Everyone, and welcome to our Q1 results presentation. On today's call are Karsten Wildberger, our CEO, and Kai-Ulrich Deissner, our CFO. Before we start, let me remind you that the presentation slides can be accessed through our website. During today's call, we will be making certain forward-looking statements, so please refer to the disclaimer for more information. Let me now hand over to Karsten.
Thank you very much, Fabienne, and good morning, and welcome everyone to today's call. Together with our CFO, Kai Deissner , I would like to update you today on our Q1 results. We'll highlight the progress we've made in executing our strategy and provide you with an updated outlook. Let's first dive into some very good news, highlighted on slide three. Our important first quarter of this financial year has seen a very strong performance, and this extends our consistent growth over the last 12 months. For the past four quarters, we have delivered very solid results, a steady pattern that's also mirrored in our strong start to the first quarter. Despite facing a very challenging retail environment, we have managed to stand out through our strategic focus and successful execution. We are not just following market trends, we're actively shaping our own business outcome.
We are gaining momentum in implementing our strategy and are moving forward with realistic optimism and confidence. Our Q1 results confirm our positive outlook for the financial year and give substance to our vision of renewing our future. In these market conditions, we as a group, managed to increase our sales in the first quarter by 3.7% to EUR 7 billion. We gained market share in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Italy, and Turkey, and as a group, our market share was stable based on GfK data. In terms of profitability, we continue to improve, as evidenced by an adjusted EBIT of EUR 248 million, a growth of 7.8% compared to the previous year.
Our improved gross margin is contributing to this increased profitability, and the gross margin grew by 50 basis points, a topic that Kai will discuss in a moment. We remain firmly focused on our financial targets. I'm pleased to announce a key milestone, our net promoter score, NPS, has risen to the highest value of 56 so far, and it underscores our successful focus on strengthening customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Ladies and gentlemen, given this very strong Q1 performance, we confirm our outlook for 2023-2024. That means we expect a slight increase in currency and portfolio-adjusted total sales, and we expect another clear improvement in adjusted EBIT. So let's please turn to slide number four. We've been working on different levers to deliver these strong results.
Our performance was underpinned by a robust brick-and-mortar business, where we saw a positive 3.7% year-on-year increase in sales. We've also grown online sales in Q1 that were up 3.9% year-on-year. In addition, our in-house share grew to 26.4%, an increase of 60 basis points over last year. This growth highlights our goal to bolster our digital presence and enhance our competitive position in the online market. We made significant progress also in our growth businesses, as detailed in our strategy and regularly updated during each earnings call. These growth businesses include our marketplace, our services business, Service & Solutions business, and retail media. With our marketplace, we offer our customers to remind everyone, an attractive, extended, and fast-growing product range online.
For us, it is another source of income from reseller commissions. The marketplace is a very profitable and lean business and does not carry stock risk. Currently, the marketplace is live in Germany, Austria, and Spain, where we achieved a 125% increase in gross merchandise value in the first quarter. The marketplace offering for our customers is growing. By the end of December 2023, we had 1,300 resellers joined our platform, offering 1.7 million products. The rollout in the Netherlands is planned for March, and Italy is following soon after. Our Services & Solutions business is on a steady growth trajectory. We increased services and solutions income by roughly 4% in the first quarter. Looking at our countries, we saw a strong Q1 performance in Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, and Turkey.
Additionally, as you might recall, our operations in Spain and Italy faced challenges last year due to tough market conditions. However, I'm pleased to report that our dedicated efforts in Spain and Italy are paying off, demonstrated by the positive trends and profitability we're seeing. Turning to our financial performance, we've once again enhanced our gross margin this quarter, achieving a 50 basis point increase. A significant factor behind this improvement was our enhanced product margin, and this underscores our very good execution and management throughout the peak season. Our EPS was strong as well and increased by 16% year-on-year to €0.30. Last but not least, we successfully generated a free cash flow of EUR 1.5 billion and increased our liquidity to well above EUR 2 billion.
