My name is Pauliina Tennilä, and I have the honor of hosting Incap's webcast today. From Incap, we have here the President and CEO, Otto Pukk, and CFO, Antti Pynnönen. They will go through the highlights of the Q3 report, and after that, there is time for questions and answers. You can post your questions in the chat room already during the presentation, and you can also watch the recording of this webcast later on at Incap's website. So I hand it over now to Otto, who is currently in Pennsylvania. It's an early morning there, Otto, but please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everybody, from my side, and thank you for the interest, as always, in Incap and our development. So let's do as like normally, we start with a short presentation from me and Antti, and then we can go on the Q&A. So let me see if I can get the slides on. So very good. If you look at the quarter, we have continued according to plan. We, as announced early in the year already, we expected the result to improve over the year and that we would grow quarter to quarter, and that plan we very much kept during the quarter.
We then ended up with, if you look at from January to September figures, we already amounted over EUR 20.6 million in EBIT, and revenue is up on EUR 170 million, with a 12.1% EBIT. I think, of course, the EBIT speaks for itself, and during this little bit more challenging times in the EMS sector, Incap yet again delivers excellent result, and I'm very pleased with our team and the effort that has gone in to deliver those results. We keep on investing in our factory.
We have been developing our production units, and if you look in the quarter, we did installations in U.K., and we have continued to ensure that we have the latest technology in our factories. This is something we take much pride in. If you want to deliver and manufacture the latest technology, you should also see to it that you surround yourself as well with the latest technology and so you can offer the customers the different needs and so that they have. Sustainability, of course, a big thing, and we continue to develop now our ESG reporting.
We have done an array of different analysis and preparations and so for that. We also take pride in that our sustainability work is very much coming from the ground up and from the initiatives of our employees. We have a great team. Over 50 people is working with our reporting on different positions in the company. We don't have anyone in the company that is dedicated only to doing sustainability reporting, and that I really hope we will be able to keep in that sense so the reporting doesn't by itself feed some kind of need for additional resources. But we have a great team working with it, and I look forward to seeing a result here with our annual report. Of course, quality and efficiency is based on teamwork, and I can't emphasize enough how great our people are around the world. I think that the result speaks very much for itself, but the result is very much driven by our excellent people. So Antti, take it away with the numbers.
Yeah. Sure. Thanks, Otto, very much for your words. If we now focus on the quarter three result, we had a revenue of EUR 61.8 million, and then there was an increase of 23.4% year on year. Our profitability remained strong and solid. It was EUR 7.9 million, equaling 12.8% from the revenue. Year on year, it was 11.4%. Here we have on the graphs the same trends as we have communicated already beginning of this year. We anticipated this quarter on quarter development and growth in the key figures, and that is visible here in the graphs, both revenue on the left side and then in the profitability on the right side.
Next slide, if we look then, the key figures as a table here, summarized. So then there was a 7.1% growth versus the previous quarter in terms of the revenue side. The profitability was growing from EUR 6.8 million to EUR 7.9 million. There is a 16.5% growth in that number. 13.1% adjusted operating profit is a solid profitability figure in the EMS market. And below, then we listed those key, like, key figures. Inventory, for example, is something we have traditionally reported in this webcast, and then it's good to see that it's going down.
We also mentioned that what we see here is that the material availability helps companies like Incap to do more advanced, forward-looking planning. It's more efficient. It's really one of those key KPIs in our subsidiaries, in the units to focus on like optimizing the inventory levels, and I'm glad that the development is good in that sense. Outlook, also what we updated or specified in the morning's release, is that in the numerical format, the revenue would be somewhere between EUR 227 million to EUR 237 million. And then in the profitability side, EBIT would be in the range of EUR 27.5 million to EUR 30 million.
That's it, I guess. We're ready for your questions.
Yes, the first question is about the EBIT, and how come the EBIT increased by 37% and net profit only by 11%?
Yeah, that's a good question. So there was couple of items that impacted the net result. In the financial expenses side, we have a internal loan that's regarding the U.S. acquisition. It's worth $20 million. All these currency fluctuations impacted a lot in the valuation of that loan in quarter three this year. So that is explaining the biggest impact in this what the question was all about. So that was the yeah explanation. In other words, it's called translation differences. So balance sheet are always valued in the latest currency rate, and that was in the in this quarter it was negative impact. Again, if we look then quarter three, 2023, after the acquisition, the same, similar, same topic, actually, there was a positive impact, but now it was an opposite. So that's the explanation here.
