Good morning. Welcome to this Kitron first quarter results presentation 2019. I'm Cathrin Nylander, and I'm CFO and acting CEO of Kitron. For some comments, revenue was strong here in the first quarter. We had received about 24%, reached 25% revenue increase compared to last year. The growth this quarter was particularly strong in NOK in the industry sector, but in percentage-wise, we also had a very strong growth in the offshore marine sector. We improved our profitability to 6.3%, which is in line with the expectations. The overall demand trends are positive, with an all-time high order backlog, increasing 43% year-on-year, and all sectors except energy and telecom increased the order backlog significantly.
We also had a continued increase in working capital related to the material allocations we have talked about before, but also due to the fact that we have growth and the acquisition of the EMS division from API . The current material constrained environment is expected to ease going forward. Also happening in the quarter is that we completed the acquisition of API Technologies EMS division, and they are being consolidated into our figures as of February 15th, so we have half a quarter of consolidation with those. Coming back, revenue, order backlog, and operating profit at record levels. The strong growth in revenue, 25% year-on-year. Of that, 20% is organic growth, i.e., not related to the acquisition. We reached NOK 813 million for the quarter.
Operating margin received a record profit of NOK 51.2 million in the quarter and a profit margin of 6.3% compared to 6% last year. That is also an increase of the EBIT of 32.2%. Earnings per share increased 40% to 21 øre from 15 øre last year same time. Again, all-time high order backlog increasing 43% compared to last year. Of that, 28% is organic growth. We also had a positive cash flow in the quarter of approximately NOK 25 million compared to a negative one in about the same size last year. The net working capital continued to increase. I will come back to that. Important agreements in the first quarter. We received the communication orders early January or late January for a new product within industrial communication.
It is industrial IoT, and the annual revenues are NOK 25 for the last for at least five years. Production will take place at Kitron's plants in Lithuania and China. Coming into the financial statements for the first quarter. We grew from NOK 651 million to NOK 813 million, which is an increase of NOK 162 million and then 25%. Strong growth in industry in NOK, about NOK 56 million, amounting to 18.4%, and very strong growth in offshore marine, ending at NOK 42 million compared to about NOK 8 million last year and a NOK 33 million growth and over, you know, almost 400% growth.
A very strong growth, and again, of that, 20% is organic growth, meaning that about NOK 34 million of the growth comes from the acquisition of the API EMS business. About NOK 13 million of those are defense aerospace-related volumes, and the rest is divided into industry and energy telecoms. Very positive. We have revenue growth in all countries. We have decided as of this year to split USA out of the others, so therefore we're showing that separately. Coming back to the situation, Norway very positively grew 32% up to NOK 210 and a growth of NOK 51 million from last year. Specifically, offshore is bringing the growth and also energy telecoms for this quarter. Sweden show a good growth of 11.5%, ending at NOK 174 million for the quarter.
Lithuania, about 12, and still a very large site at almost NOK 300 million in this quarter. U.S., now split out, show a total of NOK 50 million. That is half a quarter revenue from the EMS business from API and a full quarter from our Johnstown facility. Both show a good revenue for this quarter, I would say. At the end, other, which is primarily China now, grew 23% or NOK 23 million to NOK 110 million and a 27% growth in total. Good growth all over, I would say. Quarterly EBIT. As mentioned, this is a record EBIT of NOK 51.2 million, approximately. We've had NOK 51 million in 2008, we finally broke that record.
Also to be noted in this type of a presentation is that we normally don't have such a strong first quarter that we've had this year. Normally, we have a very good fourth quarter and a slightly weaker first quarter. This time, we're actually beating the fourth quarter results, both percentage margin and in NOK. Ending up to 6.3 compared to 6% EBIT margin last year. Strong margin improvement in Norway and Sweden. We see good profitability improvements both in Norway and in Sweden. However, in Norway, we would like to see higher profit margin than we reached, and we had some inefficiencies related to ramp-ups, and some of that is also product mix. However, a good margin in Sweden, 6.4%. Lithuania, slightly weaker but still strong at 9% and a profit of NOK 27 million.
When it comes to the U.S. units, you see that there is a net, slight negative figure. The Windber facility or the new EMS business that we acquired, they actually show a positive profit for the quarter. However, we are still struggling with some ramp-ups in our unit in Johnstown. China is showing very good profits and good profit margins and improvement from last year, where they had some currency issues in the, in the first quarter. Overall, we would say a good improvement from last, the same quarter last year. Now to the part that is maybe not so positive as the rest. We did show a positive cash flow for the first quarter, normally that is not so the case. NOK 25.4 positive compared to about NOK 20 negative last year.
The financial gearing is at 2.9 compared to 0.8 last year. It's due to the fact that we are increasing our balance sheet quite clearly. If we exclude the IFRS adjustment, Kitron implemented IFRS 16 during this year. That means that we are increasing our fixed assets, also our interest-bearing debt due to this. If we adjust for that, our financial gearing was at 2.6. Working capital ending at NOK 927 million for the quarter, up, I think it's 73% or similar from last year. It's partly due to growth, of course, it's partly due to the acquisition of API, it's also partly due to the fact that we still have inventory based on the allocations. We have still haven't eased that off.
We are working on it, and it will ease off during the year. However, we see little effect of that in the first quarter. Our relative numbers show that as well. On a net operating working capital as a percentage of revenue, it is 25%. We really want that to be below 20. The cash conversion cycle is at 91 compared to 67 this year, last year, same time, and the ROC is at 7.2 compared to 19.8. We will expect to see all these ratios improve and the working capital to stabilize and ease going forward. How about the market development? Record order backlog, as we said, ending up at NOK 1,466 on a comparable basis to Q1 2018.
All IFRS adjustments are included in all periods, it is comparable. We grew 43%. Part of that, 28% is organic, i.e. not related to the acquisition. About NOK 156 million is added to the order backlog from the AMS business in the U.S., we see strong growth all over, I would say, apart from energy and telecoms, which is about stable and in an area where it has been. Particularly strong offshore at NOK 107 million and up almost 500% compared to last year. Industry continued to be strong and medical also show very good progress. Defense is affected by the API. Apart from that, there's a slight reduction compared to last year, same time. We will see defense order backlog increasing during the year.
Coming back to the outlook, we are reiterating our outlook that for Kitron we expect the revenue growth to grow to between NOK 2.9 million and NOK 3.2 million. The EBIT margin is expected to be between 6.2% and 6.6%. The growth is primarily driven by the acquisition and the growth from customers in the industry and offshore marine sectors. The profitability is driven by cost reduction activities and improved efficiency. With that, I would like to say thank you and for listening and talk to you in the next quarter.