Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to today's Q1 2022 conference of Klöckner & Co SE. For your information, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to your host today, Mr. Felix Schmitz. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, thanks, welcome everyone to our Q1 call. With me today, our CEO, Guido Kerkhoff, our CFO, Oliver Falk, as well as our CEO Europe, Bernhard Weiß, and our CEO US, John Ganem. They will guide you through the presentation. We are looking forward to answer your questions thereafter. With that, I would like to hand over to you, Guido.
Yeah. Thanks, Felix, and welcome also from my side to our Q1 call. Let's directly jump into the highlights of this quarter. Again, a set of very strong results. Shipments were slightly down year-over-year, also due to our strict margin over volume strategy. We could have been clearly positive, but this was the way to boost our earnings. First quarter shipments were also impacted by the Omicron variant and by a reluctance to buy in the U.S. at the beginning of the year, which is now resolved, especially with background of artificially high U.S. demand in the first quarter of last year, and of course, by the impact of the invasion of Ukraine on the auto business in Europe. However, seasonality is intact and shipments are considerably up quarter-over-quarter.
Meanwhile, March was the strongest, and by far the strongest month of the quarter, and therefore a good starting point for April, for our Q2. Sales strongly up year-on-year due to very positive price development. Accordingly, gross profit improved strongly year-on-year. We generated a very strong EBITDA before material special effects of EUR 201 million. Reported EBITDA even came in at EUR 254 million. Once again, we benefited from positive pricing dynamics together with our strict and smart working capital management. Net working capital is up, especially price-driven. However, managing net working capital smartly with relatively lean inventories still ready to serve the market while others can't, and especially booking in very profitable back-to-back and contractual business. More than 60% of our stocks are already sold. Strong team performance overall.
With a rock solid balance sheet and a strong and improved financing behind us, we are ready to take advantage again of the special market circumstances, and to continue to expand our margin. Operating cash flows were subsequently negative, and net debt was up year-on-year as a result of the price dynamics in the United States and Europe. Digital sales share of 46%, which is rather flattish due to the unprecedented market circumstances, but clearly underpinned by a very strong Klöckner system development. In Q1 2022, we continued to push forward our leveraging strength strategy. We completed property sales in France, and most importantly, an investment in Switzerland. With a disposal in Switzerland, we generated significant cash proceeds of EUR 50 million. The operating business was transferred to other sites in Switzerland prior to the transaction.
In total, we generated significant special effects of EUR 53 million in Q1 2022. Our digitalization efforts have also continued to pay off. Digital sales share is at 46% and is still held back because of the special market conditions. Nevertheless, our self-developed AI solution, Klöckner Assistant, again, showed a strong development and posted a record quarter. Klöckner Assistant processed around EUR 390 million of volume, almost double the volume compared to last year's quarter. In total, the assistant processed the volume of EUR 1.8 billion since launch, and it's further gaining speed. Sustainability is at the core of our leveraging strength strategy. We are proud to be the first company worldwide to have its net zero carbon reduction targets approved in the regular process as science-based in accordance with the latest standards of the Science Based Targets initiative, SBTi.
Thanks to all employees involved in this process, a great success. This clearly underpins that we are leading the pack and started earlier and have a clear advantage over others. By 2040, Klöckner & Co. will eliminate its Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions in line with the SBTi requirements for net zero. In Scope 1 and 2 alone, this will enable us to save some 90,000 tons of carbon emissions per year of our emissions. With regard to Scope 3, we will almost completely eliminate directly controllable emissions, such as from business travel by 2040, and emissions that are only indirectly controllable, such as from purchased goods and services by 2050. In line with the newest SBTi standards, Klöckner & Co. has thus committed to reducing emissions in the entire value chain to net zero by 2050.
With this step, we demonstrate clearly our role as a pioneer in the sustainable steel industry. However, we do not stop here. We've started to build sustainable business models because we're identified as a huge opportunity. Last time, we introduced you to our green steel metric, which paves the way for our customers to understand and compare steel grades in terms of carbon content. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and we will soon start delivering first quantities of green steel to our customers. This will enable them to build sustainable value chains through us, and not just in 2040 or 2030. We're enabling them to start as early as this summer. That's on the strategy part. Oliver, please take over for the financials.