So in conclusion, our unified dedication to implement our strategy has laid the foundation for growth in our key strategic business areas. On slide five, I'm very happy to report that this year's peak season was very successful for us, highlighted by particularly strong sales in November and December. Let's examine a little bit the categories contributing to these strong results. The gaming category, for example, saw a significant 56% increase in sales, from consoles to accessories, which was supported by the release of new games. In the mobile segment, we generated a 13% rise in sales over the previous year, with premium products being particularly popular as customers also took advantage of our trade-in offers. Floor care products continue to perform very well, and we've experienced a growing demand for energy-efficient washers and dryers.
Overall, we are observing emerging trends, such as the growing interest in augmented and virtual reality goggles for gaming and advanced mobile technology, indicating an increasing consumer interest in innovative as well as sustainable products. This trend was also clearly visible at CES in Vegas last month, the world's largest consumer electronics show. Once again, CES was the showcase for a wide range of innovative products. What were the trends? Well, it was from the latest in flexible display technology to autonomous vehicles, to smart home appliances that leverage artificial intelligence for greater energy efficiency and convenience, and these innovations are driving change. What does this mean for us? Where can actually consumers find these cutting-edge devices? Exactly, in our MediaMarkt, MediaWorld, or Saturn stores.
Our role as a trusted advisor is to guide our customers through the rapidly evolving market, helping them find the right product for their needs. On Slide six, as Europe's leading consumer electronics retailer, we take our responsibility seriously. Sustainability is the key to future competitiveness, and the winners will be those companies that make sustainability part of the business, integrated into their strategy and benefit financially from it. Our energy-efficient product line, BetterWay, has seen a significant increase in market demand, with sales up 14% and now representing 12.1% of our total sales, a remarkable increase of 200 basis points. Demand for energy-efficient appliances continues to rise, as illustrated by the very strong growth in sales of our A-rated washing machines and dishwashers in the first quarter.
In addition, our customers are increasingly turning to refurbished and trade-in products, recognizing both the environmental and financial benefits this provides. This shift in consumer behavior is a big opportunity for us. As you can see on the next slide, we continue to make progress on our 9 KPIs that we communicated at the Capital Markets Day and on which we update you regularly. I won't go into detail on all of them, but I would like to highlight that we have seen good growth rates in loyalty members, and we are also well on target with the modernization of our stores, including our lighthouse openings. We are pleased to report strong growth momentum in our marketplace, which grew 125% in Q1 year-on-year to EUR 81 million in gross merchandise value.
Retail media is exceeding expectations as we grow our offerings, such as sponsored brand ads, and extend retail media products to our marketplace sellers. Now I'd like to turn your attention to our focus areas that we highlighted also on our Q4 call: service and solutions, online, and private label. For services and solutions, the upcoming official launch of myMediaMarkt Plus , my Saturn Plus in Germany, our subscription model for repairs, is planned for the second quarter in Germany after successfully completing our pilot phase. In our online segment, we are continuing our efforts to grow organic traffic and enhance our online experience for our customers. We were able to successfully grow our online business versus last year. In private label, we have generated encouraging sales growth in seven countries, but more to do.
We are fully dedicated to these three areas, and they are crucial, a crucial part of our strategy. Let's turn to slide eight and a slightly different topic, but important. Everyone is talking about AI, and at MediaMarktSaturn, we spent the last few months working very hard on the use and integration of promising generative AI solutions into our business framework. About a year ago, we launched a dedicated initiative to grasp the potential of this technology to benefit both our workforce and our customers. We collaborated with top-tier industry partners, and we have crafted relevant and scalable Gen AI solutions that quickly transition from early-stage prototypes to practical operational tools. Central to our approach with Gen AI is the conviction that human-AI collaboration holds immense potential, and we view this technology as a powerful tool in augmenting our employees' capabilities.
