Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the hGears full year 2023 results conference call. I am George, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Christian Weiz, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to hGears Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Thank you for joining us this morning. I am Christian Weiz, Head of Investor Relations. With me on the call today are Sven Arend, our CEO, and Daniel Basok, our CFO, who will present our Full Year 2023 results and be available for a Q&A session after the presentation. Before we begin the presentation, I would like to draw your attention to the disclaimer on slide two, which sets out the legal framework under which this presentation must be considered and which I assume you have read. Now let me hand over to Sven Arend, our CEO.
Thank you, Christian. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for this full year 2023 earnings call. As many of you will be aware, I joined the company on the 1st of February, 2023, so I will start with my reflections and thoughts having been at the helm for a year. Then I will give you a brief overview of our 2023 performance and the measures we have implemented with some concrete examples. Daniel will then take you through the financials, and after that, I will provide some detail on forward-looking priorities before wrapping up for Q&As. At our last Full Year results, I stated that what attracted me to hGears was the combination of product and process expertise that makes us a preferred partner for many.
This, coupled with a strong pool of experienced engineers driving our R&D and our industrialization process, allows for flawless development and on-time, in-cost production. Those facets of the hGears story remain intact, and today, following what we all know has been a challenging year, we stand stronger and leaner and optimally positioned to capitalize on end-market growth when it returns, which I will address later in this presentation. I would like to share a few points about our Full Year 2022 results, which, given the backdrop, are resilient relative to our guidance. Firstly, as you will all know, the challenging market dynamics that we saw at the start of the year remained a prominent feature into year-end, and we see the effects of this ongoing weak end demand slower than expected industry-wide destocking and adverse weather conditions reflected in the results that we present today.
Full Year 2023 revenues of EUR 112.5 million were down 16.9% year-on-year, and despite these persisting challenges, only 2.2% below our guided range of EUR 115 million-EUR 123 million. Secondly, as mentioned in previous calls, against this backdrop, our focus has been on optimizing operational excellence while streamlining operating structures and refining resource management. Our year-end results also reflect these proactive and ongoing efforts to drive internal efficiencies and preserve profitability while building a leaner, more agile organization. It is important to note that some of these measures were only implemented from the second quarter of 2023 onwards, and while effective, could only partially offset the impact from the market-related factors influencing our results at the gross profit and adjusted EBITDA levels, including product mix, lower volumes, stop-and-start effects, and lack of operating leverage.
We nonetheless see benefits from these measures in our adjusted EBITDA of EUR 5.6 million, which was in line with our guided range of EUR 5 million-EUR 9 million. I will give further examples on the next slide, but as you will see, all of this is linked to a very stringent approach to managing our cost and cash base, which brings me to the next element on this slide, our cash flow. With our concerted focus on cash preservation, we achieved positive Free Cash Flow in the second half of 2023, as expected, and overall a negative free cash flow of EUR 3.9 million for the full year, significantly better than our guided negative EUR 9 million-EUR 12 million range, supporting net debt reduction and an improved liquidity headroom. Like many others, we expect persistent market uncertainty in 2024.
This is reflected in our guidance, which I will discuss at the end of this presentation. Based on this cautious market outlook, we will continue to proactively review all elements within our control to drive efficiencies and future-proof the business. I want to underscore two guiding principles that have shaped our strategy for the year ahead: operational flexibility and cash preservation remain paramount in our approach to managing the business. These principles have served us well in 2023 and will continue to guide our decisions in 2024. Additionally, we recognize the importance of agility in capitalizing on end-market growth opportunities when they arise. While the current landscape may present challenges, we remain vigilant in identifying and seizing opportunities for expansion and innovation. Our ability to swiftly adapt to changing market dynamics positions us favorably to capitalize on growth when it returns.
