Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Kitron's fourth quarter report for 2023. I'm Peter Nilsson, CEO of the Kitron Group, and joining me as usual today is Ms. Cathrin Nylander, CFO. Following today's brief presentation, we'll have a Q&A, so please post any questions you may have in the Q&A section of the webcast. Thank you. Next slide, slide two, please. In the final quarter of 2023, we continued our streak of growth with a record sales, in the quarter of over EUR 199 million. That's a robust 14% increase from the same pre-period previous year. Our EBIT was EUR 18 million, a growth of 13.5% from last year. Cash flow has been strong this quarter, with a cash flow close to EUR 35 million. Return on operating capital is stable and just under 27%, with the cash cycle conversion improving from 100 days to 95 days.
Furthermore, our net interest bearing debt to EBITDA ratio has been reduced from 2.6 to 1.5, another strong improvement. In Q4, we saw a decline in our order backlog of almost 15% to EUR 496 million. Finally, our earnings per share for the quarter increased some 40% to NOK 0.73 compared to NOK 0.52 the previous year. Overall, in the fourth quarter, we hit our targets, and I'm proud of the hard work and dedication our team continues to show. Next slide, slide three, please. So let's review the year in full. Building on three strong quarters in 2023, Q4 continues the momentum. Year- to- date, we've generated a revenue of over EUR 775 million, a 21% increase over previous year. Our EBIT has grown substantially, reaching almost EUR 71 million, close to 56% up from previous year's EUR 45 million. We now have five consecutive quarters with strong operating margins exceeding 9%.
The net income stands at over EUR 51 million. In 2023, we've invested more than EUR 16 million in site and manufacturing equipment upgrades and capabilities. The metrics suggest that our initiatives are delivering results, but rest assured, we're focused on maintaining this momentum. Now let's look at some of the business trends. Next slide, please, slide four. Well, what trends do we see in the fourth quarter? Well, strength is evident within the electrification sector, particularly in energy grids and high-voltage transmission. The defense sector continues to witness solid progress and optimistic projections. In connectivity and industry sectors, there's a notable slowdown or leveling off in growth. As for regional developments, the Nordics and the U.S. are seeing ongoing strong growth driven by defense, critical grid infrastructure, and segments benefiting from AI innovation.
Despite a strong year end to the quarter, Central and Eastern Europe is experiencing a slowdown as market sentiment in Europe takes a negative turn. Next slide, please, slide five. So how do strong sales in Q4 and future market sentiment reflect in the order backlog? Current order backlog stands close to EUR 494 million, marking a 15% decrease from previous year's EUR 580 million. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, the order backlog remains comparatively steady. Notable strengths continue in defense and parts of electrification sectors. Elsewhere, a shorter horizon for customer orders is evident, indicative of current market sentiment and persistent destocking by customers. Next slide, slide six, please. Let's broaden our perspective using the R6 and R12 indicators. These indicators shed light on customer-anticipated demand for the next six and 12 months. The defense sector shows strength. There's a noticeable inclination among customers to fast-track their orders.
Furthermore, there's an escalating demand for energy solutions within energy transmission. The R6 provides evidence of stable demand expected in the initial half of the year. This stability is complemented by service sales and vendor-managed inventory solutions for our customers. We can see that the R12 must steadily improve in the back half of the year as the market sentiment in Europe turns around. I'll be back to discuss the outlook and some key takeaways in a bit, but for now, Cathrin will review the details behind the numbers. Cathrin, go ahead, please, and slide seven, next slide.
Thanks, Peter. Currency and growth. Now some compared numbers for clarification as with this year changed from NOK to euro as presentation currency. The presentation currency in itself will not take out variations in translation differences in consolidation, not underlying currency risk as such in each of the sites. So the waterfalls show growth on top in NOK and below in euro. For Q4, there's an underlying growth of just about 18% in both currencies and in euro, a negative currency effect of 3%, and in NOK a positive effect of 10%, ending in a quarterly growth of 14% in euro and 28% in NOK. As for year-to-date numbers, underlying growth 26% in both currencies, - 5% in euro, and a + 11% in NOK, ending with a year-on-year growth of 21% in euro and 37% in NOK.
