[Foreign language]
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, esteemed journalists, colleagues. A very warm welcome to our annual press conference 2024 here at Siemens AG. My name is Lynette Jackson, and I am Chief Communications Officer here at Siemens. It is my pleasure to welcome you here today at Siemens in Munich, both in person as well as remote.
Today we want to look back together on another successful financial year. Once again, we have demonstrated the tremendous potential technology has to transform the everyday for the lives of many people. We have been strengthening our position as a leading technology company. Now, please allow me to introduce today's speakers, Roland Busch, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ralf Thomas, Chief Financial Officer. They will both look back on performance from the last fiscal year, as well as outlining other key developments from Siemens. My dear colleague, Simon Kawka, our recently appointed Head of Media Relations and Executive Communications, will kindly moderate the question and answer round. This morning, we released our full year and fourth quarter results, and all documents can be found on our press website, siemens.com/press. Of course, the press team and I are available all of today and beyond to answer your questions.
Now, I need to draw your attention to the Safe Harbor statement, which is at the beginning of the presentation, and at this point, I would really like to thank everyone for the great collaboration in the last year and look forward to the coming year. Thank you very much. Now, that's it for me. I'm really happy now to hand over to Roland Busch.
[Foreign language] , Lynette.
Thank you very much, Lynette. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss the results of our fourth quarter and our full year fiscal 2024 performance. We'll also take a look ahead at our ambition for fiscal 2025. Four years ago, we started executing our new strategy of combining the real and digital worlds, and we've achieved impressive results. Now, it's time to take Siemens to the next level. We'll accelerate Siemens' transformation and unlock our full potential. For this purpose, we've launched a program, One Tech Company. The main points of the program are an even stronger customer focus, faster innovation, and above all, stronger profitable growth in order to accelerate our value creation. I'll give you more details in a moment. Let's start with fiscal 2024. It was a successful year. We created substantial value added for all our stakeholders in challenging times.
During the year, the world experienced ongoing geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties. Once again, and following the elections in the U.S. and considering the political situation in Germany, times won't be getting easier. Wars, risks, and inflation from new tariffs and intensifying unilateral approaches held back global trade and production. Export-driven Europe, and in particular Germany, were impacted most of all. Our customers continued destocking, and there are overcapacities, particularly in China. These factors also weighed in on the global production sector. However, the continuing boom in digitalization and artificial intelligence, or AI, the growing demand for higher resilience, and the ongoing steps being taken toward an all-electric and decarbonized world offer tremendous opportunities for all our offerings, whether in the areas of software, automation, electrification, sustainable infrastructure, or mobility. I'd like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank our global team, Siemens, together with our customers and partners.
Their performance in this difficult environment has been outstanding, in part because Siemens, as a technology leader, sees significant market opportunities. Orders topped EUR 84 billion and were 4% below last year's tough comps, while revenue grew 3%. A healthy book-to-bill ratio of 1.11 and a strong order backlog of EUR 113 billion gave us confidence for fiscal 2025. Profit, industrial business, and the corresponding margin were level with our strong prior year, despite the fact that our core industrial automation business faced significant headwinds. Our strong operational performance, also compared to the competition, is confirmed most clearly by our continuously excellent free cash flow. Our industrial business delivered another record year with almost EUR 11 billion of free cash flow, which led to an impressive EUR 9.5 billion for the group. Another proof point for our operational strength: we achieved record-high earnings per share before purchase price allocation accounting, or EPS, pre-PPA.
Excluding Siemens Energy, EPS pre-PPA increased 6% to EUR 10.54 and was well within the guidance range which we issued one year ago. All three businesses met their latest fiscal year guidance. Revenue at Digital Industries declined 8% on a comparable basis to the lower end of its guidance range due to challenging conditions at our automation business. The profit margin reached 18.9%, whereby a very positive development at the software business was overcompensated by weaker development at the automation business. Smart Infrastructure grew 9% and achieved a record profitability of 17.3%, even exceeding this year's guidance. I'm extremely pleased that revenue from our data center business grew by more than 50%. It now exceeds EUR 2 billion, and we are clearly winning market share. Smart Infrastructure is improving more and more. For 16 quarters now, the team has increased the profit margin compared to the prior quarter.
That's for four years. What a performance. At its capital market day in Zug on December the 12th, the team will show that it's aiming even higher. For this reason, I'm extremely pleased that, as we announced yesterday evening, we've extended Matthias Rebellius' employment contract as he wished. Matthias has an incredible passion for technology, boasts vast experience across markets and regions, and most importantly, gives his all for our customers. I'm very grateful to him for continuing to be a part of the team Siemens. Mobility again delivered healthy revenue growth, achieving 9% on rigorous backlog execution. Order intake for fiscal 2024 reached EUR 15.8 billion, with a book-to-bill ratio close to 1.4, reflecting strong market momentum. The team again achieved industry-leading profitability and strong free cash flow. As you can see, we have a well-balanced regional setup. We are active worldwide.
At the same time, we are resilient and can make investments in the regions where we have biggest opportunities. In fiscal 2024, the U.S. contributed revenue growth of 12%, while India was up 16%. Growth in Germany and China, on the other hand, weakened. Now for the highlights of the fourth quarter. The book-to-bill ratio reached 1.1 on strong order growth of 47% at Mobility and significant growth at Smart Infrastructure driven by large orders. As expected, orders at Digital Industries came in below the prior year level. The automation business was up slightly compared to the trough in fiscal 2023. However, overall economic activity was still muted and investment sentiment weak in industries like automotive and machine building. Various indicators and company reports point to a delayed recovery in Europe, our key region.
Demand in China is still being held back by ongoing destocking, although we are starting to see some green shoots supported by government stimulus. Our software business recorded several large orders, but the number was below the extraordinarily high level of the large contract wins in the area of Electronic Design A utomation, or EDA, in fiscal 2023. Overall, revenue growth reached 2%. The largest contribution came from mobility, which was up 15%, while Smart Infrastructure grew 9%. The software business at Digital Industries grew moderately on very tough comps, whereas the automation business was substantially lower. I'm particularly proud of our Electrification and Electrical Products teams. Both achieved revenue growth in the low double-digit range and managed extremely fast output growth while ramping up capacities and managing the supply chain very well.
But what really matters in the end is value-creating growth, and that's exactly what we delivered in a very impressive way, with a strong profit of EUR 3.1 billion at the industrial business and, what was for me an outstanding highlight, a free cash flow all in of EUR 5 billion. Our digital business was also a major growth driver in fiscal 2024, up by 22% and generating revenue of EUR 9 billion. It now accounts for around 12% of our total revenue. I'll go into Siemens Xcelerator, our open digital business platform, Software as a Service, or SaaS, and our acquisition of Altair Engineering in more detail later. The SaaS transition at Digital Industries is fully on track, boosting annual recurring revenue, or ARR, by 14% in Q4. Altair will be Siemens AG's largest acquisition, and we are also continuing to sharpen our profile through targeted smaller investments and divestments.
The closing of the Innomotics divestment on October the 1st and the announced sale of our airport logistics business were important milestones in this regard. Since our company is strong and successful, we intend to continue our progressive dividend policy. We proposed to the 2025 annual shareholders meeting a dividend of EUR 5.220, an increase of EUR 0.50. Ralf Thomas will explain the details of our assumptions for the outlook in a moment. Just a hint: we're expecting further value-creating growth in fiscal 2025. Now, let me shed some more light on our One Tech Company program. We've achieved a great deal over the past four years. The figures tell the story. Strong profitable growth, record-breaking performance, and technological leadership. We are clearly perceived as a technology company. In short, we've built a strong foundation for future success.
