Everyone, and welcome to our Q4 and full year 2022, 2023 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, Fabienne, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. I'm very excited to share with you our impressive achievements from the previous financial year. The past year has been, for us, actually a key period for revitalizing and strategically redirecting our company's focus, and that's despite the fact that we entered the year with major external uncertainty. We've also set out a clear strategy and clear commitments for growth over the coming years, and I'm proud to say that we have made tangible progress in implementing that strategy. As highlighted on slide four, we faced a lot of external challenges last year due to uncertain economic conditions, be it the Russian attack on Ukraine, growing tensions around the world, an energy crisis, the economy, economy downturn, increasing energy costs, and especially rising inflation and all that affected how customers acted.
In response to this shift in consumer behavior, we committed all our resources on meeting our customers' needs and expectations, tailoring our product range to suit them. We ran, for instance, our advisory and services, aiming to offer our customers the best possible support. And for me, most importantly, we didn't view these global uncertainties as barriers, but rather as accelerators to double down on implementing our strategy, improve our processes, and future-proof our company. Let's turn to slide five. And during the last financial year, we made significant strides in achieving our strategic objectives. A primary focus was on enhancing our core business. Over the past year, our organization has become more streamlined and efficient, and despite the consumer electronics market, excluding Turkey, shrinking by -3% in 2022-2023, we showed our resilience.
Our market share stayed steady, which is a clear sign that our strategies are working, and that we are effectively mastering the economic challenges. Our modernization efforts centered on improving the customer and product experience. We've made our stores more welcoming and eco-friendlier, and also more adaptable to better integrate with our online business. This shift has positively affected our space productivity, and we have already modernized half of our stores. We've expanded our range of store formats from our standard models and premier flagship stores, called Lighthouse stores, to the more compact X press stores serving local communities. Our objective is to determine the most suitable format for each location, so we can provide our customers with the best shopping experience. We've also successfully expanded our new business areas with notable progress in the services and solutions segment.
We're also delivering robust growth in the marketplace and retail media segments. We've expanded our technology platform and significantly enhanced our logistics, so our transformation is on track. We are clearly committed to sustainability, and I'm pleased to report that we have achieved our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions targets for 2031 ahead of time. This achievement highlights our commitment to environment-friendly practices and our ongoing efforts to minimize our carbon footprint. Most importantly, our customers and employees are always at the heart of our actions. We've reached a new high in customer satisfaction, and we remain committed to investing in the training of our employees. This ensures that our customers receive great advice and support. Let's turn to slide six, please. We're operating in an attractive, yet competitive market as you know. There are many players in our industry.
So what solidifies our number one position, and most importantly, how do we stay on top? Here are a few reasons: Our advantage lies in our distinctiveness and our ability to drive transformation. Our brand, MediaMarktSaturn, enjoys substantial brand recognition with over 70% unaided brand awareness. We also maintain robust and longstanding relationships with our industry partners and continually evolving these bonds. With new business areas like marketplace and retail media, we offer both existing and new partners excellent opportunities for further exposure. Sustainability is a core part of our identity, embedded in all our business practices. Over the past year, we've made substantial progress in this area, offering unique services not found elsewhere in the industry. A good example is our trade-in service. Last financial year, customers traded in their used electronics for vouchers 219,000 times.
Our service platform, we explained at the Capital Markets Day, is also gaining momentum, and I'll show you how we have developed further in a moment. What distinguishes us from traditional online pure plays is our omni-channel approach. A key strength here is our employees, who guide customers through the complexities of technology, making the critical difference. And our presence is also a defining factor. We operate in 11 countries and hold number one or number two position in nine out of them, and our goal is to further solidify and grow this position. The next chart, please, slide seven. I would now like to illustrate how all these aspects are reflected in our financial figures. First, we achieved an impressive sales growth of 4.7%, a testament to our strong position in the market and our ability to seize opportunities.
Second, our Adjusted EBIT has also seen positive growth, now standing at EUR 243 million. This increase of EUR 35 million over the previous year, an impressive 17%, is a result of the strong performance of our in-store business, efficient cost control, and consistent management of margins. Thirdly, regarding our reported EBIT, it's important to note that it is influenced by special effects and totaled -EUR 21 million. The primary factor for this negative outcome was the equity accounted investment of around 23% in the French retail group, Fnac Darty, as well as the cleanup. This means strengthening of our portfolio. Fourthly, in terms of free cash flow, we generated EUR 257 million, marking an EUR 880 million increase from the previous year. And this exceeded our expectations, largely due to strong stock management.
Number 5, our Adjusted earnings per share reached a positive value of EUR 0.08. Finally, our Net Promoter Score has climbed to 53, and this score is a strong indicator of our customer satisfaction and loyalty. This shows that we are significantly, significantly enhancing our customer experience to not just meet, but exceed customer expectations. These figures overall demonstrate that we are not just following the market trends, but also distinguishing ourselves by making quicker and more effective improvements. Our agility, innovation, and customer-focused approach are clearly reflected in these results. I would also like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to all our employees for their dedication, hard work, and willingness to embrace the rapid pace of change on our journey. Many of you actually are familiar with slide eight, which outlines our strategy explained during our Capital Markets Day in June. So let me summarize just briefly.