This concludes the review of the Full Year highlights, and I would now like to spend some time on the next slide to provide a few examples of the measures we took in 2023. As you might remember, I mentioned last year that given the current operating environment, it was of paramount importance to see how we could use 2023 as a year of transition to review and recalibrate certain operational aspects within our control to preserve profitability, enhance positioning, and essentially future-proof the business. Today, let me share where we stand at year-end and how this will help us in 2024 and beyond. Against the challenging market backdrop of 2023, our guiding principles have been operational flexibility and cash preservation.
But given our high conviction in the long-term growth potential of our end markets, we didn't want too prudent cash and liquidity management to be at the expense of our inherent future growth potential, which we still see, albeit delayed, given the projected destocking situation. As such, our focus has been on process improvement and improved capacity utilization to help drive immediate savings and efficiencies and ensure that we are better fitted for the market dynamics and growth recovery of various products as we see them, especially as we grow and diversify. The number of products that are being developed and brought into production is increasing. Development cycles are getting shorter while customers continue to work on improvements and make requests for support to hGears.
A highly professional New Product Introduction (NPI) process where timelines and quality gates are met while costs are tracked and recharged to customers is therefore very important. We have therefore redefined this process and formed cross-functional project teams that own the project throughout the development phase into series production. This is being tracked and monitored by a project management organization and supported by software. The team will focus on industry and customer-specific requirements, for example, the higher level of co-development requirement in the e-bike industry. We are currently rolling out our enhanced NPI process. Another priority was improving our capacity utilization across our production footprint, and here the objectives were twofold. First, we wanted to maximize savings and efficiencies in the context of lower growth by reducing capital spend wherever possible. Focus is to utilize existing equipment in all sites, and utilization of equipment is monitored.
In every project, focus is on using existing equipment at full before investing into new, possibly more efficient equipment. The other element was to look at our entire value chain and the options for redirecting some production in-house, in essence using spare capacity for insourcing with one plant acting as a subcontractor for another plant on specific projects. This has the merit of driving savings and efficiencies but still uses our existing industrial base and offers optionality depending on market pickups. Several projects are associated with this, but I hope this provides you with some understanding of the measures implemented in 2023. Effective asset management remains a priority in 2024, and we will continue to monitor this, looking at essential maintenance and repurposing, among other things, and actively assessing the need for additional insourcing projects.
We have also actively focused on management structures, streamlining middle management to create new organizational and agile reporting lines. This has not only helped to streamline decision-making but also drive efficiencies. As part of this process, we also looked at the sales team structure, realigning it to support our focus on target markets. These are a few more examples that support our cost control efforts, which I will address in the next slide. As mentioned, along with operational flexibility, our guiding principle for 2023 is cash preservation. Our strict approach to new hires and efforts to streamline structures have reduced FTEs by 111 employees and helped to reduce the personnel expenses by EUR 3.1 million versus 2022. We also adopted a strict approach to new hires, which will continue into 2024, focusing on further reducing overhead costs and maintaining labor capacity within a flexible working hour setup.
Additionally, I would like to highlight our optimization efforts at our Suzhou plant. In 2023, we achieved significant optimization of our workforce by strategically reducing our blue-collar workers by more than 20%. This initiative has positively impacted our operational efficiency and cost structure. Looking ahead to 2024, our optimization efforts for this plant will extend to our white-collar employees in indirect blue-collar positions. These measures are aimed at enhancing our competitiveness and ensuring sustainable growth in the long term. Turning to our operations in Germany, we faced unique challenges, particularly with the expiration of short-time work measures in March this year. To mitigate this impact, we collaborated with the vast majority, more than 80% of our employees, to implement the voluntary reduction in the working week to 35 hours for 2024, accompanied by a 6% salary reduction.
Daniel and I have also opted to waive 6% of our base salary in solidarity with our employees in Germany. These measures underscore our commitment to preserving jobs while navigating through economic uncertainties. As mentioned, last quarter, we also took a proactive approach to lowering our CapEx spend while ensuring full efficiency and availability of existing assets. In 2023, we have monitored every CapEx spend at board level, regardless of size. With this approach, we have saved on CapEx, utilized existing machines better, and are reducing the need to spend money on new ones. We will continue to maintain this strict oversight in 2024.