From a strategic perspective, our portfolio is excellently positioned along secular demand trends driven by electrification, automation, digitalization, and sustainability. That's what our customers need. That's what all societies worldwide need in order to master the most pressing challenges of the time. These are excellent prerequisites and great opportunities, and we intend to leverage them with a growth-oriented program because we are at a pivotal moment. Technologies like AI and software are changing the world faster and faster. Markets are shifting, and the competition is getting tougher. For example, in China, many see great risks. We see great opportunities. That's why we are going to transform Siemens sustainably and from a position of strength, but differently than we did before. And we've already started with our One Tech Company program. This program has no fixed deadline. Instead, we are working together to achieve short and medium-term targets.
We are not acting defensively to shore up our key financial figures, and we are changing the way we operate our businesses at many points without turning the company upside down. One Tech Company. As one technology company, we'll unlock and unleash Siemens' full potential. That means even stronger customer focus, faster innovation, and above all, higher profitable growth. In a nutshell, it's a growth program, not a savings program. To achieve our North Star One Tech Company, we've structured the program around three main tracks: foundational tracks, investment tracks, and productivity tracks. Foundational tracks first. These tracks will reshape the fabric of our company and the way we at Siemens collaborate. We'll optimize processes, structures, and systems.
We'll also change our behaviors and how we measure and recognize success in order to become an even more powerful company, one that can scale more quickly and benefit enormously from more intensive collaboration. Let me give you a few examples. First, we've created a strong team to develop foundational technologies for our units. That means we'll develop the best software solutions for every business to build into its product, once for everyone. As a result, we'll eliminate duplication, and our customers will benefit from being able to use our products more universally. Second, we'll accelerate the development of scalable digital offerings for a variety of industries and increase our sales activities across our businesses, all our businesses, and through a more intensive use of our Siemens Xcelerator partner ecosystem and the huge amount of data we can access.
As a result, we'll help customers transform their operations and create value. And third, we'll build AI into all our offerings based on a coherent data strategy. This brings me to investments. Our capital allocation approach will be even more focused on growth fields, both organically and through acquisitions. A little over two weeks ago, we announced a milestone: the planned acquisition of Altair Engineering. Our investment tracks also focus on targeted investments in research and development, as well as on growth regions such as India and verticals such as data centers. The third track to the target is productivity. In fiscal 2025, we'll invest in our own digital transformation and implement new IT tools to optimize our processes. In addition, we'll leverage AI and data-driven insights to drive efficiency across all parts of our company and boost our competitiveness.
The use of AI tools for easier and faster programming is one example. For this purpose, we'll upskill and further adapt our workforce. We'll continue to provide regular updates at all measures in the coming months. At the end of calendar year 2025, we'll provide a comprehensive report at a Capital Market Day on the progress we are making towards becoming One Tech Company. Let's take a look now at the progress we've made with Siemens Xcelerator. A year ago, we announced our game-changing collaboration with Microsoft, the launch of the Siemens Industrial Copilot. Together, we've made significant progress. More than 100 companies are now using the Copilot. Our partnership, thyssenkrupp Automation Engineering, is the first company to plan a global rollout in all its machines.
More than 120,000 users of our Totally Integrated Automation Portal, a platform for automation engineering, can now enhance their work with this generative AI-powered assistant. And here is another example of how we are scaling up AI. At this week's Smart Production Solutions SPS trade show, we launched the latest innovation from our partnership with Nvidia, an industrial AI suite that, powered by Nvidia's graphics processing units, GPUs, runs on a new version of our industrial programmable controllers, IPCs, thereby accelerating AI execution 25-fold and enabling us to make complex AI-based automation applications widely available and enhance efficiency. We're continuously upgrading our Siemens Xcelerator offering across all businesses. At the InnoTrans trade fair for rail technology, we presented Signaling X, with which we'll take rail transport into the digital future.
Signaling X will make it possible to seamlessly control and operate both mainline and mass transit signaling systems from one centralized signaling data center. Interacting with train planning systems, the technology enables rail operators to optimize their operational efficiency by up to 20%. By combining Siemens Xcelerator with our domain know-how, we can sell our offerings while benefiting our customer sustainability. Together with Merck, we're developing a smart manufacturing concept for the future. As a preferred market, we are supplying the company with cutting-edge software and hardware solutions for its three business sectors. Modular production is reducing time to market, lowering investment costs, and cutting CO2 emissions. Smart applications can also be used in hospitals. The Kantonsspital Baden, which will be opening soon in Switzerland, can use our customized Internet of Things, or IoT, platform to organize, optimize its operations, and improve the patient experience.
Put simply, we've installed a kind of Google Maps in the hospital that will help nurses and carers immediately find vital medical equipment for examinations and treatments. These devices are often scattered around the hospital. Searching for them takes time. Thousands of intelligent sensors on the devices feed an app-based navigation system, enabling the hospital staff to locate the equipment in real time. The hospital is also using our comprehensive smart buildings portfolio. In the Netherlands, we are partnering with Alliander, a large distribution grid operator that serves 3.5 million customers. Our new Gridscale X software enables us to extend Alliander's grid utilization by up to 30% without the need to build new power lines. As a result, we are supporting the energy transition by enabling more renewable energy to be fed into the grid. A great example of cross-company collaboration comes from our mobility business.
Singapore Land Transport Authority has commissioned a Siemens-led consortium to provide the power supply system for its cross-island line, and Smart Infrastructure is supplying the medium-voltage switchgear. A few months ago, we received an order to supply the rail line signaling system. The combination of both systems will make the line more sustainable and more cost-effective. Our digital business is a key strategic lever for value creation. In fiscal 2024, we took a step up with the help of major software licensing agreements and our very successful transition to SaaS. Over the last two years, we've achieved a compounded annual growth rate of 14% to EUR 9 billion. All our businesses are working to expand and promote the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio. The integration of Altair Engineering will further boost the share of our digital revenue.
Let me give you a few more details now about a key factor in the growth of our digital business: the transition of our product lifecycle business and a part of digital industries' EDA business to SaaS. Over the last three years, we've delivered impressive results in this regard and will maintain this momentum. In Q4, ARR grew by a very strong 14% year over year. Our plan is to maintain ARR growth in the lower double digits in fiscal 2025, in line with our target of more than 10%. The cloud portion stands at EUR 1.8 billion, equal to 42% of ARR, thus reaching and even exceeding our target of 40% a year ahead of schedule. The team aims to hit the 50% mark by the end of fiscal 2025.
All indicators, the total number of customers, the share of small and medium-sized enterprises, and our transition rates to SaaS are heading in the right direction. More than 90% of our business enables positive sustainability outcomes for our customers. To give you two examples, we've recently joined the Global Battery Alliance to help ensure sustainability in the complete battery value chain, and we are now using green steel for our control cabinets. A very important step here was the confirmation of our ambitious near and long-term emission reduction targets by the Science-Based Targets Initiative. We are fully committed to achieving a low-carbon future. The faster we get innovations to the market, the more successful we are. In fiscal 2024, we invested around EUR 6.3 billion in R&D. We upgraded our strong connected hardware base and significantly increased investments in our software and digital portfolio.
