Wonderful. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. I am Francie, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome and thank you for joining KION Group's Q1 2023 update call. Today's presenter will be Rob Smith, CEO of KION Group. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing star and one. Press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. It's my pleasure. I would now like to turn the conference over to Rob Smith, CEO of KION Group. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, Francie. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. For today's call, please refer to our Q1 presentation on the KION Group IR website. I'm gonna start out with a Q1 summary and some operational and sustainability highlights, and then Marcus is gonna take you through our Q1 results and our updated guidance for the full year. I'll come back and conclude with some key takeaways, and then we'll be getting into the questions and answers together. I start with our key financial figures on page 3. Q1 was a strong start in the year for the KION Group. In particular, the development in our Industrial Trucks & Services segment was better off than expected, mainly driven by the improving supply chain situation and some pull forward benefits from operational and commercial agility measures.
This had a positive impact on our major KPIs and was the basis for raising our full year out-outlook. Q1 group order intake at EUR 2.4 billion was down 16% year-on-year and down 4% sequentially, while group revenue was EUR 2.8 billion, up 2% year-on-year and down 4% sequentially. Adjusted EBIT of EUR 156 million was down 8% year-on-year, was up 91% from the fourth quarter last year. The adjusted EBIT margin in Q1 was 5.6%. At EUR 105 million, free cash flow was clearly positive.
In addition to the operating profit and stable net working capital development from the end of last year was a major contributing factor to that favorable development and allowed us to slightly decrease our net financial debt in the first quarter. Our earnings per share in the quarter were EUR 0.55. On page four, I'll share some Q1 business highlights. Last month, we entered into a strategic partnership with Li-Cycle, an industry leader in lithium-ion battery resource recovery, and we'll be starting environmentally friendly recycling of lithium-ion batteries in the second half of this year. With this partnership, we're taking an important step in our sustainability journey in the circular economy, ensuring the recovery of up to 95% of the key materials in lithium-ion batteries that we supply.
This makes us a pioneer in the industry and in the field of recovery and recycling of modern lithium-ion batteries in our products. The second step, an important step in Q1, is the production of our own fuel cell systems. We're investing EUR 11 million in our Hamburg site to produce 24 volt fuel cell systems for our warehouse truck equipment. The advantages over other energy sources from this technology are not only lower emissions, but also rapid refueling capabilities on the trucks. We also use this technology ourselves in Aschaffenburg, where we've installed our own hydrogen production. We operate a fleet of our own hybrid fuel cell trucks in our factory there. Finally, we're progressing well with the launch of our new value platform, Counterbalance Trucks. Following the market introduction last year in APAC, we've now started the global rollout. We'll launch some 30 new product lines.
There's 30 new models of this, of this new value platform, of which more than 25 are for export, making that value platform a true global player. Let's go to page 5. In addition to announcing our Q1 financials this morning, we also published our 2022 sustainability report. We're proud to report that in 2022, we already achieved our 2027 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of reducing our carbon emissions by 30% compared to the base year of 2017. We also outperformed our annual CO2 emissions reductions targets for Scopes 1, 2, and 3 emissions. Progress is on track to super-surpass 90% electrification in our trucks by 2025. Last year, 88% of our industrial trucks sold had electric drives. In the previous two quarters, this year exceeded 90%.
We have a target to certify all our sites to ISO environmental and health and safety standards by the end of 2024. In 2022, we made good progress, reaching a certification rate or level of 80%, up from 70% the year before. We're focused on improving safety in our work environment and made a 25% reduction in lost time injury frequency rate versus 2021. We continued work on our climate strategy last year, establishing strategic targets that are fully aligned with SBTi criteria in advance of making a formal commitment. Finally, we're pleased to share that our brand, STILL, received the platinum sustainability recognition level from EcoVadis. I'm gonna now hand over to Marcus to take you through our financials for the first quarter and our updated guidance. Marcus?
Thank you, Rob, and good afternoon from my side.
Let's now jump to Slide 7 and the key financials for the ITS segment. With respect to order intake, well, if you remember Q4 2022 was rather soft with 41,000 units. Now we saw a rebound in Q1 at nearly 60,000 units. Quarter- on- quarter, the value increase is lower than the unit decrease due to a flattish development in service and a slightly higher share of sales equipment. Year- on- year, the value decline is lower than the unit decline due to the price increases that conducted in 2022 and the continued growth in services in absolute terms. The order book increased substantially from EUR 3.2 billion- EUR 3.8 billion year- on- year, and supports approximately one year of new business revenue.