Our customer-focused strategy revolves around the experiences we create. We're taking consumer electronics to the next level, shifting to what we call experience electronics, and this comes alive through four key pillars, our so-called experience pillars: the employee experience, the shopping experience, the usage experience, and the impact experience. First, the employee experience. Our staff are vital to us. For great customer service, they need training, motivation, and inspiration. We've launched new training programs and digital tools to up their customer service game. A great employee experience leads to a great customer experience. Second, the shopping experience. We are improving all our channels to make shopping with us even better. With a mobile-first approach, we're enhancing our online experience. Our stores are getting a fresh look with more flexible formats to offer more engaging in-person experiences, seamlessly linked to the online world. Then, the usage experience.
This is all about growing our service and solutions business, and these not only add to our product offering, but also build customer value and loyalty while growing profitably. And last, the impact experience. This is our sustainability commitment. We are promoting products that are energy efficient, save water, and can be repaired and recycled. We're aiming to be a leader in sustainable retail and help our customers contribute, too. For us, sustainability isn't just a commitment, it's a huge market opportunity. Each of these pillars demonstrates that our transformation is progressing rapidly, and our strategy shows that we are not just reacting to market changes, but actively shaping them. The next slide emphasizes our transformation from a traditional business model to a platform-based approach, driving profitable growth through distinct business models, orchestrated seamlessly for customers. Here again, this slide should be familiar to you.
We engage in over 2.2 billion customer interactions annually across various channels, and our business model integrates different business entities, each with its unique commercial strategy, growth path, and P&L. First, the retail core, our conventional retail segment, where we see promising opportunities for expanding into new categories like gaming, health, and e-mobility. Second, the service and solutions business. This segment boosts value and profitability by enhancing customer experiences. We are growing our subscription-based services, for example. Number three, the marketplace. This offers a broad product range, contributing financially via commissions. And number four, our private labels. These offer cost-effective products with higher margins and are being revitalized for faster growth and profitability. And additionally, we are innovating in retail space utilization. Our Lighthouse concept allocates physical display areas to industry partners, leveraging our high customer traffic for unique brand presentations.
This also provides customers with direct access to leading brands. Our retail media leverages our extensive digital customer base, allowing other brands to advertise on our digital platforms. Backed by a strong omni-channel supply chain, a modern technology stack, dedicated personnel, and sustainable practices, we are transitioning to an omni-channel services platform, and this strategy is pivotal for ensuring profitable growth from our platform-based business model. Turning to slide 10, you will find the nine major commitments we established at our Capital Markets Day, along with our 2025, 2026 objectives. True to our word, we'll provide a yearly detailed update on each key performance indicator. In general, you'll see that in 2022, 2023, we've achieved significant advancements in most of our KPIs. Let me spotlight some key aspects. First, the increased loyalty customer share. We've seen a rise in the number of loyalty customers.
Our initiatives to enhance the customer loyalty program have been very successful. We have also areas where we want to do better, and we have areas where we have higher ambitions, like in online and services and solutions. I will delve deeper into these topics in the following slides and show how we're going to achieve those higher ambitions. Let's go into retail core on slide 11. We've grown our loyal, loyal customer base to now 39 million, a valuable customer group that shops more frequently and also spends more money. Our continuous efforts to develop an appealing customer loyalty program is paying off. Online, we are making actually significant strides. One indicator of this progress is our high pickup rate, which reached 38% in the entire 2022-2023 fiscal year.
Our online sales declined as customers returned to physical stores so that our online share stood at 23%. However, we are experiencing strong growth in our marketplace, which will provide robust support moving forward. Additionally, we're implementing measures to further enhance our online performance, a key focus for the upcoming fiscal year, and I'll provide more details on our plan shortly. In our physical stores, we achieved an impressive 6.6% sales growth, driven by increased footfall. We remain committed to investments, reaching now a 50% modernization rate by 2022, 2023. Our portfolio now includes eight Lighthouse concept stores, including recent openings in Vienna and Berlin. Regarding our stock management, we've improved with a remarkable 11% reduction in stock reach, now at 9.1 weeks.
On the following chart, I'd like to explain how we've significantly enhanced our service offerings and successfully expanded our marketplace. In the services and solutions segment, we achieved a notable 3.9% increase in income. It's important to note that we are specifically referring to operational services and solutions income, and this excludes retail media, marketplace commissions, and fees and deliveries. Particularly noteworthy is the strong demand for our warranty services and mobile phone contracts. We piloted the launch of my MediaMarkt+ subscription in Germany in October, with plans for an official launch in Q2 this year. Looking ahead, alongside our online efforts, we will continue to grow our services and solutions business. Our marketplace, currently live in Germany, Spain, and Austria, has grown substantially.
We have more than doubled our gross merchandise value, GMV, to EUR 137 million last year, and we currently offer 1.4 million SKUs from more than 1,000 suppliers. This is 41% up. These figures not only showcase the expansion of our marketplace, but also underscore its growing significance as a central element of our business model. In 2023, 2024, we plan to extend our marketplace to the Netherlands and Italy. Moving to the next chart, I would like to take a closer look at our private label strategy in retail media. We are not satisfied with the progress of our private label share, which reached 2.4% in 2022, 2023. But we have already taken significant steps, such as streamlining our logistics processes, resulting in faster and more efficient goods importation.