For fiscal 2025, we plan to keep R&D intensity at the level of 8.3% of revenue at a minimum and potentially even a notch higher with further growth in absolute terms. Now, to unlock our potential as One Tech Company, we'll have to scale our software business like a pure-play software company. We've taken an important step in this direction. As I mentioned, we've bundled all the resources relevant for the development of basic cross-business software and applications in a unit we call foundational technologies. This strong team will create a common foundation for the software services of all our businesses so that customers can digitally interact with us seamlessly and more easily, no matter what part of our portfolio they're interested in.
These services will then be used across the entire company, enabling us to accelerate innovation, integrate core software services more effectively and efficiently into our products, eliminate internal duplication, and above all, inspire even more customers to use Siemens Xcelerator. And this will certainly maximize the impact of our investments in Siemens' 11 core technologies. Let's turn now to the strategic acquisition of Altair Engineering, which will decisively strengthen our industrial software business. We've been continuously expanding our leading software portfolio since 2007, based on a visionary and well-executed strategy. This planned acquisition is a clear proof that we are very serious about our One Tech Company program and our investment tracks. With its full suite simulation and AI portfolio, Altair will boost our comprehensive Digital Twin to the next level. We're also making other acquisitions in order to become continuously stronger and sharpen our focus.
We recently announced two bolt-on acquisitions that will supplement our Smart Infrastructure portfolio by the addition of Trayer switchgear and then Danfoss Fire Safety products. With the announced sale of our airport logistics business to Vanderlande, we'll very successfully close the chapter on our portfolio companies. There's also a clear path ahead for the listing of Siemens Energy India in 2025. We'll subsequently return to a stake of 75% in Siemens Limited India and exit our Siemens Energy-related activities in three to four years. With that, I'll hand over to Ralf Thomas. He'll take a closer look at our operational performance and explain our outlook.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Roland, and a very warm welcome and good morning also on my behalf. Ladies and gentlemen, it is great to see so many of you right here on site.
Of course, also welcome to all of those who are joining us online at today's annual press conference, so let me jump into the details of our strong fourth quarter and our outlook for fiscal 2025. We will begin with Digital Industries. At EUR 4.3 billion, orders for DI were 6% below the prior year. The book-to-bill ratio was 0.93. The software business continued its strong growth trajectory with orders exceeding EUR 1.9 billion and a book-to-bill ratio well above one, mainly driven by several large orders in the Electronic Design Automation, or EDA business. Some of these orders were recorded even earlier than it was originally anticipated in our sales funnel. However, the basis for comparison from the prior year quarter was exceptionally tough because the EDA business had posted an unprecedentedly high level of orders back then.
DI's automation business saw slightly softer orders compared to Q3 of fiscal 2024. However, as expected, orders were moderately up compared to the trough levels of Q4 fiscal 2023. Now, as Roland already mentioned, the market environment remained challenging due to subdued manufacturing output in important customer industries and to soft investment sentiment in key regions, especially, of course, in Europe. We achieved the expected progress in destocking in China. However, stock levels are still elevated, particularly in the factory automation business. It is therefore still our expectation that stock levels will not completely normalize before the second quarter of fiscal 2025. Our order backlog at Digital Industries further decreased to EUR 9.2 billion. Of this amount, the backlog in the software business accounted for around EUR 5.6 billion.
This figure has been growing over time with the increasing share of recurring revenue due to the transition to software as a service or SaaS. In DI's automation business, the backlog stuck at EUR 3.6 billion, which will only be able to provide very limited support for revenue growth going forward in the near term. Let's now turn to DI's revenue, which declined by 18%. This figure includes a 4% growth in DI's software business compared to a strong prior year quarter. This growth was primarily driven by the PLM business, which was up 7%. While the EDA business was flat year on year, in our fourth quarter, it reached an impressive full-year growth rate of 19% for fiscal 2024. On the other hand, revenue in DI's automation business was down 26% compared to a very strong Q4 for this business in fiscal 2023.
Now, this decline impacted DI's discrete automation business at a level of 30%. This business was most notably affected by destocking in the short-cycle factory business. DI's process automation business was down 15%. At 16.2%, DI's profit margin was somewhat better than we anticipated and expected, with the software business making a robust contribution. Lower revenue in the automation business led to reduced capacity utilization and thus resulted in margin contraction. In order to at least partially compensate for the effect of lower volumes, DI's teams worked hard on executing contingency and productivity measures, and they will continue to expand these efforts in the coming quarters. Productivity gains, together with stringent pricing discipline, particularly in China, of course, helped us achieve a slightly positive economic equation for both Q4 and fiscal 2024 overall.
We were pleased that Digital Industries once again reached a strong Free Cash Flow of more than EUR 1 billion. This achievement led to an excellent cash conversion rate of 1.4. The main driver for this performance was the automation business, where we optimized net operating working capital, while the software business achieved a very solid cash conversion rate of just above one. Now, for the full fiscal 2024 year, Digital Industries generated a Free Cash Flow of EUR 3.2 billion, a solid contribution in a truly challenging environment. Now, let me give you the regional perspective, ladies and gentlemen. As mentioned, economic conditions were muted, particularly in Europe, and destocking still has some way to go, especially in China. Now, as a result, a broader rebound in the automation business will probably not take place until later in the calendar year 2025.
And yet, orders in China clearly stabilized and grew 11% compared to the weak prior-year quarter. In line with a low level of short-cycle orders in the automation business and fading support from the order backlog, revenue in all our key regions declined materially from strong prior-year levels. And again, this decline was most pronounced in Europe. Now, looking at our key vertical end markets for the next quarters, publicly available sources expect growth momentum to remain rather muted for manufacturing output and customer demand well into our fiscal 2025 year, particularly in the machinery and automotive industries. And yet, there are initial positive signals coming from the chemicals, electronics, and semiconductor industries. Since these are very early cycle verticals, these developments could indicate that a recovery is slowly appearing on the horizon.
Now, the fundamental trend for automation and digitalization in industry remains fully intact, in part to drive sustainability and mitigate labor shortages. Unfortunately, we continue to see sluggish economic developments in our key countries. Now, this sluggishness will have a clear dampening effect on our automation business, especially during the first half of fiscal 2025. Now, we assume that no substantial improvement will materialize before the second half of fiscal 2025 when destocking will be completed. On this basis, ladies and gentlemen, we will initiate further steps to allocate our resources toward high-growth regions and also to make adjustments. We will also continue to invest in the further training and the digital expertise of our workforce.
And by taking these measures, we would like to ensure that we will have the competencies in place that are relevant for success and that we will need in the future in order to execute our strategy and accommodate increasing digitalization of business models as well as further strengthen our competitiveness. As fiscal 2025 progresses, we will, of course, give you additional detailed information on these points. At the same time, we will rigorously drive our local-for-local approach in China, combined with scalable products for specific market segments. The goal is to secure the best possible positioning with intensified local competition. Now, considering all these factors for fiscal 2025, we expect a stabilization and a sequential improvement of order levels in DI's automation business, which will consecutively translate into improving revenue levels in the course of fiscal 2025.
DI's software business will continue to make progress on its strong growth trajectory, building on a very successful SaaS transformation. As indicated, the extraordinarily large software license contracts that were mainly booked in Q3 of fiscal 2024 will most likely not repeat on these extraordinarily high levels in fiscal 2025. As a result, it is our expectation that revenue for DI's software business in fiscal 2025 will most probably not exceed the prior year's level. Consequently, we assume that comparable revenue growth for digital industries overall will reach the range of minus six% to plus one% in fiscal 2025. For the most part, DI's profit margin will follow revenue performance so that higher business volumes will benefit the margin in the second half of fiscal 2025.