The backlog margin is more resilient due to the price increases of 2022 and the implemented price adjustment clauses covering now roughly 75% of the order book. Revenue, at roughly EUR 2 billion, is close to the quarterly record level and driven by 24% year-on-year growth in new business revenue. Both revenue and the adjusted EBIT of EUR 177 million benefited from the improving supply chain situation and pull forward effects from operational and commercial agility measures. I.e., we broadened our supplier base, reduced our critical suppliers to ensure better material and component availability, put forward higher priced trucks that were initially scheduled for later this year, and saw a backlog repricing effect amounting to EUR 25 million, which we expected in the course of the half year but is already effective in Q1.
For modeling purposes, we suggest you exclude that backlog repricing effect and adjust the underlying EBIT margin to 7.7% in Q1. Let's turn to page 8, which summarizes the key financials for SCS. In SCS, we see a low order intake, substantially impacted by continued order postponement and slower decision-making due to the macroeconomic uncertainty and higher interest rates. That goes across pretty much all verticals. The share of pure play e-commerce increased again to 29%, but remains on low absolute levels, equaling EUR 65 million in order intake. Order book amounting to EUR 3 billion continues to provide visibility for the next quarters. Revenue declined year-over-year by minus 23% and quarter-on-quarter by minus 6% due to lower order intakes of pure play e-commerce players in past quarters.
The strong growth in service business, +20% year- on- year, could not compensate for the declining project business, representing -35% year- on- year. The adjusted EBIT of EUR 7 million continues to be impacted by the execution of lower margin legacy projects. Page 9 summarizes the key financials for the group. Order intake of EUR 2.4 billion reflects the sequential rebound of demand in ITS and the already described continued postponement on new order decisions in SCS. The order book of EUR 6.2 billion continues to be at high levels, providing good workload for the next quarters. Revenue at EUR 2.8 billion benefited from strong ITS performance and growing service business in both segments with a share of 44%.
Adjusted EBIT and adjusted EBIT margin improved due to the very good performance of ITS and continue to be impacted by lower margin legacy projects in SCS. Page 10 shows the reconciliation from adjusted EBITDA to group net income. Reported EBIT of EUR 129 million in Q1 increased 10% year-on-year, but nearly doubled quarter-on-quarter. With an increase of net financial expenses, EUR 36 million year-on-year, the increase is EUR 33 million and quarter-on-quarter, which is basically EUR 18 million, due to higher interest rates and decreased fair value of derivatives. Pretax earnings of EUR 94 million decreased by 90% year-on-year, but doubled quarter-on-quarter. Minus taxes amounting to EUR 20 million, this results in a net income to shareholders of EUR 72 million, which equates an EPS of EUR 0.55 in the quarter.
Let's move to the free cash flow statement on page 11. Free cash flow reached EUR 105 million, driven by the reported EBIT and a normal flattish net working capital as the build-up was only EUR 11 million. A positive cash flow of EUR 105 million compared to the -EUR 434 million year-over-year, which presents a positive swing of EUR 531 million, and allows us to slightly reduce our net financial debt. As stated before, reduced net working capital, enhanced net financial debt is the key focus area of 2023. On page 12, you see that our net financial debt decreased by EUR 57 million during Q1 to less than EUR 1.7 billion, resulting in slightly improved leverage of 1.3x .
Our CS-relevant leverage on industrial net debt, excluding pension liability, stabilized for the second quarter in a row and continued to stand at 2.3 x at the end of the quarter. There is still plenty of headroom under the covenant, which, as you know, currently is not tested as we have two investment-grade ratings. I'm very pleased that S&P confirmed our investment-grade rating just this Tuesday. Our focus is now on improving metrics further to defend this rating. Including pension liabilities, the leverage on industrial net debt remained unchanged at 2.8 x at the end of the quarter. Let us now move to our updated outlook for 2023. Slide 14 lays out our updated guidance for 2023. Outlined in our communication to the capital markets last week, the first quarter developed better than expected in ITS.
