Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is Stephan Haas speaking, Investor Relations. First of all, thank you very much for joining our Conference Call today, on what I understand is a very busy day as far as reporting is concerned. I really wanna make it short and hand over to our CEO, Alex Geis, who will also give you a brief update on the situation at Haldex.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody. This is Alexander Geis speaking. Today, we can report on a very successful and also eventful third quarter of 2022. Successful because of the very strong figures we are reporting in a minute, and eventful because of our bid on Haldex, which reached more than the needed 90% acceptance rate. We meanwhile are heavily working on the PMI process with the leadership teams involved on both sides on a global basis. Later on, Wilfried will give you some more details on the Q3 figures of Haldex and also the status quo of the integration process. Let's start with the SAF-Holland Q3 highlights on the following page, please. We, as a group, achieved a strong sales increase year-over-year, which was mainly driven by a high growth in the Americas, but also APAC region.
We, meanwhile, in all regions, were able to further pass on prices, also inflationary prices. We kept our strong focus on our aftermarket with our dedicated teams, and were able to remain a very high, nearly 28% aftermarket share of total sales. In terms of the Haldex integration, we are on track to create a stronger, more resilient business model, enhanced customer offerings, and also earnings profile. Last but not least, here on that page, October was also quite strong, and therefore, we can raise our sales guidance to now around the upper end of the range of between EUR 1.4 billion to EUR 1.5 billion. Our Adjusted EBIT projections, we kept unchanged on a conservative 7%-8% range. Having said that, please let's move on to the next page to speak about our main KPIs, starting on the left side.
EMEA increased sales by nearly 9% in Q3, year-over-year. As you can see, Americas with a strong 53% increase, and also APAC with a strong nearly 49% increase in Q3. Taking a look on the right side, starting on the upper left on the right side. Altogether, group sales reached in Q3 a solid EUR 402 million at a strong Adjusted EBIT margin of 9.1%. We also were able to decrease our net working capital ratio to now 15.9%, but Wilfried give you a little bit more insight later on. Our net operating free cash flow was nearly EUR 49 million, and the earnings per share reached EUR 0.36. Let's take a look on year-to-date sales on the next page. You can see on the upper middle.
Summing up the year-to-date sales increased now by 27.1%, adjusted by FX by nearly 20% to now EUR 1.175 billion. This was driven by both equally OE and aftermarket sales increases. Taking a look to the different quarters, you can see specifically Q2 was very strong with EUR 403 million all-time high, but also now Q3, very strong with EUR 402 million sales coming, as I said before, coming from all regions, all three regions, but mainly from the Americas and the APAC region. Speaking of the different regions, on the next slide, you can see some pie charts. I would like to start on the upper left side.
This was the first nine months of 2021, and the distribution of the different regions, as you can see, and also compare with the pie chart on the upper right side, which is the first nine months of 2022. At the EMEA region, last year reached 59%, now it's 53% of the total sales, of the total group sales. A huge increase in the Americas from the year before, 32% to now +5 to 37%. The APAC share increased slightly by nearly 1%. A little bit shift more away from this huge EMEA region to the second biggest Americas region now, but also APAC. If you take a look on the lower left side, this is the pie chart showing different sales shares of our former business units. Truck, trailer, and aftermarket.
Here you can see quite stable, still now this year, nearly 60% trailer OE share, mainly driven by the Americas, but I will give you some more insights later on. 27.3% is still the aftermarket, very strong, and nearly 13% other products coming from the truck business, which is mainly the truck suspensions, but also the fifth wheels. So nearly unchanged when we speak about the different business units. Having said that, speaking a little bit about the gross profit, which we cannot be happy so far because you can see on the upper side that last year, first nine months, we came in with 17.9%. Now a slight decrease to 16.7%, mainly coming from all the inflations, but also material.
Nevertheless, if we speak now EUR 196.4 million in absolute terms, this is the highest result we ever achieved in the company's history. Also speaking about the different quarters, please, I would like to draw your attention to the development of the GP in the different quarters, starting with Q1. We were with a very low 15.7%, increased already to 17% in Q2, but now a further slight increase to 17.3% in Q3. So it's trending in the right direction. How that works out now with the Adjusted EBIT, you can see on the next page.