So more specifically, we've established a Gen AI framework utilizing various large language models, ranging from ChatGPT, Llama, Meta's Llama, to Stable Diffusion. We've selected seven use cases for initial deployment from over 100 ideas proposed by our staff, and this is the start of our journey. So we've rolled out resources like our so-called Gen AI sandbox and a select library, creating a secure and creative space for our employees to delve into and apply Gen AI within their daily tasks. Of course, we are vigilant about adhering to AI safety standards and EU regulations. And for our customers, Gen AI has the potential to transform and tailor the shopping experience through initiatives like care chat and voice bots, and we offer there instant round-the-clock support.
And with new features like instant translations in contact centers, interactive guides, and sales help, we aim to make our processes smoother, more efficient, reduce errors, and most importantly, make our customers happier, happier and more loyal. So I'm optimistic about MediaMarktSaturn embracing a leadership role in utilizing this technology in the retail sector, ensuring our initiatives are both impactful and socially responsible. So before I hand over to Kai, let's turn to slide nine, because I'd like to briefly update you on our brand, which is very important topic, because our brand is strong and vibrant. And I'm very excited to share with you how we've successfully repositioned our brand to focus on what we call Experience Electronics.
In our ambition and drive to strengthen and differentiate our presence in the market, we've adopted a purpose that reflects the unique value we offer, and this is what we call Experience Electronics. This ethos is captured in our compelling new campaign platform, Experience What's Possible. This is the third wave of evolution of our new brand positioning. Our journey began with a clear definition of our brand purpose. We create Experience Electronics to enrich people's lives, and we had a very impactful launch of Let's Go campaign in October 2022. Our marketing is bold and distinct, modern and fresh, and it's hitting the mark of the new zeitgeist. It's also a declaration and statement of our can-do spirit that puts customers at the center of everything we do.
Beginning of this year, we're excited to unveil the next phase of our brand evolution, Experience What's Possible. It's not just a tagline, it's a narrative that weaves together our ambition to deliver exceptional customer experiences. So you will see us talking about all these experience. You will see us showcasing what we do in repairs, how customers can save energy costs. We will talk about trade-in, and you will see this also in a much more colorful, more playful, interactive, more digital way. We will also use our iconic swirl in a new way and liberate it in a creative way. Much more to come, but I thought this is a very important update on the brand I would've wanted to share with you. Now I will hand over to you, Kai, who will give you a deeper insight into our financials.
Thank you very much, Karsten, and, good morning to you all. Let me guide you through the financial details of our first quarter, which Karsten already summarized. Turning to slide 11. As you can see, sales momentum was strong in Q1, with a 3.7% growth year-on-year. Please do keep in mind, this is adjusted for currency, portfolio changes, and it is pre-IAS 29. As Karsten already highlighted, we had a good peak season and successful marketing campaigns. You take it for the whole quarter, we're pleased to see that our sales growth was driven by both brick-and-mortar and online. Per country, we saw good sales development in Benelux, Spain, and Turkey, while Italy remained under pressure.
In the DACH region, all countries except Austria were soft, particularly at the beginning of the quarter, and then this changed towards the end of the quarter. Secondly, group-adjusted EBIT increased by a pretty healthy 8% to EUR 248 million. That's a 30 BPS margin improvement to 3.5%. As Karsten highlighted, this now makes the fourth consecutive quarter of EBIT growth year-over-year. Behind this, again, a better gross margin and continuously strict cost management. So after this good start into the new year, we do remain on track to deliver our guidance. Let me now turn to our operational performance on slide 12. As a quick reminder for the segment structure, before I go into the numbers, we have now bundled all administrative and cross-divisional functions in the Others segment.
You will find the details of this in the appendix of the presentation. Now, as you can see, West and South, as well as East, were the main drivers this quarter. To start with, in DACH, sales declined by 2.9% in Q1. However, as I indicated, momentum was quite different. The soft environment, which we had seen for the back-to-school season, initially continued in October, but then sentiment recovered during the peak season in November and Christmas business in December. In terms of profitability, EBIT in the region declined by EUR 15 million due to the weaker top line, in particular, at the beginning of the quarter. By contrast, in Western and Southern Europe, we recorded a good sales growth of 2.4%. We achieved high single-digit growth in all countries except Italy.
