Welcome to this presentation of the Kitron ASA's second quarter results. My name is Dag Songedal, and I'm the interim CEO of the Kitron Group. We go into the highlights for the quarter. The positive issues are that we experienced the growth despite of this challenging market. We did also see a reduction in Net Working Capital. We see a stable customer demand despite we see still a challenge in U.S. and European market. The revenue grow, we experienced a growth of 3.3% compared with the second quarter 2012. The EBIT figures ended at NOK 9.3 million, which is lower than last year and still not at a satisfactory level.
The order backlog was reduced by 9.4%, which is also a reflection of the challenging market. The inventory reduction program we have had over the last six to nine months have had an effect, and we saw an increase in operating cash flow and also a decrease in net working capital. Operational highlights for the second quarter. Still we have a lot of focus on the operational streamlining. We implemented a new organization as from 1 April with a new CEO in place. We have focus on cost reductions, on optimized supply chain, and also improved performance within manufacturing. We see some effects already in the second quarter, but the full effect will not be seen until the fourth quarter of 2013. We also have strong focus on working capital improvements.
We saw from the numbers, we see some effects in the second quarter, but there are still a lot to achieve related to inventory, and also the distribution center will be an important part to drive further reductions. If we go into the financial statements for the second quarter, we see a growth of 3.3% compared with the second quarter last year. We do also see a growth of 13% compared with the first quarter this year. Still we do, however, see that there are uncertainties in the markets. We see that the customer are reducing their inventories, and we also see a shorter order horizon. We have strengthened the customer relationship with several customers during the quarter.
Even though we have not announced any big contracts, we have a positive development towards most of our existing customers. When we look into the different segments, we see a small drop in the Offshore/Marine segment. We have seen stable growth in that segment for several quarters, and this is more an kind of an adjustment to the long-term trend of growth. We still believe that the long-term prospects are positive. Medical equipment, as previously announced, we have one major customer with reduced scope from the 1 January this year. This reduction in scope are almost offset by growth by other customers. In the Defense & Aerospace segment, we see high activity towards Norwegian defense customers, which is the main reason for the more than 20% growth compared with the second quarter last year.
We do, however, see uncertainty in the U.S. market and also in the Swedish market. Energy and Telecom, we have a small decrease in the second quarter compared with the second quarter last year. That's mainly related to the metering business. We still have customers where we expect growth in the period to come. In total, the segment is expected to be at almost the same level. The most positive effect in the second quarter is the Industry Segment. We have a growth by more than 10%, that's even though we still have an uncertain situation in both the European and the Swedish industry market. What we see is that new customers are ramping up, which is driving growth.
Also, we have signals from existing customers that expect modest growth in the months to come. If we look into revenue by country, we see that Norway is quite stable, small growth, and that implies that we maintain the position as the number one supplier in Norway. In Sweden, we have quite significantly drop in the revenue, and that's mainly due to Industry segment and the Defense segment. Especially on the Defense side, the Swedish customer has had a low quarter in the second quarter this year. We have growth in Lithuania by more than 20%. If we look at the long-term strategy for Kitron, we do expect future growth in Lithuania, and this is clearly a signal that this will be, this will come.
This is due to the fact that we have growth from both Nordic and German industrial customers. Others, which is mainly China, also have significant growth. That is, of course, due to the fact that we had a ramp-up phase during 2012. When we compare the second quarter this year with the second quarter last year, we have a significant growth. The EBIT figures are still not at a satisfactory level. Even though we have far better figures than we had in the first quarter of this year. We have a decrease of 12% compared with last year, NOK 1.3 million. The EBIT level of 2.2% is lower than what we have as a long-term target. We have a lot of improvement initiatives. Some of those are implemented.
Some effects we have seen in the second quarter, but there are also still several effects that we will not see until in the end of the year. That's on the cost side, and it is on the operational improvements. For improvement of the efficiency and of course, in the end, also the reduction of costs. As I said, we do have experienced some of those cost effects in the second quarter, but they're partly offset by the volume effects in some of the units. If we look at the EBIT by country, we see that in Norway there is quite stable profitability, but at a too low level. There are cost-reducing measures implemented that will have effect during the second half of 2013.
