Thank you very much. Good morning from Neu-Isenburg, and a warm welcome to the JOST Q3 2022 Investors and Analysts Conference. We're very happy, Christian and I, to report to you the numbers for Q3, and I would like to start directly with the highlights of the third quarter of 2022. JOST could increase its sales by almost 30% to EUR 327 million in the third quarter, with strong growth both in the transport business line, with almost 29% growth, and the agricultural business line, with 33% growth. We could also grow our adjusted EBIT by 25% to EUR 30 million in one quarter. That calculates to an adjusted EBIT margin of 9.3%. In this quarter, we benefited once again from our global footprint.
The very strong development we had in North America and also APA could somewhat offset the weaker but still growing environment that we had in Europe. Also in Q3, the visibility improved because some of the supply chain issues that our customers were having, mainly, they eased. The demand, especially for trucks, remained very robust despite the macro concerns that we have with inflation and the Russia-Ukraine conflict and others. Based on that positive development so far, we have raised our guidance for sales and for adjusted EBIT for the fiscal year 2022. Let's have a brief look at the markets, how they developed compared to the previous year. In Q3, as I already mentioned, the truck markets, especially in Europe, could recover because some of the supply chain issues were resolved.
There's still some concerns in Europe, obviously due to the conflict and other items, but supply chain situation for the truck customer has improved considerably. With that, we have the 23% growth in the truck industry. In trailers, 1% growth. There we had a strong market already in the last year, so it continues to be on a high level. The tractor markets contracted by 8%, mainly impacted due to uncertainties of energy and rising costs and also some supply chain issues. In that environment, JOST had an 18% growth, benefiting mainly from the recovering in the truck market and a good performance also in the other market segments.
North America, exceptional development in North America, especially in trucks, with +33%, also driven by the resolution of some supply chain constraints that they've had in the past. The trailer market also grew by 8%, and also the tractor market grew by 9%. For JOST, that means an increase of 58%, driven on a very good market penetration, but also increase in prices and also considerable FX effects that Christian will explain in more detail. Asia-Pacific Africa, minus 13% you see here for the truck market. That's a combination of a very weak Chinese market that has, in numbers, a big weight, but also a good market development in India, in Australia, in South Africa, and in other regions. It calculates to minus 13%.
The impact for JOST also for many others, I would think, is less because China in numbers has a high impact, but in turnover and in margin doesn't have that big of an impact. That's why you will see the numbers not go down as much as you can see with the 28% at the bottom. Trailer markets in Asia growing by 9%. In our performance, as I mentioned, 28%, mainly driven by the other countries outside of China where we had a very good development. With that, let's come to more detailed numbers that Christian will explain to you.
Morning, ladies and gentlemen, and also from my side, a warm welcome to our Q3 Investors and Analyst Conference. As Joachim already pointed out, that was yet another very successful quarter for JOST. We were very happy with the development, both top line and bottom line, but I'll come to the group at a later stage. Let's quickly go through the regions as you already are very familiar with. Starting with Europe, our biggest region. Here you can see that we even outpaced the growth that we had enjoyed in Q2, where we were 17.1% higher organically. This quarter we were already 19.6 percentage points or percent higher than the same quarter a year before.
A very positive development here, even though we did encounter some FX headwinds, especially coming from the Swedish krona. The main reason for the higher growth is especially the fact that we were able to pass on some of the input cost increases to our customers. Unfortunately, not all of them have yet been passed on, but basically we are in process to do so more. This quarter was severely impacted by higher energy prices.
Still some material increases, but especially energy due to the Ukraine war had an impact on our ability to grow further. When it comes to adjusted EBIT, you see as well a slight decline here, coming from EUR 10.4 million in Q3 2021 to EUR 7 million in Q3 2022. That is a decrease of roughly 32.6%. Again, this is mainly due to input cost increasing. Also here we did have significant foreign exchange headwinds, again, from the Swedish krona, which devalued especially against the RMB, plus also the U.S. dollar. That had a very negative impact in the quarter alone of minus EUR 2.7 million and minus EUR 8 million in the full year-to-date numbers.
Overall, we will continue to try to pass on the majority of the input cost increases to our customers and are very confident we will be able to do so in the long run. I would like to mention that Europe, this is something that those of you who have been with us and following us for some period of time know that, but for all the others, just again to reiterate, Europe bears the brunt of the headquarters costs, and these are not passed on to the other regions. With that, I would like to come to the next region, which is North America. North America enjoyed a very strong growth again. Going to the next slide, please. We are seeing a growth here in North America of 57.7%.
