I'm Martin Link. Most of you will know me. Next to me is Dr. Olemotz. We will present the figures for the financial year 2023, then the outlook 2024. A brief word on the proceedings. First of all, we are going to answer the questions here in the room. So if you have a question, please raise your hand. You get a microphone so that everyone following us via the phone can hear you. Once we've answered these questions, we'll take the English questions from the English conference call, and at the very end, the question from the German conference call. Right. Without further ado, Dr. Olemotz, the floor is yours.
Vielen Dank, Herr Link.
Thank you, Mr. Link. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this year's analyst conference on the 2023 financial year of Bechtle AG. I'm very happy to see that there is such great interest in our company. Let me begin my remarks today with a term that is related to IT in the broadest sense. I have already talked to some of you in the run-up to this meeting about it. So let me ask you, are you familiar with the term doomscrolling? It's a relatively new term which denotes the massive consumption of mainly negative news on the internet, which subsequently leads to an exaggerated bias in the processing of information, which in turn has a detrimental effect on the attitude of people.
I think that this is a phenomenon that most of us, unfortunately, know all too well, and the temptation to succumb to this effect is certainly particularly great in the current times. We would like to try to actively counter this effect with our analyst conference today because, after all, Bechtle has mastered the crisis year 2023 well overall, and we are also generally optimistic for our 2024 financial year. As usual, the content of today's presentation is divided into four main parts. As usual, we start with the key financial ratios for the 2023 financial year, followed by a look at the share price performance and the planned payout to our shareholders.
Major strategic events beyond the figures will then round off this part of my short presentation before we then take or dare to take an outlook on our financial performance goals in the current year 2024. But first of all, business performance and trends. As I've said, we are satisfied with the Bechtle Group's overall performance in the 2023 financial year. Two points in particular are positive, and I would like to highlight them at this point. First of all, throughout the year, we saw high and stable demand from public sector clients, especially in the Federal Government subsegment, it's what we call Bund internally, and our major customers. And secondly, our services business developed very well. Digitalization projects for the transformation of IT architectures in particular were in demand across all customer groups. Digitalization and cloud computing continued to be key drivers in the IT sector.
Nevertheless, we are not closing our eyes to the fact that the developments in e-commerce have been disappointing. Throughout the year, we felt a certain reluctance to buy on the part of many of our customers, particularly with regard to projects to replace existing client infrastructures. Overall, however, we're once again satisfied, as you can see looking at the top-line trends, that is, business volume and revenues. In terms of business volume, that is, gross sales before application of IFRS 15, we grew significantly by 7%. At 6.5%, sales growth is within striking distance. We can see from the slightly lower growth that the software business is developing very successfully and once again at an above-average rate. This is a good sign, as software is a driver of technological development, particularly in the area of digitalization and investments in networks.
Regardless of whether we look at revenues or business volume, one thing is clear from these figures. It was another successful financial year for Bechtle, which cannot be overestimated in view of the challenging conditions with plenty of headwind. Once again, we have outgrown the IT market significantly, and once again, we have shown ourselves to be resilient in the face of rather difficult macroeconomic developments. Looking at the quarterly development, we see a clear trend emerging. In the first half of the year, we still benefited greatly from the reduction of the high order backlog from the previous reporting periods. In the second half of the year, the aforementioned reluctance to invest has also had a greater impact on us, which is why growth rates declined. In terms of business volume, growth was 12.4% in the first half of the year and 2.5% in the second.
However, we were able to increase our orders intake again in the second half of the year, which is why we do not believe that this trend will continue in this form, not in the way we saw in the past year. Incidentally, the upturn in Q4 is an arithmetical effect in connection with IFRS 15 again. We experienced a particularly strong software business in the fourth quarter of 2022, an effect that did not repeat itself in the year under review, which is why we had to deduct less software sales when reconciling business volume and revenues. Let's now take a look at revenue trends in our segments and regions. From a regional perspective, the picture is relatively balanced. Despite the difficult situation in many European economies, it is primarily thanks to our service business that we were able to grow in most countries.
