Virtual Annual General Meeting of Infineon Technologies AG, and I would like to welcome you, the owners of our company, here today. Furthermore, I would also like to welcome the shareholder representatives, the media representatives, and anyone else who has dialed into this virtual AGM. According to the articles of association, I am going to chair the AGM of Infineon Technologies AG, which is being held in virtual form today in my capacity as chairman of the Supervisory Board. The AGM is taking place at corporate headquarters at Campeon in Neubiberg. Beside me as the chair, only the notary public entrusted with taking the minutes, all the members of the Management Board, and the voting proxies nominated by the company are here in person, as well as, with the exception of Dr. Eichiner, who has been excused because he is ill today, all of the members of the Supervisory Board.
For place reasons, there are other people supporting the AGM who are following the AGM live in other buildings on the Campeon here, who will be able to come over at very short notice should we need their assistance during the AGM. In addition to the Supervisory Board candidate, Mrs. Wolf, we also have Professor Eul present, who is also a candidate for the Supervisory Board. Both of them are here in person. I will introduce to them- I will introduce you to them later on. Furthermore, we have some staff of the company and service providers who are assisting us with the technical implementation of this virtual AGM. Now, some housekeeping remarks. This AGM was announced by publication in the German Federal Gazette on the 10th of January, 2024, in due form and time.
In the run-up to today's AGM, some proxies and one shareholder filed counter motions and candidate proposals that have been published on the website of the company. Furthermore, in the run-up to the AGM, 8 video and 13 written submissions were submitted via the investor portal. They are available there to the shareholders and their proxies. Requests for supplements to the agenda have not been received. This year, once again, the Notary Public, Sebastian Herrler, has been entrusted with taking the minutes. The entire AGM will be streamed live on the Internet for all shareholders and their proxies, as well as for anyone who is interested in following the AGM. This web stream will occur in both German and English. We will publish the speeches of the Supervisory Board Chairman, the Management Board Chairman, and the Chief Financial Officer on the Internet.
We've already published the key points of all three speeches on the 13th of February, 2024. These, these recordings will be available after the AGM. Should the live transmission be interrupted, please be patient. Should we not be able to resume the connection, we will provide you with further information via our investor portal. If you have individual technical problems, please call our hotline. You can find the contact information in the investor portal and also in our email that was sent to you with the information on the registration information. We will not have a verbatim minutes. The shareholder questions, however, will be minuted by the stenotypists. I would also like to point out that recordings of this transmission of our AGM are prohibited. My dear shareholders and shareholder representatives, you can exercise your right to speak at this virtual AGM via video communication.
This right to speak encompasses, in particular, the right to file motions and candidate nominations, as well as request information according to paragraph 131, Section 1 of the German Stock Corporation Act. With respect to this right to information, according to Section 131, paragraph 1 of the stock corporation, I find as chair of the AGM, that at this AGM today, this will only be possible via video communication, which means within the framework of exercising your right to speak. I would also like to point out that any submissions filed in advance, and motions or candidate nominations will have to be repeated via video communication today during the general debate. We will have a virtual speaker's desk on the investor portal, and you can register your submission there. This has been possible since 9:30 A.M. To do that, go to www.infineon.com/annualgeneralmeeting and select Submission.
After registering your submission via the investor portal, you will receive a button to enter into the waiting room, which is in the space of the live stream. By this button, you will enter the virtual waiting room, in which you will be received by our technical operator. The operator will verify the quality of your image and sound and give you any technical information on the proceedings you may require. Infineon reserves the right to reject submission if the connection is not of good enough quality. It is not possible to make submissions via the telephone. In the virtual waiting room, you will also be able to follow the AGM. After a successful verification of your connection, you will be dialed into the Annual General Meeting live. When that happens, you can start with your submission.
Please make sure that your picture can be seen on the camera and on our screens. After your submission, the access will be deactivated. Should you wish to take the floor again, please register again to file a further submission. Please make sure that you consider the technical pointers with respect to submissions that have been published on the internet site of Infineon, on the Annual General Meeting, and in the investor portal. Furthermore, via the investor portal, we ensure accessibility of the speaker's desk to make sure that the shareholders and their proxies that have electronically dialed into the AGM can file requests and motions according to Section 131, paragraph 4, sentence 1 of the German Stock Corporation Act via electronic communications just before the end of the general debate. I will inform you in good time about when I'm going to close the debate.
Please make sure that the shareholders that have several shareholder numbers have to log in to the investor portal with each shareholder number separately in order to be able to exercise their rights, representing all of their shares at the Annual General Meeting. Your voting right can be exercised personally or by a proxy. Right now, the exercise of your voting right can only be exercised via the investor portal at this virtual Annual General Meeting. There, you can make a choice between a postal vote and the issue of an authorization or sub-authorization and instructions, if necessary, to any of the proxies nominated by the company or other authorized individuals. Authorizations and instructions to the voting proxies can be issued, amended, or revoked via the investor portal until the end of the votes. The same applies to casting, changing, or withdrawing a postal vote.
The votes themselves, in this virtual AGM format, consist only of the casting of a vote of the voting proxies nominated by the company in accordance with their instructions. The voting proxies nominated by the company will release the instructions at the time of the closing of the votes. Also, at this point in time, the postal votes that have been received will be considered in the result of the vote. I would like to inform you that there may be some time delay, so please make sure that you vote in good time. I would also like to point out that, when the results of the votes are announced and the resolutions accepted by the AGM and management have been approved, you will be able to see the results of the votes and the passages of the resolutions on our website.
This information will then be available via the investor portal and on our website. Objections to resolutions by the AGM can be declared until the end of the AGM via the box in the investor portal envisaged for this. These will then be taken to the minutes by the notary public. Questions that allegedly have not been responded to because that was refused can also be taken to the minutes. Any objections and requests should be communicated to the notary public as early as possible. Please don't wait until the last minute. Requests according to Section 131, paragraph 5, sentence 1 and 2 of the Stock Corporation Act are the ones that are affected here. My dear ladies and gentlemen, and shareholders, that ends the housekeeping remarks. I would like to call all 10 items on the agenda.
The complete wording of the agenda items and the draft resolutions have been published in the convocation to the AGM in the German Federal Gazette and can be viewed on our website. This brings me to item one of our agenda: submission of the approved separate financial statements of Infineon Technologies AG and the approved consolidated financial statements, both as of the thirtieth of September 2023, and of the combined management report of Infineon Technologies AG and the Infineon Group, and the report of the Supervisory Board, each for the 2023 fiscal year. This and all of the other documents that must be made public have been published no later than the convocation of the AGM on our website.
The Supervisory Board has approved the separate financial statements and the consolidated financial statements prepared by the Management Board, including the combined review of operations and other explanatory reports. I will come back to them later on. The financial statements have therefore been adopted in accordance with Section 172, Sentence 1 of the German Stock Corporation Act. In accordance with the law, a resolution of the AGM pertaining to this particular item on the agenda is not required. This brings me to the report of the Supervisory Board. Ladies and gentlemen, at the United Nations Climate Conference in Dubai, the international community resolved and decided to put an end to the fossil era. Countries are requested to stop using fossil fuels in their energy systems. By 2030, worldwide capacity in renewable energy should be tripled and energy efficiency should be doubled.
Today, the sun and wind take an 85% share of annual energy expansion. Infineon plays a decisive role here. The products and solutions of Infineon help during their use to save 34 times more CO₂ emissions than they generate through their production. In solar, wind energy, electric mobility, and many more things, Infineon is the driver of innovation, who makes available new products, making them ever more competitive as alternatives to fossil variants. Infineon is thus one of the most important companies worldwide when it comes to driving the energy transition and limiting the climate change. I am very proud of our company, therefore. Fiscal 2023 was a challenging year for Infineon, with new records set. For this, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the staff and the management team around Mr. Hanebeck.
