultancy and legal fees. What are the main profit drivers? As already pointed out, key is an increased billable utilization. We were able to increase our daily rates. As mentioned in our last call, we have started an initiative last year in Q4 to work with several product project teams on our daily rates, going through the customer contracts, talking with the customers. This has shown some results, and the improvement was at least able to cover the increase in personal costs per employee as we have the normal salary increases.
We have seen some slight improvement in license and maintenance sales. As pointed out, we sold some in|sure licenses. Let's have a look at some other key figures of our P&L. EBITDA improved to EUR 37.2 million. Depreciation also increased a little bit. This is due to the increased number of right-of-use assets, which is the lease contracts for our buildings and our company cars. Depreciation from purchase price allocation stays almost the same. Financial result, the interest we pay, a slight decrease. Income taxes is slightly higher. At the end, we can we have consolidated earnings after tax of - EUR 6 million compared to - EUR 9.9 million last year.
Earnings per share improved to - EUR 0.88 compared to - EUR 1.51 last year. It's still not nice because actually we also want to see in Q1 and Q2 positive earnings per share, but it's at least a significant improvement compared to last year. Let's have a look at some items on our balance sheet. Cash decreased slightly to EUR 44.9 million. Financial debt increased by EUR 20 million. Net debt increased by EUR 27.6 million. Actually, this increase is due to the increase of our shareholdings of two subsidiaries. We increased our shareholding in KIWI from 70% to 100% and by adesso business consulting AG from 71% to 100%.
This cost a cash out of EUR 27 million. In addition, we have done a share buyback in the Q4 and Q1, Q4 last year, Q1 this year, in total EUR 10 million. If we look at these two items, it's a cash out of EUR 37 million in total. This explains the increase of net debt by EUR 27 million. Operating cash flow, it's negative. It's not surprising. It's always in the first half of the year. It's also caused by the increased revenue, which also caused a higher net working capital, which increased a little bit less than our revenues. However, the structure of our net working capital is a little bit more favorable than what we have seen last year.
If we look at customer and receivables, they increased by 19%. If we look at contract asset, which means days which we were not able to invoice to our customers, also related to fixed price projects. This figure only increased by 7%. Therefore the chance to get cash in earlier is significantly higher than last year. Goodwill, more or less unchanged. Equity less than last year, EUR 10 million reduced. This is due to the share buyback, which we have done in Q4 and Q1. That's the main contributor there. Equity ratio also reduced a little bit.
This should come in higher in the second half of the year as then we will see positive after-tax earnings, which will increase also our equity ratio. Operating cash flow, - EUR 44 million. We have seen done some CapEx. We also consider lease repayments due to the interpretation of the IFRS foundation as CapEx, that's related to IFRS 16. If we take those two items, free cash flow was - EUR 81 million. Yeah, let's have a look at our guidance. I mean, most items already were there. Most reasons for our guidance already there at the beginning of the year. We still see an increasing demand for IT services despite the challenging environment, especially in Germany.
As Germany contributes 84% of our revenues, that's important that the economy in Germany is favorable to us. Despite that, we were able to grow, and that's what we also have guided. We have also expected to improve our margins due to a higher utilization. That's still the case. Also, that the expected turnaround of our solutions business will happen. Yes, figures have improved. We also have seen some license sales. There's still some way to go, some more way to go, but we are on a good way. For the second half of the year, it's important to mention that we have seven working days more compared to the first half of the year. This will really help to achieve our guidance.
It's delayed, yes, we still believe that IT spending in the public sector will pick up in the second half of the year. If we look at our guidance, EUR 710 million in revenues, it's between 49% and 53% of our guidance. We have guided to achieve revenues of EUR 1.35 billion-EUR 1.45 billion, which is an increase compared to last year between 4% and 12%. As we have already achieved around 50%, we are on a very good way to achieve that, especially if we consider that we have seven working days more in the second half of the year. EBITDA, it's a little bit. You need some more thoughts to come to our guidance.
We have 37 million EUR in EBITDA in the first half of the year. That's significantly better what we have seen last year. It's still only between 30% and 35% of our guidance. If we look at the calendar, the seven additional working days and all the other assumptions, also we look at the ratios which we have seen last year and the year before that, this should be a very good starting point to achieve our guidance, which is EUR 105 million to EUR 125 million , which it would be a nice improvement to our last year's EBITDA of EUR 98 million. Last but not least, the margin. Last year, we have seen an EBITDA margin of 7.6%.