Having said, with all the challenges such as steel prices, COVID, inflation, we increased our Adjusted EBIT margin slightly from last year's 7.7% to now 7.8%, and in absolute terms from EUR 71 million last year to now EUR 92 million. Also here, same like GP, please take a look on the different quarters and the development. A very weak 6.4% in Q1 in terms of Adjusted EBIT. Already ramped up to 8.0% in Q2, and now a very solid 9.1% in this quarter, Q3. This equals specifically in Q3, the 9.1%, EUR 36.7 million in absolute terms, which is also here, the highest result we ever had in the quarter in the company's history.
This was driven by all the global teams in all regions. How the different regions performed, we can see on the next couple of pages, starting here with the biggest region in terms of sales, EMEA. You can see that EMEA increased sales by 14.5%, or organically by 11.7%, now reaching nearly EUR 624 million in sales. If you also here take a look on the different quarters, we can see that all three quarters were quite strong, but specifically second quarter, but also now Q3, with the shutdowns in August in the production facilities here in Europe, came in quite strong and much better than the year before.
Speaking of Adjusted EBIT of EMEA on the next page, you can see, and this is where we are not so happy so far, a decrease year to date from last year's 9.8% to now a 6.3%. Also here, the teams were heavily working on getting the inflationary items increases back from the market, but also took a look on all the cost savings. We came in the first quarter, and you can see that the lower section of the page with a very low 4.9% in Q1, already came in with a 6.2% in Q2, now reaching 7.9, so almost 8% in the last quarter, which was three. The trend is clearly going up in the right direction, and this is good.
On the next page, we are now coming to a really true turnaround story. Our Americas region, and as you might remember, in 2017- 2019, we did a plant consolidation which really went south. We struggled a lot, but you know that, and I have to say, hard work really pays off. Today, we can report a strong sales increase by 46% to now EUR 439 million year-over-year. Even taking FX out, we came in with a strong 30% sales increase, mainly driven by the trailer OE sales, but also truck and the aftermarket business was quite good in this year in all the quarters. If you take a look on the different quarters, you can see this is really a good increase quarter-over-quarter. 127, the first one.
151, the second one. Now reaching 161, and it's going up so far, even further. Just reminding you that beginning of the year, we started a dedicated fifth wheel assembly line for the aftermarket located in our subsidiary in Mexico. That helped to increase our aftermarket sales. Also in August, we ramped up our axle and suspension productions with great success. This is why we see a strong quarter-over-quarter growth. What that now means for our margins, you can see on the next page, and this is where I'm really happy about, is the year-over-year increase from last year's first nine months, 5.5% to now 9.4% in 2022. The EUR 41 million in absolute numbers is the best margin result ever we had in that region.
This is a good work, I would say. Even better is the development in the different quarters. Coming in the first quarter from 7.8 to 9.9 in the second to now a double-digit Adjusted EBIT number, and this is the proof that we can do it in that region. Higher sales, cost savings, but also we did our homework in the different plants and production sites across the Americas. I have to say that I'm personally very happy with those figures. The whole Americas team proved that a double-digit EBIT number can be achieved. This was great teamwork. Another good thing to report is on the next page. That's the APAC region. Well, this is the smallest region in terms of sales, but nevertheless, we struggled also in the recent years.
Here you can see that our APAC region also developed nicely and increased sales by 41% to EUR 112 million year to date. Organically, sales increased by also a strong 33%. Same development like in the Americas, quarter-over-quarter increases. You can see in Q3, we now reached more than EUR 40 million in sales. This was mainly driven by India, Australia, but also our Southeast Asian business came in quite good. Speaking of EBIT, you can see that we from last year's 2% were able to increase to also a double-digit EBIT number to 10.2% now, or in absolute terms, EUR 11.5 million. A great success. Happy with that.
Also the distribution and the development quarter-over-quarter after we struggled the last recent years, but also 2021, a solid 10.1% in Q1, double-digit also in Q2 and in Q3. Good efforts by the teams. It paid off. And as you can see, this was also very good and stable development in the APAC region. Now here, I would like to pause a bit and hand over to Wilfried for more insights into the financials.
Yeah. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Coming on the next slides to the financials, we start with the group reconciliation EBIT to Adjusted EBIT. What we can see here is that we have in total additional depreciation from purchase price allocation, as well as restructuring and transaction costs and impairments. If you take all these numbers together, we end up here in Q3 2022 with EUR 9.7 million. The EUR 2.4 million purchase price allocation is well known. It's more or less the same number as it was also in the last quarters and the last years. We have EUR 4.8 million, a big chunk going to the Haldex acquisition or which is related to the Haldex acquisition.