Congratulations for what you have accomplished together. Of course, we would like you, our dear shareholders, to partake in this success once again. The Supervisory Board, therefore, proposes together with the Management Board, to increase the dividend to EUR 0.35 per dividend-bearing share. Ladies and gentlemen, fiscal 2023 was characterized by a number of strategic projects which were closely monitored by the Supervisory Board. Initially, the Supervisory Board and the Management Board agreed on a more ambitious target business model, and therefore raising the long-term financial goals of the company. This is because the Management Board and the Supervisory Board are convinced that decarbonization and digitalization are essential to meeting the demands of the structural rise in the need for semiconductors, and that Infineon will benefit from this development disproportionately.
Furthermore, major investment decisions characterized the last fiscal year, such as the construction of a new factory in Dresden, the significant expansion of manufacturing in Kulim, in Malaysia, and last but not least, the stake of Infineon in a joint venture, TSMC, Bosch, and NXP, to construct a modern semiconductor fab, also in Dresden. Infineon is thus creating the necessary production capacities in order to be able to meet the growing demand of its customers. The investments in Dresden, in addition, are major milestones in strengthening the European semiconductor ecosystem and the resiliency of the supply chain in Europe. Last but not least, the Supervisory Board concerned itself with measures for inorganic growth of the group in forward-looking fields and gave its approval to the acquisition of GaN, GaN Systems.
The Canadian company brings with it a broadly-based portfolio of gallium nitride-based solutions for energy conversion and first-rate application know-how. This acquisition strengthens the leading position of Infineon in power systems significantly. Ladies and gentlemen, last fiscal year, the Supervisory Board also concerned itself with a personnel issue. Constanze Hufenbecher had informed the Supervisory Board in the spring of 2023 that she did not wish to extend her contract on the Management Board. In Elke Reichert, we have won an experienced digitization expert as a successor after a lengthy and intensive search and nomination process. Mrs. Reichert was appointed with effect from the first of November 2023, for three years as member of the Management Board. In this role, she is responsible, among other things, for group-wide digitization projects, IT infrastructure, and the sustainability strategy of Infineon. Mrs.
Reichert was Chief Digital Officer at the TUI Group, and for 25 years, she worked in various management positions at Hewlett-Packard. I would like also, on behalf of the entire Supervisory Board, to extend my sincere gratitude to Mrs. Hufenbecher for her outstanding performance, dedication, and commitment to Infineon. And I would like to welcome you, Mrs. Reichert, once again to Infineon. In the scope of responsibility of the Supervisory Board, we also find, in addition to staffing of the Management Board, its remuneration. The Supervisory Board, in November 2022, adopted a new remuneration system for the Management Board. This created a remuneration structure with higher variable remuneration components. The remuneration of the Management Board, therefore, will be aligned more to the company's success than it was in the past.
In addition, maximum remuneration was increased, and the room for maneuver of the Supervisory Board was enlarged in order to be able to offer experienced Management Board members competitive remuneration. Furthermore, we also created the possibility for weighting ESG targets in the long-term variable remuneration stronger than before. The AGM last year approved this new remuneration system for the Management Board. Thereupon, as of 1 April 2023, in all current and new Management Board contracts, these rules were included. Further details can be found in the remuneration report. The Management Board and the Supervisory Board have decided to have the remuneration report audited, going above and beyond what is required by law. KPMG issued an unqualified opinion. The remuneration report is going to be submitted to you for approval today. Moving on to Supervisory Board remuneration.
The AGM of a listed company must resolve at least once every four years on the remuneration of the Supervisory Board. The current remuneration regulations were the topic of the 2021 AGM. Therefore, we could wait until the 2025 AGM to pass a further resolution on this. However, the Management Board and the Supervisory Board reached the conclusion that the Supervisory Board's remuneration should be adapted in one point already. Currently, the added payments for a committee-related functions have been limited in remuneration. This can lead to additional workload and time spent by Supervisory Board members not being remunerated appropriately. Therefore, we suggest that this cap be done away with. This would follow the recommendation included in the German Corporate Governance Code, according to which special roles requiring added time be reflected appropriately in remuneration.
Furthermore, the Supervisory Board will focus its Strategic and Technology Committee more on technological and digitization issues, and include strategic topics in its debates more than before. This does justice to the new name of the committee, which now is called Technology and Digitization Committee. This will have no ramifications for remuneration. The Management Board and the Supervisory Board therefore suggest to the AGM that the remuneration system for the Supervisory Board be adopted and that the articles of association be amended as accordingly. This brings me to the individual financial statements and the consolidated financial statements for fiscal 2023.
The Investment, Finance, and Audit Committee, as well as the plenary session of the Supervisory Board, discussed the statements in detail with Infineon, the statements of Infineon Technologies AG in detail, as well as those of the Infineon Group and the reports of our auditor, KPMG. The auditor issued an unqualified opinion on both statements. The results of the audit by KPMG was approved by, and endorsed by the Supervisory Board on the twenty-third of November, 2023. There were no objections to the financial statements, and the audit did not reach the conclusion that there were any irregularities. The Supervisory Board therefore adopted the consolidated financial statements and the individual financial statements, both of fiscal 2023. The Supervisory Board endorses the proposal for the distribution of available profit made by the Management Board.
As mentioned in opening, the Management Board and the Supervisory Board suggest to the AGM that the dividend be increased to EUR 0.35. The Investment, Finance, and Audit Committee, as well as the Supervisory Board, also dealt with the separate non-financial report and the group report as of the 30th of September 2023. KPMG also issued an unqualified opinion on this. The Supervisory Board took knowledge and approved the non-financial report and the group report of the Management Board. As communicated a while ago, within the scope of the last AGM, we need to switch auditors based on a new procedure that has to be carried out according to European law. This is subject to an open tender, and the Investment, Finance, and Audit Committee recommended to the Supervisory Board that either Deloitte or PwC be appointed the new auditors at this AGM.
This recommendation is followed by the Supervisory Board, and we suggest that Deloitte GmbH Munich be appointed auditor for fiscal 2024 of both financial statements, as well as the audit-like review of the quarterly financial statements and an audit-like review of the half-year financial statements. Moving on to a further item on the agenda. After Geraldine Picaud surprisingly resigned from the Supervisory Board at the beginning of 2023, Ute Wolf was appointed to the Supervisory Board in April 2023. This appointment was limited until today's AGM. This was done against the backdrop that she, as a shareholder though that you, as shareholders, must resolve on the regular tenure of Mrs. Wolf. Up until her appointment at Infineon, Mrs. Wolf was the CFO of Evonik.
Furthermore, she has been the chair of audit committees of other listed companies in the past. She therefore will strengthen, in particular, the financial expertise of the Infineon Supervisory Board. In addition, Dr. Manfred Puffer has resigned from his mandate as of the end of today's AGM. Dr. Puffer, you have been a member of the Supervisory Board since 2009. Also, on behalf of the entire corporate body, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to you for the many years of commitment to our company. As successor, the Supervisory Board proposes Professor Hermann Eul. Professor Eul launched his career at Siemens, and for 10 years he has been working for Infineon, during 6 of which he was member of the Management Board. In 2011, he switched to Intel, where he resigned in 2015.
Currently, Professor Eul is a member of various Supervisory Board. He is a seasoned expert in the semiconductor sector and has long years of experience and extreme management experience. Mrs. Wolf, please introduce yourself now.
Gentlemen, shareholders, good morning from me, too. My name is Ute Wolf. I'm 55 years old, married, and I live in Düsseldorf. As has been said by Mr. Diess, I'm introducing myself as a financial expert, offering myself for the Supervisory Board at Infineon. I have more than 30 years of professional experience in banking and in the financial departments of major internationally active companies. And until March last year, I was the CFO at Evonik Industries, and since April last year, I am also looking at Supervisory Board activities to a greater extent. So most of my activities can be devoted to my work for Infineon. For 10 years as a whole, I was the CFO of Evonik.