Due to this higher starting point, we increased our full year guidance for ITS and also for KION Group, while the guidance for SCS remains unchanged. For the full year, we guide group revenues of at least EUR 11.2 billion, based on ITS revenues of at least EUR 8 billion. The group adjusted EBIT is at least EUR 650 million, up by EUR 65 million, driven by ITS, and we increase our guidance to EUR 665 million, up again EUR 65 million compared to the year guidance. We started out the year thinking that ITS would have a weaker H1 and a stronger H2, but Q1 already saw some benefits of improving supply chains and pull forward effects from our operational and commercial agility measures. This is why we now assume H1 is more balanced with H2 at ITS.
At SCS, we expect a stronger H2 when compared to H1, as the execution of lower margin, so-called legacy projects, weighs on our margin primarily in H1 2023. The improved EBIT expectation leads to a one-on-one increase in free cash flow guidance to at least EUR 565 million, up EUR 65 million, and a full year growth rate of 5.5%. Now I'm handing it back to Rob for our key takeaways.
I'll summarize my key takeaways on Slide 15. KION Group had a strong start to the year in our Industrial Trucks & Services segment, which benefited from improving supply chains and pull forward effects from the operational and commercial agility measures we have underway. The better-than-expected Q1 in ITS allowed us to increase our full year outlook. Our measures to increase agility, resilience, and profitability are starting to show effect and put us on track to achieve long-term profitable growth. This concludes our presentation. It's time to get into the Q&A. Francie, please go on, open the line.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Sven Weier, from UBS. Your question please.
Good afternoon. It's Sven. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on SCS, please. I mean, your comments didn't necessarily sound like the soft orders were due to lumpiness or that some bigger orders might have slipped into the second quarter. I was just wondering if you could have give us some more details around the pipeline on what you probably see for the next quarter. Is this kind of a new run rate, or is there still an element of lumpiness here that we should keep in mind for Q1? Thank you.
Hey, Sven, it's Rob. Good to hear you on the call today. Well, you know, Sven, we don't guide on order intake, but I would comment that the 450 or 497 that we got in the first quarter, it is lumpy and our pipeline is a good solid pipeline. We think people are taking a longer time. Customers in all verticals and in all regions, in this macroeconomic environment are taking a longer time to make their decisions, especially on very large projects. The projects we've described in previous quarters are getting larger in the industry. Yes, there is lumpiness and in this environment, indeed, that's what we're seeing.
Thank you, Rob. May I just follow up on what you just said? To what extent is it also that you guys are also taking longer to sign the contracts? How important is that for the, for the timing?
Okay. Well, there's probably some element to that, too. As we talked about last year, we, in our, in the process of commercial and operational agility, we made sure we put in appropriate clauses in our contracts that work in volatile environments. I think that everybody's working through those, and that's part of the overall situation, too. I think the macroeconomic environment and the lumpiness go hand in hand. Clearly, everybody reviews commercial contracts very carefully on EUR 100 million, EUR 200 million, EUR 300 million projects.
Second question was on ITS, if I may. Of course, a nice sequential up increase in the unit order intake. I was just wondering if you could share some more detail on what's been driving that. Was Q4 just a bit of an understated number? Maybe to what degree did you already benefit from a comeback of the Chinese market in this? Thank you.
I think it's important to look at the whole year when we look at last year. Real strong first half and market normalized more and more over the course of the second half of last year. We're pleased with the start in this year. The market development this year is in line with our expectations. We have shared that we see the ITS market down probably high single digits on a worldwide basis this year. As I say, the first quarter developed in line with our expectations.
Q4 was the outlier and not Q1 in this regard?
As I say, Q4 is one quarter off of a full year last year. It started with a real strong start and normalized towards the back end of the year in the second half. We're pleased with the start this year, and we'll be commenting, order intake, when we get to Q2.
Okay. Thanks, Rob. That's it from my side.
The next question comes from Sebastian Growe from BNP. Your question, please.
Yeah, good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one would be around China and the ITS segment. The PS at the market was very strongly up quarter-on-quarter, and while I think at the last quarter, one level so, 300,000 units or so. The same goes for your volumes, which apparently are also moving into that direction again. At the same time, however, you obviously implemented that value segment strategy in China. I would have expected that you are taking eventually some incremental share in that market.
Along those lines, I would be interested if you could remind us of what you see in terms of the incremental volumes over the next years or say by 2025, what the sort of target is in volume terms, especially in China. Maybe we start there, and then I have one on ITS.
