Year-on-year growth in our profit for the full year. Okay, I will stop here. I hand over to Mervi, and we have some time in the end for questions. Thanks, Mervi.
Thanks, Esa. Good morning, everyone, also from my side. I'm happy to have you also here to listen to this finance part. Let's then move on to the next slide. As Esa already mentioned, we have been, we are quite pleased with this net sales growth where we are seeing in the group level 15% increase year on year. When we look at also the profitability improvements, what we have been able to make, we have been working quite a lot on this, also on this material and manufacturing service savings, and it's part of the product and market mix, why we are seeing 2 percentage points lower cost of net sales, as well as then we have also a larger share of our service and software sales in these numbers. Additionally, also what we see is that we had last year these cost-saving measures ongoing.
This year we have a bit higher, for example, personnel cost for the same reason. We have been investing also in broadband business networks to the North America growth. Those are explaining and eating part of this kind of cost savings. All in all, when we look at cash flow, I will be going through that one a bit later. We have been now kind of able to increase our cash flow to EUR 4.6 million, almost 36% higher than last year. When we look at the orders received, we know that it was flat due to the fact that there was this order intake stronger, especially in networks business earlier in the year.
I'd also like to emphasize that when we look at the numbers here in full year-to-date from January to September, we can see also quite a nice growth, meaning that this is not only one quarter change. We have been able to perform well, 34% increase in adjusted EBITDA, as well as then when we look at adjusted EBIT, we were able to take our numbers to EUR 5.9 million and then showing almost 78% growth compared to last year. Quite kind of nice growth on that end as well. I'd like to then mention as well that we reported last quarter about quite a substantial impact to the financial items, which is then not visible as own line item here, but impacting to the net result of the period.
This quarter we didn't have, so we have been able to more kind of balance out and the fluctuation of USD has not been impacting so heavily into our numbers. Let's then have a look also from the more trend point of view. As Esa mentioned, these graphs are showing previous two years as well. It gives a bit longer perspective how we are performing. I'm not going through the orders received or net sales any longer so much on this group level, but as mentioned, this change in net sales by geography has been kind of clearly shifting to North America and other countries area. Of course, then taking a bit lower kind of share from you in Europe.
The cumulative adjusted EBIT graph on this right-hand side, there we can see how we have been performing quarter by quarter and then how we have been cumulatively then beating kind of each year as well. We are quite pleased kind of about this transition which we have been going through and been able to improve our net sales, gross margin, and then still kind of managing, even though we have these North America investments, we have been able to manage quite well our cost as such. I'd like to go to the, tell a bit more about the segments. First, let's look at these broadband networks. There we can see also almost 15% growth in third quarter compared to last year. On a full-year basis or this kind of first nine months basis, 8% increase in net sales.
This is primarily kind of coming from our growth in North America market. Also, when we look at these quite substantial improvements in profitability, our adjusted EBIT has been increasing over EUR 1 million in third quarter, 62%. Also, on full-year basis or first beginning of the year basis, we have been increasing our profitability on adjusted EBIT level 29% compared to last year. This is quite a heavy work what team has been doing and we have been pushing a lot on this kind of improvements. Now it's more coming through the numbers as well. As Esa mentioned, these orders received in third quarter were declining compared to last year, but full-year base or the beginning of the year we have been increasing 26%. This is coming primarily in North America, this strong growth also on the beginning of the year.
Maybe then a few words about public safety and mobility. There you can see also 15.7% growth on third quarter compared to last year. In the beginning of the year we have been also growing 5%. Now when we look at adjusted EBIT, there we have been also improving with 60% growth compared to last year. There we have been also having a bit different product mix, and that's also explaining part of the better margins, but also we have been working during 2023 and 2024 on this cost savings area. When we think about this order book and orders received, it has been progressing very nicely also in PSM, public safety and mobility side. There especially these public transportation operators have been the key driver now this quarter with this orders received growth. I'd then like to show. Also these kind of graphs from broadband networks.