The market there remains challenging, but please do note that we're back in the run and gained market share for the first time since Q3 2021, 2022. We're also pleased to see that our performance in Spain continues to improve, with high single-digit sales growth and continued market share gains. Then profitability. Our adjusted EBIT increased by EUR 29 million. That translates into a margin of 2.7% and an increase of 120 basis points year-over-year. Spain and Italy were the main drivers behind this recovery, and this performance in Italy is all the more impressive given the weak top line. Essentially, we were successful in improving our gross margin in Italy, even while controlling costs. Finally, in Eastern Europe, once again, Turkey continued to be the main driver as demand did remain strong.
Still, we do stay cautious for the remaining part of the year and expect the growth to ease somewhat. We recorded an improvement in adjusted EBIT, not just in Turkey, but also in Poland. Now, turning to service and solutions. Our overall sales and service and solutions, and this here does include retail media, marketplace commissions and fees, as well as deliveries. This service and solutions business increased by 3%. In terms of service categories, warranty extensions and retail media had a strong performance, while demand for Power Service, that's mainly our installation business, was softer in this particular quarter. Our first-party online sales increased by 3.9% after currency and portfolio effects, and now reached EUR 1.8 billion in the quarter. As Karsten highlighted, we are taking further measures to boost our online performance even further this year.
What continues to build very strong momentum is our third-party marketplace. Their sales have again strongly increased with 125% growth. As a whole, our online share thus rose by 60 basis points to 26.4 in the quarter. Coming back to our EBIT development on slide 14, we've again improved our gross margin in the quarter to 17.6%. That represents a 50 basis points increase. The main driver this quarter was clearly the improvement in goods margin, and one of the key reasons was a well-managed product mix. I would highlight especially good sales of large domestic appliances, so what we usually call white goods. Please also note that all regions improved their product margin in the quarter, so we did manage all of our marketing and promotional campaigns in a really disciplined, good way.
Our OPEX ratio slightly increased by 20 basis points to 14.6% of group sales this quarter. As already highlighted in previous quarters, we do feel cost inflation in several areas like personnel, location, energy cost, but we continue to work diligently against these headwinds to mitigate the OPEX increase with very strict cost management. So in this context, let me give you an update on our efficiency programs, especially the main program, which we call Drive, and which targets SG&A efficiency, and at the same time, not just a more efficient, but also a more effective organization. As for the savings, we now have a run rate around EUR 60 million and still expect this run rate to more than double to EUR 130 million from the end of this fiscal year.
For the restructuring cost on the right, we expect around another EUR 30 million this financial year, which then, together with the last financial year, brings us to the EUR 100 million, which we have been quoting for quite some time. In this particular Q1, which is the busiest quarter of the year, we booked nearly no restructuring costs, but really did focus on our operating performance. Now, to adjusted EBIT down to EPS on slide 16. We registered EUR 29 million of one-offs in the quarter, but as I just said, we booked only EUR 2 million as classical restructuring costs. And so the bulk, with EUR 25 million, is due to something entirely different. That's IAS 29, hyperinflation in Turkey. That's mainly non-cash. This then led to a reported EBIT of EUR 218 million, which is almost flat year-over-year.
Our financial result, as a next step, reached -EUR 40 million, largely due to higher interest payments in Turkey and higher interest rates on leases. On taxes, next step, we recorded a low -EUR 30 million charge in the quarter, and as you can see, this is the main driver of our net result in Q1. This lower tax rate is, of course, induced by the use of deferred tax assets, as we frequently anticipated. All in all, in Q1, we reported a EUR 148 million net results. That's EUR 20 million above last year. This then resulted in the 16% growth in reported EPS, which Karsten initially highlighted. In all of this, our key focus remains on free cash flow, and so we're very pleased with the development in Q1.
