Yes, very good morning from Neu-Isenburg, and a warm welcome to our investor and analyst call for the full year results 2023. 2023 has been a good year for JOST, and, therefore I'm happy to share with you some strategic insights and also some financial highlights. Let's start with the strategic highlights of last year. JOST was able to expand its product portfolio through M&A acquisitions as well as own R&D activities. We have expanded our geographical footprint, through a greenfield investment in India and M&As in Brazil and Finland, mainly in the area of our agricultural business. We've signed new OEM customer contracts in transport and in agriculture, as well as in construction, and that will enable us to boost midterm growth.
We further improved our carbon footprint reduction to support our customers' requests, but also to mitigate climate change, and we find that a very important topic also for our internal purposes, not only for the customer purposes. We have group-wide gains in production efficiency paired with product portfolio adjustments, and they enhanced our profitability in all segments, which you will see in the financial numbers. Let's come to the products first. It has been an important year because we could also expand our product portfolio, and we've added products in our agriculture range, and these are the orange plus signs that you see. Those are the three-point linkages, the coupling hooks, and the pickup hitches for the rear of the agricultural tractors, but also counterweights and center booms for agricultural machines and construction machines.
In the transport segment, we've added the bus link systems where we also have new contracts with OEMs. Well, last but not least, let's come to the financial highlights of 2023. Our sales of EUR 1.25 billion were more or less on par with last year's level, with organic sales and transport up by 9%, which could offset the decline that we've seen in agriculture of -25%. Our adjusted EBIT margin expanded significantly, 1.5 percentage points to 11.3%, and adjusted EBIT reached a record level of EUR 141 million. Also, the free cash flow increased significantly to EUR 112 million, and the leverage could be improved below the 1.0x multiple of net debt versus adjusted EBITDA.
Adjusted earnings per share up 8% to EUR 6.24 per share, and therefore we raise our dividend proposal 7% and propose EUR 1.50 per share as a dividend to the annual general meeting. So we could achieve all the financial targets in sales, EUR 1.25 million, which is in line with previous year's level as we've announced and planned. We said we would have a high single-digit growth in adjusted EBIT and increase our adjusted EBIT margin. Also there, I already mentioned 14% higher EBIT, 11.3% EBIT margin—checkpoints on both boxes. CapEx, we are in the range of 2.5%, which is our normal range for CapEx without M&A acquisitions. And leverage, we could dramatically improve, much lower than previous year, even below the 1.0 mark. The market has been supporting us last year.
This is just to give you a bit more insight in the market environment of last year. Truck markets in Europe had a record high level, especially in the first quarters, because of pent-up demands that we've seen from post-COVID, and our customers struggling to get their operations back up after COVID and all the logistics problems that they've had. So +14% in the truck market in Europe, +4% in North America, and 31% in Asia-Pacific and Africa, mainly driven by the Chinese market. On trailers, we've seen a year starting last year 2023 in Europe, but in the second half 2023, we saw already some contraction in the market and weakening of the market. In North America, trailer demand was stable, actually slightly growing still, and also in Asia, we had a robust trailer market.
Those strong transport markets helped us offset the weakness in the tractor markets. We've seen -4% tractor production in Europe and -9% in North America, where the compact tractors had a much bigger reduction than the high-horsepower tractors, and we are very exposed to the compact tractors in North America. So for JOST, that meant -3% in Europe, more or less compensating the tractor weakness by a strong truck and trailer market. -8% in North America, where we, as I mentioned, were exposed to the small and compact tractors, but also could offset it with a stronger trailer market to a certain degree. Asia, a big growth of 30% in Asia-Pacific and Africa, with a slowly recovering Chinese market, but also all the other markets on a very good development last year. So that's the summary of last year.
With that, I will hand over to Oliver to give you some more details on our key financial figures. Oliver.