We have checked in China. We have checked all assets and the valuation of all assets. We went through line item by line item, and we have decided to write off EUR 2 million of the Chinese assets. That was EUR 1.2 million with regard to leasehold improvements. So within the building, what we have spent there in this rented building. We have another EUR 0.8 million written off of the capitalized cost for the SAP introduction in China, and then additional EUR 0.5 million other costs. In total, EUR 9.7 million. Coming now to the next slide, which shows the group profit and loss statement.
Alex has already elaborated about the top line as well as the gross profit and the EBIT development. I would like to make two remarks here. One remark is that we have quite often the question on the table regarding our energy prices. I said in the past that we are not that energy intensive, and I hope I said that the government will come up with the right steps to make sure that the companies in the future get this development of energy costs under control. The government has delivered so far. What does it mean for SAF-Holland here in 2022? We are expecting energy costs of round about 1.3% of total sales.
In 2023, it will be lower due to the measures of the government. It will be then approximately 1.2% of total sales in 2023. Secondly, I would like to draw your attention because we have not yet heard so much about the SG&A development. You see the numbers here on the left-hand side in the two columns where we compare the first nine months, 2022 and 2021. If you take the EUR 122 million in the first nine months of 2022, and we have there round about EUR 15 million in costs, especially for the integration of Haldex, then we would end up with a percentage of 9.3%, total SG&A of sales.
If we do the same then with the numbers of 2021, and we take the around 104 million, and we deduct here also the one-off costs regarding restructuring, which was around 7 million. We would end up with 97 million, which is then 10.5% of total sales. Overall, we have managed our SG&A quite well, and we are minus 1.2 percentage points of sales compared when if we are going to compare the first nine months. If we now turn to the next slide, we see the equity development. First of all, when we look to the numbers, the equity has significantly improved since December 2021 by in total EUR 97.4 million. Where is this coming from?
First of all, earnings increased and increased the equity by EUR 47.7 million. FX effects helped. We have a very strong dollar development. Also here, translation helped with EUR 65.6 million, and we had the negative or the dampening effect of -EUR 15.9 million for the dividend. This together gives you the EUR 97.4 million. What about the equity ratio? The equity ratio went down if we compare the numbers of June with the numbers of September, from 37.3% down to 32.2%. The biggest reason or the main reasons, very simply speaking, is due to the Haldex transaction. Without the Haldex transaction, the equity ratio would have been around 40%.
Also, here, perhaps a word to an expected capital increase. We have agreed with the banks in the course of the financing of the Haldex acquisition to increase our equity by 10%, or to say it implied, most likely 10%. With our strong self-financing, which we are showing also quite good here in this quarter, we will achieve a leverage below 3 at the end of this year on a pro forma basis when we put both numbers, SAF-Holland and Haldex, together. We have also further power, I will come to this later, with respect to the self-financing. Therefore, also in the following months, we are expecting great internal support.
There is no equity increase to be expected, because it's not necessary and it will not happen. Coming now to the net working capital, and as I said already before, a little bit more here, regarding the self-financing of the company. First of all, if we look to the numbers, net working capital decreased only slightly in Q3. On the other hand side, we have sustained strong sales growth. The inventory level still is determined by too high safety stocks. We are still working on that to bring that down, also to change the brain of our people. We have had big problems in the last 18-24 months with the situation in the supply chain, and therefore inventory was necessary.
Now these days are over, and we have now to work strong on reducing the inventory levels. Sequentially, we have done it better. So we came down from almost high 17.4%, at the end of June, and now down to 15.9%, which is a good development with 150 basis points less. Cash is King program is really something what everybody in our company is going for. Focus is clearly to reduce the days inventory outstanding. I said that from June to December, we are aiming to reduce our net working capital by at least EUR 50 million, and further EUR 30 million are to come then in the next month in 2023. A word to the Haldex numbers.
We do not have still the full power on Haldex, but we have some numbers now available. We clearly see here that also Haldex is not really good managing their net working capital. At least we see here a potential of additional EUR 25 million because we believe that in the first step, we can bring the net working capital down. It was around 25% end of June, and five percentage points less is our first target. More to come. Coming now to the next slide, where you see the development of the components of the net working capital relevant numbers. Inventories. A word to the inventories because it shows no further progress.