Now, in addition to that, the effects from investing in the reskilling of our people from further cost reduction and from productivity measures will increasingly materialize in the course of fiscal 2025. Now, as always, we expect productivity gains and pricing to more than compensate for the higher wages and salaries so that DI will achieve a positive economic equation for the full fiscal year. From today's perspective, we expect Digital Industries to have a result in the range of 15%-19% for its profit margin, but from today's perspective, we expect DI to have a rather slow start into fiscal 2025. For Q1, we expect DI's orders to be in the prior year level due to further destocking in its automation business and to the growth momentum that is emerging for this quarter in its software business.
In addition, we anticipate that Digital Industries' revenue growth will be down by an amount in the low teens. In its automation business, revenue will decline compared to Q4 of fiscal 2024. The reasons for this decline will be fading backlog support, continued destocking, and persistently sluggish demand among customers in short-cycle book and bill businesses. With our software, the first quarter for the EDA business will begin with a revenue growth rate in the low teens compared to the low prior year quarter, and the PLM business will successfully continue its growth trajectory based on the consistent SaaS transformation. Now, due to DI's profit margin for Q1 and due to the lower capacity utilization and less favorable product mix in DI's automation business, it might actually even be below the full-year guidance for fiscal 2025.
Of course, it will be impacted by the timing of the previously mentioned investments and adjustments. Let us now to the excellent, yet again excellent performance that Smart Infrastructure or SI accomplished in Q4 across all metrics. The SI team's excellent work paid off once again. In healthy end markets, Smart Infrastructure achieved strong growth in orders and revenue and delivered another proof point for the consistent profit margin expansion. Now, for the 16th time in a row compared to the prior year quarter. In total, SI's orders were up 14%, driven most notably by 31% growth in the Electrification business. Orders at this business benefited again from larger wins, primarily for Data Centers and for customers in the energy sector. The electrical products business was up strongly by 11%, which was also driven by strong Data Center demand.
For the full fiscal 2024 year, orders in SI's data center business reached a growth rate of above 60%, totaling over 3.6 billion EUR, which means it was even exceeding our own ambitious expectations. Orders were also up in the buildings business, where they rose by 2%, driven by the product business. Smart Infrastructure's order backlog at the high level of 18.2 billion EUR provides a very good visibility for fiscal 2025. Revenue growth was broad-based across all of SI's businesses and reached 9% in line with our expectations. The electrification business made the largest contribution, up 12%. At 10%, SI's electrical products business too continued its growth trajectory on a high level. Due to the service business, which continues to prosper, SI's building business showed clear growth of 6%.
Basically, flawless backlog execution again led to further improvement of the profit margin by 260 basis points year on year and reached a remarkable 17.5%. SI's excellent result once again benefited from economies of scale made possible by higher revenue and increased capacity utilization. The economic equation once again remained clearly positive. It was supported by advantageous pricing, more favorable material cost, and sustainable productivity gains, which more than offset higher wages and salaries. The SI team very successfully implemented effective measures to reduce operating working capital, in particular with regards to inventories, despite clear revenue growth. In free cash flow, SI achieved a stellar finish to the fiscal year in Q4 with a new all-time high of more than EUR 1.5 billion.
The cash conversion rate for the full fiscal year came in at 0.97, which was well ahead of our target of 1 minus the growth rate. Now, looking at the regional development, we saw a robust demand with strong order momentum fueled by Europe and the Middle East on large order wins in various verticals. SI's orders in the United States were up 6% compared to the very high level of the previous year's quarter. The strong development was once again benefiting from thriving data center demand driven by the so-called hyperscalers in particular. Orders in China were up 8% on a broad basis. Smart Infrastructure's revenue increase in all regions supported by rigorous backlog execution. Now, the highest contribution to growth came from the United States, which achieved an outstanding 21% increase, and key growth engines were the electrification and electrical products businesses.
Revenue in SI's service business rose 9%, led by Asia. In SI's main verticals, we continue to see consistent and resilient growth based on the main drivers that Roland mentioned earlier. For the commercial buildings market and some industry verticals, we continue to expect rather modest growth, of course, going forward, also depending on interest rate developments, of course. Now, we continue to see higher growth momentum in the data center vertical on increasing adoption of AI-based applications. Another very resilient growth trend for which we are also very well positioned with our comprehensive offering is the upgrading of power grid capacities with hardware and software. Now, for Q1 2025, we expect the comparable revenue growth rate for Smart Infrastructure to be within our full-year growth guidance of 6%-9%. In particular, the high order backlog will support this growth.
We also expect Smart Infrastructure's profit margin to improve further in fiscal 2025 and come in with a range of 17%-18%. For Q1, we expect the profit margin to be on the prior year quarter's operational level of 16.4%. Let's now turn to Mobility. Mobility closed the fiscal year with strong performance across all metrics, including outstanding free cash flow. Orders at EUR 4.6 billion and up 47% in Q4 were driven by the higher margin service business, the rail infrastructure business, and software contracts. Among them were maintenance contracts for locomotives and intercity trains in the United States, totaling EUR 800 million. Mobility's order backlog stands at EUR 48 billion, clearly up over the prior year and with an improved gross margin. The order backlog includes close to EUR 14 billion of attractive service business that will come with high margin and recurring revenue streams.
This situation lays the foundation for fiscal 2025 being another year with strong revenue growth on a broad basis across all of Mobility's businesses with a high share of rolling stock. Our project pipeline for fiscal 2025 continues to look very promising, and again, this is true across all business activities. We have a book-to-bill ratio well above one. A look at the expected timing of upcoming project awards indicates an order level materially above fiscal 2024, and with regards to our projects in Egypt, we are progressing well in executing the Green Line project. Just recently, at the InnoTrans trade show, Siemens Mobility presented its first Velaro high-speed train for Egypt. For the Red Line and the Blue Line, our teams are working hard towards the financial closing. From today's perspective, it is expected in the second half of fiscal 2025.
After that, the remaining contract volume of around 4.5 billion EUR will be booked as order intake. In Q4, Mobility's revenue was up 15% on broad-based growth with strong contributions from the services and rolling stock business. Mobility's profit margin reached 9%. There was improvement in most businesses, with the service business leading the way. In addition, with more than 1.1 billion EUR in Q4, Mobility delivered an exceptionally strong finish for free cash flow. This led to a cash conversion rate of 1.14 for fiscal 2024, and Siemens Mobility once again clearly differentiated itself from the competition in this regard. Now, in the long-term project business is where Siemens Mobility is at home, which, of course, as a result means this competitive strength is even more impressive when one considers that it has a continuously healthy cash conversion rate for many, many years.
These results were generated in a very attractive asset-light business model with a high degree of pre-financing. For both Q1 and the full fiscal 2025 year, we assume that Mobility's comparable revenue growth will be between 8% and 10%. For Q1, we expect that Mobility's profit margin will also be within the full-year guidance range of 8%-10%. Let's now only briefly turn to our activities below our industrial businesses, especially since it was above all the strong operating performance in the industrial business that drove net income. Siemens Financial Services again delivered a very solid Q4. Higher earnings in the equity business were slightly outweighed by a lower contribution from the debt business, which was mainly due to higher expenses for credit risk provisions. Return on equity for the full fiscal 2024 year stood at 17.6% and was thus up 130 basis points year on year.