The costs and returns associated with the measures that I have mentioned, along with streamlining of our workforce and management structures and strict saving and approach to CapEx release, are reflected in the cost savings of EUR 1 million in other operating expenses and CapEx savings of EUR 4.7 million in 2023 versus 2022. This is also reflected in the positive cash flow that we generated in the second half of 2023 and the free cash flow for the full year that was significantly better than our guided range. In turn, we have also been able to reduce our net debt versus the first half of 2023 and bolster our liquidity headroom to EUR 26.6 million. Moreover, in 2024, we expect to see the full benefits of measures implemented in 2023, along with those still underway. We will also continue actively looking at other ways to enhance business resilience and drive efficiencies further.
Lastly, from a strategic perspective, we have looked at how we are organized and manage performance. In doing so, we've refined this further, informed by market dynamics and the various end markets in e-bikes, automotive, including hybrid, electric, and power tools, and the ability to seize new opportunities in adjacent markets, for example, electric hybrid vehicles, but also how our sales and business development organization is set up and how this is linked to production and plants. In line with this, we will introduce a new business area structure in Q1 of 2024 to better showcase growth and specific needs of every business area. I would now like to hand over to Daniel to present the financials.
Thanks, Sven, and good morning to all of you also from my side. Let me start the review of the financials on slide 9 by looking at revenue and profitability. As Sven mentioned, the conditions experienced in the nine months of 2023 period continued into Q4, affecting revenues and profitability. Full year 2023 revenues of EUR 112.5 million were down 16.9% year-on-year from EUR 135 million last year. Let's look at how this breaks down across the business areas. As always, we are starting here with the e-Mobility. As mentioned, through 2023, the temporary slowdown in the market due to industry-wide destocking in the e-bike industry and among key customers has been a strong and persisting feature of 2023, and Q4 here was no exception.
Nonetheless, we have slightly benefited from higher sales in eHV due to projects that we have signed in the previous years, which has helped to compensate for the downtrend in the e-bikes. These trends are reflected in the 18.3% year-on-year revenue decline in e-Mobility for the full year to EUR 42 million. For Q4, revenues were close to EUR 13.7 million and up to 26% sequentially from Q3 2023, following sequential gains in both Q3 and Q2. This is a blended trend that reflects the mix between eHV and e-bikes, but overall, both sub-business areas progressed positively compared to last quarter. Revenue in e-Tools was EUR 26.5 million for the full year of 2023 compared to EUR 41.4 million in the previous year. This results from two factors. Firstly, the ongoing and slow unwinding of elevated inventory levels.
Secondly, in line with the others in the industry, we saw a subdued end consumer demand with a high interest rate environment continuing to affect the building and construction sector and weather-related factors adversely impacting demand for gardening tools. Finally, we continue to benefit from our strategic focus on the more stable premium and luxury segment of the automotive industry in the conventional business area. The resolution of supply chain constraints led to a robust uptick in revenue in the first half of 2023, while the pace of expansion slowed in the second half. We nonetheless achieved revenues of EUR 43.2 million for the full year period, representing an increase of 5% over the full year 2022.
Moving on to profitability in the middle of the slide, looking at the gross profit and gross profit margins, gross profit decreased 19.8% to EUR 56 million in the full year 2023 period, predominantly reflecting lower revenue volumes and stop-and-start inefficiencies. As a result, the gross profit margin was 49.8%, 1.8% lower than in 2022. Unfortunately, this falls back through to our adjusted EBITDA, and as you can see in the left section of the slide on the right-hand side. However, as mentioned by Sven, we have partially benefited from the countermeasures implemented throughout the year to preserve profitability, including organizational streamlining, efficiency improvements, and cost savings, which is particularly evident in our personnel expenses with 111 fewer FTEs versus the prior year period and adjusted personnel expenses down by EUR 3.1 million or 7.2% year-on-year reduction.