When we look to the numbers, month-to-month, then we have reduced from August coming, the inventories by around EUR 16 million. That is a first step, which is going into the right direction. You see also that the days inventory outstanding are going down from 72- 68. Not a big step, but there is more to come, and we are focusing on the inventory development, on a daily basis, you can say, and we are controlling that, quite intensive. Coming now to the next slide, where we see the cash flows and the development of the cash flows. First of all, when we look on, into the middle of this slide, you see the quarterly development. The strong quarterly development, minus EUR 5.2, then EUR 24 million.
Now we are talking about EUR 50 million, almost EUR 55 million, which we have generated in the third quarter. If we look on the left-hand side, we see the accumulated numbers, EUR 21.3 million in the first nine months of 2021, and now in the first nine months of 2022, 73.5. What is the main difference here? We have increased it by EUR 50 million, around EUR 50 million. EUR 30 million is coming from net working capital management, and EUR 20 million are coming from additional earnings, respectively, depreciation. If we now look to the development from net cash flow from operating activities down to the net free cash flow from operating activities, which is shown here on the basis of this slide.
You see, that the accumulated numbers are going down, from 73.5-57.5, as well as the quarterly development does. It's always the CapEx number which you find on the right-hand side. In the first nine months, it was EUR 16 million and a little bit over proportional, EUR 6 million in the third quarter. Coming now to the last slide for the SAF-Holland numbers. That is the net debt to EBITDA development here. Due to the fact that we have the Haldex acquisition on board of our balance sheet, but the profit and loss statement is still without the EBITDA numbers.
We have here for better comparability, we have here adjusted the net debt number for the second quarter slightly, and we have then done that also for the fourth quarter. Sorry, for the third quarter. That is to show the SAF-Holland operational performance. Without the Haldex acquisition, we would have been at 1.1. That shows clearly the strong self-financing of the company. The second message here is that also for the future, we are working to reduce the net debt significantly. Our target is clearly to achieve a number of 2.0 or below in the last quarter of 2024. That's it about the SAF-Holland numbers. I'm coming now in the next chapter to some Haldex financials.
Not a full-blown picture, but some numbers. First of all, I would like to give you a status about the acquisition. The development of Haldex top line as well as profits is quite good. I come to this in a minute. We see strong sales increase year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter. We see that is very, very important, the sequential improvement of the EBIT margin. The SAF-Holland offer was made and we got 96.14% of the total number of the outstanding shares. The company is in the meanwhile delisted. That happened on the nineteenth of September, 2022. We are now working on the squeeze out to achieve 100% of the Haldex shares.
A word to the Polish merger control clearance, because this is important to understand why we are not yet showing consolidated numbers. The merger control clearance from the Polish Competition Authority is currently still outstanding. The Polish Authority has not expressed concerns that the takeover would significantly restrict the competition in Poland. It has stated, though, that the case is complex as the relevant markets are interrelated and the parties to the transaction have different roles in these markets. The Polish Authority intends to better understand these relationships prior to their clearance decision. As no competition issues have been identified so far, neither by the German nor by the U.S. authorities, we believe and are very confident that the unconditional clearance will be granted in the next few weeks.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the moment when we get this clearance that we have to consolidate Haldex into SAF-Holland's numbers. Right this day where we get the approval from the Polish authorities. Coming now to some numbers of Haldex. First of all, the development of sales and the Adjusted EBIT. As I said already at the beginning, we see here a nice growth quarter by quarter, +14% in the first quarter, +22% in the second quarter, +21% in the third quarter. Of course, this is not only volume that is also driven by price increases and FX effects.
What we can note, and we see that later on in the next couple of slides, that the America region has over proportionately supported the sales growth as well as the aftermarket business. Looking now to the earnings, and let's take here the Adjusted EBIT as well as we do on the SAF-Holland side. Also here a very nice further sequential improvement is shown. Starting in Q4 2021, there the EBIT margin was 5.0%. In the first quarter this year, 6.3%, elevating to 8.2% and now 9.9% in the third quarter. A very promising development.
On the next slide, we see the sales development first by region and then by business units. The first one, it's more or less the same development as you see on the SAF-Holland side. The Americas share is growing from 51.5%- 9.3%. The second message, which is a good message because the aftermarket is the resilient backbone of our business. The aftermarket was 51.8% in the third quarter in 2021 and is now growing to amazing 53% in the third quarter of 2022. Very remarkable, and that is good for the development of the combined company.