Developing our private label offerings is our third focal point for 2023-2024, aiming to leverage our four brands, which provide an appealing price quality proposition for our customers. Our commitment to retail media has yielded impressive results, with EUR 18 million in retail media income in 2022-2023. We've observed strong growth and consistently received positive feedback from our industry partners, and this area has proven to be an effective tool for increasing the visibility of our products and strengthening our industry partnerships. Slide 14 highlights our key focus areas for this fiscal year. In the online segment, we are continually refining our product selection and availability. Our marketplace allows us to introduce new categories. Additionally, we are actively working on growing organic traffic and enhancing our search engine optimization SEO capabilities.
Furthermore, we are improving our app's functionality to enhance the overall shopping experience for our customers, and these actions are already paying off. In logistics, we are conducting trials for faster and more efficient deliveries in partnership with Lieferando, for instance. In service and solutions, after the start in Germany and Poland, we are planning to expand the rollout of my MediaMarkt+ repair subscription in Spain. We'll also broaden our subscription product offerings, establishing our own billing platform. Moreover, we will continue to grow our trade-in business. And for our private label, we've appointed new management and reorganized our category management to make the range more efficient and have better appeal for customers. And our collaboration with the acclaimed two-star chef, Tim Raue, is a prime example how we are elevating the marketing of our own brands.
Tim Raue is featuring his culinary creations using the high-quality products from our KOENIC brand. Another example, in the summer, we introduced the PEAQ Portable TV, a smart 32-inch television designed for portability and independent use, thanks to its battery operation, just in time for the camping season. Now let's explore the customer experience journey. We're implementing various measures to enhance our customer's journey. We've accelerated store modernization and are introducing experience zones, where customers can interact with and experience our products firsthand. Additionally, we're advancing personalized marketing for loyal customers, which has yielded positive responses and financial benefits. Innovation remains a top priority, with artificial intelligence becoming an integral part of our current landscape rather than a distant vision. We are committed to using this technology thoughtfully.
We regard AI as a tool to fulfill customer needs and also assist our employees in their daily tasks. And in addition, we are witnessing significant growth in emerging product categories such as augmented and virtual reality or smart home. All in all, our unwavering commitment to customer satisfaction drives us, and we continuously strive to enhance our offerings. So let's turn to slide 15. The cornerstone of an exceptional customer experience is an exceptional employee experience, and we've made significant progress here, putting strong emphasis on our employees. MediaMarktSaturn is an attractive employer, offering an excellent work environment, an inclusive culture, and ample career opportunities. And this year we've trained 70% of our sales staff, and our goal is to have all 40,000 colleagues in our stores trained repeatedly by the end of the 2024 financial year.
Promoting women within our company is an important aspect of our commitment to diversity and equal opportunities. In the past year, we achieved a share of over 50% of highly qualified women in senior management promotions. Our strength lies in the diversity of our workforce, characterized by not only international teams, but also the synergy between experienced and young talents. We firmly believe that mixed teams lead to better results and closer collaboration. This dedication is reflected in our employees, the Net Promoter People, a measure of employee satisfaction, and this has grown to +30 over the last two years. These elements: diversity, teamwork, equal opportunities, lifelong learning, and also pay for performance, are the pillars of the employee experience for MediaMarktSaturn. Slide 16. Sustainability is a fundamental value that guides everything we do, as highlighted here.
At Ceconomy and MediaMarktSaturn, sustainability is deeply embedded in our corporate strategy. We view it both as a business opportunity and a commitment to responsible behavior. Our goal is to create a climate neutral shopping experience and raise awareness of sustainability. We are dedicated to enabling our customers to lead a more sustainable lifestyle. In the 2022-2023 financial year, we made significant progress in offering one of the most sustainable ranges of consumer electronics products in Europe and leading in the circular economy. We've expanded the availability of sustainable products, we entered the refurbished market, and we extended repair and rental services in our stores. We collaborate closely with manufacturers to provide energy efficient and environmentally friendly products. Additionally, we've enhanced our advisory services to assist customers in reducing their energy consumption.
Last year, we achieved a 37% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions compared to the previous year, and already 92% of all electricity procurement was from alternative energy sources in 2022-2023. The share of BetterW ay products in total sales grew by 9% to 12%, with over 4,900 SKUs. Additionally, we saw a remarkable 250% increase in the takeback of used appliances, what we define as trade-in products. At MediaMarktSaturn and CECONOMY, we recognize that the journey towards sustainability is a gradual process that demands significant dedication and effort. We are committed to proactively enacting the necessary measures to foster sustainability within our company and throughout society. With that, let me now hand over to Kai Deissner for the financial section. Thank you. Kai?
Thank you, Karsten, and good morning to all of you from me as well. Let me guide you through our full year figures, starting with slide 18, and we'll come to Q4 figures along the way, of course, as well. In essence, what we're seeing in our full year figures are the first really, really tangible results of our transformation journey. First, as highlighted by Karsten, we met our guidance with 4.7% sales growth year-on-year. Now, keep in mind, this is Adjusted for currency and portfolio changes and pre-IAS 29. Second, a EUR 35 million increase in Adjusted EBIT to EUR 243 million. That's 17% versus prior year. And then thirdly, this leads to an Adjusted EPS of EUR 0.08.