This result again provides clear evidence for a very well-diversified portfolio and prudent risk management. Let me briefly address the extremely successful chapter of our portfolio companies, which we initiated in 2019 and is now coming to an end. This group of businesses was attributed only low value back then. However, through rigorous execution of our full potential plans and the successful search for the best future owners in each case, the management teams were able to create well over EUR 7 billion in enterprise value over time and thus also generate attractive cash proceeds for Siemens. In this connection, the closing of Innomotics's divestment and the planned sale of the airport logistics business to Vanderlande were further important steps for our company in recent weeks.
Ladies and gentlemen, the ultimate yardstick for excellent company performance is, of course, a high and reliable Free Cash Flow. In Q4, our industrial business has delivered Free Cash Flow of EUR 5 billion and an excellent cash conversion rate of 1.6%. Over the full fiscal 2024 year, we generated a Free Cash Flow of EUR 9.5 billion for the Siemens Group. Together with a cash return on revenue of 12%, this result is once again a great proof point for our entire global team's strong focus on effective working capital management, and I believe this is great news for everyone, and of course, we are highly confident that we will stay on the successful path in fiscal 2025 as well. Now, our strong operating performance and outstanding Free Cash Flow are also reflected in our excellent capital structure.
Our industrial net debt over EBITDA, which is our metric for capital structure, was at 0.7% at the end of the fiscal year, and as a result, we will remain able to act from a position of strength. In addition, we have already received significant cash proceeds from the Innomotics' disposal. Since this sale closed on October 1, 2024, those proceeds will be reported in Q1 of fiscal 2025. Now, based on our very strong balance sheet and industry-leading credit ratings, we have further leeway and flexibility to remain our stringent capital allocation, which will continue to pursue the right balance between investment and ongoing high shareholder returns. Our commitment to a progressive dividend policy and to continuing to execute our share buyback program is also fully intact.
As I explained two weeks ago already, we expect our capital structure metric to remain within the target quarter even after closing the Altair acquisition. This transaction is expected to close in the second half of fiscal 2025. And as discussed, Siemens has substantial financial, sorry, financing potential. The possibilities include, among other things, the selling of shares in listed companies. And of course, when the time comes, we will, as always, proceed very prudently in that matter to avoid burdening these share prices. Of course, our shareholders as well should benefit from this economic success, ladies and gentlemen. In keeping with our commitment to a progressive dividend policy, Siemens will propose to the annual shareholders' meeting in February 2025 a dividend of EUR 5.20.
This amount represents a clear increase of EUR 0.50 over the prior year dividend, and this amount results in a very attractive dividend yield of 2.9% based on a closing share price of 181 EUR at the end of September 2024. On top of that, our current share buyback program is making very good progress. So far, we have reached a buyback volume of EUR 1.2 billion within this framework at an attractive average buyback price of 171 EUR. Now, let me come to the basic assumptions that underpin our outlook for fiscal 2025. We anticipate moderate macroeconomic growth in fiscal 2025 due in part to continuing geopolitical uncertainty, including trade conflicts. Our outlook assumes no further increases of geopolitical tensions throughout fiscal 2025. Further details on our assumptions are available on the corresponding slide in the presentation.
Now, the details on our expectations for the areas below our industrial businesses are available on page 33 of the appendix. That takes us now to our outlook for the Siemens Group level. In addition, the fundamental perspectives of the individual businesses are available on the corresponding page of the presentation, but our outlook reflects our overall confidence in continued high-value growth despite diverging market conditions for the individual businesses in fiscal 2025. Now, for the Siemens Group, we expect comparable revenue growth in the range of 3%-7% and a book-to-bill ratio above 1. We expect basic earnings per share from net income before purchase price allocation accounting, or EPS, pre-PPA for fiscal 2025 in the range of EUR 10.40-EUR 11, excluding the gain from the sale of Innomotics.
In the first quarter of fiscal 2025, we expect to record a gain of about EUR 2 billion after tax from this sale. Now, as always, this outlook excludes burdens from legal and regulatory matters. As you can see from this ambitious outlook, ladies and gentlemen, we are entering fiscal 2025 from a position of strength with an industry-leading portfolio, a consistent strategy toward our ambition of being one tech company and a clear set of priorities. However, we continue to monitor macroeconomic volatility closely and, of course, will be able to act in an agile way if needed. The direction of all our actions is very clear. We will continue to create value by growing profitably and by resiliently and continuously generating high levels of free cash flow. Thank you very much for your attention. And Roland and I are now looking forward to your questions.
Over to Mr. Krause.
Thank you very much, Roland Busch and Ralf Thomas. We are now moving on to the Q&A session. For all those colleagues here in the room, if you do have a question, please raise your hand and then use the microphone in front of you. Please limit yourself to two questions per round. For those of you who are joining us online, a technical remark. Please ensure that your webcam and the microphone are ready to use. Please state your name and a keyword on the left field of your screen where it says video connection. You will then receive a button to join the live studio. Please proceed to click on the button. However, you will first be in a backstage area if you will, but you always see and hear the same signal as in the live stream.
An operator will then contact you and will double-check the audio and video connection together with you. And then once you are being called upon, the operator will patch you through live to the studio. Furthermore, you, of course, also have the opportunity to ask your question in writing. For that, please use the text field on the right-hand side so I can tackle this question. Of course, you can also ask this question in German or English, and we will then answer in the respective language. And with that being said, let's open the Q&A session, and we have time until 9:30 A.M., so a good half hour. And the first question is already Mr. Hiepner. Thank you.
The first question is about the AI. Could you tell us what this means in the context of the investment decisions taken already?
Because I believe some of the things are not yet really working well. You said adjustments, will there be jobs being axed or cut? Second question to Mr. Busch. You said the geopolitical changes, United States tariffs, trade wars between China and the U.S. Can we prepare for that new export channels to be looked for? Anything you could say in this respect?
Well, Mr. Hiepner, thank you very much for your question. The investment which we announced, Singapore and Erlangen F80, this is what we call them, we support them. And truly, we will see whether or not everything can be implemented at this speed planned. And maybe we have to improve matters here or there, optimize things. But we believe, firmly believe, that the automation market is a long-term growth market, less labor, increased resilience, new types of production or manufacturing.
The low level of automation and digitalization of medium-sized companies worldwide, we talk about 200,000 in China, United States 400,000, in the United States maybe 100,000 in Germany. So I believe we are in the right position. We are aware that this is a trend, and surely we are always looking ahead into the future in this respect. Second point, yes, we've got an extremely strong growth behind us. Now it's moving in the other direction, and surely we have to adjust things here or there. That's normal. Sometimes we have to do some, you know, re-engineering, so to speak, because the developments weren't as positive as we expected them to be. This means we are going to have a low to medium-sized four-digit amount, which will affect some areas. We try to find good solutions for upskilling, further training, etc., and training also.
Mobility, you see what I want to say is in other areas, things are moving up. We are always in a position to work on solutions. You know, I mentioned the bandwidth, the range, you know, Siemens in total, 320,000 people, 280,000, 260,000 for Siemens AG, the headcount. I think it is not really a big issue event, although I can assure you that decisions like this have been thought about for a very long time, carefully so. United States, I believe we are very well prepared. Revenue distribution, I believe, very healthy, 24%-25% United States, 13% Germany, 11% China. We are always locally positioned. You see, purchasing volume within the United States for the United States is 87-88%. The same applies to China.
So the strength we have, meaning Local-for-Local, you know, the flow of goods between or among the regions is very small. Of course, we cannot prepare for import tariffs, which will drive inflation. These are, let me put it like this, you know, this is decelerating, this is breaking down or putting a brake on trade.