Yeah, thanks, Joachim, for the overview, and hello and welcome from my side. Let's jump now into the details, and, a little bit different to, our intra-year quarterly calls. Let's focus a little bit more on the yearly numbers, starting with Europe. Profitability profitability has improved significantly despite the challenges we had in the agricultural segment. You see, for Europe, that sales with some reported decline of -1.1% suffered from the agricultural business, but more or less the strong demand that Joachim just mentioned for trucks could offset that weakness and also the weakness in trailers. And that effect was even more significant in the fourth quarter, whereas there the consolidation of our two recent acquisitions, Crenlo do Brasil and LH Lift, supported the nominal growth as well.
On top, we had significant FX headwinds throughout the year, finally resulting in -2% points sales decline just from that effect. If you look on the EBIT margin for Europe, as mentioned in the header, significantly improved from 6% to 6.7% for the total year, which is an absolute EBIT growth by 10.5% up to EUR 46.2 million. And this is done by a tremendous job in our transport team, just, I mean, realizing the momentum within the truck market and all the scale effects that helped us here. But also on the other side, now, despite the weaknesses in the agricultural segment, the plant manager there did a tremendous job in terms of cost control to safeguard our margin here.
Overall, also, the ease up in the supply chains as well as, well, as lower freight costs supported the margin development and the absolute EBIT development here as well. There are some specific effects in quarter four. We were burdened by a negative product mix there and a much more strong seasonality than we anticipated. On the other side, as I mentioned before, to safeguard the operational efficiency in our agricultural plants, we there took a little bit longer year-end breakouts, which for sure supported the overall margin, but the absolute EBIT is affected by that. So that's, in a nutshell, Europe. Let's go to North America. Another very successful story, a very strong profitability boost, despite a sales decline. The robust demand went throughout the whole year with a slight decline only in the last quarter.
We also had in North America FX headwinds, a little bit even a little bit more than in Europe, minus 2.5 percentage points. We had a very sharp decline in the compact loader market, as Joachim mentioned before, to deal with. That, all in all, led to a sales decline, reported-wise, by minus 10.6%, down to EUR 354 million organically. So adjusted for, especially here in North America, the FX effects, it's a minus 8.1% decline for the total year. In quarter four, the organic sales decline is minus 28.7 percentage points, and that's because of the very strong decline of the agricultural market, just in the fourth quarter. When we look for North America into the EBIT numbers, exceptionally good result, absolute EBIT went up to almost EUR 45 million.
That's a growth of 25%, and a full-year margin of 12.6% versus 9.0% last year. What you can also see here, supported by a very strong year-end run, where we had, or where we could, incorporate several effects where we worked out all the year, like the portfolio cleanups, negotiations with our customers, and so on and so forth. On top, we had a very strong aftermarket business in the last months of the year, ending up also in the fourth quarter with a record high EBIT number of EUR 50 million or 22.5%. But for sure, we have to mention you need to look more on the full-year results, as this number just for the fourth quarter is affected by that one-off effects, as written down here as well. Let's go to our third segment, the Asia-Pacific Africa region.
There, overall, we had support from strong market demands in general. So sales went up from EUR 173 million to EUR 208 million. That's an organic growth of roughly 30% because also here we had strong FX headwinds of roughly or a bit more than 10 percentage points. Overall, especially our markets in India, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, where we have also very strong off-road business with high margins, supported that growth. But also, you see, a step-by-step recovery in the Chinese truck market. Here, especially, that's driven by the export market, so the export sales that Chinese producers, OEMs, into the world, where we are also well-positioned. And also here, our acquisition of LH Lift in China, supported a little bit that, that sales growth on top. EBIT-wise, also a record year for the region, almost the same number like, like, America with EUR 43.2 million EBIT.
It's a it's a fantastic year, having grown by roughly 16% versus prior year and an overall full-year margin of roughly 21%. That's fantastic. And as I said, the main drivers here are the strong profitability we have with, with our off-road business, but also the proportion of the agricultural business is increasing here as well. And all this includes also, for the last months of the year, some ramp-up costs we still have for our new plant in India, because those costs are not adjusted after SOP of the plant. So that's the picture for the three regions. If we sum that up now, to have the full group picture, as we announced in the press release, it's a fantastic year for us, we believe. Profitability has improved significantly despite the flat sales.