I was in the company for 17 years, and there, I think I oversaw a transition from a mining company to an internationally active chemical company with an international organization and international value-added chain, which we managed. We had a great capital-intensive business with long investment cycles, a lot of R&D expenditure, and also the need for funding for research and development. In the industrial industry, the subject of sustainability has long been a major issue, so I've dealt with the question of sustainability for a very long time. Also, with the contents, more than is generally perceived by the public. The subject of financial expertise in the Supervisory Board, I'm able to provide insights there. I know things about accounting, risk management, compliance, revisions.
These are the most important points, but also I have a great deal of expertise in the field of major acquisitions and disinvestment projects. And since I spent two years responsible for IT, I can also add a few things about IT and cybersecurity, which is a major issue, and I have a great deal of competence to offer here. As Diess mentioned, that I am familiar with finance, not just from the point of the management, from the day-to-day job, but also from the point of view of a member of the Supervisory Board. So I've got good experience there and a great deal of expertise, I think.
I was appointed to the Supervisory Board last year, and since it has given me a great deal of pleasure working over the last few months, I'd be very happy if you'd show your confidence in me today and elect me officially to this Infineon Supervisory Board.
Thank you, Mrs. Wolf. Now, I'd like to ask Professor Eul to introduce himself.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Shareholders, I am pleased to be able to introduce myself to you today. My name is Hermann Eul. I'm 64 years old. I'm married, have an adult son. Semiconductors and me is a history of half a century. But don't worry, I'm not going to be looking back at half a century. Now, I'd just like to pick out some of the highlights. First of all, I had an apprenticeship in telecommunications, where I learned about semiconductors and another thing, other things I took on board. We earn our money with technology. We get our money from satisfied customers, and with entrepreneurial skill, we make businesses out of that. And then there's the work-life balance. Celebrate when everyone is happy and all the invoices have been written. Then I got the academic background.
I went to university, wrote a doctorate, and then I was appointed a professor at a university. Then back to work. Entrepreneurial responsibility was assumed at Siemens Semiconductor in 1990. I saw the spin-off of Infineon. I was given responsibility in 2005 on the board. I had two very interesting jobs. First was Chief Sales and Marketing Officer and CTO.... And these two things really were my passion: working with customers, technology, and entrepreneurial activities. On the board, we then decided to focus the company on its present fields of activity, and I took a lead in the sale of the divisions which were no longer in the focus of our attention. That didn't just have consequences for me, was the last-
Intel insisted I change over to them. But my loyalty to Infineon and my loyalty to the 2,500 employees at the time, enabling me to do that, it was a difficult decision, but I had to do that. I was rewarded. I moved to America. I lived in, Silicon Valley, and I was at one of the biggest semiconductor manufacturers in the world, and I've spent other years in Silicon Valley in two angel associations as a business angel. And that brings me to the last point, what I do today. These VCs and VCs ask me, banks and universities, research institutes, and consultancy companies ask me for help, and I tend to work as an independent member of Supervisory Boards. Today, we've got two, Süss MicroTec SE in Munich and AT&S Austria Technologie & Systemtechnik AG in Austria.
At Nordson Corporation in the USA, is an office that I laid down in order to have no conflict of interests with my nomination today. So to sum up, I've worked in three major companies in this industry. I've sold to major customers all over the world. I lived in America, in Silicon Valley, and now I can devote my experience and ideas to this company, if you wish. It would be an honor for me to do that for Infineon. Thank you.
Thank you, Professor Eul. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm convinced that in Mrs. Wolf and Professor Eul, we have two individuals who stand out through their outstanding expertise, competence, and strategic views. I would therefore like to propose to you that you support the candidate nominations by the Supervisory Board for a tenure of four years by casting your vote. Ladies and gentlemen, this brings me to the end of my report. I would like to thank all our staff around the entire globe for their dedication and work in a challenging fiscal 2023. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the members of the Management Board and my colleagues on the Supervisory Board for the professional and trusting cooperation. Last but not least, I would like to also thank you, our shareholders, for your loyalty to the company.
Ladies and gentlemen, this brings us to the speeches by the Management Board. I would like to hand the floor first to the CEO, Mr. Hanebeck, for his report on the situation of the company. He will be followed by Mr. Schneider, who will make a commentary and provide you information on the financial situation and major financial topics regarding the company. Mr. Hanebeck, please. The floor is yours.
Shareholders, broadcast audience, welcome to Infineon's Annual General Meeting. Thank you for joining us. We're living in difficult times, a world in crisis, economies and societies in a state of upheaval. The semiconductor industry has been attracting more attention than almost any other sector, and there's a reason for that. Only with semiconductor technology is a transformation of a stable, sustainable world possible. At Infineon, we are paving the way for a carbon neutral and digital future. The expectations placed on us are high. As a leading global provider of semiconductor solutions for power systems and the Internet of Things, we deliver the key building blocks for a future worth living in. That is a huge task and a huge opportunity for our company. We are shaping the future with technology and innovation, with curiosity and passion, with a vision for a better world.
What did we achieve in the last fiscal year? How are we adapting to changing conditions, and above all, what are we doing to seize the great opportunities, decarbonization, digitalization, and using them for Infineon? In short, how are we managing to create sustainable added value for our customers, shareholders, society, and our environment? Today, it's my pleasure to report to you, the Infineon shareholders, on this topic. Infineon had a strong 2023 fiscal year and set new records. Firstly, revenue. It was increased to EUR 16.3 billion, up 15% year-over-year. The global semiconductor revenue shrank by around 13% in the same period, and our reference market, that's the semiconductor market, excluding microprocessors and certain types of mass memory, also declined by around 1%. Secondly, profitability increased significantly. The segment result margin was 27%, up by 3.2 percentage points.
Infineon has never been so profitable before. Of course, we want you as shareholders to share appropriately in our business success, and my management colleague, Sven Schneider, will report to you on our business performance in more detail and explain our dividend proposal. At the last Annual General Meeting, I reported that we had increased our long-term financial targets. With the 2023 business figures, we have now shown that we can deliver at the higher expected level. That's an initial confirmation of our more ambitious course. But our specialty is not the sprint, it's the marathon. The semiconductor market is cyclical. The market environment is very challenging in the current fiscal year, and I'll come back to that later. The currently very challenging terrain requires adaptability and perseverance. We are convinced that we can further increase the value of our company in the long term.
How are we positioning Infineon for this? What strategic steps have we taken in the last few months? Well, I'd like to explain that with reference to four points. The first point is we are consistently focusing Infineon on decarbonization and digitalization. These two are the defining trends of our age. They offer huge potential for Infineon. Without semiconductors, there can be no wind turbines, no electric cars, no smartphones, no connected homes. I could continue the list. Semiconductor technology is in all the important electric devices that make life easier, safer, and greener. At Infineon, we are focusing on five particularly promising key applications: electromobility, renewable energies, automated driving, data centers, especially for artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things, IoT. They're all growing rapidly, and they're marked by increasing semiconductor demand. We have the right solutions.
That's why we expect strong and, above all, sustained, profitable revenue growth in the medium and long term. The trend towards electromobility is continuing unabated. The Umweltbonus, state funding system in Germany, has expired. China, however, remains one of the most important markets, and is showing unbroken momentum. Infineon is present in many vehicle platforms there. Our semiconductors are worth between $500-$1,300 per car in more than 10 models of leading Chinese brands. These models are in high demand. We are growing not only with Chinese manufacturers, but also with other leading global manufacturers. In 2023, around 70% of all newly registered vehicles worldwide were electric cars. By 2030, the figure is expected to increase to about 45%.