This mitigating effect helped us achieve an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 5.6 million for the full year period within our guided range of EUR 5 million-EUR 9 million. With the countermeasures implemented in 2023, we exit 2023 on a firmer footing. As Sven has mentioned, we will build on this further in 2024 as we embrace a proactive mindset and adopt best practices across the business. Moving to the next slide, let's review our cash flow and balance sheet profile. As you can see on this slide, I would like to provide some insights on the various drivers of the free cash flow and zoom in on CapEx and working capital. In 2023, we achieved a negative free cash flow of EUR 3.1 million, significantly better than the guided negative EUR 9 million-EUR 12 million spend width.
This is EUR 5.2 million higher than the negative EUR 8.3 million in 2022 and is supported by positive free cash flow generated in the second half of 2023. While we see negative cash flow from operating activities at EUR 3.4 million, we see variation in the cash flow from investing activities at EUR 6 million because of a reduced CapEx envelope year-over-year. With cash outflows for PPE at EUR 8.2 million for the full year, it is also much lower than the previously communicated CapEx between EUR 10 and EUR 13 million. The decrease in cash flow from operating activities is mainly due to lower EBITDA, which results from, as I mentioned before, lack of operational leverage and stop-and-start and stop inefficiencies, with a positive contribution from working capital management.
Despite unexpected significant reduction in revenues, with immediate actions and mitigating measures, we were able to keep the net working capital from revenue ratio almost at the same level as at the year-end 2022, reaching 8.2% versus 7.8% at year-end 2022. On the cash flow for investing activities, the difference, as you can see on the bottom left of the chart, is essentially led by a reduced CapEx spend of EUR 6 million, reflecting firstly the H1 2023 execution of the investment plan initiated in the previous years, but more so, our focus on CapEx preservation in the second half of the year, including improved capacity utilization and temporary stop that we placed on growth CapEx. As Sven mentioned before, these efforts to preserve cash are not at the expense of maintaining our operations nor our ability to mobilize when the growth will return.
Before expanding further, I would like to repeat hGears Free Cash Flow definition. It is a sum of net cash flow from operating activities and net cash flow for investing activities, excluding financing items such as paid interest, received interest, and received leasing contracts. We also saw a positive impact on the free cash flow from these components outlined on the graph, reflecting higher interest payments due to increase in EURIBOR and also significant reduction of CapEx acquired with leasing contracts. In conclusion to this slide, in 2024, we anticipate free cash flow phasing trends similar to that observed in 2023, characterized by slightly negative free cash flow in the first half of the year, followed by a shift to positive free cash flow in the second half of the year. However, we expect this trend to exhibit lower fluctuation compared to the previous year.
On this basis, I would like to confirm our FCF guidance or free cash flow guidance of negative EUR 0-EUR 3 million for the full year. Now moving on to the balance sheet, let's flip to the next slide. If you look at our balance sheet profile at the end of the year, you will see that it remains very solid, again, reassuring in the current uncertain economic environment. As you can see on the left-hand side, the positive free cash flow generated in second half 2023 resulted in a cash and cash equivalent of EUR 26.6 million, and that is after having paid EUR 2.3 million to acquire our premises in Schramberg by executing the purchase option we had at the end of the lease contract.
This positive cash generation in the second half of the year reduced our net debt position versus the end of June, which now stands at only EUR 3.4 million as of the end of December versus EUR 10.2 million back in June and translates into a leverage ratio of 0.6. And finally, you will see that we still have EUR 40 million of undrawn revolving facilities that remain untapped. Existing cash and cash equivalent of EUR 26.6 million at the end of the year continues to provide sufficient financial maneuverability. With that said, I would like to hand over now to Sven for the outlook and closing remarks.