You see here on the chart on the left side that the organic sales growth was more or less versus prior year, so 0.1%. There are two main effects in there. That's the FX headwinds, all in all, roughly EUR 42 million down. On the other side, we had support from the M&As by EUR 26 million. But the very robust demand for the transport sector, which is organically +9%, as Joachim pointed out, could then offset the decline in the agricultural market, and then resulting in an absolute EBIT of EUR 141 million, which is an EBIT margin of 11.3%, both record numbers for JOST.
What we have seen before is, we have a strong boost in profitability in all regions, and on top, compared with the efficiency measures, the strict cost control, especially in the agricultural segment, and the strong aftermarket business that led to these fantastic results, we believe, for the full year 2023. If you keep that in mind for a second, you also would see that we are now very balanced, so that EUR 141 million EBIT is more or less equally split between all the regions so that underlines somehow the global presence of JOST and the high diversity of where we make the money. Finally, we make the money everywhere with relatively good margins, yeah. If you now go to our adjusted net income bridge, to derive earnings per share, you can see we started with a net income of EUR 52 million.
Then you have to add up the reported taxes and finance expenses, showing a reported EBIT of EUR 93 million. And then, as usual, we adjust for our PPA expenses and some other exceptionals like M&A transaction costs or reorganization and relocation costs. There's one specific topic, this year as well, which has been announced before. We settled the arbitration process for the final purchase price calculation with the former owner of Ålö. That has an EBIT impact of EUR 12 million. That's going to be adjusted. Finally, it's part of the purchase price, so to speak. And for sure, we would have expected that this is a bit lower, but finally, it turned out to that number. And we are happy in some way with it because that underlines how successful the business of Ålö is. And finally, we have to pay for it.
So we are fine with that, ending up with the reported EBIT number of EUR 141 million. And if you then adjust for the finance costs and our adjusted tax rates, you end up with a EUR 93 million adjusted net income or translated into earnings per share with an earnings per share of 6.24 versus 5.76 of last year. That's an increase of 8%. And, as Joachim pointed out, we will propose a dividend of EUR 1.50 per share to our shareholders on this year's annual general meeting. So let's come to some other KPIs. So ROCE, equity ratio and leverage, somewhere already mentioned by Joachim. ROCE went up for the full year to 21%. I think that should be the highest number JOST reported, at least since we are on the stock market.
So it jumped by 15% or 2.8 percentage points, showcasing our capability for value creation. Equity ratio increased up to 38%, for sure, driven by the net income and the leveraging we did over the year. And this in light of the effect that we also had in equity, some negative FX translations effect, so that shows that we are really, really stable, and have a strong balance sheet, which opens possibilities for the future as well, for sure. And the same is with net debt, a number that we disclosed already in February. And Joachim mentioned that before. Let's go to the next page. Some cash flow figures, free cash flow, also that mentioned by Joachim, almost quadrupled, so four times, the number of prior year up to EUR 112 million. And that's not only because of strict inventory management, which we announced before.
That's also pretty much driven by the excellent operating performance. You have seen that in the, in the results of the different regions. Basically, all the regions contributed to that strong free cash flow development. And finally, that's happy to announce or happy to disclose, we end up with a conversion rate of 1.2, which is then since a couple of years now back to our target range of at least equal or more than 1.0. So we are quite happy to disclose that number here today. CapEx mentioned by Joachim as well. We stay at the 2.5%, so no surprises here, even including some of the greenfield investments we did in India. We stayed in that range. And for sure, that number is without the transaction costs of the two M&As we did. Net working capital improved also significantly.
We now stay on an LTM basis at 18% versus sales, for sure, is a consequence of the strict working capital management. And on the other side, the trade payables development that here somehow is down to the reduction of the safety stock needs, so to speak. So that's a little bit of counter effect. But even including that safety stock reduction, we are down at 18%, as mentioned. Okay. Then last page, I believe, is also with regards to our SG goals. We can disclose a very successful year. The overall energy consumption decreased by almost 3% down to 105 million kWh. And that in light of the fact that we have acquired two companies. So I think that's a very good result as well.