Yeah, thanks, Guido. Let's take a look into shipments, sales and gross profit for the first quarter. Shipments were slightly below the previous year's level, -2.3%. However, despite our strict margin over volume strategy, shipments increased by 13.4% to 1.3 million tons compared to the previous quarter. It shows that seasonality is intact, and we move further away from pandemic impacts. Sales improved strongly year-on-year from EUR 1.5 billion in Q1 2021 to EUR 2.4 billion in Q1 2022, due to the considerably higher price level in all operating centers. Gross profit consequently went up year-on-year from EUR 388 million to EUR 482 million.
Gross profit margin went down year-on-year from 25.4% to 19.8%, and also quarter-on-quarter, from 21.6% to 19.8%. We have consistently managed our net working capital throughout the last year and will do so going forward. As Guido said, more than 60% of our tons are already sold. Especially, Becker Stahl-Service did a great job with back-to-back agreements. This is exactly the way how we will manage the situation also going forward. We'll now focus on the EBITDA for the group. This quarter was again, extraordinarily strong. EBITDA before material special effects increased strongly from EUR 130 million last year to EUR 201 million. Reported EBITDA came in even at EUR 254 million.
The positive price effect of EUR 85 million year-on-year resulted from the positive price development in, again, very tight markets. Year-on-year, we saw a negative volume effect of EUR 9 million due to our margin over volume strategy. OpEx was up, driven by higher expenses for shipments, operating supplies, and repair and maintenance, offset by lower personnel costs, mainly lower bonuses. Thus, you can see that the increase in OpEx was mainly driven by increased sales prices and overall environment. The majority is fixed cost relevant, and therefore, we are on a level playing field here. Lastly, we had material special effects, mainly from disposal gains, but also from provisions true-ups of in total EUR 53 million. A great quarter, thanks to pricing and how we managed our net working capital to realize good margins. Let's move on with cash flow and net debt.
We had an especially price-driven net working capital build-up of EUR 425 million. However, this is not an issue for us due to our strong balance sheet structure and improved bank financing. When net working capital turns, we will then generate very strong cash flows. Meanwhile, more than 60% of our stocks are already sold. Taking into consideration interest and tax payments of in total EUR 37 million, as well as fixed asset disposals, EUR 54 million, cash flow from operating activities came in at -EUR 261 million Q1 2022. Gross cash mainly results from cash in from the real estate disposals in France and Switzerland, as well as other divestments, in total EUR 63 million, which were partly offset by investments of EUR 24 million, which include an investment in a small CTU.
Thus, net cash flow from investing activities came in at EUR 39 million. Accordingly, free cash flow was -EUR 222 million. As a consequence, our net financial debt increased from EUR 762 million at the end of 2021 to EUR 999 million. On the next slide, you see our balance sheet, which remains very strong, especially after the funding of our pensions and despite the increase of our net working capital in Q1 2022. Our equity is up. Equity ratio decreased slightly to 44%. Still a very strong level. Our financing instruments and maturity profile are shown in the appendix of this presentation. Please note our improved financing structure, some of which took place after March 31st, which gives us reasonable headroom and allows us to benefit from the current market environment.
Overall, this very strong balance sheet enables us to manage our inventory smartly, also going forward, and follow our margin over volume strategy in the current market situation. This will support us to grow the business according to our strategy 2025. With this, I hand back to Guido.
Thanks, Oliver. We now dive into the outlook for the regions. The last quarter was, of course, shaped by the Omicron variant and the Russian invasion, with all its impact on the global economy. Prices have risen sharply and the market environment is tight. As already mentioned, we have responded with a consistent margin-over-volume strategy and will continue to expand our margins going forward. It remains to be seen how the end markets will develop, but we see that many industries are finding ways to deal with the situation. The order situation is pretty good. In sectors where the supply chain is more affected, we then just see increasing catch-up potential. The impact on the end sectors, especially the automotive industry, was of course visible in March.
As a result, we've slightly revised down real steel demand for 2022, but quantification is rather difficult at this stage. However, we remain optimistic about the expected development of our end markets in Europe, and particularly in the U.S., where demand has developed in recent weeks. In general, the different market environment is emerging, characterized by demand for sustainable products, new energy supply mix, investment in defense, and especially infrastructure investments in the U.S. All these factors are particularly positive for steel and our sector, and are expected to lead to healthy demand and higher price levels than before COVID. With that, I'll hand over to Bernhard for the current status in Europe.
Yeah. Thank you very much, Guido. What are the market trend changes versus the last call? Well, end markets demand recovery continues, which is a huge positive, and we see seasonality intact. Material availability and supply chain stability is, of course, a challenge. However, as an independent player, we have first-class mill relationships, which together with our smart stock management, brings us in a leading position in terms of product availability. Moving forward, we expect a rising demand from government in defense equipment, which could become an opportunity for us. We manage our inventory very tightly to counter the price-driven net working capital increase, but we make sure that we serve our key strategic customers optimally by avoiding serving opportunistic panic buys.