This is organically 5.4%, where you can see, again, JOST grew both in Agriculture and in the Transport business line. Despite strong FX tailwinds of 22.3%, it's now another record quarter with EUR 106 million in sales in a single quarter in North America. The adjusted EBIT grew more than 64% to EUR 10.5 million, and therefore, the margin also improved 9.9%- 9.9% in quarter three. That is a 64% growth compared to the same quarter a year before. The margin improved from 9.5%- 9.9%, or also compared to Q2, an even better margin where we in Q2 enjoyed a 9.7% EBIT margin.
This is also boosted significantly by much higher aftermarket sales in the region where we are now at 31%, compared also to the last quarter, where we had only slightly below 30%. Coming to Asia-Pacific-Africa, a very interesting turning point because compared to Q2, where we were below last year's sales and EBIT, we are now above last year's sales and EBIT. You can really see that sales have grown to EUR 49 million compared to the EUR 38 million we've enjoyed in Q3 2021. The EBIT has improved from EUR 6.2 million- EUR 11.1 million for Q3.
Overall, a turning point because you've all been very familiar with the sharp decline of the Chinese market, where at the end of Q2 2021, the Chinese market for trucks contracted dramatically because a new emissions regulation was going into effect and the pre-buy effects that we'd enjoyed before have waned. Therefore, now the markets in China are recovering or stabilizing and we are now in China better than we were a year before. Overall, the impact of China on our business in the Asia-Pacific-Africa region is unusually low. It continues to be unusually low. While, for instance, in 2021, we had year-to-date about a 50% market share of China within Asia-Pacific-Africa. We're this year down to 28%.
There's tremendous potential for the Chinese market to recover, and we are very much looking forward to seeing that in the months to come. Overall, we have had a better utilization rate, especially for the Chinese production plants. As we've seen all year along, all the other countries in the APA region, which is specifically India, Australia, South Africa, and also our Southeast Asian companies served out of Singapore, they have always had traditionally higher EBIT margins because we simply sell much more heavy duty and off-road couplings, which come at a much, much higher EBIT margin. Summing it up and coming to the group numbers, we will see here. Now you see the breakdown also in growth by business line.
You see that the agricultural business line grew by 33% to EUR 83 million in sales, and the transport business line grew by 29%. Overall, we are now at roughly 30% unorganically reported or 24% organically. That is a significantly higher growth than we've also had in Q2. Basically, as I've said before, we are trying to pass on all the input factor increases to our customers and are somewhat successful there, or quite successful, I should say. Obviously, if you pass on those input factors and you just increase the price for your product by the increase in material costs, this leads to a margin decline, and that is also what you're seeing here this quarter.
We are down from 9.6% in 2021 to 9.3% in 2022. That's just a mathematical effect. However, and this is the very important fact, this is now the third consecutive quarter where we enjoyed more than EUR 300 million in sales, and also we are now above EUR 30 million in adjusted EBIT. If you compare to the nine-month figure, you'll see that we are for adjusted EBIT, we're at EUR 96.9 million. Also there, we have enjoyed three consecutive quarters above EUR 30 million in profit, and that is something the group has never had before. We were very happy to use the opportunity to increase our guidance for the full year.
You've seen the numbers that is basically in line with what you're already seeing here for year-to-date numbers. Overall, the impact of rising input factor cost remains. This is something that we will see definitely throughout Q4, and we will need to see what will happen in the year to come. It's going to be an interesting year to come as well. With that, I would just quickly guide you through our net income development. Here you can see that from a reported net income of EUR 51 million, we grow to EBIT of EUR 72 million and an adjusted EBIT of EUR 97 million, what I just mentioned.
The good thing is, what you can see here is, first of all, our taxes are extremely stable, EUR 5 million per quarter, also in Q3. The finance result is very similar to what we've seen before with EUR 6 million, for the year-to-date numbers or roughly EUR 2 million per quarter. The two adjustment items, depreciation of purchase price allocations as well as other exceptionals, is absolutely stable and in line with prior year, where we were also recording EUR 21 million and EUR 4 million other exceptionals. Last year, we had a one-time effect, and that was the sale of our hydraulics business in the U.K., that led to an additional adjustment in Q2, 2021.