In addition, manufacturers are equipping new models with more and more driver assistant functions for automated driving, and software is increasingly becoming the defining factor in car architecture. This is similar to what we've seen with smartphones. In the competition for customers, the car manufacturers offering the best user experience are the most successful. Electromobility, automated driving, software-defined vehicle architecture, these three trends are significantly driving up the demand for semiconductors per vehicle. The semiconductor value will rise to as much as $2,000 for high-value vehicles by the end of the decade. Infineon will capitalize on this development. We're the global market leader in automotive semiconductor solutions. We can build on long-standing, trusted customer relations, and our system approach enables us to score points with innovative solutions for our customers all over the world. The energy transition, too, is coming to full swing.
The horrific Russian attack on Ukraine has opened the eyes of many in Europe. At a global level, the climate conference in Dubai in December agreed to move away from fossil fuels. It was a hard-won agreement, and of course, much more needs to happen. Declarations of intent must be followed by measurable results, but the fundamental change has been initiated out of the fossil age, away from one-sided dependencies, full steam ahead with the restructuring of the energy system. The expansion of renewable energies is being actively accelerated all over the world. In Germany, last year, more than half of electricity was generated from renewable sources for the first time. But the grid also needs to be made ready for the electricity transmission of the future. We need storage options, more charging points for electric vehicles, and energy-intensive industries need to switch to hydrogen.
From generation to consumption, semiconductors are needed along the entire energy chain, and they are developed and manufactured at Infineon, for example, at an innovation site in Warstein. We're able to speak to Negar Soufi and Jens Spielke there, but first of all, let the two of them introduce themselves. My name is Negar Soufi, and I've been working for Infineon for 20 years. My name is Jens Spielke, and I've been at Infineon for 10 years now. Currently, I'm the head of a division making products and solutions for electromobility, mainly the drivetrain and onboard chargers. For me personally, it's very important with my work that I'm making a positive contribution to society. At present, I'm in charge of product management for our industrial semiconductor modules, which, among other things, are used in solar plants and also in wind power plants that we manufacture at Warstein.
At Infineon, we have the privilege of making a direct contribution to a better quality of life for all our future generations. Now, we want to take you to our manufacturing plant. Now, let's switch direct to our site in Warstein to Negar and Jens. Jens, hello, both of you. Nice to see you. Hello, Jochen. Hello, Munich. Hello, Jochen. Hello, Munich. Hello, everybody. Good, the connection is working. I see you've got clean room suits on, and that is part of our day-to-day life in manufacturing. Perhaps first we're gonna explain what it's all about. Yeah, I'll be happy to, Jochen. Well, we're here in the drive manufacturing facility, and you can see some of our production facility we need for semiconductor production. Here, at this site, we make our semiconductor modules. The chips come from our front-end sites in Dresden, for example.
The semiconductors are subject to strict quality standards, and therefore, the air here has to be completely clear. That is why we have special ventilation systems and these suits. These suits, they're part of our daily life whenever we enter a clean room, so that the high quality standards can be preserved. Very good. I can see you've got some products with you as well on the table. Negar, yours, I imagine, are for e-mobility, and perhaps you can explain that for the viewers. Yes, I'll be glad to. We provide these power semiconductors for energy conversion. They control and switch all the devices. And here, we have two modules from Infineon I can show you. This is a module specifically for electric vehicles. They control and regulate the electric motor in the drivetrain of the vehicle. These modules have different power ranges available that benefit the customers.
Depending on the price to performance, what the customers want, they can put these into their systems so that they can be fitted individually. It's always the same surface area of the modules in the vehicle. That makes it very easier, easy with our modules. When you have different car models, you can be flexible fitting them to different models. We are the market leader with these modules. Since we started sales, we sold millions of them, and we get very positive reports from the market. Last year, we launched the second generation in the market. In the combination of silicon carbide from Infineon, it is the non plus ultra. silicon carbide makes even more powerful, more efficient inverters. The higher efficiency itself leads to greater ranges for the vehicle. And we all know that range is an important factor for ensuring that electro mobility becoming more interesting.
We can sense your enthusiasm. Thank you, Negar. Now, Jens, you got some modules from the field of renewable energy, a big one and a little one. Perhaps you can explain them to us. Yes, gladly. Well, here, this is the pack of one of our bigger modules that we use for current conversion in wind power plants. And as Jochen mentioned, we've got smaller modules, such as this one, this EasyPACK, which has silicon carbide used for electricity generation and feeding into the grid in solar inverters. In addition to packages, we also have the latest technologies, such as .XT. With .XT, our modules become even more robust. In wind power plants, that's very important, of course, because they are often out in the sea, in rough conditions, where you need very robust modules so that they have long service lives.
Secondly, in the industrial division, we have CoolSiC, based on silicon carbide, which, compared to silicon-based solutions, have a great, a much higher power density, which is important because in this way, our customers can even more compact and efficient systems. That, in turn, is very important for solar power plants, because in the past, they were very heavy, up to a ton in weight. But thanks to our solutions, they're much lighter and weigh only a fraction, about 70 kilos, and that makes installation easier, quicker, and therefore, also less expensive. Here at the innovation site in Warstein, every year, we manufacture 10 million modules for different fields of application: electric vehicles, wind power plants, solar plants, and also for trains and domestic appliances. Negar, Jens, very impressive. Thank you for explaining things to our viewers and giving them an insight into our solutions.
I wish you continued success, and for today, thank you very much. Bye.... Energy transition is becoming reality at the Warstein site. It's people like Negar and Jens who are driving decarbonization forward with their teams. We use cutting-edge technologies to make the use of resources more efficient and to reduce emissions, measurably for our customers and for the environment. Expresses one figure: 34. During their service lives, our products avoid 34 times the CO₂ emissions that they themselves cause during their manufacture. That is a considerable net benefit. We should continue to improve this ratio in the coming years with ever more energy efficient and smart semiconductor solutions. Accordingly, we are further reducing our own carbon footprint. We intend to make Infineon carbon neutral by 2030. To achieve this, we are primarily working on avoiding direct emissions. Our target, however, also includes indirect emissions from purchased electricity and heat.
Our intermediate target by the end of the 2025 fiscal year is to have 70% less emission than in the base year of 2019. To date, we've already more than halved emissions, even though we've doubled our revenues since 2019, so we're making very good progress. In addition to emissions, we also want to minimize our energy consumption. After all, energy efficiency is our trademark. We are making use of all technical possibilities to save electricity, and we're switching our sites to green electricity as quickly as possible. All the European sites in 2021, in 2022, the North American ones, in 2023, our two largest production sites in Asia, Kulim and Melaka. During the past fiscal year, we were able to cover more than 80% of our total demand with green electricity for the first time.
By 2025, we'll have converted all production sites, 100% electricity from renewable sources, and we're looking further ahead. In December, we announced another important step. We are setting ourselves a science-based climate target. This is in line with the Science Based Targets initiative and the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming. The initiative is widely regarded as a benchmark for ambitious corporate climate protection measures. We are including suppliers in our efforts, and in this way, we're expanding our climate strategy. I come now to my second point. We are maintaining a balance in the current mixed market environment. As I mentioned at the beginning, the market environment for Infineon is currently very challenging. The overall economic situation is difficult. Inflation, high interest rates, and geopolitical risks are setting the tone. Our target markets are developing differently in this environment.
On the one hand, demand remains strong in key areas of our automotive business, but on the other hand, demand for consumer communication, computing, and IoT applications remains low. The demand for industrial applications has also weakened recently. However, it's not unusual for the global semiconductor market to run in cycles. Demand is also dependent on global economic growth. That's why it fluctuates. At Infineon, we know how to deal with cyclical changes. We are prepared for whatever comes and can react quickly to different developments. We are maintaining a balance in the current mixed market environment. On the one hand, we are tightening our belts on less time-critical expenditures in order to achieve our financial targets for the current fiscal year. On the other hand, we are continuing to invest in the future.