First and foremost, we finished the quarter with a strong liquidity position of EUR 2.4 billion and a free cash, cash flow after leases of EUR 1.5 billion. If you dissect this in detail, we recorded a positive cash flow of EUR 1.3 billion from working capital. This was one of the main operating levers in the first quarter. We did increase stock levels, and thus product availability, quite consciously for the peak season by a strong 5% year-over-year in order to drive sales and bottom-line growth. Looking at our results now, this clearly paid off, and it does explain the lower inflow if you compare it year-over-year. Please do note, on an absolute level, our net working capital was even stable year-over-year. Now, even here, you can see the underlying positive development in taxes with the EUR 10 million improvement year-over-year.
And finally, other operating cash flow was impacted by lower cash in from other taxes and the insurance reimbursement last year. All in all then, our free cash flow post-leases reached EUR 1.5 billion, fully in line with our expectations. For the full year, we continue to expect, as indicated at the Capital Markets Day, a slight positive free cash flow based on a slight increase in net working capital, given that we did have this strong improvement last year. This completes the financial section. Let me now hand you back to Karsten for his closing remarks.
Yeah, thank you, Kai. And finally, I would like to conclude with our outlook and a summary of our key messages. So let's turn to slide 19. As I stated earlier, based on our strong performance during the first quarter, we confirm our outlook. So we expect a slight increase in currency and portfolio-adjusted total sales, and we expect a clear improvement in adjusted EBIT for the fiscal year 2023/24. We expect positive revenue contributions from all segments, with an anticipated increase in adjusted EBIT, driven primarily by our operations in the DACH region, and this is Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Switzerland, as well as Western and Southern Europe. So ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to conclude today's call with a summary on this chart 20. We had a strong start into the financial year.
In a challenging consumer electronics market, we successfully maintained our market share. The implementation of our strategy and transformation is picking up speed. We place the customer at the heart of all we do. We're enhancing the customer experience, and we are gaining momentum in our execution. Our focus remains on cost, profitability, and liquidity, and we confirm our outlook for the financial year 2023-2024. Thank you for your attention until now, and now I look forward to your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you may press nine, followed by the star key on your touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press nine, followed by the star key a second time. If you are using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who wishes to ask a question, please press nine, followed by the star key now. The first question comes from Volker Bosse, from Baader Bank. Over to you.
Hello, good morning. Volker Bosse, Baader Bank, speaking. Thanks for the presentation and congratulations on the solid or good results you released this morning. I would have three questions. First is on the online sales, which increased by 2.3% overall, well the general market, at least in Germany, according to the bevh figures, were down. So for curiosity, what was your online sales development in Germany, please? Second question is on the growth margin, very promising outcome here to see the growth margin to increase. You mentioned that was driven by a better product mix. My question would be, how do you see the provide, promotional environment currently, especially, into one during Cyber Week and Christmas?
Also, is this growth margin improvement also already a result of your better sourcing, as the restructuring of the sourcing department, the centralization of sourcing was one of the topics in the past, so to get an update here would be helpful. Thank you. Last but not least, I would like to ask regarding your opportunity, B2B customers. It was according to your Capital Markets Day driver of growth going forward. I saw some marketing in the press on that topic. That's also hereafter, where do you stand in regards to winning new B2B customers as a new client group, so basically. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you very much, Volker, for your questions. I will take question one. I would say a few words from my perspective on the gross margin. Kai will continue, and he will also elaborate on the questions regarding B2B. So Germany actually has done, of course, our own ambitious plans very well in terms of online. So we were able to increase our in-house share, and very importantly, also the marketplace has significantly increased in terms of performance and that was particularly strong also in Germany. So in that sense, we are very, very happy. But also fair to say, we're on a clear path to our commitment to increase online sales overall, and that also means that we want to gain market share.