Overall, basically, the message I'm trying to convey is that the development outside of our reported figures is totally stable. Another very positive thing is that we continue to have a much lower tax rate than we have to use as a pro forma tax rate. With the EUR 50 million year-to-date in taxes, we are significantly below the EUR 27 million that you also see here as a pro forma tax rate of 30%. We are enjoying a much better tax rate than we have to report in our adjusted numbers. The adjusted net income is at EUR 64 million, and therefore, much better than last year, where we recorded EUR 55 million.
That also means that our adjusted earnings per share rose by 15% to EUR 4.28 per share. That is also better than the EUR 3.72 that we recorded a year before. Now let's go to some balance sheet KPIs. The ROCE fortunately increased to 17%, and that is 0.6 percentage points better than in Q2. Very happy about that. Equity ratio now almost at 35%, very much driven by the operating results. However, also some positive development because of the rising interest rates, which means a lower number for our pension obligations. But overall, 35%, I believe, is a quite stable and very positive development for the equity ratio.
Net debt, we're down below 1.5x EBITDA leverage, and that's of course quite positive. We, as you had seen before, we were above, but this is now an improvement of - 0.15x EBITDA. Net debt is down by EUR 11 million, and therefore, very happy to show that. If we then look at working capital and cash flow, also here another positive development. We are positive in operating cash flow. We are positive in free cash flow, and the cash conversion rate increased by 0.3 x to 0.7x. This is, again, we are focusing on trying to bring down our working capital, and we'll do so also for further.
In the meantime, we are not neglecting any investments, and that is also something you see here. We've invested EUR 9.1 million, and this is 2.8% of sales in the quarter alone. Year-to-date, we're roughly at 2% of sales. We will stay within the guided range of 2.5%. A vast majority of those new investments is going towards a new plant in India that we're building for the agricultural business. The net working capital is still elevated at 21.2% of sales, but we are on target to achieve 20% or below of sales at year-end.
Also there we see some positive developments and, hopefully we will achieve the 20%. With that, I think overall a quite successful quarter with record sales, record profits year-to-date and within the quarter. Very happy to report that for the group and, I would like to hand it back over to Joachim for the outlook for the year.
Okay. Well, thank you, Christian, and let me give you what we expect for the remainder of the year. From the market, you can say that the fundamentals of the market are still very strong in both transport and in agriculture. For trucks in Europe, we expect a slight growth because we see that the supply chain issues are being resolved and our customers are able to produce more than they were last year. On trailers, still on a very high level, some slight decline, but 2021 has been a very strong year already for the trailer business, and 2022 will continue to be a strong year. Also in tractors, you see a very slight decline.
You know, there are some customers that are a bit concerned about energy prices, fertilizer prices, and interest rates going up. That is bringing the expectation down a little bit on the agricultural sector, but still at a very solid and very high level. North America continues to be very strong, so we will end up between 10% and 15% higher in truck production as well as trailer production. Tractors in North America continue to grow. Fortunately, also the high horsepower tractors and not so much the low horsepower tractors. The high horsepower tractors have bigger loaders and therefore are a more profitable business for us than the compact loaders on the compact tractors.
APA, here, as I said, you have to take it with a grain of salt because the Chinese numbers are dominant in that, more dominant in this market view than they are in our actual results. The Chinese truck markets continue to be slow. If this year there's no further improvement expected, everybody's hoping for next year for the recovery. The other markets are doing fine and they're doing actually quite well. Those are, as Christian already mentioned, the more profitable markets because that's where the heavy duty equipment is being sold. Also for trailer, the markets outside of China are doing well, and in China we see a bit of a decline.
Overall, you can say considering all the factors with the rising interest rates, with the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and other global factors, it's amazing how resilient this market environment is and how fundamentally strong transport and agriculture are in these times. We expect therefore to have a very strong remainder and a very strong year for 2022. That's why we were able to raise our guidance. We are very happy to do so. Sales, we used to guide in middle single-digit growth. We now expect a low double-digit growth, and we will exceed the EUR 1.2 billion mark first time in the history of JOST. Also adjusted EBIT will grow with high single digits. Also here more than the initial mid-single digit growth.