We are standing by our strategic projects because we're not confusing the weather with the climate. Even if there's now a temporary dip in demand in some application areas, decarbonization and digitalization are long-term growth drivers for Infineon. We shall use them rigorously. Our task as a Management Board team is to manage the company sustainably, and it is exactly what we are doing. We are acting entrepreneurially, we are acting consistently, we are acting for the long term. If you want to be ahead in the race for best technologies and innovations, you have to invest. In our industry, it's all about anticipating customer needs in three to five years. It takes almost as long as that to build a new factory or to develop a new technology. We are therefore making our strategic decisions beyond the usual time span of a semiconductor cycle.
That, viewers, brings me to my third point. We are investing in customer-focused innovation, technology leadership, and production capacities. In the coming years, we want to expand our leading position in the areas of power systems and the IoT. To this end, we are driving forward our research and development activities within the company at a rapid pace. Our developers are focusing on one thing in particular here: customer benefit. In which applications do our customers use our solutions? What function do the solutions need to perform? How are they embedded in the systems? From product thinking to system understanding is our strategic approach. We introduced it more than a decade ago. Since then, Infineon has evolved from a purely technology and product-driven company to a provider of system solutions. In addition to our core business, we are also tapping into adjacent and new fields.
The Internet of Things, in particular, offers many opportunities for this. Complete system solutions are crucial there, and we have all the important components: sensors, microcontrollers for hardware-based security, connectivity solutions, the ability to develop suitable software, and last but not least, a powerful software environment for programming and configuring the products.... This makes it possible for Infineon to serve more and more applications. A particularly exciting and the key topic for Infineon is artificial intelligence. It's being used in more and more IoT applications. Until now, machine learning capabilities were mainly found in large data centers. Now, however, technological progress is increasingly bringing artificial intelligence to end devices. Semiconductor solutions enable new helpful functions directly on the smartphone. For example, an even more intuitive human-machine interaction, for example, based on speech and gestures. The advantage is, first, speed.
The function doesn't depend on good data connection to the cloud. It even works without a connection. Secondly, greater security, because sensitive data don't have to be transferred to the cloud. They remain on the device. Thirdly, no data transfer to the cloud also means less power consumption. That means less carbon dioxide. We at Infineon enable and support this trend. Our teams develop solutions together with our key customers, especially in such new fields of application, step by step, in the close exchange on our development platform. We get to know customer micro requirements even faster and better. This enables us to deliver tailor-made system solutions within a short period of time. Our system philosophy is also behind the following realignment: We intend to further develop our sales organization. In the future, sales will no longer be based on the structure of our four divisions.
Instead, it will focus on three core market segments: automotive, Industrial and Infrastructure, and Consumer, Computing and Communication, coupled with a cross-segment distribution business. That will make it even quicker and easier for our customers to find what they need. And with a company-wide standardized sales process, we can better market the Infineon portfolio as a whole. Our sales force will be even more effective, another important step in positioning Infineon for long-term growth. Decarbonization will rapidly increase the demand for power semiconductors. They're part of our core business. We are the clear number one in this market. We are the technological leaders, and we offer the most comprehensive product range. In addition to silicon chips, we are supporting customers with the new generation of power semiconductors, with technologies based on silicon carbide and gallium nitride, GaN for short.
The advantage is higher power density and higher energy efficiency, smaller size and lower costs. We are constantly expanding our portfolio to include different application areas. Take data centers, for example. They're the backbone of digitalization. We all generate a growing amount of data in our daily lives. Analysts assume that the global volume of data will increase more than tenfold during the present decade. One driver, the use of what's called generative artificial intelligence. You've probably heard of ChatGPT, or you maybe even use it yourself. It's intelligent software that simulates dialogues using a chatbot, enabled by a digital neural network. Generating text, collecting ideas, programming, the possibilities are huge. That's why large language models, such as ChatGPT, will be used in more and more application areas in the years ahead. The problem, AI models have to train to become better.
They need a great deal of computing power to do that, and they consume a great deal of electricity. Large cloud providers such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are investing heavily in expanding server capacities. According to calculations by the International Energy Agency, in 2022, data centers account for around 2% of global electricity consumption. By the end of the decade, that share will increase significantly, depending on the scenario, to between 3.5% and 7%. 7%, and that is comparable in size to India's current electricity consumption. So how we can curb AI's hunger for energy and protect the climate? In addition to green energy, one important lever is to use the electricity more efficiently.
Modern semiconductor solutions help to significantly reduce power consumption in data centers, firstly, by avoiding power loss due to waste heat, and secondly, by reducing the amount of cooling required in the servers. Did you know that cooling in data centers accounts for about 40% of the electricity consumption? With efficient semiconductor solutions in place, operators can significantly reduce this factor. Infineon offers highly energy-efficient power solutions to the entire data center energy supply chain. The potential for our company and our customers is enormous. To illustrate that for you, if all the data centers in the world were equipped with our products, around 48 terawatt-hours of electricity could be saved every year. That's roughly the same electricity as Portugal consumes in a year. The basis, in conventional servers, there are power sigma- semiconductors worth between $65 and $80.
In an AI server, it's $850-$1,800. That's many times the figure. That comes to an increased value in the order of 10 times or more, and with semiconductors and data center about to generate revenues in the low three-digit million EUR range in the 2024 fiscal year. But in a few years' time, we expect annual revenues around EUR 1 billion module. Here, you can see a module for efficient power supply and data centers based on silicon, and here is a module with our gallium nitride technology. This module is smaller and delivers significantly more power. Electrical output, 3,000 watts, 1,000 watts more than the silicon module. High power density is particularly important in AI servers.
The power supply can be realized with significantly fewer modules, so more servers fit into a server rack, which means more space for other components, such as processors and memory. In short, our modules enable more power and greater efficiency with less space required, allowing data center operatives to significantly reduce their costs. Our solution saves electricity, money, and carbon dioxide. Wherever high dynamics and compact design are crucial, gallium nitride can prove its strengths in data centers, but also in smartphone chargers, in onboard chargers and electric vehicles, or in solar inverters. And that is why the demand for gallium nitride solutions will increase considerably in the coming years. And Infineon is ready. In October, we completed the acquisition of GaN Systems.
The Ottawa-based company brings to Infineon a broad portfolio of gallium nitride-based energy conversion solutions, and added to that, there's the first-class application expertise of more than 200 employees. We are very pleased that the GaN Systems team is now part of Infineon. The strengths of the two companies complement each other perfectly. Together, we have about 450 gallium nitride experts. We have more than 350 gallium nitride patent families. And a large number of promising customer projects. That opens up great opportunities for us in the markets I mentioned. We are significantly accelerating the development mode for gallium nitride solutions. We are increasing our lead in power systems. Just like gallium nitride, silicon carbide is a particularly promising semiconductor material. Negar and Jens in Warstein have already demonstrated that for us.
The market for silicon carbide chips is already much more developed than the gallium nitride market. Decarbonization will demand large quantities of power-saving silicon carbide chips in the foreseeable future, first in the automotive industry and then in industrial applications. Other applications will follow. We wish to remain permanently able to deliver. Accordingly, we announced a major investment at our Kulim site in Malaysia in the summer. We're increasing the current expansion of production there into a second phase. We want to build the world's largest, most competitive silicon carbide power semiconductor factory that uses 200 millimeter production technology there. Production capacities from the first expansion stage will already be prepared to start production in the big second half of the year, and we're right on schedule. The demand for semiconductors is rising constantly. That's why investing in Kulim is a safe bet.
Leading customers from the automotive industry and the renewable energy sector are supporting our investment. We've concluded long-term supply contracts. We've agreed on multi-year advanced payments of around EUR 1 billion. We have reserved production capacities. We expect our silicon carbide chips to have an annual revenue potential of around EUR 7 billion by the end of the decade. Around half of that will be in the automotive sector, the other half in industrial applications. We're very confident that we can turn this potential into profitable growth for Infineon. Why? Because in the global competition for the leading position in silicon carbide technologies, we can benefit, benefit from the following strengths. Firstly, we use what's called trench architecture in chip production. The advantages compared to conventional architecture are higher material yield, 30% more chips per wafer, coupled with maximum reliability.