The key focus in this is growing the marketplace further, working on the traffic, and of course, on functionalities and the customer experience. We are very confident that we will continue on this path. So we've really doubled down our efforts. Last time when I said whether I'm confident that we have the right things in the pipeline, when the numbers, I think in Q3, were not looking as we all wanted, I knew, though, it was in the pipeline, and this has paid off. So on the gross margin side, the promotion activity continues to be actually very strong. And what helps us now tremendously is actually our efforts on improving the product margin.
So as I mentioned a few times in the past, that we have really kicked off a group-wide, say, initiative, to look at all the different levers, how we can improve the product margin. And that helps us to also break away from, I would say, at the moment, the market challenges, as well as, of course, the strong promotional activity, where we participate successfully, but equally, we are also improving profitability. And what do we do? I just want to give you some ideas what I'm talking about. So we clearly have shown that we can shape and improve the mix. You see that actually in floor care, in certain SDA care categories, in gaming, but also in MDA, we've gained good market share.
Then the way we manage campaigns, also commercially, we have changed quite a bit, and that is sometimes painstaking detailed work, but it's paying off. We've done a lot of work on pricing, stock aging, freshness of our stock helps a lot, and this work continues. And of course, we put a lot of effort on, I'll call that, attached sales or multi-product sales, because this also enhances the profitability. And this is, these are some of the levers that are paying off. And I'll hand over to Kai to, to add, and, to the third question. Thanks.
Yeah, I would, Volker, I would add to the margin development, really only that going forward, we do expect for the rest of this year, we do expect additional margin improvements from what we're highlighting as our key focus areas for this year, and that's in particular, service and solutions, and it's private label from the ones that we talked about. So think of all the developments that Karsten described as the basis, but then on top of that, service and solutions, private label to kick in, in addition to that. Then to B2B. Look, B2B for us is an attractive and significant market. We're already generating billions of revenues in this. We do believe that we can play our strength in this market with a well-curated assortment, delivering to specific customer needs.
However, while we believe this is a significant potential for us, it is not one of those drivers behind the development that we outlined at last year's Capital Markets Day. This is mainly driven by B2C, by the retail media, as Carsten said, by service and solutions, by marketplace. B2B is a continuous growth driver, but not one of those focus categories that would drive us, as indicated, from EUR 200 billion-EUR 500 billion EBIT going forward.
Thank you. Could you please come to my question regarding the sourcing centralization, the centralization of the sourcing department? Whether you stand there, have you done that, so to say, or you are still to do? Where do you stand? Thank you.
Yeah, the answer is yes. And how does it work? We have in every single country, of course, a central sourcing that is also talking and coordinated, coordinating with a central sourcing on the group side. There are things you have to do always locally in the market, but then we also use the strength of the group to support each other and also have some best practice sharing. But the clear answer is yes, we have our sourcing centralized.
Perfect. Thank you very much, and all the best for that. Thank you. Thanks.
The next question comes from Clément Genelot from Bryan Garnier & Co. Over to you.
Yes, good morning, and thank you. I will have two questions for Rolex, if I may. The first one, relates, whether on this software and your works, when do you expect stabilizing and relatedly, will EBIT be back on the normalized margin level? I mean, or is it by the end of this year, or will it take one or two more years? My second question is whether on Germany, do you have a clear view on the level of wage or inflation of this year?
Finally, regarding the Red Sea crisis, if we assume the persistence of crisis, how long will it take you to be able to really shift from shipping towards the plane to be able to bring, let's say, mobile phones from Asia to Europe? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much, Clément. I would say that question one and two, Kai will take, and I will comment on the question on logistics and the Red Sea.
So EBIT normalization, Clément. Let me perhaps just outline a bit more in detail how we look at this. Traditionally, in the times before both the COVID and then the later consumer crisis, we saw a rough distribution of two-thirds of our EBIT in Q1 and the rest in the fiscal year and the rest in the remainder of the year with a strong Q4. Now, this has been very much changed during the crisis year with a big, big emphasis on Q1, often even more than the annual EBIT of the year. We've said that we believe the seasonality to return towards a normalized pattern, but not quite on the normalized pattern yet, both last year and this year.