And you see that, on the bottom chart, more specifically, there we show our CO2 emissions in terms of tons, and as well as per production hour. And you see there versus prior year, we have decreased the net KPI from 4.2 down to 3.4, which is decreased by almost 20%, and even better if you compare that to our base year, which is our ultimate target in 2022. We have now a reduction of almost 50%. So we are much faster here. And this is also driven by our teams, by our plant managers, who really support the ESG idea and are looking every day for possibilities to invest intelligent-wise, so to speak, here in reduction because finally, we also see that in our P&L, and that makes me even more happy. So I believe that's from the financials.
So with that, I will hand over back to Joachim to give us some insights on the outlook for 2024.
Thank you, Oliver. And thanks for all the details on what I think is a very impressive financial performance but also strategic setup in 2023. So it has been an exceptionally good year for JOST. And of course, the question is, how will that continue? Let's start with the market view. We expect the markets to not give us the support that they've given us last year in the same amount. In Europe, the truck market, we expect a contraction of 5%-10%, which you could call is a normalization of the demand compared to the very high pent-up demand-driven levels that we've had last year. On trailers, more or less, we expect the second half year of last year to continue.
With that, in the overall in the full year, we will expect a 5%-10% reduction in the trailer markets in Europe. The same reduction we expect for the agricultural tractors, also, 5%-10%. North America, for the reduction expected on the truck market, is 15%-20%. The year has started a little better than that. So the hope is that we will be more around the 15% at the end of the year. Trailers is expected 20%-25% reduction versus the record levels of last year. And also in agricultural tractors, a market reduction of 10%-15% is expected. It will not hit JOST in the same way, especially in the agricultural tractor segment because we are very strong in the compact loaders. There we don't expect the same contraction to continue.
So I think, last year, we've been penalized a little bit by a mixed effect. We expect that this year, the mixed effect will play into our favor, in the North American agricultural market. Asia Pacific, the Chinese market is coming back, and we see the other markets more or less stable. And with that, we expect an increase of 5%-10% in the market demand in Asia Pacific Africa region. Same is true for tractors. And, on agricultural tractors, we see more or less a stable market, in the -5% to 0% development over the year 2023. Here it says 2022. Sorry for the typo. It should be 2023. Let's go to the next slide. What does that mean for JOST? For our expectation, we expect sales to decline year-over-year in the single-digit percentage range.
So, one-digit decline in sales, the more or less in line, will be the adjusted EBIT. Of course, there will be some negative effects, some negative volume effects. Therefore, the margin will also decline slightly, but it will remain in our strategic corridor between 10%-11.5%. And on a personal note, I expect that to be in the upper half of that range, for 2024. CapEx, our usual 2.5%, maybe a bit higher because of lower sales and some trailing investments that we have, but very well within the healthy range that we consider healthy between 2.5%-3%. And working capital targets, again, below 19% of sales. Last year, as Oliver just pointed out, we've been at 18%. So those in a nutshell, the expectations for the outlook. Let's come to the strategic targets for 2024. In agriculture, I've showed you our extended portfolio.
And of course, we want to generate new and global cross-selling opportunities from these new agricultural products, and also from the global setup that we now have with the plant in India and the plant in Brazil. And, of course, we have the targets to acquire new OEM contracts. There's a lot of interest of the OEMs looking for Tier-one supply base that can follow them globally. And we're now very well positioned with the factories that we have in North America, Europe, Brazil, India, and also China. In transport, the target is to increase our revenue per customer by upselling new products. We have some products, also some intelligent products launched in the last two years. And they will be in the focus to bring these products to the market and therefore increase the revenue per customer.
It will also strengthen our market position in all regions. In operations, the target is to localize our production loader designs in Brazil. Today in Brazil, we have cabins and existing loaders, but we want our global loader designs to be located in Brazil. That's one of the main activities in operations, and also to combine the two plants that we have in Ningbo, China, one from the acquisition and one that we had with the loader business, already for four years. We are planning to consolidate those two plants to gain synergy effects. In ESG, we will continue to identify and implement further measures to reduce our CO2 emissions. We are on a very strong path on the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions that we have in our own production footprint.