However, we often saw new customers approaching us, certainly through the experience of the market, how we were able to handle the tight market situation last year, but we make sure that these buyers will have to stay with us if they want to become partners in this situation. Rising energy costs as well as material scarcity lead to even higher prices despite starting from already very high level. Timing of reaching peak uncertain for each product family today. Main driver for aluminum remains the magnesium scarcity, while the Ukraine war's impact on nickel availability impacts, of course, stainless steel.
We expect real steel demand to be between 1%-3% for Europe, and as Guido said, the change compared to the last report is due to the lower expected demand from automotive due to the expected supply chain disruption, which is, however, pending potential pent up at a later stage. VDA still estimates the domestic production growth for Germany of 7% and of 2% internationally. Coming to our sectors in construction, we see least impacted by the Ukrainian crisis in terms of material availability. We see a very robust performance so far. Machinery and mechanical engineering, here we see that customers have recovered from COVID crisis and activities are now growing above the 2019 levels. No major demand lagging so far.
On the contrary, we see a slight increase of average tonnage by order line due to some panic buys and willingness to secure material and production capacity. Coming to automotive, which is the most impacted sector by the Ukrainian crisis, and of course, supply chain disrupted by conflict in Ukraine. Customers try to secure material availability with panic purchases to build safety stock. We monitor very closely to check their capacity to serve the downstream market accordingly. In shipbuilding, I do not see any major change compared to last report, still heavily under pressure. Very muted demand for cruise ships, in particular, impact on tourism and ecological factors. If any, in production, then rather the gray ships interesting for us. That's it for Europe. With that, John, I would hand over to you.
Thank you, Bernhard. Looking at the U.S., after what we estimate to be strong double-digit growth in 2021, we feel overall real U.S. steel demand is expected to increase a further 3%-5% in 2022, driven by still positive economic indicators and stronger contributions coming from the auto and energy sectors, which still remain well below pre-pandemic levels. Starting later in 2022, and following up on what Guido had mentioned, continuing into subsequent years, we expect additional demand tailwinds coming from significant investments in bridge and highway projects, electric vehicle production, renewable energy, the upgrading of America's electrical grid and transmission infrastructure, as well as the continued reshoring of dislocated manufacturing supply chains. Turning to the specific market segments. Construction.
March construction spending was up almost 12% year-over-year, with residential leading the way at 18% increase and non-residential at 8.5%. Housing starts came in at a very strong 1.8 million on an annualized basis in March. However, home builder sentiment has come under pressure recently due to rising interest rates and continued labor shortages. While fundamentals for housing remain quite positive over the long term, we would expect to see residential growth moderate as higher interest rates begin to price some buyers out of the market. Overall, for construction, we expect mid-single-digit growth from this segment, with slower but moderating residential spending offset by a stronger contribution from non-residential.
Manufacturing, machinery and mechanical, all manufacturing indicators in the U.S. remain in positive territory, with the April ISM Index coming in at 55.4, which indicates a slowing but continued expansion. I can't stress enough that labor shortages and supply chain issues continue to be significant constraints to growth, and these are not expected to be resolved in the short term. Demand from appliance, HVAC, and electrical equipment OEMs was negatively affected in early 2022, with the Omicron variant further exacerbating the underlying problems with labor and supply chain shortages. As expected, we did see a very positive recovery later in Q1, and those demand improvements should continue as we move into the seasonally stronger second quarter. Overall, for 2022, we expect growth in these segments to be lower single digits as conditions moderate after a very strong recovery in 2021.
Turning to off-highway and industrial equipment markets, these should show some significantly stronger growth on a year-over-year basis, with almost all major OEMs reporting low inventories and strong backlogs. We expect upper single-digit growth from these sectors. On the energy front, we see a continued modest recovery. Drilling activity steadily improving but still very low by historical standards. Rig counts are up from their 2020 lows, but still remain 20%-25% below pre-pandemic levels. With the recent geopolitical events and structurally higher oil prices, we would expect drilling activity to continue to recover, but growth rates are difficult to predict due to the heated political debate that affects this key sector.