Secondly, we offer the most comprehensive product and package portfolio for all markets, the largest selection for our customers. And thirdly, we benefit from an outstanding system understanding and have first-class customer access, best sales conditions. In contrast, we see hardly any opportunities for differentiating the production of the base material for chip manufacturing, and that's why we buy it from third parties. We've established a network of suppliers from various countries. The supply is broadly based and secured for the long term. Thanks to our proprietary laser-based Cold Split technology, we can use the base material very efficiently. Infineon is therefore excellently positioned with silicon carbide. Our company has all the key factors for sustainable success. I'm confident that with silicon carbide, we shall benefit from economies of scale, similar to those that we enjoyed in silicon chips previously, and that holds for both development and production....
Liebe Zuschauerinnen und Zuschauer. Viewers, on our profitable growth path, we rely on a balanced mix of in-house production and external manufacturing partnerships. This combination enables us to achieve an optimum balance between investment, flexibility, and costs. Our strengths and the strengths of our manufacturing partners differ and complement each other. Where synergies bring advantages, we want to make use of them. An important manufacturing partner is ASE Technology Holding. ASE is a leading contract manufacturer in the fields of assembly and testing. Our companies have been working together successfully for many years. Yesterday, we underpinned this partnership with a further agreement. We shall sell two of our back-end manufacturing sites to ASE, the site in Cavite, in the Philippines, and Cheonan in South Korea. ASE will take over the business with current employees and further develop both sites.
The pooling of manufacturing volumes under a new owner will enable economies of scale, and we shall gain additional flexibility. Furthermore, we have signed long-term supply agreements with ASE to secure the supply for our customers. Now, my fourth point: We are strengthening the European semiconductor ecosystem and our supply base in Europe. The semiconductor industry is globally connected. The value-added chain spans the globe. Network of thousands of specialized companies, globalization, specialization, have benefited our industry for many years. It's been good for innovation and economic growth, but times have changed. The risks in the supply chain are increasing. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the trade dispute of the USA and China, the smoldering conflict over Taiwan. Geopolitical tensions are having an increasing impact on the semiconductor industry. The fact is that leading companies are intervening in the competition between semiconductor companies.
It's a question of strategic interests. The global semiconductor playing field is increasingly influenced by regional rules, but when governments make massive improvements to the basic conditions for semiconductor producers in Asia and America, it's no longer sufficient for suppliers in Europe just to be the technological leaders. The course of the de-risking game also depends on public funding. As a global company, Infineon cannot evade this. Microelectronics is a key technology. It has a huge impact on innovation and supply security in many downstream industries. A competitive European semiconductor industry is essential for Europe, for our value chains, and for our prosperity. European companies are market leaders in power semiconductors, sensors and microcontrollers. We must build on these strengths so that Europe can reduce one-sided dependencies, so it can drive forward the green and digital transformation, so people can benefit from the transformation.
Everyone will have to work together to achieve this, science, industry, and the political sector. It is an important initiative by for European governments to promote the semiconductor industry in Europe because the taxpayers' money and the company's interests combine, and Europe is strengthening its strengths. We are building a sustainably successful European technology ecosystem. We have gained a strong and strategically important partner for Europe. TSMC, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world's largest contract manufacturer of silicon chips, is coming to Germany. Infineon is investing in a joint venture together with TSMC, Bosch, and NXP. The European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is to build a new factory for state-of-the-art chips in Dresden. TSMC is to operate the factory. It's a groundbreaking step for the entire European semiconductor industry. TSMC is a technology leader in the production of state-of-the-art digital chips.
As a contract manufacturer, TSMC has been one of most important, closest partners for many years. The planned factory is an ideal complement to our own production. The ongoing expansion of our sites in Kulim and Dresden is improving our capacities for power semiconductors and analog mixed-signal products. The investment in the European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company will give us access to capacity for automotive microcontrollers and IoT semiconductors. We are making our supply more secure with an additional source in Europe. We'll be able to serve the demand even better. The factory is another building block with which we shall create more added value in the years ahead. That brings me to my summary views. Infineon has achieved an important milestone. The successful 2023 fiscal year is an initial confirmation of our more ambitious course. The 2024 fiscal year will be a year of transition.
In the current mixed market environment, we are maintaining a balance. We are reducing less time-critical expenditures, but we continue to invest in the future. We are thinking and acting for the long term. On behalf of the entire management team, I would like to sincerely thank our more than 58,000 employees. I'm impressed by their great commitment every day. I regularly visit our sites worldwide, and when I do, I meet competent and highly motivated colleagues. Together, we at Infineon are driving decarbonization and digitalization forward.... out of conviction and with power. I'd like to thank all our colleagues for your great work. The great attention paid to Infineon, and what you do as a company, is an additional driver for us.
The positive response also helps us to be perceived as an attractive employer, especially among young people who are looking for a meaningful and secure job. This is an important factor in the competition for skilled workers. Infineon is growing. To achieve this, we shall need many more highly capable, creative, and committed employees in the coming years. Infineon welcomes bright minds and hands-on people. We're open to everyone who wants to shape the future with us, no matter whatever their background. Our company stands for diversity. We stand for tolerance and respect. The different experiences and skills of employees make Infineon better. They make us stronger. They make us successful in the long term. Shareholders, we are convinced that we can further increase the value of your company. Decarbonization and digitalization remain the stable foundation of our business.
We expect continued strong growth in our key applications, and therefore, we continue to implement a strategy with determination. We're expanding our leading position in the areas of power systems and the IoT. Infineon is creating sustainable added value for customers, shareholders, and society. Thank you for your support and your trust. We are delighted that you are accompanying us on our journey.
Dear shareholders, a warm welcome from me as well. Jochen Hanebeck has just explained to you in detail and convincingly how consistently, how consistently your company's strategy is aligned with the two mega trends: decarbonization and digitization. Infineon is very well positioned to make a decisive contribution to the green and digital transformation, and at the same time, to benefit from this transformation. We see significant growth potential in this area, and with our target operating model upgraded just over a year ago, we can be measured by how we capitalize on these growth opportunities. We are setting the framework for sustainable and profitable growth for your company with more ambitious financial targets for revenue, the segment result margin, and adjusted free cash flow over the cycle. This secures our freedom to invest in further value creation over the course of decarbonization and digitization.
Dear shareholders, I am delighted to be able to report to you today that we have clearly achieved our financial targets for the 2023 fiscal year. Record revenue and profitability confirm the more ambitious course we set over a year ago. Infineon achieved revenue of EUR 16,309 million in the 2023 fiscal year. In the previous 2022 fiscal year, revenue amounted to EUR 14,218 million. We have thus achieved growth of 15%. By comparison, the global semiconductor revenue shrank by around 13% during the same period. Revenue in the Infineon reference market, that is, the semiconductor market, excluding microprocessors and certain types of mass memory, fell by around 1%. These figures show that Infineon is excellently positioned in the semiconductor markets that stand for strong structural growth.
Our revenue increase resulted in roughly equal parts from price increases, higher volumes, and changes in the product mix. The continued high demand for semiconductors, particularly in the automotive sector and the renewable energy sector, made a positive contribution and more than compensated for the weakness in the consumer, communications, computing, and IoT markets that emerged over the course of the last fiscal year. At the same time, production capacities, for example, at the Dresden site in Germany, Kulim in Malaysia, and Villach in Austria, were continuously expanded in the 2023 fiscal year. Increased production corridors at external contract manufacturers also contributed to the increase in revenue. Positive currency effects were also recorded in the reporting period. The gross profit amounted to EUR 7,413 million.
The gross margin improved accordingly from 43.1% in the previous year to 45.5% in the reporting year. The increase in the cost of goods sold was therefore disproportionately low compared to revenue growth. This was primarily due to positive price effects and improvements in the product mix. The effect was offset by increased idle capacity costs and write-downs on increased inventories... Our operating expenses amounted to EUR 3,584 million in the reporting year, and increased at a slower rate than revenue in the 2023 fiscal year. Research and development costs increased by EUR 187 million to EUR 1,985 million. This increase reflects the increased business volume, and shows that we are continuing to invest in our competitiveness and innovative strength with the future in mind.