Next question from Mr. Hübner, Reuters, please.
All right. I would like to come back to the acquisition of Altair. I would like to know what will be the next steps. Last time we didn't hear a lot of information. Are there any special offerings on the table, stock exchange delisting, or, you know, it might be an independent software company which might be listed in the stock exchange? And the second question brings me to the Wachstumsfelder. I had the idea, you know, Mr. Busch, you said that we have to make more focused or increasingly focused investment in this respect. Mobility, for instance, looking at the returns, do we have to be concerned in this respect?
The short answer is yes and yes. Yes, there is, you know, an offer on the table. This is a binding offer. We talk about these EUR 10 billion which we offer. And, you know, it's going through its process now. Things have to be investigated, and it is the plan to take over this software company fully. And surely, if you press the trigger button for such a major acquisition, then of course you think about what you're going to do with this company, how to integrate it, where we see cost synergies, you know, $450 million. These are the cost synergies which we see, clearly see so. We know their business.
So we can say, or rather in the medium term, we see synergies, EUR 500 million revenue. And I can say we've got a very clear-cut plan in this respect. And, you know, it's all about the approvals, releases, etc., etc. These are the things that we are working on.
But this means that this company would disappear from the stock exchange?
Well, the series, the sequence of steps is always the same. You offer this offer, taking over this company, acquire this company, then the other side has to agree. Afterwards, the legal, say, inspection process starts, and sometimes there's one stage or two stages whether this purchase will lead to a position that a company is dominating the market. So we have to show the portfolio and what we want to add to this portfolio.
We hope that we can go through this process, and once we have gone through it successfully, then closing will take place. This means we are going to acquire the shares of the others, and of course they are listed. Now then they will be in our hands, and then listing doesn't make sense anymore, and then, of course, like Roland Busch just explained, we are going to have the delisting. So we really have very clear ideas in this respect. It is a process not determined by us, but determined by regulations. So it takes, say, not weeks, but it will take about months, and we believe that everything will be, you know, completed by the end of next year. What about these agreements? You see, an acquisition, 100%, this can be done only if you acquire 100% of the shares.
You know, if, you know, if there's someone having majority voting rights, then I can only say that we are quite optimistic that we will be able to get them. The growth fields, and you mentioned mobility. The background was, you see, we've got the lower margin compared to COAD, but that's one aspect. Mobility has got an excellent return and invest, wonderful cash flow, sustainability contribution, cyclicity. That's a bit different. You know, the margin improvement which we see is enormous, and surely we're going to continue to invest in mobility. We bought in skills, for instance, so this is not an issue. Growth fields, we see them in all areas. Surely we want to strengthen our software business, Altair, and this project expresses this clearly.
Hardware, you see, data were generated that is hardware connected to the digital world. This is something which we are focusing on. This is something which we are really good at. This is smart hardware. You know, trains is super smart hardware, you might put it like this. So this is a digitalization platform just traveling around the world, so to speak. And you know, the portfolio you see today, this is a future-oriented portfolio with plenty of potential, and we are going to strengthen this position. It is not only about acquisitions. It is also about our own investment in our own R&D. Looking at the last five years, EUR 60 billion were invested, and of those EUR 30 billion in R&D, and you know, EUR 10 billion CapEx, and then there were some 10% left. So what we are talking about is organic growth.
It is still very gratifying, and this is the path we would like to continue. And then Mr. Tartiff, please.
Well, you said that our forecast is good, and we hope that the geopolitical situation and tensions will not increase in 2025. You see, I've got this hope and the belief, but I'm not sure whether this will really come true. Are there any scenarios in place for different developments in this world?
Well, you know, Thomas, you know, the doubting Thomas, you know, that so maybe this is not really my, my say domain. You can assume that we always orient our plans in reality. We look at the facts and the current situation. This is the factual situation right now. This is the basis for our plannings. There are no, say, comparable announcements which are made.
If a president-elect, you know, talks about trade barriers, talks about tariffs, then of course we can start thinking what all this would mean for us, and of course, we see opportunities and chances as well. The tax reform which he announced, you know, if he will put it in practice, but, you know, at the end of the day, it doesn't make sense to start speculating what will happen when. Therefore, we always, you know, look at the reality at today's facts, and if things change, then we have to adjust, then we have to change, maybe change things, and of course, you can be sure that we also run some cross-company comparisons. We've got various, say, diversified chains or markets, and we really would not be happy if there are any trade barriers anywhere. Surely we don't want that.
But nevertheless, we are always and continue working on these things. Like my colleague just said, we invest in those areas where we believe perspectives are. And, you know, sometimes these investments are then fine-tuned so that they really match or tally with the general conditions in the respective region. Short answer, we do not believe in certain things. We stick to the facts of life, and then we always have some approaches up our sleeve, so to speak, how we are going to handle things. We might not be in a position to compensate everything, but nevertheless, we believe that our ability to react, to respond, and you know, the way we have developed over the last few years, that this is something that we are really on a high level compared to our competitors.
If you look at our One Tech Company, we do not want this company to become faster, more agile, more customer-focused. No, we also want to make it more robust. An example, a case in point, is look at the development of products in China for China so that we can, you know, see a better position in China. Same for the United States. There's a different way. Software-defined automation, a new value creation approach in the context of automation. Somebody talks about 10 to 15,000, you know, the technology for specific countries and enterprises who can use this technology in a different way. And then verticality, go-to-market, sales organization. We look at that. We want to make sure that we can have some kind of joint platform for Siemens as a whole, which at the end of the day will create higher resilience and flexibility.
And this means we are really, say, strengthening our efforts in order to be able to respond to what's happening in the various markets. So you've got a milestone, you define it, and then, you know, this is for the future. And then, of course, if you look back. Gilt auch für den Einsatz von Technologien. Wir sehen da erst... And this also applies to certain investments. We always have to find a way. But what I want to say, we always look at the markets, the markets where we are active in. Altair, surely we've got competence in AI. They have it, access to data. This is, say, a very strong point. You need data in order to bring all this about. And this means we will develop things even further and do so together with our partners. Mrs. Meyer from The Market.
Yes, good morning.
I got a question about Altair. Now, where are all these shares? I would like to know. You know, Scap has got a large proportion, and of course you might sell them and leave things as they are so they can earn a lot of money. But where are the other shares? Altair? I don't know the woman in startups. This is what the company bought over the last few years. Now, the founders may still be on board, but, you know, I cannot say that, or will these startup founders, you know, stay on board in order to earn some money together with Scapa? Will they sell their shares? Will they remain? Now, the growth program. You didn't give us a timeline, no schedule. You didn't give us any KPIs. I would like to know how such a program is to work. How do you measure its success?
Because without a timeline, without a schedule, people will think that nothing really will happen. Sometimes it's like this, you know, with a view to investments. I don't know. Maybe things are different, you know, deadlines, etc., etc. Maybe a good comment on that.
Let me start with the first part, Mrs. Meyer. Altair, ownership structure. Surely we know all the information that is available publicly. We know that in addition to the historical main investor, and they've got the majority, say, votes in this case. And we have historical and current management, but they are not owning shares like Capa is doing that. Now, looking at the institutional shareholders, that is, shareholders which, according to the tax legislation, have, say, a certain number of shares. There are certain public registers, but I think you mentioned the general situation depending on the number of shares they have.