We have the goal to increase that, above the 8% threshold. In the first half of the year, there's already an increase of 4.8%. Also this seems to be a reasonable goal, therefore, we are pretty optimistic that we also achieve an EBITDA margin, which is above the 8% level. Yeah. Thank you for your attention. Now I think I hand over to Martin.
Yes. Thank you, Michael, for these helpful explanations. We're now heading for our Q&A session. The first one waiting in line is Mr. Wolf.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations on a strong Q2. My first question is regarding the insurance license deals. Have any of the transactions anticipated for the second half already been recognized in the second quarter, or does the H2 pipeline remain intact and therefore offer additional potential in H2? That's my first question. The second is regarding the increase in purchase services, which grew more strongly than revenues. What drove the decision to rely on external staff rather than making permanent hires? Does this approach reflect the strategy to main-
Flexible in the current economic environment. The third is on the daily rates. If I look at the daily rates that I calculated with publicly available data, then it has improved to roughly EUR 570 per day per employee per chargeable day. Yeah, per day was de facto double here, per chargeable day, so EUR 570, that's an increase by 9% year-on-year. Where might this daily rate go during the course of the year and maybe next year? Thank you.
Okay. Let's start with the license deals and the question regarding that. We are pretty happy that we have seen some license sales already in Q2. Originally we stated that license sale will be expected for the second half of the year. We still expect license sales in the second half of the year. We have some deals in the pipeline. There's especially one which could be able bring in a higher number than what we have seen in Q2 this year. There's no reason and no change in the statement that we will see license sales, that we have a high chance to see license sales still also in the second half of the year.
If we look at purchase services, there are two components. I mean, first of all, we have reduced a little bit our hiring momentum. Also, increased relying on external staff. We already changed this a little bit by increasing our hiring efforts again. On the other hand, please keep in mind, even if you want to staff it with own people, sometimes you only find external staff which have the right capabilities. The second point is that we are a company, the company is growing, and the projects we are doing are growing, and they're quite often are projects which we cannot do alone.
Where we enter into a consortium, sometimes we are the general contractor, then we pass through the revenues of our partners via our P&L, which also causes higher material costs. This is also a reason for increased purchase services. I mean, to the third question, we don't comment on the daily rate, it is a little bit more complex as different countries, different customers, different daily rates. We have also included nearshoring now, which also all has an impact on our daily rates. However, let's say it in these words, daily rates have at least increased in the way in the same way how our personnel expenses have increased.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have another question, from one person who signed up as adesso. Please go ahead.
Hello. Not sure, with which name I signed in, but can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah. Wolfgang Specht for Bernberg. Good morning. Three additional ones from my end. First, on your order book and pitching activity, have there been lots already coming from the, let's say, new government digitalization funds, or are we still talking about, let's say, past lots coming to the market, what you're currently doing? On the nearshoring side, to what extent are nearshoring capacities already contributing to your sales line, and what are your plans for the remainder of the year? The third question would be, on the utilization. Can you, in former times, you sometimes gave us some percentage figures here or at least the change to year-on-year or to the prior quarter.
Can you give some more meat to the bone here? Thanks a lot.
Okay. Coming to the first question, so far, we don't see any significant activity related to the additional budgets for infrastructure, armed forces or other budgets from the government. We believe that we will see a more significant impact starting at the beginning of next year. As far as what I've read from our peers, it seems that this is in general the expectation because at the moment we are all a little bit disappointing as it seems that everything takes a little bit longer. The second cross question was regarding nearshoring.
I mean, at the moment, we are building our nearshoring capabilities, especially at ramping up our Indian workforce at the moment. I mean, these people, these colleagues are already part of our project, so they are generating revenue. However, ramping up, increasing the staff, building the infrastructure, this is an investment and if you ask, are they contributing also EBITDA, not at that level at this point in time, because that's kind of an investment at the moment. We need to grow that. We are on our way to have around about 200 people, for example, in India.
At the moment we are pretty happy with the development, but it takes some time. If we look at the utilization, first half last year, utilization was pretty weak, especially in Q1. Q2 or, also last year we have seen already some improvement. This year, Q1 was much stronger than Q1 last year due to the weak starting point. Q2 utilization was higher than Q2 last year. Q3, at least what we see for, at the moment, what we see, July and our forecast, we expect that utilization might be slightly higher than what we have seen last year.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Are there any more questions at this point in time? Just a small reminder, participants on phones may want to unmute their microphones via the star key, followed by the six of their phones. No more questions? I'm waiting a little bit. No, it doesn't seem to be the case that there are no more questions. Thank you very much for your interest in our call today and your participations. I wish you all the best and hope to see you soon in person, maybe on one of the September conferences, adesso is attending. Thank you. For now, goodbye.
Thank you.