This Adjusted EPS is based on our reported net profit, Adjusted by the impact of the disposal of Sweden and Portugal, as well as the impairments for Fnac, and again, the impact of IAS 29. We look at this as a pretty good proxy for our underlying performance. Finally, group free cash flow came in at EUR 257 million. That's even better, frankly, than we expected. That's EUR 880 million better year-over-year. I will obviously come back to this later today. Now, let's go through these results step by step. In Q4, our group sales rose by 2.4%. Essentially, we noticed a softer back to school period across Europe, while Turkey remained very strong. This weaker trend was more noticeable online than it was in stores.
On a twelve-month view, our growth was 4.7%, and we gained 10 basis points in market share in a declining consumer electronics market, as Karsten pointed out. The main driver for our sales development was a continuous recovery throughout the year of our brick-and-mortar business. Per country, we saw good sales development in Turkey, a stabilization in Germany and Hungary, and some improving trends in Spain throughout the year, while Italy remained weak. Second, group-Adjusted EBIT was stable in Q4 at EUR 94 million. However, please do note that this represents a margin increase of 10 basis points, which is a good performance given the sales development in Q4. This shows we believe our better gross margin push and once again, strict cost management in this quarter. For the full year, Adjusted EBIT reached EUR 243 million.
As I said, that's EUR 35 million or 17% above previous year. Essentially, this is driven by our strong sales and successful initiatives to offset cost inflation, to which I will come back. As you know, service and solutions remain a key strategic pillar to improve not only customer service, but also profitability. On slide 20, here we are commenting on the broad definition, so service and solutions, including retail media, including marketplace commissions and fees, as well as deliveries. I'm emphasizing this because you've already seen the detailed numbers of the sub-segments earlier today when Karsten presented the update on our key KPIs. Going forward, we will continue to comment these details, but today, let me highlight the service and solutions in summary, once again. Year-over-year, sales increased by 3.2%. That's leading to a stable share of 6.2%.
In Q4, sales was flat. Please do note that Q4 in the previous year was restated due to the reclassification of retail media in that year. In terms of service categories, both for the full year and for Q4, retail media had a very good performance, and that's also true for warranty extensions and telecom contracts. On the other hand, the higher interest rates continued to impact our consumer finance business. The bottom of the slide, our online sales share normalized further in Q4 and reached 20.7% on a group level. On a 12-month view, online sales declined by 6.9%, leading to a 22.6% share. As we commented throughout the year, more and more customers kept returning to stores, and we saw online sales decline across retail, not just for us, but retail as a whole.
Still, as Karsten highlighted, we have taken focus measures to boost our online performance in the current fiscal year. On a positive note, our third-party marketplace sales have strongly increased, and we have more than doubled our GMV to EUR 137 million in 2022/23. We do expect the strong performance of the marketplace to continue and to positively impact our online sales share in the medium term, which should help us to reach the 30% target by 2025, 2026, which we set out. But underneath all of that, our omni-channel proposition continues to resonate really well with customers. You can see in the 38% pickup ratio for the full year, that's an impressive 130 basis points increase year-over-year. Now, let me come back to our EBIT development on slide 21.
Our gross margin improved by an impressive 70 basis points to almost 20% in Q4. This is driven by product margin and despite competitive pressure in that quarter. Even on a 12-month view, this led to a slight increase in gross margin. Walking down the P&L to cost, in Q4, our OpEx ratio marginally increased by 10 basis points to 18.3% of group sales. On an absolute level, our underlying OpEx even decreased by EUR 5 million this quarter, as our efficiency measures are accelerating and pay off more and more. Please do note, this excludes one-offs of approximately 0.5% of sales in Q4. The bulk of those is a provision for dismantling costs. Here, we've taken a pretty conservative approach in line with our overall prudent accounting policy.
As we highlighted in previous quarters, we do feel cost inflation in several areas: personnel, location, energy cost. In Germany, as you know, we've increased wages by 5% from October 2023, already ahead of any potential outcomes with the unions. But we do continue to work diligently on these headwinds and have mitigated the OpEx increase with strict cost management. As a result, our OpEx ratio decreased last year by 10 basis points for the fiscal year. Slide 22 highlights, again, the main drivers behind our strong gross margin improvement in Q4, and particularly, the strong increase in our product margin, which I highlighted just a minute ago. So let's continue with slide 23. As, as promised, I want to give you an update on our efficiency programs. As a whole, 85% of our cost reduction measures are underway, and we already completed 25% of them.
We call the main program behind this Drive, and it targets both efficiency and the effectiveness of our organization. As an example, we continue to streamline our headquarters functions. Secondly, we've relocated some of our shared services abroad and streamlined our group services. In addition, we reorganized our repair services in Germany, and we expand our digital platforms and solutions internationally. For all of this, we booked EUR 66 million restructuring costs for the fiscal year 2022-2023, and continue to expect approximately EUR 100 million in total until the end of this fiscal year. In Q4, we recorded EUR 27 million restructuring costs for those programs. As a result, our efficiency programs will enable us to deliver roughly EUR 130 million savings run rate from the end of the current fiscal year, compared to 2021-2022.