We believe that it's more likely than not going to be a 12-24 month way before we are back to this usual seasonality, to answer that question. Now, for Germany inflation expectations, I would give two answers. As in all countries across Europe, we've seen inflationary pressure to ease somewhat over the last few months. There is still one big variable in this, which we are not certain about, and that's wage inflation. We will not comment on any ongoing tariff negotiations here, but it does remain an open question mark in our planning for Germany this year. I would, at this point, highlight again our strict cost management, which is so far working really, really well to counterbalance whatever inflationary pressures we have, and we do remain extremely disciplined on that, in particular, in Germany as well.
I would hand over to Karsten for the second part.
Yeah, thanks, Kai. Maybe just a quick comment. I mean, the wage inflation, obviously, that we have also seen some other countries already, is also the opportunity to translate into consumption. But of course, there's a bit of time lag behind. But you can assume that we are preparing diligently for different scenarios. So to the question on the Red Sea and the logistics-related topics, you ask specifically, I think the questions around how to bring phones or consoles by air freight to Europe to basically bypass the issue. Let me just take that question and then put it into broader context. That possibility exists. We don't have, at the moment, any shortage. We have very, very strong availability. We've done that actually during the COVID pandemic. We try not to do it.
It's, it's more expensive, and it's also environmentally, not that, not that great. But of course, the option does exist, and, that would be done when necessary. Overall, we have actually a very good availability with a good freshness level. This is thanks to the work that we, have done last year, and we continue to do. Secondly, the logistics and the supply chain has changed during the crisis moments we had on logistics in the past. That means, for instance, that certain categories like MDAs are getting produced very often, actually, in Eastern Europe. That's one thing. And, obviously, we are in close contact always with our suppliers. And the time delay it takes, to go through South Africa is around two weeks' time.
So I can't exclude that we would experience some sort of shortages, but I expect them not to be material. We're well prepared, and we have that under control. And once again, all the key products that you talk about, like, in the mobile phones, they could be brought by air freight.
Thank you. The next question comes from Marco Schmidt, from ODDO. Over to you.
Yeah, thanks for taking the questions. I have two, actually. So the first question is, if you could provide, the key drivers for the, EBIT improvement in, South and Western Europe, and what was driven, by your structuring measures, and what was more coming from, let's say, mix and, and gross margin? And, then a second one on Eastern Europe. You said just that, you expect growth to ease, maybe, maybe an indication, to what like-for-likes could point, in, 2024. And it would be good if you could split the Eastern Europe like-for-like growth into, inflation and, and volume, drivers. That would be helpful. Thank you very much.
Marcus, I'll take those. It's Kai. So Western Southern Europe, I would first point to differentiating between the Spanish and the Italian market. In the Spanish market, we were struggling roughly about a year ago. This was largely due to a management change and market developments. Now, we've since gained significant market share, so by almost 60 basis points. So we see both this market growing in volume and us growing in this market. So the main part of the development in Spain comes from margin. It's not due to any restructuring in that. Now, Italy. The market in Italy remains difficult, as we said. However, here it is two drivers I would point out, it's strong management team pushing for optimization of the margin and very strict cost management, unlike in Spain.
So here it's perhaps both drivers. In Spain, I would highlight the gross margin driver more than the cost management driver. In Eastern Europe, the growth that we're seeing is roughly 50% in volume and 50% in value that we're seeing on this market. I would highlight here again that this is for Turkey now, in particular, I would highlight again that we do expect this market to become less dynamic going forward. So we have a cautious outlook for the rest of the year in Turkey.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Emmanuelle Vigneron , from HSBC. May we have your question, please?