Well, let's talk about it in general terms, Sebastian. Good to hear you on the call. China's a very, very important market in our industry, and a very important market in our business. We're real pleased with the success of the introduction of our new value segment counterbalance truck in China last year. You'll recall we built the factory in record time in the middle of COVID, turned it on, and we're in operation as at of 15 months. Had a good production last year, primarily for the China and APAC market. I'd say China is 35% of the global market in 2022, so a very important market in our industry. The value segment truck gained good market share in China last year.
As I talked earlier in the call, we're now rolling out 29, 30 new models this year, 25 of which will be for export. We expect that will be an incremental good market share and good business for our company on a global basis.
In terms of the units, I do recall that you, I think, it was before your time, but I saw there were numbers of around incremental revenues of about EUR 300 million in China. Can you just remind us of where you stand there in terms of is this still achievable because the market has changed to a certain extent? Your thoughts would be much appreciated.
Sebastian, I'd be more than happy to have our IR team get back to you to connect some dots between the previous statements and this one. As I say, we've turned that factory on last year. It beat its production targets last year. We expect to ramp them up very strong this year. The factory will have a capacity of about 40,000 units for the market in China as well as APAC and for export on a global basis. We see all that as incremental business for KION. We're real pleased with it, especially with the introduction of this new platform. It's being very well received in the market, very well last year.
You know that right now this week, we've got the LogiMAT show in Stuttgart, and the truck is on display on our stand there and seems to be getting, seems to be well appreciated by customers and people at the show.
Okay. That's helpful. If I just may pick your brain on the market, maybe following on towards Sven asked before. It looks to me as if the start of the year was much better than everybody would have expected it to be for now. It seems that the global market was probably at about 550,000 units or so. If I was to annualize that would suggest that the market is eventually rather flat and not down high single digits. Also look at other trends in the industrial space, it all looks like orders are just better than everybody would have expected a couple of weeks ago. What do you make out of this?
obviously, your guidance is still implying then also not that much of an impetus over the first quarter. yeah, any thought would be much appreciated on these points I made.
What I'd say, Sebastian, I think a good way to look at that is, as we all recall, 2021 was an all-time high. 2022 was down a bit. Our expectation for the global market this year is down from there, probably high single digits. As I said, the first quarter was in line with our expectations. However, you'll remember that the WITS data is coming out on a three-month time delay. Overall official statistics for the market for the first quarter are still forthcoming, and we'll obviously comment those when we comment first quarter actual market data as we bring out our second quarter actual results.
Okay, fair enough. A very quick one just on ITS. The e-commerce segments is still hovering around a good EUR 100 million, EUR 140 million, I think, in the first quarter. Still in a way negligible. What's your assessment, how long it might take really until this vertical might come back up again? There's obviously still a lot of oversupply in the system with the PSU at least. Yeah, any thoughts around that and then probably making reference to our pipeline would be much appreciated.
Sure. I did refer to the pipeline, it is a very healthy pipeline. It's taking longer to convert the pipeline as people are taking longer to make decisions on that. You're right to point out that the E-commerce, we all recall, just really went strong during the COVID period, and it's still in its recovery phase right now. It's gonna take a while longer for E-commerce to come back. As I pointed out before, there's an element of E-commerce in just about every vertical out there. Our long-term expectations is about 9% CAGR for our Supply Chain Solutions segment. E-commerce will continue to play a very important role in that in the strategic planning period. It will be coming back. It's not gone.
It's just gonna be coming back. It'll take some time to get there.
Okay. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from George Featherstone for Bank of America. Your question please.
Thanks. Thanks for the questions. First of all, just be on the ITS backlog as you see it now. I just wondered if you could tell us how much of it now is for delivery in 2024. Given the pull forward that you had in Q1, is there a possibility that we'll see in subsequent quarters ahead that you'll do faster conversion to revenues? Put another way, are you running at a stage where you've got some capacity that is, you know, free to actually increase utilization?
Hi, George. Good to hear on the call. It's Marcus. We said basically the ITS backlog represents like EUR 3.7 billion. That equals almost a year of new equipment business. So 11 to 12 months. Yes, the price quality is a good price quality given that we have seen several price increases in the course of last year. Now question is how are we able to convert this into revenues? It's obviously a function of stability in supply chain, and that is what we're working on. We feel quite confident with that backlog and it gives us good representation, as I say, for the next 12 months. This is what we're looking at.