Last but not least, we see on the next slide the numbers as they have shown to the financial community also in the past. This is a little bit different than what we see on the SAF-Holland side. The sales accumulated on the right-hand side increased from EUR 337.2 to EUR 401.2, which is 19%, which is okay. The gross margin, and that is nice to see when we look to the Q3 numbers and compare them with the last year. In the last three months, we have achieved on the Haldex side gross profit margin of 28.8% compared to 26.2%, which is more than 2.5 percentage points. Very good development.
Last words to the tax development here. When we look to the numbers that says not so much, but when we calculate the tax in percent of sales we see here a quite stable development, which is between 27%-28%. That's it about the Haldex numbers. I would say a solid third quarter. I would now like to hand over to Alex for the outlook of SAF-Holland.
Thank you, Wilfried. Everybody, how do we see the development of trailer and truck production for the full year of 2022? Starting on the left side, upper left side with EMEA. You can see we expect the overall trailer market to come in with a slight decrease of 5% coming from an all-time high in 2021. Truck, a slight increase by 3%. North America, very, very bullish in both trailer plus 25%, but also trucks with a 17% increase. Here also I can report I travel a lot in the States meeting truck OE customers, but also trailer OE customers, and they are all fully booked far into half year of 2023, and the orders are coming in, and we are also fully booked.
As I explained before, we ramped up some production plans, specifically the axle, but also suspension plans for further capacity increase, which is happening so far. Brazil, trailer market -10%. Where we are strong is the truck market. You can see it's even compared to 2021, but coming from an all-time high also there in Brazil. We are quite happy with the development of our company, KLL, which is specialized on truck and bus suspensions down in Brazil. China, well, -nearly 50% in both trailer and truck. Here I have to say, that's not so much a big burden for us since our China business is still small compared to the overall group sales. So that is not a big burden. India, a bullish 91% in trailer, but also 53% in trucks.
Here's a friendly reminder that we bought a company called York in 2018. We gave them more freedom. We are ramping up further capacity, and due to the massive increases and developments and investments in the roads, but also in the other infrastructure, we are really well on the way with nearly 55%-60% market share in trailer axles and suspensions. I'm very happy about that. Having said that, what does that mean for us as a group? Now on this page, I would like to summarize and finalize with our outlook for 2022.
I already mentioned before that the management board now forecasts group sales for the full year of 2022 at around the upper end of the forecast range of between EUR 1.4 billion-EUR 1.5 billion. Unchanged is the company projects an Adjusted EBIT margin of between 7-8 percentage points and a CapEx ratio of between 2-2.5% of sales, more likely around 2%, a little bit more than 2%. Having said that, I would like to finalize with thanking everybody for listening, and I think we are now open for questions you might have. Thank you.
The first question comes from Nicolai Kempf from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Yes. Good morning. It's Nicolai Kempf speaking from Deutsche Bank. Thank you for taking my question. Thanks for the management team, and we appreciate the momentum. Looks pretty good also the color on Haldex. My first question would be on labor costs. As you know, labor unions are pushing for about 7%-8% higher wages. What kind of impact do you expect for this next year?
Nicolai, this is Alex speaking. Of course, we are thinking that there might be something coming, you know, that the parties are still in discussion between a one-time payment of 3,000 EUR plus a moderate increase. We will see how that comes in. We are somehow calculating with a ballpark of a little bit more than 5% for the next year. We are also, and the teams on all sides, not only in Germany, where this increase would be happening. All the teams worldwide are working on efficiency gains, and we invested heavily also in further optimization in the company to be able to drive more products through our production lines with less labor, of course.
Nevertheless, I also have to say that, and as a reminder, in 2016, we ramped up our Turkish facility for axles, for trailer axles, specifically for Europe. We further ramped up the production there, capacity there, in the first half year, but also in the last quarter, with a further increase of about 40%-50% in quantity. That also helps to navigate through this, through those increases to come. We are supplying, and this is contractually fixed with all our customers or most of our customers, that we can decide whether we're gonna ship from the German production facilities or the Turkish production facilities.
If I may add here, we have decided in the US to change step by step. First good step is the move here to Mexico. We have decided to establish here a new facility for standard-duty fifth wheels in Mexico. When we compare here the numbers, out of my head, the labor costs in North America are around $26. When we look to Mexico, we are looking more at a number which is still a high single digit. What we do, and that is clearly the message, yes, we see increases on the one hand side, but we are also trying to mitigate this with other measures. Hope that answers your question.