This is proof that we are on the right track with the internationalization of Bechtle and our more European M&A strategy, whose consistent implementation leads to a more balanced, balanced and robust growth. Looking at the operating reporting segments, we also clearly recognize the trend I have mentioned: strong demand for services on the one hand, reluctance to invest in hardware on the other hand. In our e-commerce segment in particular, we are serving a larger proportion of traditional SME customers. In this respect, their reluctance to buy has had an especially negative impact on our traditional client business. Incidentally, the adjusted previous year's figures are connected to change in the segment allocation of our international acquisitions in 2022. This, ladies and gentlemen, brings us to the earnings trend. The development of EBIT in 2023 was very positive overall, with an increase of 7.6%.
EBIT in the IT System House and Managed Services segment increased significantly by 14.4% in the year under review. The margin rose slightly from the previous year's already high level to 6.1%. As already mentioned, the segment benefited from a higher proportion of complex digitalization projects for the cloud transformation of IT architectures, among other things. EBIT declined in the IT E-commerce segment, however, but earnings fell slightly less than revenues, meaning that we were able to keep the margin stable at 5.7%. Overall, the EBIT margin is 6% and thus even slightly above the high figure of the previous year. We have clearly succeeded in coping well with the increased cost pressure. Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude today's report on our KPIs, we now take a look at our operating cash flow. And this, I dare say, is my favorite number this year.
Cash flow from operating activities reached an outstanding level of EUR 459 million in the year under review. It thus almost quadrupled year-over-year and reached a new high. This became possible because we saw significant improvements in accounts receivables in particular. The measures taken to optimize receivables management are beginning to show their positive effects. In 2023, we were also able to gradually reduce the inventories built up in previous years due to the problems in the supply chains, an effect which further enhanced the positive development of tied-up capital and thus cash flow. Free cash flow too was a very comfortable EUR 151.2 million despite high payments for our acquisitions. With that, ladies and gentlemen, let us turn to our headcount, headcount development. As of the 31st of December 2023, Bechtle had a total of 15,159 employees.
This is 1,113 people or almost 8% more than in the previous year. Acquisitions brought 554 new colleagues to Bechtle, accounting for almost 50% of the total increase. In purely organic terms, employee growth was therefore 4%. One thing remains true for us. This restrained growth is a conscious entrepreneurial decision not to overspend on personnel costs in times of major economic challenges and increased inflation. For the time being, this fundamental decision will not change in the current financial year. However, this does not affect our commitment to training. At the end of the year, 845 young people were trainees at Bechtle. The trainee ratio in Germany has therefore risen to almost 7%. Let us now turn to what I deem to be a very gratifying development of our share price. Despite the high level of overall uncertainty, the stock market developed positively in 2023.
All leading German indices showed positive results at the end of the year. There was, however, one indicator that reflected the general uncertainty also on the stock market. There was a trend to invest in large caps rather than small or mid-caps. But I guess you're all too familiar with that. Let us now take a closer look at the development of our own share. In the year under review, our share price was up by 37.3%, a very positive development indeed. Throughout the year, we have clearly outperformed all indices. This positive trend has also continued in the current year. With an increase of 46% since the end of 2022, our shareholders can indeed be more than satisfied. With our outperformance clearly shows that we continue to be well-positioned on the capital market.
This was underpinned once again by the successful placement of our convertible bond in late November. The order book was several times oversigned. Reliability, solidity, and resilience, and financial strength are highly appreciated in uncertain times. This holds also true for publicly listed companies. That takes us to another aspect of great relevance for our shareholders: the proposed dividend for 2023. As you have seen in our press release this morning, the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board proposed to the AGM to pay a dividend of EUR 0.70 per share, which amounts to a dividend increase of 7.7%. This is not only the 14th consecutive increase running. With this figure, we even exceed the growth of earnings after tax. The shareholders thus get an overproportionate share in the company's success. The dividend increase also reflects our confidence vis-à-vis the further development of Bechtle AG.
We are convinced of the positive development in the future. The payout ratio is 33.2%, again slightly above the previous year's 32.6%. We thus consistently continue with our longstanding dividend policy, and it is our clear aim to pay out roughly one-third of our earnings after tax to our shareholders. Let us proceed to some additional news, ladies and gentlemen, news beyond the figures, which, however, are highly relevant for our company one way or another, and also for the future of our company. These current news cover four important areas for us. First, our M&A activities in the context of our internationalization strategy. Second, changes in the Executive Board. Third, gaining importance by the day, our successful activities in the field of sustainability. And fourth, not to be forgotten, our positioning in the future-relevant topic of artificial intelligence. But one thing at a time.