In Q4, we already generated a double-digit amount of savings and EUR 40 million savings in the full fiscal year 2022/23. Now, turning to our operational performance for the full year on slide 24. As you can see, Eastern Europe and DACH were the main drivers this year. In DACH, sales were stable. Here, Austria showed a positive sales development, while Germany and Hungary were stable. Switzerland reported a sales decline in a very competitive market environment. In terms of profitability, this region posted a strong EBIT improvement with +EUR 65 million, driven by Germany, where our efficiency programs are paying off. Secondly, in Western and Southern Europe, we recorded a slight sales decline. We posted solid growth in the Netherlands, while we still had sales decline in Italy. We do need to acknowledge that contrary to our expectations, the Italian market has not recovered yet.
By contrast, in Spain, we saw some sales trend improvement, particularly in Q4. Here, our new management team is delivering well, and we have gained strong momentum, particularly in online. Again, in terms of profitability, the region still recorded EUR 36 million Adjusted EBIT, which is a EUR 78 million decline year-on-year, and that's mainly due to Italy and Spain. Finally, Eastern Europe.
Turkey was the clear outperformer this year, and this was the main driver behind the impressive EUR 72 million increase in Adjusted EBIT in the region. Yeah, the market remains very positive, with strong volume growth despite high inflation. But we also gained significant market share. So we look at this result, not just as a windfall from the market, but also as a very, very strong management performance. Now, let me add some highlights about our Q4 performance. As we said, the back-to-school period was soft in Europe.
This led to negative like-for-like, both in DACH and Western and Southern Europe. However, we can report a stable, Adjusted EBIT for the quarter based on better gross margins and strict cost management. Per region, the main profitability drivers were DACH, with Germany, and Eastern Europe, with Turkey. Now, further down from Adjusted EBIT down to EPS on slide 26. Reading this from the left very carefully. We registered EUR 132 million one-off costs in the year. Let me go through those in detail. EUR 69 million are restructuring costs, mainly linked to our efficiency programs. Please do note, this position actually includes even a EUR 21 million positive impact from IAS 29. 69 restructuring costs. The cleaning of our portfolio with the disposal of Sweden and Portugal led to another EUR 63 million cost, mainly due to an impairment charge as we wrote off the business in Sweden.
In terms of cash, only half of our restructuring costs for the efficiency programs were cashed out this year. The other half will be cashed out in 2023, 2024. As for portfolio cleaning measures, the cash out was mid double-digit. Then, one step to the right. As you know, we own a 23% stake in Fnac, which we consolidate at equity. So there we recorded a -EUR 50 million net profit loss this year, and we booked an EUR 82 million impairment due to the lower valuation of our stake. This resulted to a total P&L charge of another EUR 132 million. All those measures led to a reported EBIT of -EUR 21 million for the year, even while we look at the 17% increase in Adjusted EBIT as a pretty fair representation of our operational improvements. Another step to the right.
Our financial result reached EUR -21 million. But again, this we need to dissect. The minus twenty-one included several one-offs due to the deconsolidation of Sweden and Portugal, of which a positive currency impact of EUR 76 million. Excluding those, as well as the financial results of Sweden and Portugal, our underlying financial result would have been at around minus eighty. You will find the detailed calculation in the appendix of the presentation. And this minus eighty would have been well within our expectations. Remember, we said around minus one hundred in our Q3 call, and it would have represented a EUR 30 million increase year-over-year. All of this due to higher interest payments and higher interests on leases, even if the main part of that increase is non-cash. Finally, on taxes, we recorded a EUR 5 million income due to the further activation of deferred tax assets.
Net of EUR 2 million minority interests, this derives the EUR 3 million you can see on the chart. All in all, for the full year, we thus reported a -EUR 39 million net result, EUR 165 million below last year. As explained, roughly 50% comes from the cost of our portfolio measures and the impairment of our stake in Fnac. To judge our operational performance, should we look at our net profit, excluding the impact of our portfolio measures, excluding the impairment of Fnac, and excluding IAS 29, our Adjusted net profit would be a +EUR 37 million. And we believe that this KPI is more appropriate to measure the progress we've made in our operating business. As a result, our Adjusted EPS reached EUR 0.08 this year.
The table on slide 27 is just another presentation in detail of the slide that I've just walked you through, so hopefully you find it helpful for your own work. On slide 28, our Q4 financials mirror this development. In Q4, we reported EUR 95 million Adjusted EBIT, stable performance year-over-year, as we discussed. Our non-recurring items reached -108, of which -132, due to our stake in Fnac, as I explained, resulting in -EUR 14 million reported EBIT. As outlined, our financial result was positively impacted by the deconsolidation of Sweden for the 76 million in that quarter. Again, on taxes, we recorded a 29 million income due to further activation of deferred tax assets.
While our reported EPS of EUR 0.14 is below prior year, again, looking on an Adjusted basis, so excluding the impact of cleaning our portfolio, excluding IAS 29, and excluding the impairment of Fnac, our Adjusted EPS reached EUR 0.06, and that's actually a strong increase year-over-year. Finally, free cash flow. What's it all about? Our free cash flow post-lease adjustments increased by an impressive EUR 880 million year-over-year to reach EUR 257 million. And that was actually better than even we had anticipated. We recorded a positive cash inflow of EUR 332 million from working capital. That's more than EUR 700 million improvement year-over-year. We were in particularly better than we had expected on stock management. Our overall stock position declined by almost EUR 260 million, and our stock turn increased to 9.1 weeks.