Here you can see how we have been performing compared to 2023 and 2024. Orders received have been increasing, especially in this kind of North America side as said, and in this new DOCSIS 4.0 intelligent network technology, as well as then video business. When we look at this net sales growth, there are naturally the similar reasons as described earlier. In third quarter there has been some offsetting regions like certain service business in the U.K., which has been taking a bit numbers down, but still we have been performing pretty well. Here you can see very clearly on this net sales by geography, the change in broadband networks North America impact. We are now on 34% level compared to last year, 13% of our net sales coming from North America and other countries.
Also we are pleased about this cumulative adjusted EBIT performance on broadband networks, which have been now kind of increasing to the EUR 6.6 million level for this year. When we look at the last year, quite substantial difference. Let's then look at public safety and mobility. Here, substantial growth on order intake compared to last year. We are now on EUR 46 million level compared to last year, kind of full year EUR 50 million. In that sense, we have been receiving quite nicely orders already in the beginning of the year in public safety and mobility. Mostly those have been now awaited in this third quarter from this public transport operator side. I would then maybe highlight also that you may see also on this geographic split on public safety and mobility that there we have also changes, a bit different split on these regions.
It really depends on which kind of projects we are having active in each of the quarters and in each year. That's why kind of there is now somewhat kind of increase also on this North America and Middle East compared to last year. This may vary depending on the projects which we are delivering. Performance, when we look at this adjusted EBIT, what we have been making so far during this year in public safety and mobility, it has been improving really significantly. We are very pleased on this kind of favorable project mix and then also work on this cost savings and material cost side. This is kind of now a good result of the work what the team has been pushing on. Let's look at the from balance sheet point of view now the group numbers.
Our net working capital has been improving well compared to last year. We have been able to release from inventories as well as then from trade receivables our assets, as well as then we have been slightly increasing also our trade payables. These all together have been improving our net working capital. It is also depending on which kind of customer region mix we have, as well as how we are, for example, utilizing factoring. These have been improving all together. I would like to highlight that from this balance sheet point of view. When we look at also our interest-bearing net debt, it has been decreasing substantially. We have now gone from last year EUR 37 million to EUR 25.5 million. It is part of the effective use of our RCF facilities, but also of course the work we are doing and improving the performance quarter by quarter.
As I mentioned about our improvement and positive cash flows, we have now five good quarters behind, which we have been able to deliver good operative cash flow and positive cash flow. Naturally, we will be continuing on the same, working on this cash flow side. Here is a bridge where you can see from the beginning of this year or end of last year how we have been developing and which part of this net working capital has been bringing into these improvements. Also here we can see the dividends we paid in the third quarter, as well as that we have been paying and reducing the RCF and bank loans during this quarter. That is why we are now in a bit more healthy financial situation also from this point of view. I have then two more slides which I would like to share with you.
Return on capital employed, as you see, we have been doing very nicely to the 7.1% compared to last year, 0.6%, or earlier year, 0.2%. Equity ratio has also been improving, not so much because it has not been in that sense a problem either earlier. When we look at the net gearing, here you can see very good improvement. We are now on 35.9% compared to last year 43.7%. We have been working by paying loans back, some factoring, naturally positive cash flows coming in, and then also these dividend distributions have been impacting this net gearing as well. When we look at one of the key ratios for us, interest-bearing net debt of adjusted EBITDA, it has been improving and we are now on 1.9 times compared to last year 4.0. Definitely a big improvement on this one as well.
I think that this was pretty much from financial sides my updates. I will then ask Esa to join here for Q&A.
Thank you, Mervi. That was a brief summary of the third financial quarter for Teleste. Now we have some time for comments and questions if you have any.
Hi, it's Martin from Interest and congrats on the nice numbers again on Q3. Basically, first question is that you have had really nice earnings trends throughout the year and now basically your outlook is saying that the Q4 is going to be much weaker than the first nine months. Could you still like remind us, is it mostly about the uncertainty related to those Public Safety and Mobility project, the timing and delivery timing, or is there some seasonality in your profitability in Q4 typically?