Of course, the sales growing faster than EBIT calculates to a slight decline in the margin, where we had 10% last year. Here we, despite higher numbers on both ends, we expect a slight decline. CapEx, Christian mentioned already, we continue to invest into our future, and we will stay in the 2.5% of sales CapEx ratio for 2022. Let's summarize the situation until today. The third consecutive quarter in JOST history exceeding EUR 300 million in sales. We're really having a run here in terms of sales and in terms of adjusted EBIT, where we have EUR 30 million in adjusted EBIT in the third quarter consecutive and more than EUR 90 million in the year-to-date numbers.
We are able to leverage and continue to leverage our good position in North America to grow and to benefit from the strong demand for our products in Agriculture and also in Transport. Both business line, Transport and Agriculture, were the growth drivers in Q3, and it's proving the strong underlying fundamentals of these sectors. Our order book has been expanding, and it goes into 2023, especially the order book from our customers. Every discussion that we have with them, they have still very strong order books and it shows a sustainable demand despite the slowdown of the global economy and the macroeconomic concerns that I've already mentioned. We therefore raise our guidance for the fiscal year 2022, and we will be beyond the EUR 1.2 billion mark for the first time in JOST history.
That's the summary. Thank you very much for your attention, and we're looking forward to your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may click the Q&A button on the left side of your screen and then raise your hand. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two, or please lower your hand. For written questions, please click the Q&A and then the Write a Question button. One moment for the first question, please. Our first question is from the line of Jorge González Sadornil from Hauck & Aufhäuser. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes, perfectly.
Oh, perfect. Well, first of all, congratulations on the very strong results. I have two questions. First one is about the next year. I know that you don't have the crystal ball, but it will be quite useful if you can give us your view a little bit on the different markets for truck, trailer, and tractor, please. Then regarding the targets for this year, I was wondering what is preventing you to not achieve a growth of 10%, for instance, in adjusted EBIT, taking into account how strong are the markets of North America and Asia.
I understand that the EBIT margin could be below 10%, taking into account that the European market is always have a lower margin in the fourth quarter. I will be interested if you can give us also your view on the last quarter and what are the dynamics and if there is any one-off that we should take into account. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Jorge, for your question. Outlook for next year, of course, very, very difficult, and we will do a formal guidance then when we have the numbers of the complete year. As I mentioned already, the order book is looking quite solid. Our customers are still planning with very high volumes, especially in truck. I think we have globally, or at least in North America and Europe, a real pent-up demand. The truck industry hasn't been able to produce at the level they were planning to, in 2020 because of COVID, in 2021 because of semiconductors, in 2022 because of impact from the Russia/Ukraine conflict, mainly in Europe, but also rising input costs.
Trucks did continue to drive all through these three years, and the replacement did not happen in the way it should have happened. There's a real pent-up demand. I believe the stories that we hear from our customers that they're planning a very solid production for 2023. They're convinced, despite the higher prices that they have now in the market, that they will be able to sell at more or less the same level than this year. For trailers, it's a bit more cautious, I would say, because they did not have the constraints in production as much as the truck industry, so they were better able to follow the real market demand.
Especially in North America, there is a situation where there is very old trailers running today. The replacement came in the past also from China. That is stopped due to the regulations. Therefore, there is a higher demand. The trailer industry is trying to increase capacity in order to fulfill that demand. Especially in North America, I do believe that there is still a pent-up demand that needs to be fulfilled. In Europe, I would be a bit more cautious. They're all very happy with the order books they're having. I don't think the situation will be as strong as it is in trucks and tractors right now. Everybody's trying to sort the situation.
The farmers, they have been benefiting from very high crop prices this year, so they had a good income. The energy cost and the cost for seeds and for fertilizers to plant the new harvest has gone up quite a bit, and therefore, they are a bit cautious in making new investments. Things that need to be replaced, like all the implements that we sell for our loaders, that business will continue to grow on, because they have to be replaced as they are used. With tractors, it's a mixed bag between tractors that were not available due to supply constraints, that the OEMs actually could not produce and deliver. Also a bit of a concern with, well, the final customer.
I would think that it will continue to be at a fairly high level, but maybe a bit softer than we've seen this year. This is what we get as feedback from the customers right now. As I said, the formal guidance we will then issue when we have the final numbers of 2022. For the other question, I would give it to Christian. Jorge, good to see you again. So, for your question, why we didn't raise our EBIT guidance beyond the 10% mark, quite simple. First of all, we are seeing the traditional seasonality in our earnings. Highest quarter and highest earnings and margins in Q1, and then slightly declining quarter after quarter. This is also true.