That's down from 10.3 weeks last year. On tax, we recorded a EUR 109 million cash outflow. This was above our expectations for good reasons, as the better performance of Turkey led to an increase in tax payments. Our cash CapEx was nearly stable year-over-year, pretty much in line with our expectations. But as a whole, we are very, very satisfied with our free cash flow generation this year. And to reiterate, this, the free cash flow, is our key focus going forward. So to summarize what I've just presented to you, good sales growth, strong increase in EBIT, driven by both margin and cost discipline, even while cleaning our portfolio and robust measures to improve free cash flow.
All of these are good, tangible, hard facts to prove that we have taken good steps on our journey, and these steps do strengthen our overall financial position. This is the view on slide 30, with which I would like to close today. Our leverage measured here, as you will know from our Capital Markets Day, as net debt, including lease liabilities on Adjusted EBITDA, improved strongly to 1.9 for fiscal 2022-23, well below our threshold and significantly better than we anticipated at Capital Markets Day. All of this supported by sufficient liquidity reserves. We have no major debt repayment, at least until 2026, and we do have access to EUR 1.1 billion revolving credit facilities, which is still undrawn and has never been drawn. So on this, let me hand back to Karsten for the outlook and some closing remarks. Karsten?
Yeah, thank you very much, Kai. Let's turn to slide 32, please, which is an important one. So in conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to provide you with our outlook for the upcoming financial year 2023-2024. We expect, again, a slight increase in currency and portfolio-Adjusted total sales, with all our divisions contributing to sales growth. Furthermore, we anticipate, again, a clear improvement in Adjusted EBIT. This should be driven by the DACH and Western, and Southern Europe regions. On slide 33, we reaffirm our commitments to the capital markets, and looking at our projections for the 2023-2024 financial year, we are confident about meeting our 2025-2026 targets that we shared with you at the Capital Markets Day. We expect to achieve sales growth that slightly exceeds the market average, along with reaching an Adjusted EBIT of over EUR 500 million by 2025-2026.
Another also very important chart, slide 34. Let me take a closer look at our Black Week results. It's not just one Black Week, it's the Black period, Black November, however you call it. Let me tell you, we've had a promising start to the new financial year, marked by company-wide, centrally, very well-managed campaigns for Black Friday and the pre-Christmas season... We saw strong demand for smartphones, consumer electronics, gaming consoles, and small electric appliances, such as floor care products. Our success during the Black Weeks was the result of very diligent preparation, strong partnerships with suppliers, and efficient logistics processes, ensuring high product availability. Also, our marketing campaigns played a crucial role in raising awareness and customer demand. As a whole, for the Black Weeks period, we even managed to achieve higher sales across the group year-over-year.
This solid start to the year gives us confidence for 2023, 2024. So let me wrap up on slide 35. At MediaMarktSaturn, we've achieved positive results despite the challenging market environment. Our stable market share reflects our successful efforts to address current challenges, primarily by prioritizing the customer experience. We remain committed to managing costs, maintaining liquidity, and enhancing efficiency to ensure our competitiveness and financial prudence. As a result, we anticipate, again, a slight increase in sales and a clear increase in Adjusted EBIT for the current financial year. This positive outlook reinforces our confidence in our strategic direction and our dedication to pursuing and achieving our goals. Ladies and gentlemen, as we come to the close of our presentation, I would like to emphasize the resilience and positive momentum at MediaMarkt that we have demonstrated throughout the past financial year.
All of this progress highlights the significant potential within our company. We are making steady progress towards our goals, and our dedicated workforce of 50,000 employees is working hard to realize our vision of a customer-centric service platform that embodies greater profitability, efficiency, and sustainability. With their unwavering commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction, I am confident that we will achieve our ambitious objectives. I want to express my gratitude also for your attention and trust in our journey. Now Kai and I are looking forward to your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question 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 star, 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 has a question may press nine, followed by the star key now. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Emmanuelle Vigneron from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two. First one, regarding retail media, you have generated EUR 18 million sales. What is the impact in terms of operating profits? And secondly, what are the markets where you lost market share? Thank you.
First question on retail media. Sorry, Emmanuel, I didn't have my, my microphone switched on. Thank you for your questions. Now, let me take the first on retail media. It's Kai. The EUR 18 million that you're quoting is income. It is not sales, it is income. I hope that clarifies your question.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you for your question, Emmanuel. Where did we lose market share? Income. It is not sales, it is income. I hope that clarifies your question. Sorry, we have some a bit of background noise here. Apologies for that. So, let me talk about the market shares that you asked for, where we lost market share. Let me overall state, we're very pleased that across the group, we were able to slightly gain market share. Let me first start with the ones where we actually gained market share. Germany was, over the full year, strong. We've seen, Austria as a market leader with a strong result, and also the Benelux, especially in Netherlands, has performed really well. And also, Turkey has done a very, very strong performance.