Yeah, I was anticipating this question and I tried to tackle it partially already with my comments earlier. Somebody might think that the guidance is a little bit conservative given the accumulated EBIT that we already have for the first three quarters. There's no seasonality, I guess that's the short answer. We're not expecting any seasonality impact. It doesn't really relate to, in a way, either of our businesses. I think it is more to do with timing of certain larger projects, in particular with Public Safety and Mobility side. There are some quite significant timing elements there which can have an impact on the profit. I don't want to say too much except that we did make some specifications to the guidance towards the upper end. I think we have still two more months to go of the year.
If we have some, if we have an ability to kind of further specify or narrow the kind of guidance, we will do so. This was the conclusion that we will still keep it quite loose, I guess. In some ways also, some of that cautiousness may come from the history that there sometimes has been then negative surprises. Although we are not expecting any at the moment, we still want it to be a little bit cautious here. I guess bravery will grow as our performance continues to get better. I feel good about the full year. I think the statement we made there is certainly gearing us towards the upper end of that guidance range.
All right. I think you mentioned about tariff that there was not that big of an impact on Q3 and you were able to mitigate those small impacts. Can you still a little bit open up the situation? I think you still mentioned that there is uncertainty related, tariffs during the year.
Yeah, thanks. I guess we all know that this tariff environment is very kind of unpredictable, to say the least. Currently, we are shipping all our products to the North America market and to the USA from Finland. We are in many ways bound by the EU decisions and EU conclusions and the EU agreements, which, although there was a political high-level decision and agreement on a 15% baseline tariff, it does not really seem to apply to all product categories. Some have it easier, some have it tougher. We are conscious that any day the situation can change. We also see disconnects between what the U.S. administration is saying and what the customs officers are actually doing in real time.
Some of those then require corrective measures and clarifications. It is a messy space, to be honest. We have been able to mitigate the impact even though we are shipping from Finland. One of the reasons, maybe a side note as to why we are shifting some of our manufacturing to Mexico starting next year, is to, in a way, alleviate the risks related to tariffs in Finland. In North America, there is something called USMCA, U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Treaty, which probably allows for much lower tariffs or tariff-free imports to the U.S. completely. One of the reasons why we are moving or expanding our manufacturing there is related to this kind of a, in a way, risk-balanced view of where the tariffs would be lower going forward. So far, so good. I may sound a bit cryptic, but I do not want to reveal all the steak secrets, so.
Yeah, actually, next question would be about that. Manufacturing expansion to Mexico. Is it more about that risk management, or are you like preparing for the growing demand still as we, at least the market situation seems like the demand is still increasing in the next years? It is a good question. Three main reasons. Number one being the expected volume growth, which we are expecting to start to see latest in 2027. The current manufacturing setup we have had in place is that we have our factory here in Finland, near Turku. We are using some of the contract manufacturing partners for sub-assembly mainly, sometimes for final assembly of the products as well. It has been a minor part of the manufacturing that we do.
With that setup, we will not be able to scale to the kind of numbers we are expecting to see in North America latest 2027. For that reason, we needed to find a partner with whom we can do a much larger scale final assembly of the products latest in 2027. This is the main driver for this, the long-term, larger growth that we are expecting to see in line with our long-term strategic targets that we announced earlier this year. The second reason is related to these tariffs, which I just mentioned. The kind of a risk-weighted kind of view on where we would be able to import products from with lower tariffs is indicating that Mexico is a safer place than EU at the moment. That is the reason number two. The third reason is networking capital management.
We are currently carrying most of the raw material, semi-finished goods, and even finished goods in our own inventory or balance sheet until we then deliver them to our customers. When we are outsourcing a big part of this to a contract manufacturer, that allows for us to shift some of that working capital to our manufacturing partner's balance sheet. It then helps us with the net working capital management, in fact, quite significantly. Those are the three main reasons.
All right. About the overall market situation or competitive situation in North America. Have you won any new customers there, or have you seen your competitors win some of those prospects that you have been after, or any update on that?
Again, very good question. Yes, we have won new customers, especially in the tier two and three segments, where the operators are, in North American kind of scale, a bit smaller, but they are still typically as big as the bigger European operators. We haven't been able to make any announcements yet. I hope that we will be able to disclose some names quite soon. I think all in all, we have been doing well, especially in the tier two and tier three segments. Our main customer, as we have publicly now stated, has been Cox Communications, with whom we have currently 100% market share of all their deliveries. You know that Cox Communications is being acquired by Charter Communications. We're expecting that deal to close within a year. It obviously caused some uncertainty to the investment patterns that these parties will have before the deal closing.