They also have specific rights. We assume, and I think I implied this before, we will be in a position to acquire all of these shares. There are certain processes which are different depending on the legal, say, domain or purview you are acting in, and usually, you always have to take into account, you know, a specific period of time, but nevertheless, at the end of the day, we are optimistic that the decision of the shareholders, and of course, we cannot forecast anything buying, selling, and surely we are not, say, in a position and not allowed to get in touch with each and everyone and say, "Sell," or something like this. There are structures and processes in place. Also in Germany, there might be shareholders' meetings, then, after all this, decisions will be taken.
We are quite upbeat that this will take place and that, you know, maybe, okay, there might be some shares which will not be transferred right away. But again, we are going to handle everything through the normal processes, cash out. What are others doing with this amount of money? Surely I cannot give you a bit of information about this, whether they are going to invest in this company or will not invest. This is pure speculation, and I cannot say, you know, in the past how people handled investment, you know, withdraw, retreat, and they do nothing. Key players in this field, we need key players in our current management team, and we believe that they will be, you know, keeping their close ties to the company. But we will see what will happen on day one once we have got the first, say, owner meeting.
Of course, in addition, you think of retention programs, the key players that are on board. But let me add one thing. In our talks which we had and in the negotiations which we had, we found out that the cultural, say, balancing out, this is a Troy, Michigan-based company. It is not a South Dakota company. So this is a different way of handling things. It was founded about 40 years ago. It plays in the sound, in the same, you know, simulation surroundings and environment. Their cultural fit is very, very strong. And I must say that this, you know, if you look at companies of this size, then I should say that this is really very strong.
We had a very close look at the company, and I believe that we are going to get a team on board who really know what this is all about and about the program now. You see, the programs which you know, they always had, say, a target year of one year, and the size is not necessarily an output size, but surely we would like to have this again. We are going to announce things to the capital market next year, where we are heading, what is, you know, in the pipeline, so to speak. We assume that there will be many changes over time, so we try to orient ourselves in short-term targets, thinking what is it we have to change substantially in order to generate more profitable growth. Let me give you a few examples. Product launch of the new competitive products in China.
There are clear, hard-to-say deadlines, a roadmap. There are certain systems which have to be placed in the marketplace at a specific point in time. That's our plan. And we have to see how we will also see how successfully we will be able to place them in the market. We talked about AI. What about productivity increases? 20,000, 25,000, you know, software developers. You can measure everything. We are going to use AI in this respect. Foundation technologies. We talk about the APIs. You know, these are the programmable interfaces. How many are being, say, retrieved by the customers? We want to double that number. And we also look at verticals. Now, verticals is in our focus, meaning how many offerings do we have on our accelerator platform? How many partners? How many of the offers are being, say, accepted? How much profit do we generate through that approach?
Then we've got front-end systems and how many sales? How many are working front-end? How many are working in the back-end? So there are so many short and medium-term targets and objectives as part of the foundational tracks. We want to change some substantial factors. We try to act in a very agile manner. And over the next 12 to 18 months, we are going to look at things, how things develop, and this will give us a good basis in order to generate the output parameters to bring about faster growth, better performance. So maybe that's a bit, or it's a slightly different program to what you're used to, but nevertheless, we are quite optimistic about it. Then Mr. Clint from the press side, please.
I've got two questions. Automation business and the technology or technique of the forecast. Automation business, you always talked about the warehouses in China.
You always said that the economic sentiment there is weak, and surely in the fourth quarter, order intake has decreased by 40% in Germany. So is this a China effect, or does it go beyond that? Now, why am I asking this question? Because, you know, this would also mean, or entail, so to speak, that you have to change things, say, in the first or second quarter next year. Then the margins in the three core businesses, they are such that you might say the total margin in the industrial business is moving sideways. Now, where does the potential come from in order to improve matters of performance per share?
Now, let me start with the first part, automation.
What we did last year, you see, we took all this into account, and we said that the market in China is no longer the growth locomotive or the, you know, the driving machine in this respect, and you know, automation, we can say process automation on the one hand. Now, that's a kind of American growth market, and then export industry, surely exporting to China, etc., but also producing in China but we focused on the transparency of production in China because something has happened there. I do not want to repeat this. Distributor warehouses have grown, sorry, have increased because of supply bottlenecks or shortages. We always mention the current warehouse, and then we thought of the days which have to be calculated before or when these warehouses will be, say, emptied, so last deadline was the 30th of September. We just checked it.
We checked this number, 10 and 10, 10 and a half weeks. And I must say that the situation has improved in October. But when it comes to the final approval, i.e., the distributors selling to the end customers, and you know, things are a bit wobbly, you know, the end customers also had inventories building up because they didn't have, you know, problems. So at the end, we had a three-stage system backlog, which has been worked on, surely, distributor warehouses, and then the end customers. What they've got in their warehouses are shortened things now. We expect, you know, end of the second business quarter, starting in February, March, if the trend continues like this. The situation will continue like this, and it is an important influencing factor.
But we also said that export-oriented European countries, and this is, you know, the basis of my statement today, they are fighting and struggling in this environment. And then, of course, there are geopolitical deliberations, import-export tariffs, that things might be changed. This doesn't make things easier when it comes to any assessments. The Central European countries, they are export-oriented. They are very, they generated lots of growth, like Germany in many, many countries. And here, the situation is not so good. So we can say basic structure, our own order intake, then we've got the general partners, i.e., distributors who are working, say, in cooperation with sales. All this supplies everywhere, but the amplitudes in China were so high, were so dominating the development of business in China that we had to have a closer look at it.
We assume that the normalization will continue in the second quarter, maybe even be completed by the second quarter. But nevertheless, we are going to provide this information when we are going to, say, announce earnings for the first quarter. Surely it's right, what you said, and you know, the bandwidth of the guidance. This means we've got a very high level of uncertainty in addition to what I just said, you know, in the context of automation. Surely it is also like this, economy in general, and maybe we are just, you know, in a situation where we have to take decisions going this way or that, so and there was another question. I think we surely have thought through certain scenarios, and this will lead to the core of industrial business. As you said, it is in a sideways movement right now. That's correct.
The sideways movement cannot have, say, a specific way of moving up or down, and you know, the angle of the gradient is certainly not clear. Nevertheless, we can say that our plans are ambitious ones, also in comparison with the competitors. Also, we believe that we are on a very healthy track forward into the future. You know, there are these large individual orders, licensing business, that is. So, of course, we cannot repeat these big things every year, but nevertheless, if there are any chances, we will seize these opportunities, surely. You know, there are different, say, individual components, and therefore I do not really talk about all the details. I believe the sideways movement is something which is future-oriented. There is a special investment momentum. This refers to sustainability, refers to digitalization.
This is something which is going on. But nevertheless, you see, we also planned additional information, investment, which Roland Busch mentioned. We want to do so, implement these investments out of our own pocket, so to speak. And this against the backdrop of airport logistics business and other opportunities which are to be created in order to shoulder these additional investments and not endanger or jeopardize our future growth. We believe that everything is balanced, and we believe that there are several alternatives which we discussed in detail, and we can say that we really feel very, very well with everything that we announced. So we have five minutes, meaning we have five questions and a couple of minutes, maybe extra.
The next question is John Revill. He's joining us online. He's joining us from Reuters. On your big screen. Yes, we can.
Super. Excellent. Okay.