Yep, that's very clear. Thank you. Just my final one. Last time you've often managed how far you're kind of booked out over the next quarters. Can we get some color here of how far you're booked out for trucks and trailers in Europe, maybe?
Well, in Europe, when we speak Europe, we are, so this year we are fully booked. We are also fully booked into Q1 of next year. It depends a little bit if we speak the German production or the Turkish production. Turkish production is already booked into Q2 of next year. As I said, first couple of weeks in 2023 are fully booked also here in the German plant. Orders are coming in. We will see at what pace this will continue. On the truck side is a little bit more optimistic, I have to say. Orders are flying in because we still have a lot of European truck manufacturers.
They are not producing at full steam because they are still waiting for some components, mainly also semiconductors, to come in, which we now can confirm from the Haldex side, because we can sell many more Trailer EBS if we would have more semiconductors. There is still a shortage going on, but truck is a little bit more booked out than the trailer production side.
That's it. Very clear. Thank you and congrats to the good results.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Jorge González Sadornil . Your line is open.
Hello, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions, Alexander and Wilfried. My first question is just to get a clarification about the working capital levels for the end of the year. I couldn't hear it properly. Wilfried, do you mind to repeat to me what are the levels for the end of the year? I am not sure if you were saying that EUR 50 million below third quarter, but or EUR 30 million. I didn't catch that. It would be very interesting, Alexander, if you give us some color on your view about the trailer market next year. More or less, the market sources are quite aligned that we are going to see a slight growth in truck or a flattish development.
I see a lot of differences between different sources for trailer, and it will be interesting to have your opinion on this. I know that it's always difficult to predict these kind of things, but it will be quite interesting. Finally, it's possible that you give us your view on the last quarter for Haldex. Can you give us some guidance for Haldex full year results and maybe the trends for Haldex in 2023? Thank you very much.
I take the first question regarding the net working capital. I said that from June on, so that means if you take the numbers end of the first half, then minus EUR 50 million until the end of the year 2022, and minus EUR 30 million then in 2023. Just SAF-Holland, not Haldex. For Haldex, I said that Haldex was at a level of 25% net working capital end of June in percent of sales. I said that our first target is to reduce that in the course of 2023 by 5 percentage points, which is round about EUR 25 million.
Okay. Is that okay in terms of net working capital, Jorge? Okay, then I will take over. This is Alex again. I take over the trailer market for 2023 and also try to answer your questions in terms of Haldex. Let me start with the trailer market and not only focusing on EMEA, because our trailer business to 60% is not only Europe. So basically, we are coming from in the year of 2021, if we talk numbers of produced and sold axles, that was the highest number we ever did. Also in this year, we are nearly in terms of produced and sold axles on the same level as last year, just a little bit less. Okay?
If we talk now 2023, I think that the trailer market will not be as strong as it was in 2021 and 2022. It might be a little bit weaker, but this is natural since coming from an all-time high. Nevertheless, we see a further increase in the spend of freight. So the freight volume is still going up since more people, even more people are ordering at Amazon and all the other online dealers. So this will help us to get more orders in. This is for Europe, or let's say continental Europe. When we speak Turkey, that's a different thing because the Turkish market is very bullish, but also the Middle East market is quite strong given the high oil price.
There is a lot of investments going on. When we speak North America, that's a totally different picture. I explained now twice that we ramped up our axle and suspension production capacity even further. We have nearly 70% market share now on mechanical suspension, and there was a huge shift back from air suspension to mechanical. With the 70%, we are participating. Another big trend is that the container chassis which were built for North America in the recent years from dominant Chinese manufacturers, due to anti-dumping for import in the United States, there was a huge shift to the U.S. trailer manufacturers or even Mexican trailer manufacturers, and we are now also participating. This helps us to further increase our trailer sales in 2023, also for North America.
As I said, I personally spoke with the ten biggest trailer manufacturers in North America, so U.S. and also Mexico, over the last couple of weeks. They are far booked into second half year of next year. After this, we'll say India, I'm very happy with this development because the internal sales in India, somebody said it's the China, like 20 years before. They are ramping up everything, and they're spending a lot of money into infrastructure. With a high market share of 55%-60%, we are participating. Last time, I already mentioned that there is a new rule in place, that if you have air suspension in the trailer, you can overload by 10%. We're the only ones offering those products, heavy-duty air suspension. I'm quite good.