Sorry if maybe I didn't phrase the question correctly. I just was trying to understand, you clearly overperformed in terms of deliveries in the first quarter, and you were able to pull forward some benefits from trucks you probably thought you were gonna deliver in the second quarter and actually delivered them in the first. Put another way, is there scope for that in subsequent quarters so that one year's worth of forklift could they be delivered within this calendar year? Is some of it still definitely for 2024?
Don't get confused by the order backlog repricing effect that we saw basically in Q1. You know, we were referring to the EUR 25 million, and that is an effect that we anticipated to happen in H1. We're not converting faster than anticipated. It's basically price quality that kicked in a bit faster than we anticipated. We saw that effect coming obviously, but you know, we were able to convert it quicker. That, I think, answers your question maybe more precisely.
Okay. Thank you for that. On the working capital side of things, in Q1, you didn't seem to have much of an unwind. When through this year should we see big reductions in those inventory levels, do you think?
George, I mean, you know, the effect on the free cash flow that was driven much more by EBIT than by net working capital, as you rightly say. I mean, on the other hand, we're reducing net working capital in the course of this year, basically quarter- over- quarter, you will see an improvement. It's a key focus area of mine. Obviously, you know, bringing down net working capital, bringing down debt as a consequence. As I said, you know, I'm more than pleased with the S&P rating. I have to defend this rating. This means that I'm really heavily working on bringing down net working capital.
Having said that, though, I mean, we're still living in volatile times, you know, and we're still, you know, trying to sort of, you know, bringing down the order book quarter- by- quarter, turning it into revenue, as we just said. That implies, you know, that we have to do a bit of a balancing act. You know, Provide enough level of security on the one hand, while at the same time driving down net working capital, increasing or bringing down the accounts. That's what we're working on. Now it's very difficult to give you exact and precise number for the quarters to follow. You know, I promise you that you will see a significant downturn in debt and net working capital and an increase of free cash flow.
Okay. Thank you very much, Marcus.
The next question comes from Gael de-Bray from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Thanks. good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. well, can I start with the EUR 11 million CapEx in fuel cell production?
Generally, could you elaborate on the benefits of being integrated with in-house battery and fuel cell systems production? How do you assess the risk of eventually remaining subscale in the manufacturing of these same batteries and fuel cells? We'll start with that one.
Sure, Gael. You know, I think that that's a good opportunity to talk about the beauty of being the OEM and having the system responsibility for the entire machine, including the powertrain. It's very important to us to have the spectrum of powertrain options, the full spectrum of powertrain options. In addition, if one, we're gonna simply buy out that entire piece of technology, then one, we'll not be in a position to be able to harmonize and optimize the interface between the powertrain and the overall machine. As a result of doing that and having that capability in-house, we're able to give our an optimal performance and an optimal layout and interaction within the old machine. That's an important element of being the OEM and an important element of being able to do the fuel cell. We're excited about that.
It's going well for us. We operate that, we're operating that technology in our own fleets, and we've got several customers with larger fleets in operation there. They appreciate that. The advantage of that, especially for customers working 24/7 on their fleet, is very quickly being able to refuel the truck and have it keep going without a larger, or a longer charging cycle. It's an advantage for us on a system capability basis, and that advantage turns into a performance advantage for our customers.
Okay. Okay, got it. Could you also provide some color on the intra-quarter order dynamics for NTs? Have orders gradually recovered throughout the quarter from the lows in Q4, or was it actually the opposite? You know, I'm interested in the shape of the old pattern during Q1 and obviously if you could provide a bit of color on how April has been looking like so far versus Q1, I mean, that would be super useful.
Maybe what I'd do, Gael, to try to help you with that, seems to me the bigger effect might be the fact that the customers knew in the fourth quarter of 2021 that there was gonna be a price increase in 2022. Some customers, it leads to a bit of a pull-forward effect into fourth quarter. Customers knew in the fourth quarter of 2022 that we were, we did not envision a first quarter price increase or at least a January price increase in the first quarter, in the first month or quarter of this year. Potentially there was not a pull-forward effect into the fourth quarter last year. Basically, we've had a good start in the year with the 60,000.
It's been in line with our expectations. April continues in line with those expectations. I'll give you the update on OE when we get to the second quarter results, but so far, so good.