Yes. Hi. Thanks. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two. Could you please comment on the consumer environment, especially in Germany? And second one, you have published a comfortable set of results for Q1, so, why don't you give a more precise full-year guidance in terms of EBIT? Thank you.
I'll take the second question on the guidance first, and then I'll let Karsten comment on the consumer environment in Germany. Look, we've given our guidance only a few months ago on a slight growth in sales and a strong EBIT growth. We think this is actually a pretty precise statement, in particular, if you compare it to last year's guidance, where we were still talking in two scenarios. So we've already narrowed it down quite significantly given the uncertainties. I've just talked about Turkey, for example, as one example, in our footprint, we believe this is pretty precise already.
In particular, keeping in mind that a strong increase in EBIT, you should think of it as at least a double-digit percentage growth, growth in EBIT, but we will not be more precise at this stage. That's perhaps just to quantify it a bit, and Karsten, I'll let you comment on Germany.
Thanks, Kai. And thank you for the question, Emmanuel. The consumer environment in Germany is. The market is soft, but if you look at our results, we were able to actually create very good demand. We held up well in the market, and we actually are strong also on the margin side, which is very encouraging. If you look at our December results, actually, we were able to really hit the market and do some very good results.
So I think the challenge in Germany, I guess, is from a consumer perspective, a little bit of sentiment, the overall debate around energy, politics, et cetera. So that is what we see. If you look at the underlying trends, as I've highlighted, what makes me very, very positive is the whole topic of energy consumption and sustainability. So we see a massive increase in actually replacement, in the replacement market, that we are very strong in, for energy, energy efficient devices. And there's also a whole wave of new products coming on the mobile side with AI, the goggles, which I think will also can also stimulate some demand.
But again we are able to take our share in the market, do the necessary improvements, but of course, Germany is at the moment, say, from a sentiment perspective, not in a very strong position. That's why we are also very focused on cost and all the levers we have to pull, and most importantly, customer experience, to improve that further.
Thank you.
At the moment, there are no further questions. If you have any additional questions, please press nine and star now. We have a question coming from Oliver Isaac from Deutsche Bank. The floor is yours.
Hi, good morning. Congratulations on the results, guys. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how and when you plan to refinance your 2026 unsecured bond, please? Thank you.
Oliver, it's Kai speaking. We are actively at the moment discussing refinancing. It's, it's not a wait and see approach that we're following, Oliver. Quite the contrary. We, do, consider early refinancing. We consider this, and you will see us approaching the debt markets much more actively in the next few months. I'm to avoid misunderstandings, I'm not saying we're making an offer to the debt markets now, but we, you will see us approaching, in terms of approach, over the debt markets, much more actively than we've done in the past, even this year. That's as much as I would say about this.
Very clear.
There are no further questions at this time. Oh, I'm sorry. We have another question coming from Marco Schmidt, from ODDO . The floor is yours again.
Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Just one follow-up on the last point. I mean, do you opt to stay then in the bond market, or is it more likely that you go for the Schuldschein market? Is there any favor on your side?
Marcus, it's too early to say which instrument we will be using on the debt market. As I said, we believe that these results give us a good basis for active discussions with the debt markets at this particular moment in time. We observe developments extremely closely and will engage in proactive discussions with the debt players, but which precise instruments or at which conditions remains to be seen. I cannot comment on the details of that at this particular moment.
Okay. Thank you.
There are no further questions, and I hand back to Dr. Karsten Wildberger for closing comments.
Yeah. Thank you very much for your attendance and also for the questions. I hope you can see that we are working hard, the strategy is paying off, and we're in execution mode. And as I said, we have realistic optimism looking into the future. Now, if you want to engage with us again, in the official way, we will have on the fourteenth of February, which is next Wednesday, our AGM, which will be a hybrid version, once again in person. But of course, we will also welcome the audience that is connected digitally. And on the 15th May, we will then have our Q2 results call, and until then, I wish you all the best, and to those we will speak in between, I look forward to. Thank you very much for your interest.
Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.