Thank you, Daniel. Let me move to our outlook on slide 13. Before I move to our guidance, let me take time to discuss the current market overview, how the remedial actions we took in 2023 will assist us in 2024 and beyond, and how our operational priorities for 2024 will continue to ensure that we are best positioned to capitalize on end market growth when it returns. In e-bikes, we see 2024 demand being impacted by ongoing effects of the prolonged destocking cycle. We expect this to inevitably result in a cautious approach from end customers regarding new orders. However, the positive long-term prospects for the e-bike industry remain unabated, and we nonetheless see strong upside growth potential when the destocking cycle ends. In e-Mobility, we expect demand for premium and luxury cars to remain resilient.
Furthermore, with hydraulic systems being replaced by full electric systems due to the increased power available in new cars, we see significant market potential for components for these full electric systems like braking, steering, as well as the growth of e-drive components. In e-Tools, we continue to see the impact of the inventory destocking cycle and the effects of the high interest rate environment on construction activity and the weather-related scenarios on gardening tools. We anticipate a gradual recovery in this business area following the depletion of the stocks, with a more robust rebound expected upon the resurgence of the construction sector. In midterm, we also see a transition towards the electrification of outdoor power equipment as a safer, cleaner, and smarter alternative to fuel power alternatives. This presents a sizable opportunity for hGears, one which we will be ready for.
As mentioned earlier, based on the remedial measures taken in 2023, we stand stronger and leaner today and optimally positioned to capitalize on end market growth when it returns fully. But we will not stop there, and we will continue to exercise continued discipline and focus on execution, efficiency, cash, and cost management while regularly reviewing resource management and asset utilization to achieve further savings and efficiencies. We will take measures to ensure no stone is unturned from a profitability perspective while ensuring that we are best positioned for the market dynamics and growth recovery of various products as we see them. As part of this, we will implement new business areas structure from Q1 onwards to effectively align the dynamics and needs in end markets and lead times.
In summary and to conclude on some of the points I've already raised, as reflected in our guidance, we expect the challenging market conditions to continue in 2024. As such, for the full year 2024, the group targets are of group revenues of EUR 100 million-EUR 110 million, Adjusted EBITDA of EUR 1 million-EUR 3 million, and a negative free cash flow between EUR 3 million and EUR -3 million, as Daniel mentioned before. The free cash flow phasing trend to be similar to that observed in 2023, albeit with lower fluctuation. Given the persisting challenging market backdrop and ongoing market uncertainty, we also now expect group revenues to reach approximately EUR 150 million-EUR 180 million in the medium term, down from the EUR 180 million-EUR 200 million previously. This reflects strong backend growth, albeit from a lower base.
Ultimately, 2023 has been a transition year towards a leaner, more agile organization, and 2024 will be about the continued delivery of that lean strategy to ensure that we remain optimally positioned to operate in the current environment while continuing to work on our pipeline of business and R&D in an efficient way and without compromising on our competitive position and ability to scale up rapidly when market growth resumes. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your attention, and I would now like to hand the line back to the operator to open the Q&A session.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. Our first question comes from Martijn den Drijver with Oddo. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you, operator, and good morning, gentlemen. I have a number of questions, and I'll start off with some of the more market developments in your costs. Should we assume that you have a bit of tailwind coming from raw materials and energy in 2024 relative to 2023? I'll do all questions one by one, please.
Yeah. I think, Martin, that's correct. Magnitude still to be seen, but at the moment, we have a positive trend.
Clear. And I asked that question as the first question because I'm slightly puzzled by your EBITDA guidance. If I take and please bear with me for a second. If you take the midpoint of your sales guidance, it's EUR 105 million. You did EUR 112 million in this year, so that's the EUR 7 million delta. Let's assume that you have a gross profit of 50%. That means your gross profit goes down by EUR 3.5 million. But if I look at your OpEx and I actually take your Q4 OpEx and I do that times four, that already leads cumulatively relative to the actual 2023 OpEx of a delta of EUR 4 million. And you specifically laid out what you're going to do in 2024, what you have done in 2023. So there must be a beneficial component to all those results and measures as well. So I can't really reconcile that EBITDA guidance.