I've got a couple of quick questions, if I may. Obviously, you've mentioned the mounting political risks and economic risks out there. Could you just tell me, is there anything specifically you're doing to kind of tackle these, and how well is Siemens equipped to deal with these? Is it in a better shape than it used to be? That's the first question, and then the second one on this one tech program is what's the plan there in terms of, obviously, you say you're going to accelerate innovation and be closer to your customers, but surely you're doing that anyway, so what's the new special sauce that you're going to do for this one, and I mean, is there any figure of investment that's going to go into this one tech company thing, or what are you going to do differently there?
Thank you. Yeah, so on the political risks, what our strength is our global footprint, and we are active in the major regions, and we have a substantial local footprint. We talk about 40,000 plus people in the United States, 30,000 in India, 30,000 in China, including manufacturing, including local product development, so that's a kind of an intrinsic strength which we have, and we are building, and as I said before, we are increasing that strength in developing more local for local products. We are sourcing more local for local. The volume traveling between the regions is extremely low, and we're working on it. As I said before, it's almost 90% local for local purchase volume. This is a very, very strong fact of us, and the political risk is more how that would impact the global trade, for example. How would that impact the prices?
Would there be an inflation-driven? The other one is how much breadth do the respective governments have to invest in infrastructure because they are deviated from, let's say, defense spending and the like. So here we believe that the pressure on investment infrastructure is increasing. Is it the distribution grids? This is a phenomenon all around the world. Is it mobility? And we believe that this is a kind of a support which keeps on going, but we have to see that. On innovation, you know, we do not change our strategy. Our strategy is fully intact. We are, in contrast, we are even accelerating the execution of our strategy. Our strategy in one sentence is we combine the real and the digital worlds. We do that better than any other company, leveraging the speed of software in improving the hardware.
So using software in the digital world to improve the real world, and this is a huge impact. The acceleration comes from an even faster deployment of AI, AI technologies. Wherever we go, we do that with our own expertise, but also with our partners. We have extremely strong partners globally. We talk about Microsoft, we talk about AWS, their Bedrock offerings in AI. We have a very, very strong partnership with Nvidia. I was talking about it in our newest offerings, which we launched in the SPS Industrial PCs loaded with GPUs from Nvidia, and they do an extremely, extremely fast and productive job on the shop floor where you deploy in the cloud trained algorithms and they do their job on the shop floor. This is really mind-blowing.
But the other area of Siemens Xcelerator is, and I have to emphasize it all again, large customers, let's say our peers in the DAX or the large companies which we are, where we are going with our key account manager. They know how to deploy technology. They have a very strong IT department, engineering department. The problem lies in small and medium-sized enterprises. They are sometimes semi or non-automated. They are far away from digitalization. They don't have even the capabilities. What we do is we develop technology which is easy to use, plug and play, which you can integrate in any kind of legacy environment, which is easy to use, and we want to get it, make it accessible via a marketplace. I cannot send sales guys to 150,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in China, neither to 15,000 in the United States.
Therefore, the combination of having a technology stack, which is really combining the real and digital world, which is hardware and software, with strong ecosystem partners which help us providing better technology, but also helping to integrate technology on the ground. We talk about systems integrators, local ones, global ones, and a marketplace. This is a strategy which is not changing, but we want to accelerate because we believe that this is the right thing to do. Last sentence, we are focusing more on vertical markets because once you go for a vertical, let's say chemical, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, then you have a kind of a common set of needs because all of them do spray drying in the dairy industry, for example. Once you have a solution, it scales faster. It's about scaling technology, scaling AI-based technology faster with a digital marketplace.
That's what we want to really accelerate with our program. So da wir jetzt eigentlich schon über der Zeit sind. Now, as we're already over time, I would just like to ask you to ask one question. We'll take two more journalists. Mr. Wehrmeyer, over to you.
I'll be brief. The job reduction you mentioned earlier, Germany, is Germany affected? If yes, how so? And is it okay if we do just trainings and moving jobs, or will it actually be a reduction?
You know, the number I mentioned was a global topic. Of course, we are talking about DI and automation in particular. At some points, we've already started. What this means for Germany, well, we're still discussing this. Of course, we are trying to do trainings or job offers in other branches. We have 8,000 open jobs, by the way, that we are still trying to fill.
Of course, when the time is right, we will inform you, and we always do all of this, of course, in alignment with the employee representatives, the workers' council, and we will do the same thing. I think the point that I was making, if you look at the number that we're talking about in specific compared to the people that we have in Germany, I think we have about 85,000 people, just so you have the magnitude. I don't think we're talking about a large-scale program. It's a growth program. Yes, in certain spots, we have to simply, you know, fine-tune, but as always, we're doing it with a light touch. Furthermore, we have a quite significant budget for trainings and continuous professional development in all areas, not just in automation. Of course, this also helps us a lot to provide perspectives for our colleagues. Right.
Thank you very much, and then we'll take Mr. Früh from FAZ.
Mr. Busch, I would like to know how Siemen s feels about Germany in general as a location in light of political developments.
Well, there's definitely homework to be done here. I think that applies to politicians, but also companies, including us. Of course, you can see that we are not standing still. Now, the homework I'm talking about, I already mentioned, is the underinvested infrastructure that has been going on for decades. This is something that we simply have to resolve. The homework here is to also deal with the energy transition and to recalibrate what we want to achieve, in which time what we can achieve, what's the speed that we can take here, what do we need to get there. And I think at this point, the energy price is also a big factor, right?
It hits a lot of companies. A lot of people know this. And of course, we also have to create clarity where the journey is heading. I think number one, we need to have a competitive energy price. And number two, it's also where are we going in general and just making sure that the message is clear. At the moment, we're not good enough when it comes to that. The other part is that Germany's strength is definitely the innovative power that we have. That's how we will make sure that 80 million people have turned out to be the third largest economic nation in the world. Technology leadership, technological differentiation, all of this means that this, of course, also can maintain our export business because obviously technology, German technology in particular, is also sought after in other markets, but this is becoming more and more difficult.
So we have to become better faster. Becoming better faster also means integrating new technologies faster and better, but it also means that we definitely have to tackle our own cost structures. So if the competition is becoming harder and harder, it's becoming harder and harder in general. So for example, we see a lot of mechanical engineering in China that are delivering solid competitive projects. And of course, we can differentiate ourselves in the high-end area. That's a lot, but it's not enough. I think everybody has their homework to do. We've mentioned lots of different things in China, for example. Again, there's a tight competition with attractive products, but I still believe in the innovative power. There's a couple of automotive manufacturers in particular who are going to launch new platforms in the coming years. I am facing this with lots of confidence, but again, homework, right?
We're always ready. We're always talking about the ecosystem in Germany. You know, when we're talking about the Siemens Xcelerator, it's a platform, an open platform, and we're ready and willing to, you know, really continue the strong German ecosystem: chemicals, pharma, healthcare, automotive. We're ready and willing to support all of this with our technological platforms to offer them to help building them, like Catena-X, for example. They will, of course, also further strengthen the competitive nature of Germany and therefore once again support our export model. That is a journey. That is a journey we have to take, and we have to embark on the journey very quickly. I think standing still is exactly what we don't need. Because of that, we should probably move into a phase with a new government. However, that is going to end up very quickly.
Standing still would definitely be the wrong thing. Right. So now we have to wrap things up. Unfortunately, we were unable to answer all the questions, Mr. Fromm and Mr. Eckl-Dorna. We will approach you separately, but thank you very much to Roland Busch and Ralf Thomas. Thank you very much for the audience, Mr. Rebellius, also for you joining us online. Have a great day and see you next time. Goodbye.