Okay, great. Maybe a very small question for Marcus. What was the impact of the change in derivatives on the net financial result this quarter?
Gael, I think we have to take it offline with the IR team. It's a bit of a more detailed calculation, so we'll get back to you. Okay?
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Martin Wilkie from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Rob, it is Martin from Citi. Just coming back to the demand environment, particularly in North America, there's huge investment going into certain industries as the U.S. sort of retools as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Obviously you are very overweight in North America in Supply Chain Solutions, obviously electrification, IT and ES. Your exposure there is very much tilted towards, you know, e-commerce, grocery, food, these kind of areas. There's much investment happening in perhaps automotive and batteries and semiconductor and these kind of areas. Given the need to rebuild supply chain in the U.S., is that something that you can participate in? Is your product line up usable and addressable for those markets?
How should we think about the opportunity to of what's happening in North America on supply chain rebuilds? Thank you.
You know, Martin, I, what I would tell you is, our truck range is very applicable in the North American market. Not only that, but we're investing significantly to increase our local content and our local production. That was an initiative we started earlier last year. That factory, the capacity is going into the factory. We expect to be building additional trucks next year, and we expect to ride with that market. It's been a very important market for us, and that's why we're investing locally to service it with the shorter lead times, and indeed, as you point out, trucks that are very relevant and appropriate for the different verticals in the market there.
Do you think that benefit would land more in the ITS division than it would in Supply Chain Solutions then?
No, I wouldn't say that. The American market is a wonderfully strong market for both ITS and SCS. Matter of fact, our global headquarters for SCS is in the North American market and is extremely well represented and the leader in the market there. I see the investments that people are putting in as a good thing for the entire KION business across both our segments.
Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. If I can just then throw in one unrelated question just on pricing. Obviously, a lot of, lot of the teams are beginning to roll over many of the costs made at the beginning of previous years. Were any of the price increases that you put through classified as surcharges that might reverse, or was that not the case? You're, you're putting in these price increases in therefore should be relatively sticky?
No, you're right, Martin. The pricing adjustments we made last year were in line with our assessments. That was part of our commercial agility to make sure that we're measuring our costs a couple of times a month and being able to make good price adjustments appropriately. As we find is the right solution we wanna take commercially. We did make those changes last year, and we continue to have that ability to adjust this year on a go-forward basis. That's an important element and capability of making our company be able to operate well in a volatile environment.
Okay, thank you very much.
The next question comes from Christoph Dolleschal from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for my question. I've got a couple of follow-ups, if I may. One is again on volume estimates for ITS. I mean, I understand that you think 2023 is down about, let's say, roughly 10%, which brings us to around about 2 million units. What I would find interesting is whether you see that as the new normal in global orders, so to speak, a base level of 2 million, i.e., are we going to then again go back to growth trajectory as of 2024?
Is there another down year in 2024, given the fact that obviously we had so much higher volumes in 2021 and 2022, and if you basically do the math, it would still suggest, to go back to the fastest and CAGR that even 2024 would have to come down. Have you got any view on that?
Good questions, Christoph. I mean, let's go back to 2021 with a EUR 2.2 million market. World record, right? 2021 was EUR 2.1 million. We expect that the market is down, so high single digits this year. Overall, we're expecting about 4% compound annual growth over our strategic planning period. I think there's a couple elements to consider. One is the increasing participation in the market quantification by the small hand trucks, the electrified ones, we call those Class 3.1 equipment. That's tough to compare on a five-year basis. That's been more and more an element of the, of the last several years, if you will.
I think that the better understanding is with an expectation of growth in the market for 4% on a CAGR basis over the strategic planning period and with the economics next year, looking. If you look at all the different surveys out there, next year is gonna be a bit positive and a good up we would expect from this year. We'd expect that the market would be generally moving with the GDP. Let's see how it's developing, and we'll be talking about that as we get closer to the end of this year and have a little bit of visibility on it. Over the planning period, about 4% per annum is a pretty good expectation.
Take into account the comparative delta of now we've got quite a few more 3.1 small electrified hand trucks in the mix. Don't roll back five, six, seven, 10 years to find comparative reference points. Those didn't show up in the strategic background.
Yep. Yeah, thanks very much for clarifying that one. Class 3.1 I think is also very, very specific to China. There's a lot of Chinese business in there in 3.1, right?
Indeed, there are a lot of Class 3.1 small hand trucks, electrified, are coming out of the China market indeed. Yeah.