And we will also start in 2024 to measure the Scope 3 to get a grip on the emissions across the supply chain. And in finance, of course, our target is to defend the high profitability levels that we've had in the last years, by using our flexibility to sharpen the cost focus further, to improve working capital, and identify potential for additional efficiency gains that we will need in the future. That's the strategic focus. And then let me give you the quick summary of this year. We are set up to achieve a strong and profitable midterm growth, by leveraging our excellent market positioning that we have and to grow the global business further in transport, but especially in the agricultural business where we are now a global tier-one for our global existing tractor OEMs.
Our high flexibility and our continued efficiency gains supported a major increase in the profitability in last year despite the flat sales and development that we've had in 2023 overall. The improvements in working capital and operational excellence boosted the free cash flow and accelerated the deleveraging below the 1x mark, and therefore a very strong balance sheet as a result of the strong years that we've had, in the past and the strong year that we will have in 2024. So despite the cyclical slowdown in 2024, we will defend this high profitability and keep our adjusted EBIT margin within the strategic target corridor. And I already added the personal note on the last slide. We see the current market environment as a window of opportunity and see us in a very good position to further invest in our strategic organic and our inorganic growth. Next slide.
So with that summary, as I mentioned, we are very happy with the 2023 results. We feel we are well positioned for 2024, and we're looking forward to the Q&A session. Thank you for your attention.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may click the Q&A button on the left side of the screen and then raise your hand. If you are connected via phone, please press star, followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star, followed by 2, or please press lower your hand. For written questions, please click the Q&A and then Text button and type in your question. One moment for the first question, please. First question comes from the line of Jorge González Sadornil, Hauck & Aufhäuser. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning. Joachim Dürr, Oliver. Can you hear me? Perfect. I have some questions. Please allow me to go with each of one. First, my first question is around LH Lift and Crenlo do Brasil. Can you please give us the final number of sales and maybe contribution in Adjusted EBIT for both of the companies in 2023?
Take that question, for sure. Both together now contributed for the full year, Jorge, EUR 26 million in sales. I mentioned that M&A effect of EUR 26 million. That's exactly that. Regarding the EBIT margin, they are a bit diluted than ours, but had also a strong year.
Amazing. Also regarding the bookkeeping.
That's a good point from you. Jorge, that EUR 26 million is only for the four months from September to December. They are only consolidated in that four months.
So it's one-third, so to speak, of their organic. Yeah.
Of course. Then regarding the interest expenses for the year, I see the final number of interest expenses is around EUR 25 million. And it looks high enough for the average debt, which I think was around EUR 300 million, the gross debt, not the net debt. And so I was wondering if you can guide us a little bit for 2024, which is the, I don't know, average interest rate that you are expecting for the year, or in which range do you think we should move?
And you can have a call with me afterwards also to get a bit more guidance. You need to adjust for the interest that we had to pay for that arbitration case. That's included in the financial.
So to come more to a normalized 2023 run rate, if you compare then this 2023 run rate to our projections for 2024, it's more or less the same level. We don't expect too much Euribor decrease. The big effect here would be a Euribor decrease for us in 2024. And that, I mean, that might happen starting mid of the year, should have a little bit of an impact, but not too much. So for you, it's more important to have a quick call with me to adjust for that. And it's also disclosed in our annual report.
Amazing. Thank you. And final question, and obviously regarding the outlook, Joachim. So I was wondering how we should understand this outlook in relation to the market expectations you presented to us a few minutes ago.
So, for instance, you already mentioned that in agriculture, you are not expecting to have the same development of the markets because, obviously, you have different stocks maybe than the machinery for the agriculture. But doing a quick number, for me, you are basically saying that you are expecting an organic decrease of around 10% or 10%-11%. The beginning of the year, in some regions, like in North America, is not looking that bad. If we look into the order intake, we are seeing the first two months of the year. So I'm wondering if you consider this single-digit decrease, let's say 5% decrease, conservative, just trying to mirror what the market is showing to us, or if you have already implemented there some more optimistic view on the market. How we should read this guidance?