To the left, you can see the average rates we have used in consolidation for this year. So next slide, please, slide eight. Business sectors: strong growth, also in Q4 for CEE and Nordics, and the volume reduction in China continues as markets from China show less demand. That said, all sites are profitable and at strong margins also in Q4. We have cleared out some group costs in Q4, and year-to-date margins for the regions therefore give some more value to evaluate trends. For the full year 2023, the Nordics, then being Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, have a revenue growth of 23% and a growth in profit of 46%, EBIT margins right around 9%. CEE, Lithuania, Poland, and Czech: revenue growth of 48% and a profit growth of 78%, EBIT margin at 9.6%.
The rest of the world, mainly our two facilities in China and the U.S., and the one in the U.S., has a revenue decline of 14% but a profit improvement of 21%. The U.S. is no longer loss-making and has shown improved stable results all year, so EBIT for this part of Kitron is 11.2%. In total for the group, again, growth of 21% and a profit improvement of 57% of EBIT, and a margin of 9.1% for the quarter and for the year. As for the number of employees, we're now currently at 3,001. It's a growth of 5.4% from last year, yet there is a reduction of 69 FTEs from last quarter. Next slide, please, slide nine. Cash flow and working capital.
Operating cash flow ended at a very strong EUR 33.4 million euros in the quarter compared to EUR 7.3 million, same quarter last year. Year-to-date ended at EUR 59 million euros compared to EUR 18.2 million last year. Compared to EBITDA, our operating cash flow was 67% of EBITDA for the year total. Observers will see that we're missing a line called changes in factoring debt in the operating cash flow. It has now been reclassified to financing. If presented the same way as before, the operating cash flow would have been EUR 6.7 million lower in Q4 and EUR 9 million lower for the full year. Still a very strong cash flow for us. Net working capital is decreased by some EUR 6 million euros in the quarter, and it's basically all capital items that are reduced apart from contract assets.
But we have a growth from 5.6% from last year, and we are continuing our work to reduce the inventory. Next slide, please, slide 10. Ratios: net working capital as a percentage of sales, 24.4%. It's down from + 26% last year and last quarter. Our target is to be below 20%, so we have some way to go still. ROC at 26.7% at last year's level of 27%, and it's above our strategic level of 22%-25%. CCC at 95% and below last year's level of 100%. Receivables and inventories are down 24 days and payables down 19 days, giving a net reduction of five days. Very similar reduction development from Q3. Net interest bearing debt over EBITDA slightly down to 1.5% from last quarter's 1.7%. The net debt ended at EUR 129.6 million, which is a reduction of 16% from last year and EUR 12 million lower than last quarter.
It is to explain by some more cash, but mainly lower factoring debt at the end of the year. Finance debt ended at EUR 6 million. It's down from EUR 6.6 million last year. We have some +EUR 3 million of EBITDA reducing the finance net this year compared to EUR 0.3 million last year. Our interest rate is at 6% also in Q4. The interest cost in the quarter is around EUR 2.4 million, which gives an annualized interest rate of EUR 10 million a year, which is around 20% above the actual cost for 2023. It is a priority to us to reduce our interest bearing debt to protect our net income. As a result of that focus, a dividend is proposed of NOK 0.75 per share, which corresponds to 25.6% of net income, 25.6%. The dividend last year was at NOK 0.50 .
The dividend policy is to pay out 20%-60% of net income. Finally, equity as a percentage was 31.6%, which is an increase of 28% from 28.6% last quarter, giving a return on equity of 28%. The earnings per share in euro then is EUR 0.062 in the quarter and EUR 0.258 for the year, and an increase of 24% and 78% respectively. The tax rate for the year ended at 21%. Some true-up on tax calculations gave a higher tax rate in Q4 of 26%. With that, I leave the word back to you, Peter.