Another follow-up on SCS. Obviously, again, the pure-play e-commerce question. I would actually phrase it positively saying pure-play e-commerce is back since, I mean, there was not much revenue in H2 2022. Would you think this EUR 140 million - EUR 150 million is a good proxy for the rest of the year so that they're, like, gradually coming back, so that we end up with about, let's say, EUR 560 million? Or is this just the beginning and it's gonna accelerate over the rest of the year?
See, yes. I mean, percentage-wise, we have seen that, you know, pure-play e-commerce is coming back. It represents, like, 29% of the order intake, but in absolute numbers, it's not really that much.
You know, it's a lumpy business. It's a project business. As you know, I've been in project business before, you know, you can basically wait like 300 days and nothing is happening, all of a sudden, you get a huge order or maybe even two. We have to, you know, wait and see. All in all, we're seeing a CAGR of 9% for that business, it's really, you know, a really good business. Every vertical right now is lumpy, e-commerce is lumpy. You know, we have to wait and see.
Okay. Thanks for that. Then one last question, and then I'll go back into the line, is rather on the supply chain. What I found interesting is just about every company in the industrial space was pretty cautious, let's say around mid-March and March. A month later, everybody has basically been much more positive on the supply chain. Can you elaborate what happened in the second half of March? Because it seems to me as if the supply chain really eased in that, in that period. Probably also regarding different, the supply, I mean, also hear that there's different supply chain availability in Europe versus US. North America versus Europe. Can you also elaborate on that?
Well, I wouldn't speak for other companies, but speaking for ourselves, what I would tell you is that our expectation was there would be a tighter and more difficult, material availability in the first part of this year, similar to how it was last year. It has improved slightly. It's certainly not obvious if it's gonna continue on that route, and that's part of our assessment of the rest of this year, is you have to be on a commercial or on an operational ability basis, very, very attuned to what the material availability is, and our expectations is that it has a good possibility of remaining volatile, through further periods this year. It did flow better in the first quarter than we expected, and potentially that is what you're hearing from other companies too.
Whether there's a second half of March effect or not, I'd just share the, you know, the quarter's not over till the quarter's over. You need good material flow throughout the entire quarter to get a good one. We expect volatility going forward, and we're watching that very carefully. What I'd also tell you is there's some good self-help work from our supply chain and operations teams. There were some bottlenecks in the first quarter. You know, happily, the parts that were bottlenecked and making some machines unable to build, we didn't lose production slots because we were able to get some material for other machines that were foreseen in the production plan as later in this year, and we've actually pulled some of those forward into the first quarter so as not to lose the production slots.
That's an insight into how things operated in KION factories. I think that's the best I can do for you.
Thanks very much. Much appreciated. Thank you.
The next question comes from Daniel Gleim from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, gentlemen, thank you very much for taking my questions. I actually have two of them, both for Marcus. The first one is on ITS. What share of new truck sales did already carry the full cumulative price increases in the first quarter? If you could scale that for us. Tied to that question, by which quarter do you expect the full price increase impact?
I would say actually, given that we have seen full price increases quarter- by- quarter last year, the effect overall is rather limited for this quarter, and obviously the full effect we will see in quarter four.
Very clear. The second one is also on ITS, I'm now thinking about the cost side of the equation. If you think about the implied steel price in the first quarter truck delivery, how does the steel price compare to the current spot prices? Again, by when do you expect the full normalization of steel prices to be present in the ITS EBIT for that quarter? Thank you.
You know, I'm not really that much of an expert in steel pricing, I have to admit. You know, the whole environment is still volatile and we are buying components, so it's not just, you know, steel that is basically factored in the component. It's share of labor, it's a share of some of more. We don't have seen normalization so far and that would be the best I can do for you at this point in time. It's more than that. It's much more complicated because we're really buying components.
Thank you.
That was our last question for today. I hand back to Rob Smith for closing comments.
Thank you, Francie. Thanks to each of you for participating in our call today. We appreciate your interest. We appreciate your questions. We appreciate the opportunity to discuss our business with you together like this. We look forward to in-person opportunities in the next weeks and months to come in the road shows this quarter. We'll be back with our second quarter results after October. We'll look forward to talking to you next couple weeks and months, and we'll be back with results in Q2 when we've got them. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect the telephone. Thank you very much for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.