Well, the guidance is compiled from the consultants' information that we have, but this is not very updated. So they will update it on a bi-monthly basis. So they're still a bit more conservative for North America than I would be today. And therefore, we've added some insights of the call-offs that we have from our suppliers. So North America has started stronger than initially projected by these outside consultants. In Europe, it depends very much on the customers. So some customers are more conservative. Others are quite optimistic for the outcome of the year. So there, we will see how this leverage. You always have to keep in mind that these numbers are only more or less the OEM markets for trucks, trailers, and agricultural tractors. There's a number of overlaying effects. One is that we have a strong aftermarket.
As long as the trucks and trailers are running, the aftermarket will just continue. Therefore, if you can go on mute, Jorge, because you have some background noise, and then maybe switch on again when you have an additional question. Thanks. It's overlaid by an aftermarket, but a very strong aftermarket position that we have. Those prices and those turnovers, they will just continue. That will help us getting away or decouple us a little bit from that market effect. There's other effects in agriculture that are also positive for us. I already mentioned that we are very exposed in North America to the compact loaders. They had a very strong 2022 because everybody after COVID wanted one of these small tractors with these loaders.
Last year, they fell down because there was a high dealer stock, and the market was not as strong because everybody had just bought a new product. Now, the dealer stocks are reduced, and we see that not to go further down anymore and maybe even give us a little help. So that's the one thing, that the exposure on compact and the dealer stocks on those compact loaders plays a role. The other effect that we have is that a lot of the tractors get their loaders at the factory. Others get them at the dealer. And the dealer will only buy it when he has sold the tractor. And since dealer stock in Europe mainly has been going up last year because production of tractors has continued, but the sale has already come down somewhat, some of those don't have a loader yet.
So when the market comes back, we will notice that earlier than you will notice it in the tractor production. So that's a benefit that we will have. That's why we expect the tractor market, our agricultural numbers, to actually be quite stable, maybe even positive for this year. And the other effect, of course, as I mentioned, is that we have new contracts with OEMs. We have a plant in India that creates a lot of interest with our OEM customers. We have a plant in Brazil that creates a lot of interest. And a lot of the OEMs are coming to us and say, "Can we localize this product in Brazil? And can we get products out of your Indian factory?" And that will not all kick in in 2024, but also that will help stabilize the relatively conservative market numbers.
So that was a long answer on your question. I hope it was satisfactory.
Yes. No. It is really interesting. So then, just to make it easier, so the midpoint, let's say 5% decline, if we talk about single-digit, is, in your view, just a conservative maybe number? And you are more inclined with a low single-digit, or is it not something that you want to?
No, no. I would say, from today's point of view, it's a very realistic number, the single-digit. And all I'm trying to explain is why the market numbers look much worse than what we expect in our sales. And that's because of the positive effects that we have with the aftermarket and with the effects that I just mentioned. That's why you don't see a -15% in our numbers, but you see a positive or you see a more positive number.
But I would say the single-digit decline for today's projection is a very realistic scenario.
Okay. Because I was not sure if this organic, let's say, 10% decrease, if we consider the new contribution from Crenlo do Brasil and LH Lift, was also something to weight in agriculture, or is it just because you are expecting more like 15% decrease in transport? With the market, you see this today, and not as bad development of agriculture. I imagine that, in general, agriculture should do better in terms of volume than transport, with your view today, isn't it? Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. I'll go back to the line.
Thank you, Jorge.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please click the Q&A button and raise your hand or press star, followed by 1 at this time.
Written questions can be submitted by clicking on Q&A and Text buttons. Our next question comes from the line of Nicolai Kempf, Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. Nicolai Kempf speaking, Deutsche Bank. A couple of questions. I'll probably take them one by one. My first one would be on, let's maybe talk about end markets in Europe. We've heard some OEMs already adjusting capacity on the truck side. Is it something you would also look into in the next weeks or months, maybe just take out a bit of temporary workers in the plants?