I mean, we have no reason to believe that this would not happen in Q4. While we achieved in Q3 already a 9.3% margin, and year-to-date, 10.1%. That is probably the reason why this will also be slightly below the 10% at year-end. What I need to mention is North America has enjoyed a very, very positive Q3 with 9.9% EBIT margin. Even if we achieved the 9.9% again, and also North America has a lot of holidays in Q4, like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even if we achieved that margin, it would drag us down below the 10%. We are not saying it's impossible.
We will watch it carefully, but right now we are, as you know us, we're more cautious, and we will wait and see what will happen. Overall, we are still quite happy. Also bear in mind with the mathematical effect that if you pass on factor price increases one-to-one to your customers, and it's very difficult to ask even for a margin on those factor price increases, then you have a mathematical effect that the margins will go down, and that is something that we've seen all year long. The margins have been slightly weaker, but the overall absolute figures have been very, very positive and much higher than they have been the year before or ever been.
This is the main reason why we were a little bit more cautious on the EBIT guidance than on the sales guidance.
Okay, so it is possible, no? I mean, you are not including in the target, but maybe Joachim, a follow-up on the trends. Thank you very much. This is very useful. Have you seen prices below the levels we are seeing now? I mean, for next year, apart from the different dynamics on trailer and trucks. Should we expect prices even to go higher compared to now with your knowledge about the steel prices and alloys and other raw materials? It's difficult to say at this point.
Yeah. Jorge, let me follow up on Christian just with one sentence. Our main focus is on the absolute EBIT. We're trying to improve the absolute EBIT. We pay our salaries and our dividends derived from the absolute numbers that we have. That's the focus. If we need higher sales for that, and that calculates to a dilution in the margin, then that's a mathematical effect that we're trying to optimize, but that we cannot fully control. It's always the absolute numbers that we have in focus, and that's what we're trying to optimize.
On prices of our customers in the market and our prices to our customers, we will probably have an effect where steel prices will go down in Europe and in North America. Energy prices will probably go up because we have not seen the full impact of the energy prices in the input cost of the companies or the private households. I don't expect the total to go up and have, you know, more price effect in our products or in the products of our customers, but I expect that it will also not go down with the effect that you would expect from, for example, lower steel prices.
Thank you. Very interesting. Maybe two last, very last questions from my side. Can you give us more detail on this new factory in India for tractors? I think it's quite interesting if you can give us some figure about the output that you're expecting from that factory and the end markets. That one, if you can answer it before, please.
Yeah. Maybe just two comments on that factory. It's focused on the agricultural business right now. It will be located in Chennai, where we have started construction. Actually, the hall is already finalized. The first business that we will have in that plant is business for export out of India to existing markets, North America and Europe. So it's mainly a production site for agriculture at this point in time, which is a very competitive site. But it has the potential also to start to have a basis for the Indian agricultural market and maybe also to complement our existing transport business, where we already have one factory in the north of India.
You will see that factory in production in about a year or so, maybe a bit more, but it will start with products for export from India to North America and Europe. Then we will see if we can build up more market in India for Agriculture and if we can fill the factory with other useful products for the Indian markets, maybe also in Transport.
Okay, thank you. The last question is a technical question. Is there any difference for you if the trailer market is next year stronger for specialties than for a standard trailer? I mean, do you sell more landing gears or more trailer equipment for one or the other? Or it's not really a difference for you?
Of course, the standard trailers is a much higher volume. That's where we have the landing gears, the kingpins, and some of the axles, and that is the business that we depend on a lot. We also, if that goes down, the specialties, where we have our steering systems, the TRIDEC, the whole TRIDEC portfolio, that is a very solid business, and that's usually longer-term and a different cycle, and I think that's where your question comes from. That will fill up some of what we could be losing due to a lower market in standard trailers.
Thank you very much. Very useful. Go back to the queue.
Thank you, Jorge.
Thank you, Jorge.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please click the Q&A button and raise your hand, or press star followed by one at this time. We have another question from Miro Zuzak from JMS Invest. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello, gentlemen. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Perfectly.
Okay. Thank you. I'll take the questions one by one, if I may. The first one, if I look at the European segment a bit from, you know, like, the helicopter perspective, I think you made this acquisition of Ålö back in 2019, first time consolidation in 2020, if I'm not mistaken. That would have been roughly EUR 20 million in EBIT. If I look at your level this year, I mean, given your guidance, you're probably ending up somewhere between EUR 40 million and EUR 45 million in Europe, which is comparable to the numbers we see back in 2015 to 2020. If I just put the EUR 20 million on top of your historical level, I would end up with, you know, like, rather EUR 65 million than EUR 45 million.