Let us begin with our latest acquisition. With idOO Tech, Bechtle acquires a certified reseller of Apple products in B2B segment in Spain. With this acquisition, we want to further expand our strategic activities with Apple in this attractive IT market. Already today, we are a strong European partner of reseller of Apple in the B2B segment. In addition to its headquarters in Zaragoza, the company has also offices in Madrid and Barcelona. Admittedly, the company is relatively small. iDoo has only 13 employees, and business volume in 2023 was just EUR 6.4 million. But they achieved this two and a half years after the company was founded. We expect very interesting and ambitious further steps and a tangible impact on our existing Apple business in Spain. And as we usually like to see it, in this case too, the managing director continues in the same function.
Let us now look at new appointments that are particularly relevant for Bechtle's future. Changes in the executive board, and most of you know this, were, thank God, unheard of in past years. In fact, the board team had been successfully working since 2009, i.e., for 14 years without any changes. This consistency and reliability characterized us for many, many years. Now, however, we have two new people in our team. Already last year, we had announced that Konstantin Ebert would follow Jürgen Schäfer, taking on responsibility for the IT E-commerce segment as of January 1st, 2024. And by the way, at the same time, he remains responsible for our operative internationalization. And in the current year, we have been able to take Antje Leminsky on board, a new colleague responsible for logistics, supply chain, and partner management, financial services, and sustainability management.
Bechtle will thus be managed by four people. In my view, a very balanced mix of longstanding experience and a fresh point of view regarding the company and the industry. We've been very successful in the field of sustainability. We've been intensely focusing on this topic for many years. At the current rating of EcoVadis, Bechtle has been awarded EcoVadis Gold status for its sustainability efforts for the first time. Bechtle had undergone annual assessment by EcoVadis in 2016 and had been continually improving its score. We are now among the top 2% of IT companies assessed. We saw the greatest improvements, by the way, in the area of sustainable procurement. Here, Bechtle is in the top 1% of all IT companies ranked by EcoVadis. Let us now glance at the future-relevant topic, artificial intelligence, and our pioneering positioning in this field.
Already last year, we announced our investment in Planet AI. Planet AI has been well-established in the market for many, many years and offers successful solutions for intelligent document analysis and document capture. It was a deliberate decision to position us early on in the field of AI application. Our second step goes in the same direction. At Heilbronn, right at our doorsteps, over the next years, the biggest European ecosystem for AI application is being developed, IPAI, Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence. Bechtle is part of IPAI and partakes actively in the pioneering developments for the IT market. The third step in this field is a fairly recent one. We've purchased 5,000 Microsoft Copilot licenses, thus rolling out AI applications within our own organization. We want to increase productivity and efficiency, but we also want to send a strong signal to our customers.
There's hardly a more convincing sales argument than using something successfully ourselves. Ladies and gentlemen, let us now look at the outlook for 2024. Well, the overall conditions for a successful business year were better. That much is true. We shouldn't expect too much tailwind in the first six months of the year. But as I've said at the beginning, the situation is not as bleak as some news might want us to believe. The IT market, in particular, is and continues to be a future-oriented market. The majority of our customers know that they continuously have to invest in their IT infrastructure. Projects might be postponed but not completely given up. And that is so because the overall trends of our industry remain valid. Digitization drives our customers. Security is high on the agenda, but also topics such as edge computing, overall cloudification stimulate our business in the future.
Last but definitely not least, artificial intelligence. That means, despite the unchanged, challenging economic situation, we at Bechtle basically remain optimistic. The majority of economic experts expect an improvement at the back end of the year. We at Bechtle can benefit particularly well from such development due to the cyclical nature of our own business. As mentioned before, the overall trends in the IT sector remain valid. Independent from the overall economic situation, there are clear growth areas. That is why our clear forecast for 2024 is, once again, we want to significantly increase both business volume and revenue as well as our earnings before tax. EBT margin is to be around the previous year's level. So much, ladies and gentlemen, as regards to the development in 2023 and the outlook for 2024. Thank you very much for your attention.
I'm now looking forward to possible questions you might have.