Renewable energy, on the other hand, continues to be a top priority, with future investments heavily supported by the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, and frankly, the push to become much less dependent on fossil fuels here in the US. These investments should be quite positive for steel over the long term. In fact, we at Klöckner are already benefiting from new business being developed in emerging markets such as storage for renewable energy. Very optimistic about the potential in the renewable energy sector, both in the short term and long term. On the automotive front, year-to-date production through March is only up slightly versus 2021, and continues to be hampered by supply chain issues.
March production, however, showed stronger year-over-year growth, and major auto companies continue to maintain very positive full-year forecasts. March sales came in again at a very low 13.3 million units on an annualized basis, which was down from 14 million in February. Historically low dealer inventories continue to restrict sales. Pent-up demand, however, remains significant, and auto production should expand strongly once supply chain constraints can finally be resolved. Investment in EV production is nothing short of remarkable and continues to move much faster than anyone predicted. Assuming supply chain issues will ultimately be resolved, we continue to expect double-digit year-over-year growth from both the automotive and on-highway truck and trailer sectors. Finally on shipbuilding, our defense business remains quite a bright spot.
We should see stable to modest growth year-over-year, and we have a number of new programs in the queue that will drive growth as we move forward into 2023 and 2024. In summary, despite potential headwinds from inflation and rising interest rates, we remain quite positive on the underlying base case for steel demand here in the US. These positive fundamentals, coupled with a more consolidated and disciplined domestic producer base, will continue to support a positive outlook for the US service center industry. That's it for the US. Thank you.
Thanks, John Ganem. With that, let's come to the outlook for Q2. We expect sales to be significantly up and shipments to develop stable to slightly increasing compared to Q1, 2022. EBITDA before material special effects is anticipated to come in with a range of EUR 180 million-EUR 240 million in Q2. Moreover, we continue to manage our net working capital lean and smartly, and it's expected to go down in Q2. That's why operating cash flow is expected to be very strong and clearly positive in Q2. Our positive full-year forecast remains unchanged. With that, we're now happy to take your Q&As.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound hash key. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Your first question today comes from the line of Seth Rosenfeld from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking our questions. This is Seth Rosenfeld from BNP Paribas. If I can start out please on the demand side and shipments. Thanks for the detailed commentary on the real demand outlook. Wondering if you could give a bit more color on apparent demand conditions, to date. Obviously Q1 shipments were down year-over-year after seeing some panic buying late in the quarter, and now with steel prices beginning to decline in both regions. Are you seeing any reluctance among customers to place orders or still continued strength? I guess just one clarification, given your guidance for Q2 shipments, it would imply first half shipments down about 1% or 2% globally for the group.
Do you expect your full year shipments to align with the demand forecast or potentially come in lower than that because of inventory management among customers?
Well, let me start a bit with the current demand. I mean, as you saw, January, February were clearly affected by Omicron, and we saw a strong March, and we have a clear picture on April, and April was not that bad as well. Demand was there, and you see in the auto sector, as John mentioned, going forward, U.S. is strongly improving and it seems that the April numbers were now very strong in production again, not the 13 something again, but stronger and even in Germany, Volkswagen was positive on the second half of the year. There is some pent-up demand that we still see coming in.
Now that prices are somewhat stabilizing a bit, you see some reluctance here and there, but overall, that's what we said. We think compared to our Q1, we see it slightly increasing or stable on these levels.
Okay. Just to follow up on that front. If that would imply first half shipments basically flat to down slightly year-over-year, would that still mean that, for example, in the U.S. and in Europe, you can get your shipments on a full year basis up 3%-5%, with all that weighted to second half?
Yeah, sure. If indeed the automotive sector and the others kick in, that will drive it. That's clear. The pent-up demand is there. If supply chain issues disappear, then that should be stronger than the second half of last year. Yes.
Okay. Thank you. One more clarification, please, with regard to working capital. I believe that in your prepared remarks, you commented that Q2 with your working capital down does that imply a lower level of investment or a potential swing to a release in the second quarter, please?
Look, it's two things driving that. One is, as we've always said, and you saw it in the year-end numbers that we had, that we were, as we call it, smart net working capital management. There were some opportunities to get in cheaper material and have it being a bit overstocked. We've clearly said, and through Q1, you can see it, especially if you take a look at the European numbers, very, very strong, that with this margin over volume strategy, we could indeed leverage the good procurement we did end of last year when we bought more and could sell less to the auto sector. We're very strong, and we made the margin out of that.
As we're now peaking on the pricing levels that we see, we can now indeed reduce a bit working capital, and there is not this buildup, price-related buildup. That's why in Q2, not only the strong EBITDA should turn into cash flow, but the reduction in the volumes overall as well.