We are in the final stage of finishing our production site, which is just across the street or next door. The plan is to move in in December, early Q1 of next year, and then we have another 50-60% increased capacity, and we are sold out here. China, as said before, China sales is still low. We changed management team in the first half year, and we now got some promising big orders now from the biggest trailer manufacturer there, for air suspension and disc brake axles. So a couple of 10,000 axles for next year. That's a good start. We think that the Chinese market is coming back. Speaking a little bit about Haldex. Well, to be honest, I think we don't wanna speak about Q4 numbers of Haldex.
We had a lot of face-to-face meetings already with the leadership teams. We got Roland Berger as a consulting company for the PMI process, which started already in September, since we are the majority shareholder, of course, with nearly 97% of shares. The teams met in all regions. In the Americas, we had two face-to-face meetings here in Europe. We are quite far down the road. We are going to announce the new structure of management end of next week to the leadership teams of both companies, and we wanna be ready January 1 to start as a new combined company into the future and also for outlook of 2023.
Let me state that there are a lot of opportunities, selling opportunities, but also a lot of opportunities when it comes to working together, streamlining our sales, our structures in all the regions. So I'm really happy with the development. You saw from Wilfried already Q1, Q2, Q3. I have to say the teams did a good work so far. Now combine all our forces on a global perspective with drive in the region. I think this is gonna be a good year as a new co in 2023. Years to come, this is basically why we did this, okay? To create a much bigger and stronger company.
Perhaps I can add some, let's say some flavor. We got during the IAA, which happened in September also, some impressions from the Nürnberg conference, where we have been in other conferences, where we got also impression from other market participants. The flavor from the IAA was more or less that there is expected change in the order situation for 2023, especially when it comes to the standard trailers. You need to know that the markets in Europe are split 50/50. 50% standard trailers, 50% specialties.
In the trailer standard, they said it could be around 20%-25% minus next year. That was the flavor we got there. In the specialty areas, a very good development for next year. They were quite happy. As Alex said, some of them were already booked until mid of next year. Aftermarket was seen being quite stable, probably a little bit better than in 2022. Last but not least, I heard on a conference the speech of the CEO of Knorr-Bremse. He was quite positive regarding the truck development.
As Alex said, they had issues or they still have issues with the semiconductor situation, and therefore, there is a certain pent-up demand to be expected next year. From this perspective, if we look to the overall group of SAF-Holland, it's looking quite promising for next year.
Was very interesting. Only a couple of follow-ups on this. In the APAC region, with the expected growth in India, with these new capacities, are you expecting to increase volumes next year? Or can you give us some kind of color for that, for the India volumes-or APAC volumes next year? Regarding trailer, is the same situation Americas than EMEA? Are you expecting maybe Americas to be more resilient or is a similar development what you're expecting in Americas to compare to Europe?
Well, India, I can clearly say this is the biggest facility we have in our APAC region. Very successful operating company we have there in Pune. I said that we are opening our new production end of this year, beginning of next year. Of course, the target is clearly to sell more. We have some constraints. We could have sold more if we would have had the capacity already in this year. This is why we are ramping up. The team is not only focused on the Indian subcontinent. Also a higher share is for export. For instance, we export a lot to the Southern Hemisphere, specifically in Africa. Now also the team came up with some dedicated suspension components, big components for North America.
Since we cannot ship enough and we cannot build enough, they are also helping and ramped up in the last couple of months to help out our Mexican customers, for instance. This is underway and of course, we would like to increase the volumes, and we will be increasing the volumes there. I'm pretty sure, very confident. I'm very confident also for the trailer market in North America, since we won a lot of market share in the traditional business, which is the mechanical suspension, plus the standard axles, but also the disc brake is coming back. Won some tenders and increased the disc brake here, disc brake axles in North America. Here it's a good logistics savings now because the Haldex facility and the biggest facility they have in North America is in Monterrey, in Mexico.
They assemble nowadays also the disc brake, standard disc brake. They can do that for us. That means that we can reduce the net working capital for the combined group, but also the transit time for the disc brake, which was before shipped from Sweden to the U.S. It's now from Monterrey being shipped to our facility in North America. It's of course much less in transit time, so coming from six weeks down to maybe 5-6 days. That helps to further gain momentum and also cut some costs all over the costs. I'm quite confident for the trailer development in the Americas.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for taking the time to join our conference call today. As always, if you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to give us a call, and thanks again. Have a nice day. Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Bye.