Are we still, you know, like, way below a proper COVID recovery, and do you expect this number to go up at 60+ in the coming years? Or, have I overlooked other aspects of the integration, and is your profitability lower, like, from a structural point of view going forward?
Yeah. Miro, let me take that question. First answer is, Ålö or the ag business line obviously is not only present in Europe but also in North America to a very large extent, so significant portions of their profits are coming from North America. No, to answer that question also, again, the Ålö acquisition is not disappointing. Quite the opposite. We're very happy with the development right now. We have one negative aspect this year, and that is especially the foreign exchange rates of the Swedish krona. The Swedish krona in particular has devalued against the Chinese RMB. That is important for us because we purchase quite a few preassembled products from China, from our factory in China.
It also has devalued against the U.S. dollar and the euro, but more so against the U.S. dollar. As I just said, a significant portion of the sales are also realized in U.S. dollars. That is a hopefully one-time negative effect this year that should go away. Overall, operationally, the acquisition is fully integrated, and it's also, as I said, quite. We're quite happy with the development. That is all good. What we are seeing in Europe specifically, and that is to your point, is that we are suffering more in Europe from the rising input factor costs, so especially steel, but now again, it's energy, it's alloys, it's transportation costs.
All of those are having a very negative impact in Europe more than it has an impact in Asia-Pacific and/or in North America. I think this is the main reason for the development that you're currently seeing. With the integration, we're done and happy. The teams have done an excellent job. The company's been integrated basically since the middle of 2020, despite COVID, and there is nothing negative to be said about the Ålö acquisition.
I think, if I understood your question right, if you take the pre-consolidation numbers, you cannot add them to the Europe numbers, because Ålö is active in North America and in Europe. You would have to split that and add it to the North American and the European numbers.
Okay. Cool. Thank you. That answers my question. The second one would be regarding the Q4 profitability. Just accounting for your guidance of high single-digit growth in adjusted EBIT, if I try to, you know, like, put this strong decrease from Q3 and allocate the decrease to the three divisions, it's very hard to get these numbers actually without becoming negative in one or the other division. I mean, can you just also confirm that all three divisions are going to remain positive in Q4 and also, you know, that there is, like, probably some upside to your guidance?
Because otherwise, you know, like, you really have to assume a very strong decrease in more or less all the three divisions, which if I listen to your comments, I really don't see at the moment happening, and you would already see that, like, we are already in the middle of November, shortly before Christmas, basically. You would probably see that if this happened, and that's not yet in my year release that you see that right now. Could you please comment on that, if it's just a very conservative process guidance, or are you expecting in Europe, as you mentioned, higher cost headwinds than probably we see from the analyst side, so to speak?
Okay. Let me take that question again. If you look and we have it here already on the screen. If you look at page 18 of our investors presentation that's in the backups, you do see once again the very typical seasonality that I already pointed out during my speech. In Q4, the margins are traditionally the weakest because we simply have a lot less working days in our plants, and therefore, margins are declining. We have a weaker fixed cost absorption and this is why we are expecting a weaker margin in Q4. However, this should and will go away in Q1 next year.
To your point, yes, it's conservative. I mean, we always try to be somewhat conservative in terms of our guidance, and we're not ruling out anything. I still believe it is possible that we will see that development. As I said, Europe is currently the region that is strongest under pressure, especially when it comes to energy prices. You've seen those ups and downs, both on the natural gas markets but also on the electricity markets. This is something we were trying to incorporate into our guidance. Maybe we've been too conservative, but we will see.
Right now, we feel confident with our guidance, and we will see if we can surpass that.
Okay, cool. Maybe just one little question. Your R&D expense was significantly lower compared to the first two quarters. Was there any structural change in those, or is this like the new slide level, or was there like a one-off effect somehow in this quarter?
We have to check, but I don't remember them being low. I think we're on a very good plan with our R&D expenditures. Christian is checking while we're talking that.
I think 3.9% versus 4.7% and 4.6% before.