Great. Thank you very much, Guido.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Carsten Riek from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you very much. The first question is also the on Europe, 'cause the European performance has been very, very strong. Can you talk about a little bit about the inventory-related gains? 'Cause you mentioned you actually build inventories at the end of the fourth quarter. Especially post the Ukraine conflict, we have seen quite a significant price uptick. How much was that inventory-wise? That's my first question.
Well, let me take that. I think it indeed in Europe, it was a bit stronger. In the US, you see that January and February still were affected by first flat-rolled, hot-rolled pricing was going down and then catching up strongly. Still it is a very good result. You had some negative effect in the early weeks in the US coming out of that. Overall, what we would say if we take a look at how much is the windfalls, it's a bit difficult to judge exactly because some of these parts, as you mentioned, buying in and doing the smart network and capital management, buying more and selling it then a bit higher, which you expected before and is not really windfall. It's not recurring.
We'd say that about half of the total result is windfall.
Okay, that helps already. The second question is on the net working capital as well, but more specific on the receivables. We have seen quite an unprecedented move here in the receivables. I would have expected an increase, also quite substantial increase, but more than EUR 300 million is, I believe twice as much as the payables increase, which is rather rare. Was there any issues with the payment morale amongst customers or some kind of fourth quarter related overhangs which actually had to be reversed? Why is that significant increase?
No, if you compare the Q1 receivables against the Q4 receivables, then we always see a seasonal uptick of the figures.
You should remember in December, the last week, we hardly do any business, and customers tend to pay their receivables even if they are not due. That's a habit which we see quite often here in Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria. Therefore, we typically see that increase by year-end. For the payables, at year-end, we paid all our due payables. At the moment, as we keep our inventories in volumes quite flat, and it's solid already, let's say that our inventories go down. Therefore, the payables are also trending down, which then gives that spread which you just discussed.
Okay. Thanks for the explanation. Last one on cost, 'cause we hear a lot of complaints about rising costs, be it from electricity side or recently, the unions, which actually ask for 8.2% increase in wages in Germany. What do you expect cost-wise for the second half? Do we see a significant uptick here in costs, or is it manageable for you guys?
Well, a couple of things around that. Energy costs that we have on ourselves, on our books is about 1% of our cost base, so it's not that relevant. Despite that, and again, together with the wages, where we will see some wage inflation, but, Carsten, that's level playing field. It's not only for us, it's for all of them. That's why I think, that's something that will be rolled over. The more efficient we are, the better we can do it. As we are, again, one of the very large players in our field, the efficiency within our organization, the efficiency we can even get out, and that's what we're trying to squeeze a bit more. More truckload, less trucks, less transportation, be more efficient there. We have more opportunities than others.
Thanks very much. That's very helpful.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Rochus Brauneiser from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking the question. First question is on guidance. I think, Kıvanç, you did not provide any numerical guidance, in line with what you did last year. Why I'm asking is that, you know, based on the second quarter guidance, you're expecting up to EUR 440 million of EBITDA after the first half, which was kind of market expectation into the earnings or maybe before the ad hoc. So what is the kind of message here in terms of the outlook? I think you're sounding still quite constructive, so what is preventing you from getting a bit more specific on the earnings outlook for the whole year? That's the first question.
Rochus, thanks for that question. No, you highlight one thing that is very clear. I mean, if you add up our current results and the Q2, you come up to EUR 440 million, which is the current full year consensus that you see. Together with our smart working capital management, being very cautious on restocking and seeing what we can do, and if you've seen and take a deeper look into how the U.S., for example, how strong they are on working capital management, how to get the cycles down, and how small impacts we have only seen from the decline of the prices in Q4 and early in Q1.
Our operational management here and windfall losses compared to gains, we should be in a much better position. That's why for the rest of the year, given where we are and what the pent-up demand would give us underlying, we're not that negative. Where finally prices are, and you see that with our, on average, still something around three-month stock holding, makes it a bit difficult to guide nine months down the road, which is largely either you're very vague or you know, you give a precision that you cannot really have. Underlying, we think it should continue, and we see rather a better balanced market supply and demand situation.
Let's take it from quarter to quarter and then be a bit more precise, because otherwise it, the range would be too broad to take all of that into account. Yeah.
Okay.
Again, against consensus, you know, you can make up your mind, but if we have it by the first half, you know, what is the likelihood that we're negative or zero in the second half? You know, I don't see that.