We mentioned that actually in the business environment descriptions in the third quarter report as well. We don't see signs yet, but it's sometimes possible that when two operators merge, there will be certain CapEx optimization before the deal closes. We don't know if that will have an impact next year. Let's see. Once the announcement or once the deal will be closed, we expect us to be in a very good position given that we then become de facto one of the incumbent suppliers to the new Charter Cox combined New Co. Those are maybe the biggest things. We have many competitors in the market. It's a fierce competition. We've been able to become and remain cost competitive and price competitive in that market. Yes, I think the big picture and the long-term future looks very good.
Do you have or can you say anything about the Charter actually? If you say now that you have 100% market share in Cox and what are the Charter's plans, have they already started their investments in DOCSIS 4.0 or are they still planning it or how is that?
Yeah, they have started. In their existing territory, they have started already and they have selected, I think they have publicly announced, two suppliers that they are using in their networks. We are not in the Charter territory at the moment. Once this will be combined, there will be a group of suppliers covering the territory. Both operators are investing in DOCSIS 4.0 at the moment. The combined entity has publicly stated that they will be accelerating DOCSIS 4.0 deployments in the full territory once the deal gets closed sometime next year.
Right. About the cross-market, your materials and services were 2% down compared to last year and there was impact of a product mix. Is that just variation between quarters or is it because that now when you're shipping more to North America you have better margins there?
There is, of course, two things. It's about the product mix. When we think about in Public Safety and Mobility, there are very different types of also product categories which have a different share, for example, software or services, as well as then kind of naturally kind of when we look at the kind of mix of this material and manufacturing services. I would say that it's not so much about going to North America. Of course, it's impacting to which products we are then serving to different markets. That kind of 2% of net sales is the saving. I would not say that.
I guess in particular in Broadband Networks business, I would not say that we have better margins in North America. No, there's no that kind of market difference between the two. We've been able to, although yeah, the product blend is impacting it. But frankly speaking, we have also done a lot of good work on our supply management. We've been able to squeeze our suppliers and get lower prices from our suppliers, being able to then protect the gross margin.
Yes.
All right. Lastly, still about the European situation with the DOCSIS 4.0 upgrades. You announced last quarter that Q2 there was that first deal, but how otherwise has there been any new decisions by the operators that now they're going to start those investments?
Yeah, we mentioned a little bit vaguely in the report that we're expecting this to start in some parts of the European market. It is still very isolated, spotwise incidents in Europe. Many of the European operators are still sitting on their hands, so to say, as to what to do. We did announce VodafoneZiggo, which is one of the largest fiber cable operators in Europe, that they have now started the deployment with us. Again, we have a sole supplier position there. That rollout has now been reaching volumes in Q3, and it will continue. Other than that, I would say you can count the other operators who are active in this space with one hand fingers at the moment. Not too many. Many of those operators are still kind of wondering what to do. We are expecting more to join, but it's clear to say that the kind of growth driver will not be Europe. It will be North America.
All right. That's all from me at this point. Thank you.
No questions from Public Safety and Mobility.
Actually, I had a just very busy earnings morning, so I haven't gone that long with the report.
If you have any. No, no, no worries about that. Yeah, just joking. I am myself particularly pleased about the performance in the public safety and mobility. Always happy to chat about that as well.
Okay. One question about that. Now, with the current profitability, are you satisfied with that, or do you still have plans to get it on a better level?
No, we're not satisfied yet with that profit level. We want both of the business units to be in the kind of long-term range that we've given, 7-12% EBIT range. We are not there yet with public safety and mobility. We're continuous.
Yeah, on the path, yes.
Yeah, we are on the track, on the right track.
Okay, thank you, Atte. Good questions, as usual. Any comments or questions from others before we close? If not, we thank you for your attention and attendance this morning, and I wish you all a good day.
Thank you all.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you.