It's Q3 with 3.9% versus 4.1% in the quarter 3 2021. With the EUR 4 million, we are slightly below the year-to-date average. A lot of the R&D expenses are also dependent on whether or not we have to capitalize certain projects. It may have been that in Q3, we've capitalized a few more projects, but these are following strict rules of the IFRS accounting standards. What I can say and what we need to say is that we are not slowing down any kind of R&D activity.
Quite to the contrary, we are pushing through, and we are also expecting that come year-end, we will see again higher numbers. There is no stop in development or in projects. Everything is going according to plan. It may just be that for a unusual coincidence, this quarter, we had a higher capitalization rate than we had the periods before.
Yeah. It could be timing or a capitalization issue, but we're running very well with our R&D projects. All projects that you've seen, if you were at the IAA show, you've seen some of the new developments that we are doing in terms of digitalization and automated products. We're very happy with the development there. We're doing it with reasonable R&D money, but we should be spending over the course of the year more than we have in the last years. If in Q3 for timing issues or since we put it on the balance sheets, that there could be a delay because of that.
Other than that, we are actually increasing our efforts in preparing ourselves for a more digital and a more automated product in the future.
Okay. Then maybe a last one, if I may. In the U.S., basically, we have seen from several, you know, like the mega companies, we have seen actions now being taken to basically reduce the cost base, laying off people, and so on. Among them also Amazon, there was some news that, you know, like the volumes they are down at Amazon in the U.S. recently. Singles' Day, I think, wasn't that well received in Asia now, I think, the last weekend. You know, regarding your client base, how much of your North American sales is coming from those, you know, like these large logistics operators?
Do you see any signs of, you know, like weakness, coming as a consequence of the management of these people basically being on the brake pedal for at least for the moment?
Yeah. Maybe the weight of the parcel shipment will go down a little bit, when Amazon and the others are struggling. When they're struggling, it doesn't mean that they're not growing. It just means they're not growing at the same pace that they have been in the past. You're right, Miro. They have been a driver of new ideas in logistics and partially also of new equipment that we were able to support with our products. But in North America, for example, it ended up being the same traditional equipment. They've had various studies of how they could transport their parcels more effectively.
They ended up with the same trailer and truck combinations that were already in the market. As long as the consumption will continue, and Amazon, it's not that they will go away, it's just that they're not growing as fast as they have been in the past. As long as the consumption will continue, it will not impact our customers, and therewith will not impact us immediately, as long as there is consumption going on. If the people go to Walmart and buy there, or if they get parcels delivered to their home, it does make a difference because it's more, there's more transport involved, obviously, when you bring it to your home.
It's not a huge impact to our business. In terms of, if I may understand your question in the way, do we have planned to lay off people in that regard? We always had to be very flexible. Flexibility in production has always been the core value for us, and we are able to fluctuate with the markets. Of course, we have a certain amount of fixed costs and fixed functions, but also there, we have been very stable over the last years. I think we have a set up so that we will be able to balance that out with our staff. I don't expect us to follow the lead here of Amazon and others and have such radical adjustments.
We are continuously adjusting our operational flexibility up and down because that's what we had to do in the market over decades, and it's part of our business model.
Okay. Just a follow-up on this. So you basically don't see any signs of weakness in your pipeline with these kind of costs? They're still basically ordering and projecting increasing numbers?
As I mentioned earlier, you know, on trucks, I think we have a very solid pipeline, and all this, all the logic behind it makes a lot of sense to me, so I expect that the truck market will continue to be stable at a high level. In trailers, it's a bit more of a mixed picture, all right? The input from our customers is that they have a very solid order bank and they are running still at very good numbers, but they are a bit more cautious because they have been able to follow the demand. There's not as much pent-up demand. If now demand eases, then of course, their volume will go down.
On trailers, I think we have to expect to be a bit more flexible also downwards, if needed, than in the truck business.
Very clear. Thank you very much, and all the best for the final quarter of the year.
There are no further questions at this time, and I hand back to you, Joachim Dürr, for closing comments.
Yeah. With that, thank you very much for your interest. As we've pointed out, we are quite happy with the development for the year so far, considering it's a year with a lot of uncertainties and a lot of fluctuations, and threats in the market. We expect to have a successful 2022, and would like to thank you for your attention and for your interest in JOST. We don't hear ourselves already happy holidays when they come closer.
Usually I wait until December before I do these wishes, but since we will probably not meet in this course, so I expect or I hope all of you will also have a very nice closure of a year full of work, but also hopefully full of successes. I'm looking forward to talk to you next year. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
Thank you.