Yeah. Okay. Would agree with that. Maybe on the volume again, just following up on the previous question. So you're still saying you expect considerable volume growth, which according to your, you know, arithmetics, it's about 5% at least. Whereas in the first half you haven't really grown at all. So you think that kind of 10% year-over-year growth is still realistic in H2, given the kind of, you know, high-level uncertainties we're seeing in the market?
Yes. Look, I mean, take a look, for example, let's just pick one factor. The auto sector, how much pent-up demand is there? You've seen that Volkswagen was in production something like 30% down. Now, if they can come back, and this is what at least they state, I'm just quoting here publicly available information. If they can come back and you see where the car prices are, if the supply chain is overcome, there will be a lot more production through the whole value chain then, and deliveries. In the US, John has mentioned it, and again, April numbers came in, which are already much stronger, and they are clearly double-digit growing. We've seen January till March effects coming out of Omicron and supply chain issues that they couldn't produce as much as they wanted.
Dealers' inventory is very low. There is positive signals. I mean, the whole construction sector is short-term, the least affected by the Ukrainian crisis, and still there you have some supply chain issues. There is possibilities to grow and to get it to the levels that we guide it for.
Okay.
Yeah. The underlying demand is there. You don't see cancellations everywhere and a big recession coming. I wouldn't see why it should be that. Underlying there is strong demand still.
Okay. Then finally on the demand, maybe, for the next couple of years, I think when you took over as CEO, you focused more on the top-line growth. I think it was a bit of a change compared to the past decade, where Klöckner & Co as a company was rather, you know, shrinking for the various reasons. What I can't square together is that, you know, you're emphasizing for the last two years the price over volume strategy, which obviously does not allow too much volume growth. How shall we square that together with your long-term growth ambitions and how we think about the K curve, you know, until 2025 maybe?
Yeah. I think one has to distinguish a bit. Oh, good, very good question. Distinguish between the tactical behavior in a cycle and your mid- to long-term strategy. We clearly wanna grow. We wanna grow with value-added businesses. We wanna grow in the regions, in sectors where we can do it by being more focused on certain industries. That's what we continuously are indeed doing. On the other hand, if short-term the cycle comes and material is very short, sure, margin over volume like we do it now is name of the game. You see it in our earnings. I mean, we could have done more volume just to fulfill the growth pattern we wanna have.
If you do that on the back of lower results, you know, tactically that would be the wrong approach. That's what we've clearly said. Now within this cycle and the current situation, tactically, we have to do that margin over volume. On top of that, we improve our cost basis so that we're more efficient and can therefore be regarding growth, more aggressive. It's rather going into new sectors, be more focused on customers, more value add, and then try to grow as much as we can. We always distinguish between this tactical and the more strategic approach. I think that's what we have to do, and you see it in our results. I mean, last year and this quarter and the upcoming quarter are a clear proof. This is money you can't leave on the table.
Okay, that's great. I think that explains everything. Thank you very much.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from Seth Rosenfeld from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Great. Thank you for taking another question. Can you give a little bit of an update, please, with regards to the various digital platforms? You commented in today's release the strength of Klöckner Assistant. There wasn't much of an update with regards to XOM Materials. Can you provide an update on the opportunity to monetize these platforms? I believe in years past, there were some discussions and expectation of potentially selling a stake in the digital assets. What's the opportunity to do that in today's environment, please?
Yeah. Look, what we're focusing on is the strength in developing the platform, and especially on the procurement at XOM, the e-procurement platform. We're developing the tool itself to a higher degree. The usage, it's largely for us currently for Klöckner is improving and is gaining traction within the organization and is covering the things that we can bundle and do. This is based on these successes and the capabilities of the tool, we're looking into whether it's marketable or not. The other platforms, we were into webshops. We did that. We will stop that activity because the webshops by themselves were successful. You know, there is so much competition in offering webshops that you're not unique in that. Earning money with that was more difficult.
That's why we said we don't focus on that one. We go with the e-procurement and, the other platform we had, the marketplace, has been stopped end of last year because there was not that much traffic on it.
Thank you. Just on XOM, is the focus internally now because of the challenge in being able to get third-party vendors onto the site previously?
First focus is getting ourselves set up and prove what it can do, and then open it up and sell it to others, and then see whether we can sell a stake of it or not. It is not really a startup anymore. Therefore, first you need to prove where is your business case, where are the internal and external customers, and then you can test the market, whether you find opportunities to attract other investors. We focus first on the capability and the success and then go out.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back to you.
Yeah. Thanks all of you. If there are any add-on questions, you can reach out to us, be it to Felix or Oliver and me. Thank you very much for the call.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.