Thank you, Antti. Maybe then about the cross-selling opportunities. So you said, mentioned that you have been focusing on them, and could you elaborate on those?
Yeah, no, I think with the U.S. acquisition, and one of the results from making that acquisition, is that many of our customers now see us as truly global. And from that it arise a lot of quotation opportunities for us from U.S. customers that are interested in some of our other units in Europe or Asia, or vice versa. And we have been, of course, focusing and exploring very much on those opportunities that have arisen from our new footprint and how we look today.
Then maybe about the M&A opportunities, is that something that you are currently working on, and how does the market look like at the moment?
Yeah, we continue to work, and we have a dedicated team to work on looking at M&A opportunities and have a good pipeline and continue the work with that. And I would say that there is still good opportunities on the market. And I wouldn't say that it's yeah, I'll say the market have changed very much when it comes to M&A currently. That said, of course, finding good targets is one thing, agreeing upon valuation is other thing, and as we have said, we are not in... we don't have a gun to our head to do M&A cases. We continue to grow as well now, as we have done quarter to quarter organically. We are taking our time to make good deals, but for sure I wouldn't be very much surprised if our footprint in Incap looks differently moving ahead a year or so from now.
Thanks, Otto. Then there's a question about how you are faring in terms of winning new business, and the new customers or business coming at a much lower margin. Is there price pressure in the industry?
There is price pressure always in the industry, and but I wouldn't say that new business now comes with a lower margin than existing business. We always are in discussion with our customers what we can do to decrease the prices and make better deals for them and for us as well. So I wouldn't say that now new business is different in margins. And one should remember that Incap we don't have any lower prices or higher prices or also than others in on the market. We have market rates, but our double-digit EBIT comes from that we have less costs if you look at in the big picture from on the corporation.
Then there's a question about the largest customer, and how is the inventory normalized now, and how is the underlying demand picking up? What is the expectation going forward?
Yeah, no, we have been working very close with them and reducing their inventory to more normal levels in that sense, as they had overstocked their inventory here during the past year, so a little bit depending on what kind of products we're talking about there, in my understanding, so some have returned to normalized levels, and some we are still working on, but overall, the picture looks much more stable, and we are up, as we mentioned also in the report, on a bit higher volumes in India, and that is, of course, positive, and so as well. What I mentioned before also is that one should bear in mind that returning back to normal, of course, is not the same level as we were prior to the inventory getting too big because there was no actual demand for in that sense. So the normal levels are lower than the previous ones because otherwise we would end up in a similar situation again. That said, it looks like we have had positive development and I would expect this kind of level to continue or even grow a bit.
Thanks, Otto. Then there's a question about the market outlook and, and a comment that it looks difficult, and other companies in the sector have shown much worse performance compared to Incap. What are your main advantages compared to your competition?
Yeah, no, in last year, when we had really struggled and then with this inventory thing, then we were one of the few that had that problem. Now it seems to be that many companies in the sector are living through the same thing with customers, with overstocking and so on on the market, so hopefully I would say that perhaps we already have passed through those problems here last year and with our biggest customer that had a big impact. Market is tricky. There's a lot of geopolitical and so uncertainties on the market.
Where I'm here in U.S. and the election is in full swing and of course, either way, the election have an outcome will have an effect on the market. So that and then also the conflicts that we have in still in Europe and then also in Southeast Asia, that is of course affecting the bigger picture. And let's see how it brings. We are all in budgeting periods currently, and we are evaluating these kind of different risks and yeah also opportunities that might arise from those.
And it will be interesting to see here next report and when we give an outlook for the year, but it's too early for that currently, and the outlook for this already Antti gave in the brackets that he presented. So let's see, but a little bit to give some kind of assurance, we have been up and through ups and downs and difficult past before in Incap, and I'm quite convinced in our model and our ability to maneuver through both good and difficult times. So let's see what the future brings.
Thank you, Otto. I think that's all we had today for questions, unless somebody wants to still type in one more. And if not, then I think, Otto, maybe you can wrap up the Q3 webcast.
Yes. Thank you very much once more for the interest in Incap, and I want to once more thank our team for the excellent result in that we got here during the quarter. Looking forward for the next quarter and then continuing to developing the company, and as I said, that yes, there is uncertainties, but we have been through that before, and hopefully we have the biggest problems behind us now. Let's see how it develops, and thank you very much.