In Sweden, we have a significant impact of the reduction in volume, which is the main reason for the reduction in EBIT from second quarter last year. In Lithuania, which is kind of the only unit that has close to acceptable EBIT level in percentage, we see an increase compared with last year, mainly due to volume increase. For the new entities, we do also see an improvement. Still we see a delay in the U.S. startup, mainly due to the U.S. Defense segment, which is still making the ramp-up in the U.S. slower than expected.
If we're looking into the balance sheet and the working capital and cash flow development, we see that we have a positive operating cash flow of NOK 29.2 million, and we have a re-reduction in net working capital by 5.1%. Normally, the end of second quarter is a challenging time due to the fact that we have the main holiday period in Norway and Sweden in July. Normally we have a buildup of inventory at end of June. This year, we see that we have achieved a reduction in inventory, and we do also believe that this reduction is sustainable and that we will be able to have further improvements in the inventory. We have a target of, over NOK 50 million reduction, and that we still believe is achievable.
The establishment of the common distribution center is an important element in this that also will take place during the second half of 2013. If we look into the market development, first look at the order backlog, we see that the order backlog is reduced compared with the end of second quarter last year. It's a mixed picture. We see an increase in the Defense & Aerospace segment. We also see a stable trend within industry, while we have reduced backlog in other segments. For some of those segments, we see that there's still an uncertain market situation. We see quite significant volatility in the customer forecasts, and we also see that customers reducing the risk through shortening their order horizon and also by reducing their own inventory.
We see this more as an effect of uncertain market than a signal of reduced turnover in the future. If we look into the different segments, we still believe that the long-term prospects for the Offshore/Marine segment is positive, even though we have a small reaction in the second quarter, and we also foresee lower revenue in 2013 compared with 2012. We have some strong customers within this segment, and we believe that in the long term, we will achieve growth also in this segment. For the Medical Equipment, we expect a flat development in 2013, mainly as a result of the reduction of scope for one of the main customers. That means that we have growth for several of the other customers.
We also believe that the long-term market fundamentals for this segment is positive. We have strong customers, which again, will give growth in longer term. For the Defense & Aerospace, we also see a promising long-term outlook. We have several major programs secured. Some of those will be realized during the next 12 to 18 months, while others, like the F-35 programs, have a longer time horizon. Kitron is the only Norwegian supplier that are approved for the F-35 program. We still are working with further opportunities towards that program, but as we know, that is a long-term program, and the ramp-up won't come until 2016, 2017. Also for other existing customers, we expect a growth also in the next 12 to 18 months.
We do, however, see that there are still uncertainties in the Swedish defense market and also in the U.S.. For the Energy and Telecom, we expect to stabilize at this lower level than we were last year. We do also have single customers within this segment with quite a significant potential. For the Industry segment, as we saw in the second quarter, the segment had a nice growth of more than 10%. In this segment, we have several new customers, mainly in Germany, but also some in Sweden. The ramp-up for new customers together with growth from existing makes us believe that we will have growth in the Industry segment in the next 12 months. We emphasize that in this segment, there are still uncertainties as to the kind of total market outlook.
If you look into the outlook for the year, we expect, as also during the last quarterly presentation, that the revenue in 2013 will be slightly lower than in 2012. We do, however, expect that for the second half of this year, we will be approximately at the same level revenue-wise as we were in 2012. We have a lot of focus on the programs to increase profitability and improve cash flow. This will continue during the second half. We have programs to drive top-line growth. We do streamlining of internal operation, and the main focus area is to have streamlining across the different manufacturing sites. We implement the same processes, the same methodology across all manufacturing sites in order to utilize best practices in a better way and, of course, to improve efficiency.
We do, however, also have actions initiated to reduce cost on a more short-term basis. We expect this to have significant impact during the fourth quarter this year. Still, we have the target to reduce the inventory by NOK 50 million by end 2013. As I said, the establishment of the distribution center is an important factor in this, in achieving this. We expect the distribution center to be up and running during 2013. That was the presentation. I'm not sure if there are any questions. Thank you for joining this presentation, and have a nice day.