Yeah. I mean, we have a very flexible setup when it comes to production. And you've seen that, and you have followed us through the COVID times. With our light asset model, we have a very high flexibility. And we are using that flexibility already today.
We will be able to use it to balance that out. Of course, in Germany, we don't have the Kurzarbeit yet. But of course, that is an option that we have. Right now, with the normal 30% that we see as a flexibility, we are able to balance it so that we don't need any structural measures. We have flexibility left to adjust between the plants that we have and within the plants for that level. So that, to us, is really not a big concern because of our asset-light business model. You've also seen that we've been able to build a plant in Chennai within the 2.5% investment range. That's just another example of how asset-light our model is. That comes with a high flexibility. Outside of Germany, that flexibility is higher anyhow.
Within Germany, we are prepared for any measures, but we have not been obliged to use them yet.
Okay. Understood. Also talking about input prices, I mean, they have already normalized last year. This year, I think wages could be a headwind. Do you expect to, in contrast to that, raise prices to your customers to kind of pass on the higher labor costs? Or do you think that you've by now kind of maxed out all the leverage you have on the pricing side?
I think that's a good question. You have to differentiate a little bit between the aftermarket and the OEM contracts that we have. On aftermarkets, we have been able to bring the prices to the necessary level. And we've been able to transfer all the cost impacts that we've had to our customers.
Of course, with higher availability of parts, there will also be a bit more competition. But here, in general, everybody is exposed to these inflationary cost increases, be it material, energy, or labor. And there, more or less, us and our competitors are able to transfer that to the market. On the OEM customer, it's a bit tougher. But we've had good success. And you see that as a result in our numbers, obviously, to transfer higher input costs on all levels to our customers. And sometimes, it is a line item that has to do with inflation. Sometimes, it's a line item that has to do with energy. And we have flexible pricing agreements where we have trailing components depending on the input level. So it could be material cost indexes. It could be energy indexes. It could be transport indexes that we have agreed.
So the inflation, in terms of labor, is the toughest one to agree on with our OEM customers. But in general, we have been able to bring the prices up, as you can see in our results in the last year. And those price components will carry us through the year. We expect that we will maintain with that healthy pricing setup throughout the year, but that we will have to adjust the components that we have agreed to adjust.
Understood. Thank you.
And definitely, they've done very well last year. One final one. I mean, you did touch on the U.S. trailer market. One of your close peers kind of said that the standard trailer market came to a standstill in the first months of this year. That is confirmed by data we got from ACT for January and February.
Do you see that this kind of is stabilizing in March or that could change going forward?
I wouldn't say it came to a standstill. I would say we have the trailer market has a lot of different segments. There's container chassis. There's dry vans. There's specialty trailers. And it's very specific. There's coolers. And of course, some segments really had a very rough start into the year, also because there has been very high production last year. But I would be far from saying that we are seeing a standstill. We are in the range of the numbers that we've seen in the market charts overall. But of course, there are segments that are worse. And there are other segments that continue at a fairly good level. So the year in trailers will be lower in North America.
But I don't see it. I don't see it as dramatic as I would say there's a standstill. Our projection that we've seen in the market with the -20% to -25% is still a very realistic projection. There may be segments in that market that are worse and others that are better. Yeah. Good to agree on that. Yep. Again, congrats. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I hand back to Joachim Dürr for closing comments. Okay. Yeah. Nothing else to add. We're very happy with 2023. We are looking forward to an interesting 2024. I'm sure we will have to, but we will also be able to adjust to the new environment as far as markets. You followed us through COVID, and we had a quite, I would say, impressive ability to bring the cost down.
We will use that in the months where we see the lower markets. But we also have a lot of opportunities in 2024. We have a very good strategic setup. We have a very strong balance sheet. We have a lot of interest from customers to grow. And therefore, it will be an interesting year for us. Very happy with what we achieved in 2023, not only on the financial side, also from a strategic setup. And we're eager and looking forward to taking advantage of that in this year, 2024. Thank you very much for your interest. And see you soon. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.