If I take that gross profit decline, which is certainly offset by OpEx savings, why still the low or cautious guidance for EBITDA?
I came prepared for this question, Martin. Good morning to you. Partially, it is explained by the fact that due to the further reduction in the sales, the impact of the inefficiencies will be higher in the following year. That's one of the assumptions, which will not be compensated by stable energy costs and raw material costs from one side. From the other side, the personal expenses, as you mentioned, we are expecting to see lower this year than we have seen in the previous year. But we should also look on the conservative side of the things here due to some salary inflations that we are expecting to see in 2024. And on the OpEx, as you mentioned, we do expect to see more or less the same numbers as you have calculated.
To summarize the answer, it is mainly driven by the start and stop inefficiencies on the gross profit level that we will not be able to compensate in personnel expenses and OpEx.
Just to follow up on that, because if I look back at 2023, you had a number of larger projects, at least in potential, that started up that caused that inefficiencies, which you actually mentioned in the presentation as well. You're not going to have that in 2024. So yes, I understand there's a bit of a negative element to the lower volume of sales level, but you don't have all those project startups. So is it really wage inflation that is the main factor for the headroom that you build in, or am I underestimating that negative operational leverage?
Yeah. To some extent, yes, because in the end, the negative operational leverage is not really based on new projects. The topic is that as we basically start and stop machines I think we explained that in one of the calls. Some of these machines need to run on empty in order to reach certain temperatures and stability of the environment for several hours in order to be able to start. So of course, the more you stop and start these, the more inefficiencies you get in. What we do have at the moment, due to the relatively bad visibility with a conservative behavior in some of the markets, is that these recalls actually increase. So we have to stay very flexible but also really, of course, from a cash preservation point of view, really try and follow demand changes.
Got it. Got it. Then a follow-up question for me, Mr. Basok. On the working capital, you don't have the breakdown here of the various working capital elements, but where do you stand on inventory? And given the outlook for sales, is there something you can say on inventory developments in 2024 and perhaps the working capital as a whole for 2024?
Yeah. The inventory remains to be in the region of around EUR 220 million at year-end 2023. Yeah. This is still, to be very honest, not a level that I feel that it is the right level for us, and we will continue and strive to reduce it towards the year-end, of course, also in taking into consideration on when the market will start to recover. Yeah. So it is more or less the same level of inventory that we had at the year-end 2022, and that is not something that we are very happy about, to be very honest. So it is still work in progress that we are targeting for 2024 to reduce it further.
Got it. And then to cap that off in terms of working capital and, excuse me, free cash flow, what is your CapEx guidance for 2024, if any?
I mean, we are not explicitly guiding for CapEx, no explicit guidance there, but you can definitely assume that based on the free cash flow guidance, we will strive to manage it below the level of 2023. We will be probably somewhere between mid-single digits in the mid-single digit millions.
Yeah. And that's basically maintenance CapEx with very little other CapEx.
With very little growth CapEx, of course.
I mean, I think we explained that in the past, of course, that we always need to take a look at, do we get projects that have some specific machine requirements? But on average, yes, that will be very, very low on machine investment.
Got it. Then a question on initiatives in new market segments. Sven, can you update us on where you stand with the markets?
To be honest, what?
Are you having RFPs already, RFQs? Perhaps a bit more color on the efforts in that segment.
Yeah. I think in the end, honestly, what we've just recently done because, of course, after last year and also what we see for this year, you have to question on, are we moving in the right markets? Is the potential these markets are given sufficient or not? And I think in the end, as we go forward, we will look at market segments as the bicycle industry, the e-bike industry itself, and then what we will call e-Mobility, and then the e-Tools and power tool business because they have their specifics. Doing an in-depth analysis of where we are today, where we see developments, we honestly feel that the priority still should be to focus on these three existing industries simply because the market potential is there.