Where we've seen market share under pressure was slightly in Italy, and Switzerland, as well as, in Poland. Market share's below 1%, reduction overall, so that is the picture for the full year.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Marius Schmidt with ODDO. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking the questions. I have a couple. Firstly, could you please comment, how you perform, to date in Q1 2024 in terms of margin and, inventories? Is this, at this point in time, better or in line with last year? Then, secondly, if you could please comment on, like-for-like growth in DACH and Western Southern Europe, quarter to date. And then thirdly, on, on IAS 29, I think you had a positive effect of, only EUR 6 million in the full year. I have a bit of a disconnect there.
Is it easy to explain in sentence why you show such a high like-for-like growth figure in Eastern Europe and also material EBITDA improvement, but the hyperinflation effect shown there is so low at EUR 6 million? I not bring this together really. Maybe you could help me on this. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you very much for your question, Marius. So I will comment on current trading, the margin and inventory. Kai will talk on the Like-for-like growth in DACH and West and South, as well as the IAS 29. Look, first of all, on Q1, there's nothing I can share more what I've said regarding, say, the black period on sales. We will have on the ninth of February our Q1 call, where we then lay out in detail. Let me just say generally that the work that we've done on stock management, improving stock turn, also increasing availability by actually becoming better as an organization, using different tools, et cetera. That, of course, is work that is continuing.
And what these numbers will also show to you that we have gone into this financial year with a much fresher stock level, which is also important. And while I cannot comment on margin for the time being, you can assume, as Kai has also laid out, that we will continue with our efforts, that we have also committed to the capital market when it comes to margin management, be it product margin or growing the other businesses like service and solutions. Kai?
Marius, let me take the IAS 29 question. Let me preempt that a detailed explanation, our IR team is very happy to provide offline here. But let me give you the key logic why it is so counterintuitively small with EUR 6 million. Now, as most of you are aware, IAS 29 refers to hyperinflation accounting, and it has two steps. One is the development of CPI, so consumer price indexing, and the second is to average out the difference between the end of the quarter exchange rate and the average exchange rate throughout the quarter. Now, in Q4, we had a big increase of CPI in Q4, and only a small difference between end of quarter FX and average FX. These two drivers thus net themselves to only a small EUR 6 million.
Very happy to provide the details offline, but I hope that explains it at least, on a high level for you, Marius.
Yes, thanks. Thanks, so far.
The next question comes from Clément Genelot with Bryan, Garnier and Co. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you. Maybe two questions on my side. So the first one is on the deflation risk. Do you see any emerging risk of deflation in the consumer electronic side in your geographies in 2024? Because many retailing industries are really seeing some stronger disinflation trends, plus the U.S. are as well already entered the deflation in the in consumer electronics. The second question is on the EBIT for next year. Do you expect the EBIT value improvements in South and Western and Southern Europe, will that be more driven by the gross margin, i.e., all the rising services, the retail media, the marketplace, and the fix of your past issues in Spain, or whether driven by the sales leverage? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, very much, Clément, for your questions. So, on the deflation, Kai will give you the answer. I will start with the EBIT improvement, where it comes from, and I would also ask Kai to maybe add some more color to it when it comes to financial figures, et cetera, because I think it's important to reflect again, what is in the what are the assumptions for this year. So on the margin improvement, where does it come from? It comes from very important as we laid out different areas, and they will continue.
1, of course, is we have work on the way and have we demonstrated also last financial year, and also you saw it in the Q4, we will continue to work on the product margin side, which is important for us. Then, of course, the lion part of the growth comes from our growth businesses. Take services and solutions, we expect over the coming period a further strong contributions. Retail media is supposed to grow as well as the marketplace. If you break it down by countries, as I said, we expect all the regions to contribute.
So if you take the strong improvement over the last financial years in Germany, of course, with all the progress we are making, we will continue to make strong results in Germany with further improvements that are coming. And what Kai also said, obviously we also expect Spain to do better, much better this year. And as Kai also explained, we've seen some very good evolution in our Spanish business. Let me also call out one more thing about Turkey, because that often gets a bit lost in translation, because I think the management team, if you look at market share gains and how we operate, is actually a very, very strong company. A very strong business that we enjoy and obviously we expect to perform well there in the future.
But, if you ask me about our assumptions, we have, of course, assumptions that are more normalized, so we do not expect, you know, that everything is going super, super strong in the future. But let's not forget about Turkey. It's a very strong business with very strong management, so the margin comes from all those areas. But Kai, please.
Clément, let me add to what Karsten was saying, and I'll take your first question first sorry, your second question first. So what will drive EBIT improvement this year? So mathematically, we have guided for a slight increase in sales, yet a clear increase in EBIT. So yes, we expect EBIT contribution, not just to come from sales leverage, but again, from clear margin improvement, and Karsten explained beautifully the drivers behind those. But very clear answer, margin improvement and sales leverage, or rather the other way around, sales leverage and margin improvement. Now, you initially then asked about price deflation. A couple of points about this. So yes, in Q4 already, we saw inflation to decrease. That's not the same as deflation, but inflation decreases. That's one true fact. Secondly, keep in mind the special situation in our sector.
Consumer electronics have short product life cycles, and we do operate in a market with high competitive pressure. So what usually happens, new products come to the market at a high price, which then slowly but gradually falls, which is effectively deflation. So we are used to operate in an environment like this, and we do expect some normalization towards that direction, I would say towards that direction, in 2023 and 2024. Now, keep in mind what we said about cost on the other hand, not only would a decrease in inflation, potentially even a deflation, also eventually hit cost, helping us. Secondly, our cost improvement programs are fully kicking in only in 2023 and 2024. I quoted 130 run rate savings and said EUR 40 million already in last fiscal year.