Despite a 15% increase in revenue, it was possible to keep selling expenses, general and administrative expenses, at a stable level of EUR 1,599 million. The segment result amounted to EUR 4,399 million. This corresponds to a record segment result margin of 27%, following 23.8% in the 2022 fiscal year. The profit for the period rose to EUR 3,137 million in the 2023 fiscal year. Our earnings per share amounted to EUR 2.38, and were thus significantly higher than the previous year's figure of EUR 1.65. Adjusted earnings per share rose from EUR 1.97 to EUR 2.65. Now, let's move on to our four segments. The automotive segment continued to generate the highest amount of revenue.
At EUR 8.242 billion, it contributed 51% of Infineon's total revenue. This corresponds to growth of 26% compared to the previous year. Electromobility, driver assistance systems, software-defined vehicle architecture, and the trend towards higher levels of electronic features in vehicles continued to be the main growth drivers in the 2023 fiscal year. Electromobility benefited not only from purchase incentive schemes, but also from the increasing availability of charging stations, a wider range of models being produced by many vehicle manufacturers, and a change in societal attitudes towards sustainable mobility. Positive currency effects and higher prices also contributed to the increase in revenue. The segment result margin rose sharply from 22.9% in the previous year to 28.9%.
This increase in the segment result margin is mainly due to the positive price effects, the higher volume, and product mix improvements. In the power and sensor systems segment, we generated revenue of EUR 3.798 billion. This corresponds to a decline of 7% compared to the previous fiscal year. In the first quarter of the fiscal year, weak demand for semiconductors for consumer, communication, and IoT applications was offset by rising demand in the server and industrial application segments. In the following quarters, demand for semiconductors in the server segment also declined significantly after high growth rates in the previous fiscal year. Overall, weak demand for semiconductors, driven by consumer, communication, computing, and IoT applications, led to an expected decline in revenue during the 2023 fiscal year.
The segment result margin amounted to 22.7% due to the decline in revenue, compared to 27.9% in the previous year. Revenue in the Green Industrial Power segment, which used to be called Industrial Power Control, amounted to EUR 2,205 million in the reporting period, an increase of 23% compared to the previous year. This division also benefited from increased volumes, as well as positive price and currency effects. Demand for renewable energy remained high. In this area, we supply products and solutions for the entire energy flow, i.e., the generation, transmission, and storage of energy, including charging infrastructure for electromobility. The increasing share of renewable energy in the energy mix is crucial to achieving global carbon dioxide emission targets. Infineon's strong market position in the field of renewable energy meant we benefited directly from this mega trend.
The positive market developments also had an impact on the segment result margin. At 30%, it was significantly above the previous year's level of 21.5%. Revenue in the Connected Secure Systems segment amounted to EUR 2,046 million. This corresponds to growth of 12% compared to the previous year's revenue. The increase in revenue was mainly achieved through higher prices, an improved product mix, and volume growth in dedicated applications. The area of security solutions, in particular, benefited from the stabilization of the delivery situation in the past fiscal year, which enabled demand to be met, especially in the area of secure identification and payment solutions. Demand for embedded SIM, eSIM solutions for automotive and industrial applications also remained high. However, demand for connectivity solutions and microcontrollers was affected by a deteriorating macroeconomic climate, which led to restrained end consumer spending....
Based on the good overall revenue performance, the segment result margin also increased from 20.7% in the previous year to 23.9%. To summarize, 3 out of 4 segments, Automotive, Green Industrial Power, and Connected Secure Systems, achieved new record figures for revenue and the segment result margin. This shows that Infineon is in a position to grow disproportionately with market opportunities and to serve customer demand profitably. Now let's take a look at the distribution of revenue by region. At 32%, 5 percentage points lower compared to last year, we generated the largest share of revenue in the Greater China region. This includes Mainland China and Hong Kong, with 25%, and Taiwan, with 7% of group revenue, respectively. For Mainland China and Hong Kong, we estimate that this includes around half of the supplies for end products that are subsequently re-exported.
The Europe, Middle East, Africa region accounted for 27%. Asia Pacific, excluding the regions of Japan and Greater China, accounted for 16% of revenue, Japan for 10%, and the Americas for 15% of revenue. We are continuing to pursue our strategy of regionally diversifying Infineon. Now let's take a look at selected key financial figures, which also reflect the positive business trend in the 2023 fiscal year. Our investments increased significantly from EUR 2.31 billion in the previous year to EUR 2.994 billion in the reporting year, in order to create capacity for long-term rises in demand. This includes, for example, the capacity expansions in Kulim and Villach, which will enable growth in new technologies such as silicon carbide and gallium nitride.
In order to enable growth in the analog mixed signal and power semiconductor sectors, the 300-millimeter production capacities in Dresden, for example, are also being further expanded. The development of free cash flow reflects the positive earnings trend, as well as the noticeable increase in investments. In the reporting year, reported free cash flow amounted to EUR 1,158 million. In the previous year, it amounted to EUR 1,648 million. Adjusted free cash flow, which has been adjusted for investments in front-end buildings, amounted to EUR 1,638 million. ROCE, return on capital employed, or ROCE, increased to 16.6% in the 2023 fiscal year, after 12.6% in the previous year.
Capital employed increased by EUR 1,151 million to EUR 19,510 million. Total assets amounted to EUR 28,439 million as of the 30th of September 2023. This is an increase of 6% compared to the previous year. Equity increased significantly by EUR 2,100 million to EUR 17,044 million, while our financial liabilities fell further from EUR 5,662 million in the previous year to EUR 4,733 million in the reporting year. This reduction of just under EUR 1 billion is mainly due to the scheduled repayment of a maturing bond in the amount of EUR 750 million in June 2023.
Exchange rate effects of EUR 182 million also contributed to the reduction in financial debt. Infineon will continue to have a balanced maturity profile until 2033, along with low financing costs. Maintaining our investment grade rating remains at the heart of our financing strategy. This ensures that we have access to all relevant capital markets and financing sources at all times to finance our organic and inorganic growth at low cost and on good terms. In February 2023, the rating agency, S&P Global Ratings, gave our rating of BBB a positive outlook. We are pleased to report today that last week, S&P raised the rating to BBB+, with a stable outlook.
Our conservative financial policy, the fact that we have met or exceeded our strategic liquidity and debt targets, our good operating results, and our successful cash generation are the main reasons for this. This gives us financial leeway through economic cycles, for example, for research and development, organic and inorganic growth in the context of decarbonization and digitization, and a profit-oriented dividend policy. Based on our improved rating, we successfully placed a EUR 500 million euro bond with a three-year tenor at attractive conditions at the beginning of the week. Now to the Infineon share, your share. The number of shares issued remained unchanged at 1,305,921,137 as of the thirtieth of September, twenty twenty-three. The company currently holds 2,171,026 treasury shares, and therefore is not entitled to dividends.
In the past fiscal year, the company once again did not buy back any treasury shares over and above its existing holdings. Members of the Management Board and executive staff receive part of their variable compensation in the form of shares from the Performance Share Plan. Executive staff and other selected employees additionally receive shares from the Restricted Stock Unit Plan. Under these two plans, Infineon transferred a total of approximately 1,519,000 treasury shares in the 2023 fiscal year. These shares originate from the existing treasury stock that the company had repurchased in prior years. After the transfer of the shares to Management Board members, executives, and selected employees, the shares are now entitled to dividends again. Let me now turn to the performance of your share price.