I think on e-bike, we recently see for the first time that people that have gone into development seem to be getting some orders, at least for 2025, and maturing their business. So we expect that that will provide some growth as we go forward, and we focus on that. Secondly, on the and I think we mentioned that at the time of the last slides. When we look at the e-Mobility side, it's not just the drive side, but it's really the electrification of systems. So if you look at things like we mentioned the stabilizer bar that is on the rear axle or the electric braking or electric steering, these are components that are coming new to the market with a very small supply base that's available, and they will significantly expand.
And that's where the current focus is to really say it is a new product in a way, but it's still in an industry that is known to us and where we have relations. We have some projects that we're looking at on the industrial side, and there we have to understand, is that a good potential for us going forward or not? I think for the time being, if you go into other areas, of course, the hurdles also start to be bigger, bigger. If you look into things like aerospace, into medical, we will analyze that in-depth. But if you go into that kind of area, you need different kinds of certifications and quality standards. So for the time being, we believe that these three areas provide ample opportunity for us to reach the targets that we've now given, but we will not stop looking outside.
All right. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Those were my questions so far.
Our next question comes from Fabio Hölscher with Warburg Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. Also, thanks for the detailed overview on your efficiency measures and the presentation. Very helpful. I have a couple of questions at the moment. I'll take them one by one. Maybe first off, with respect to your updated midterm guidance. I mean, I understand the change in terms of gradual growth by using 2023 sort of as a starting point, and your cautious approach also makes sense given the uncertainty currently seen in the industry. But in a very simplified way of thinking, if one period is solid and then the second period is challenging because of overstocking and transitional and muted demand, so consumption is essentially delayed, that shouldn't have that much of an effect on the third period then, right?
So unless there's been a change to what's possible in the market, maybe diffusion of new products, internationalization, maybe less dynamic than initially expected, or the pickup of e-bikes in general, could be any number of reasons, basically. So instead of speculating, I mean, you just expressed your commitment to the three industries. I guess what I'm asking is your reasoning behind the guidance adjustment, what specifically the impact factors are for change versus the adjustment made last year.
Again, I think your arguments are valid in a way. Having worked in industry for 35 years, one thing I've basically witnessed is every time that an industry goes through a downturn, despite probably end markets still providing a potential, they never completely recover the gap that gets generated in the downturn. And that's why we're basically saying, "Look, to be on a safer side, if you look at." I think if you look back a few years, the projections for the e-bike market were around 12-15 million units by 2028. Clearly, when we are at around maybe 4 or 4.5 million now, it's unlikely that that will happen. The whole industry, in the end, when the recovery comes, and it will, will be faced with certain challenges to ramp up again and follow that market trend.
I think in the end, the end goal to get to 10, 12, 14 million e-bikes in Europe is still there, but the overall consensus is that it will not happen in the timeframe that was previously aimed for. That's why we're just following that. I mean, yesterday, saw another market study that still shows significant growth for the e-bike business globally in the next five years. But I think it would be too optimistic to think that we can recover completely from the current downturn in the cycle.
Okay. Thank you. And then maybe as a follow-up on that, maybe a bit philosophical, on the shape of the potential recovery. So assuming the trough has been overcome and we return to normal market conditions, maybe a revenue level similar to what we've seen in the early COVID years, what would a realistic EBIT margin level be for you, also given the organizational changes we've made last year?
Absolutely. Yeah. Again, we are not explicitly guiding for the EBIT margin, but of course, what we want to achieve when we are achieving our midterm guidance is that we are going to be in the high single-digit level of the margin there.
Those were my questions.
Once again, as a reminder, if you wish to register for location, you may press star and one. At 11:00, there are no further questions.
If there are no further questions, then again, I thank everybody for participating in the call and, yeah, looking forward to talking to you again soon. Thank you and goodbye.
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