That leaves the bulk still to go in, in 2023 and 2024, which should again, help us in a potentially deflationary environment. I hope that answers your question, Clément.
Yes. Thank you.
The next question comes from Andreas Riemann with ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Two topics from my side. So, sorry, but again, on the EBIT outlook for this year. So I think last year, a clear increase resulted in a EUR 35 million EBIT increase. So is this magnitude also what you have in mind when guiding for an increase in clear EBIT this year? I'm not sure whether I understood your answer on Eastern Europe. I think you touched it for a moment. Do you think Eastern European EBIT might decrease this year? This would be the first topic. And the second one on the gross margin, the product mix led to an increase in the gross margin of 70 basis points in the fourth quarter. Is that a structural change that you are steering?
How much of this is sustainable in the coming quarters? These would be my two topics. Thanks.
Yeah. Thank you, Andreas. Kai will comment on the margin-related questions on the EBIT outlook. What does this mean? A clear increase means it is a double-digit percentage increase of EBIT, so 10% plus. That's what clear increase means. And of course, then you can do the math. Kai.
Then, Andreas, you asked a couple of detailed questions about this. So our guidance here for that clear increase is that it is driven by DACH and Western and Southern Europe, which does imply that Eastern Europe may not contribute to the same extent. Yes, that we can confirm. Okay? So think of clear increase as 10%, but we're not guiding any absolute figure on that. And you asked about gross margin in Q4. I'm gonna give you a on the one hand side, on the other hand side, sort of answer to that. Now, the Q4 margin is highly impacted by certain condition types that become effective at the end of our fiscal year. So the Q4 margin, you cannot expect to reappear automatically in Q1, Q2, and Q3. It is always a bit special, the Q4 margin. Okay?
...On the other hand, it is driven by structural change. Yes, we are pushing for margin improvement. We are working very, very hard to increase our margin and to improve our stock management. That is reflected in the number. The absolute value that you're quoting, you cannot expect to reappear in Q1 and Q2 and Q3, and I hope that answers your question.
Yeah, it does. And I would then conclude that in 2024, there's a positive effect from the product margin, for the EBIT, right? This is a fair assumption.
So let me connect it to the question that Clément asked.
Yeah.
Asked, EBIT driven not just by sales, but also by margin, and margin, again, driven by product margin as well as the growth areas which Karsten pointed out.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you.
You're welcome.
The last question comes from Alessandro Guglietta with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. I have a couple. First one on services and solutions and private label. I wanted to come back on that, because they are both big contributors to your 2025-26 EBIT targets. And I just wanted to know if you still feel confident in those targets, considering the stability this year, and then how should we, I mean, should we expect an acceleration in 2024, or maybe a similar linear progression for the next three full years? And the second question is on the consumer spending trends that you're seeing.
Maybe you can give us some color on maybe the different performance between premium products versus more entry-level products. Are you seeing a particular trend here?
Yeah. Thank you, Alessandro. Let me take those two questions on services and solutions. What to expect in 2024? Is it a linear progression, et cetera, how we're doing? So look, we are confident, absolutely confident in what we said at the Capital Markets Day, that service and solutions is a key contributor. And I would assume that this is working in a linear fashion with a little bit of acceleration towards the end. Why is that? Because not only are we working on the existing portfolio, improving attach rates online, but also offline. Look at just the GSM area, where we've done, for instance, very well, but also introducing new service businesses, like subscription-based services. I mentioned my MediaMarkt+.
We also launched, very successfully, a content product, Let's Go TV, in Germany, which is working very well. Of course, those subscription-based services, they need a bit of ramp up, but this is something which we will pursue in every, in all of our countries. Let's not forget the sustainability-related services that are also coming. There is a growth in portfolio. The clear answer is, yes, we are absolutely confident and committed to it, and I think it's the best assumption to start with a linear progression. Some color on the differences on the performance. What we see is that the premium is still going strong.
And in general, we actually notice also a bit of volume pressure generally in the market, which suggests that this is, you know, at the moment, the consumer sentiment. But we also know that things are, these days, a bit more volatile, so no one can really look into the future. I'll give you one example. We see a very strong increase in demand in, for instance, energy-efficient products, also white goods that consume less energy. That could actually stimulate some demand. So we have seen a several hundred percent increase of energy-efficient devices.
That said, we, of course, always look at the market share, get our fair share, and if you look at what I just reported on the Black period, Santa Claus is, or Christmas is actually happening, I think, also this year. So it's a bit, a bit generally tricky, but I would say, premium going well. Entry, there is a demand, and we see a bit of a volume pressure.
Okay. Thank you. Very clear.
As there are no further questions at this time, I hand back over to Dr. Karsten Wildberger, CEO, for closing remarks.
Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your time and your questions. With that, I would like to conclude today's results call. I wish you all a very happy and joyful holiday season, however you may celebrate this with your loved ones. Take care, stay healthy, and if you still need some Christmas presents, let us help you find them. So with that, all the best, and goodbye.