At the beginning of the past fiscal year, on the first of October 2022, Infineon shares were trading at just over EUR 23. After we were able to raise our fiscal year forecast in February and May, our shares reached their high for the year of EUR 40 at the end of July 2023. Subsequently, profit-taking, following a more cautious outlook, led to price declines into the fall of 2023. Geopolitical events, such as the war in the Middle East at the beginning of October, also weighed on the share price. The negative trend then reversed in the final months of the past year due to increased hopes of interest rate cuts by central banks. As a result, technology and growth stocks experienced a year-end rally, from which Infineon shares also benefited, ending the year at just under EUR 38.
Since the beginning of the 2024 calendar year, the economic outlook for many of the end markets we address has deteriorated, leading to a weakening of forecasts for Infineon and our competitors, which is also reflected in the share price performance to date at the beginning of the current year. With a share price of EUR 33.14 last Monday, this represents an increase of 44% over the entire period described. Although the performance of the Infineon share is therefore better than that of the German benchmark index DAX, it still lags noticeably behind the performance of the SOXX sector index for semiconductor shares. It is important to note that the SOXX is currently driven primarily by a few large individual stocks of companies that specialize in processors for artificial intelligence.
In comparison to our direct competitors, however, we have been able to sustain our petition, our position. The robustness of our business model is being rewarded by the capital market, even during downturns. However, with regard to our valuation, relative to our competitors and also to our own levels achieved in the past, we still see significant further potential for our share price. This brings me to our dividend proposal. The goal of our dividend policy is to allow Infineon shareholders, you, to participate appropriately in the good results of the past fiscal year. At the same time, we want to maintain the financial leeway necessary to further develop the company. The planned major investments, for example, in Kulim or Dresden, and the deteriorating economic outlook for the 2024 fiscal year, should also be kept in mind.
In connection with item two on the agenda, the Management Board and the Supervisory Board are therefore proposing to you a dividend of EUR 0.35 per share for the 2023 fiscal year, an increase of EUR 0.03 compared to the previous year. The expected total dividend payment would therefore rise to EUR 456 million, compared to EUR 417 million in the previous year. Dear shareholders, it's time to look ahead now. After a robust start to the 2024 fiscal year, Infineon faces a persistently difficult market environment for the remainder of the year. The market situation is influenced by various geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties. In this environment, our end markets are developing differently. In summary, we see continued strength in the automotive business, on the one hand.
On the other hand, we expect the recovery in the consumer, communication, computing, and IoT application areas to be delayed until the second half of the calendar year. We revised our guidance due to the ongoing market weakness and currency developments, which are unfavorable to us. Despite a now assumed less favorable US dollar exchange rate of 1.10 to the euro, we now expect revenue of around EUR 16 billion ± EUR 500 million for the 2024 fiscal year. Previously, we had expected revenue of around EUR 17 billion, give or take EUR 500 million. Around half the decline in expected revenue results from the adjustment of the assumed exchange rate from 1.05 to 1.10. The other half is due to the persistently weak market environment. We assume that business developments in the segments will differ considerably.
Currency-adjusted revenue growth in the low double-digit % range is still expected in the Automotive segment. Revenue in the Green Industrial Power segment is expected to decline by a mid- to high single-digit % compared to the previous year. The Power and Sensor Systems and Connected Secure Systems segments are each expected to see a decline in revenue in the mid- to high 10% range. At the midpoint of the guided revenue range, we anticipate a segment result margin for the Infineon Group in the low- to mid-20% range for the current fiscal year. Compared to our previous guidance of 24%, investments in property, plant, and equipment, and other intangible assets, including capitalized development costs, have been reduced from approximately EUR 3.3 billion to around EUR 2.9 billion.
Reported free cash flow is expected to amount to around EUR 200 million, adjusted from an originally envisaged EUR 400 million. Adjusted for major investments in front-end buildings and the acquisition of GaN Systems, free cash flow is expected to amount to around EUR 1.8 billion after an originally planned EUR 2.2 billion. The adjusted free cash flow margin should be 11% and in line with our target operating model. Dear shareholders, as a company, you can see we are rigorously adapting to the situation in order to achieve our financial targets for the current fiscal year. At the same time, we're continuing to make important investments for the future. This is how we will exploit the growth opportunities of decarbonization and digitization in the long term. Thank you very much for your trust in Infineon.
Before I conclude and move on to the agenda for today's Annual General Meeting, I would like to give you a brief update on our Qimonda litigation. This legal dispute has been ongoing since the end of 2010, and the report by the court-appointed expert was submitted at the beginning of January. For orientation, in 2006, Infineon spun off its memory business and transferred it to Qimonda by way of two contributions in kind. At the beginning of 2009, Qimonda filed for insolvency at the Munich Local Court. The insolvency administrator claims, among other things, that the memory business spun off by Infineon was not recoverable and is suing for reimbursement of the difference to the issue amounts of the shares issued to Infineon in the course of the Qimonda spin-off.
In the report, we expect the expert now determines a negative value of EUR 72.3 million for the domestic business unit and a negative value of EUR 1,045 billion for the foreign business unit. Excuse me, EUR 1.045 billion for the foreign business unit. This means that the value of the money business- memory business contributed by Infineon to Qimonda, as determined by the expert, is EUR 1.7 billion, lower than the total value of EUR 600 million relevant for the contributions in kind. The amount of Infineon's potential liability depends on other aspects. In particular, the value of contributed limited liability shares cannot be negative, as a matter of principle, as also stated in the expert opinion.
This would significantly reduce the differential liability for the foreign business division, namely by EUR 1.045 billion. Furthermore, this expert opinion did not cover the determination of the liquidation values, which in Infineon's opinion, at least equal the values required for the contributions in kind, and thus rule out the differential liability claimed by the insolvency administrator. The submission of the expert opinion represents an interim step in the legal dispute. It is currently not possible to predict when a court decision will be reached in the first instance. As of the thirtieth of September 2023, provisions totaling EUR 212 million were recognized in connection with Qimonda. Infineon has reassessed the valuation of the Qimonda risks as part of the financial statements for the first quarter of the 2024 fiscal year.
As of December 31, 2023, provisions in connection with Qimonda totaling EUR 228 million have been recognized on the balance sheet. This mainly includes provisions for the legal dispute, including defense costs. Infineon now expects the proceedings to take longer. As mentioned earlier, I would like to conclude by moving on to the agenda for today's Annual General Meeting. Dr. Diess has already addressed most of the items on the agenda, so I will only add to agenda items 8 and 9, the following: The Annual General Meeting in February 2020 authorized the Management Board to increase the share capital by a total of up to EUR 750 million, with the approval of the Supervisory Board. This is referred to as Authorized Capital 2020/ I.
This authorization, of which EUR 110 million have been used to date, and of which EUR 640 million remain, would expire in February 2025, and thus possibly before the 2025 Annual General Meeting. In order to give the company the necessary flexibility to act quickly on the capital market at all times, Authorized Capital 2020/ I is to be canceled now under agenda item eight, and new authorized capital of up to a total of EUR 490 million is to be created, called Authorized Capital 2024/ I.
The Annual General Meeting in February 2020 also authorized the Management Board to issue bonds with warrants and/or convertible bonds with a total nominal value of up to EUR 4 billion and to grant option and/or conversion rights for a total of up to 130 million shares, with a pro rata amount of the share capital of up to EUR 260 million. The Annual General Meeting also approved the Conditional Capital 2020/I to service this. This authorization would also expire in February 2025, and thus possibly before the 2025 Annual General Meeting.
Therefore, the authorization and the Conditional Capital 2020/ I, under agenda item nine, are to be canceled now and replaced by a new authorization of up to EUR 6 billion and a new Conditional Capital 2024/ I, for a further 130 million shares or a pro rata amount of the share capital of EUR 260 million. The written reports of the Management Board on agenda items eight and nine contain further detailed explanations, in particular on the constellations in which subscription rights can be excluded. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your interest.
Thank you, Mr. Hanebeck and Dr. Schneider, for your remarks. Ladies and gentlemen, those are the presentations by the Board of Management on a very successful fiscal year.