Thanks, Cathrin. Let's review the outlook for the full year 2024. We uphold the 2024 outlook shared during the capital markets presentation in December 2023. Our present projection is that Kitron anticipates its revenues to be in the range of EUR 700 million-EUR 800 million, with operating profit (EBIT) estimated to fall between EUR 60 million and EUR 74 million for the year. Next slide, please, slide 13. So these are the key takeaways from the fourth quarter and the full year. The fourth quarter capped off a year of double-digit growth with robust results. Unprecedented achievements in revenue, EBIT, margins, earnings, and cash flow were recorded. Growth persisted in the Nordics and the U.S., propelled by defense and particular electrification product lines. A discernible slowdown in growth has been observed in industry and connectivity sectors.
This is attributed to macroeconomic hurdles, inventory reduction, the advantage of shortened lead times, and thereby reducing the exposure to risk. Solid demand is anticipated for the first half of 2024, with expectations of further enhancement in the latter half. Next slide, please. So we're off to the Q&A part of the presentation. Again, I'd like to remind you to post any questions you may have in the Q&A section of the webcast. Cathrin, let's take a look at some of the questions that have already come in. Let me grab the screen here and take a look. Henriette from Arctic is saying, "You expect an improvement in the second half of 2024. What's this based on? Are you impacted by customer destocking?
Do you have any color on when you expect this to ease?" Well, we see customers saying that they have somewhere around, you know, two-four months to burn off some of the extra inventory. We also see, in general, a lower second half, meaning, for every month we move into the second half of the year, the volume drops, which is normal also when you look at forecast horizon. So particularly December will be much lower than June or July even. So we know that more orders will come in there. And then there's an expectation that this inventory will burn off. And they also that market in Europe, primarily what's happening in Germany, will at some point this year start turning around and becoming more favorable.
Second question from Henriette is, "You guide 50% growth, not down, 50% growth in defense for 2024, which implies a revenue of EUR 168 million versus EUR 112 million in 2023. Do you expect this to be broadly, evenly distributed throughout the year?" Pretty much yes, because this is affecting, primarily two of our sites, in Sweden and Norway, Norway being the biggest one and then Sweden following, and then a portion of it also in the U.S. U.S. will see some transfers of products that need to be built in the U.S. over the year, so that's that work is going on and getting that site qualified for those products. But we're running pretty much at maximum capacity in the first quarter, right? So we see a possibility of taking in some demand that today is in 2025.
You know, customers I spoke about customers fast-tracking orders, but we need to prepare that capacity for the site. And that this is a whole equation now of shuffling and moving products around in the group. So taking industrial products out of Norway, taking some electrification products out of Norway, ramping those products up in Denmark, getting a second source into one of our biggest electrification customers, ramping that production up in Poland, all to prepare for more capacity and more load in Norway. So that's part of the grand plan when we look at the EUR 700 million-EUR 800 million to do those things. And that's why I say, you know, we expect defense to be evenly distributed. Right now, there's a front-end load of it in Q1, Q2, because that's just the way that orders are placed.
Most of the customers there have already secured material for the next two-three years and prepaid that material, and it's sitting in our warehouses. So, you know, when they release orders, it's pretty quick to start moving. And again, for the first half of the year, we have full order coverage. And following up with EUR 95 million Q1, a larger increase from EUR 36 million. Wait, EUR 95 million in R6 in defense implies EUR 48 million Q1, Q2, a large increase, yeah. Any comment on how this would be appreciated? I think I just spoke about that. We're ramping up both in Sweden for, you know, the Swedish defense customers and Norway for the U.S. and the Norwegian defense customers. So it will just be more of the same. Let's move on to the next question, which AW asks.
Instead of cash dividend, would it be possible to opt for a stock dividend?" Interesting question, and I'll be sure to relay the question to the board and see, you know, if it'll be discussed anywhere in the General Assembly meeting or not. It's not something that we can respond to at this meeting right now, but interesting question. Felix says, how is the electronics market outlook for 2024 and 2025? And how does the dividend look in 2024? Well, I think we've already, you know, responded to the dividend, NOK 0.75 for the dividend. The electronics market, I'm assuming you're asking about the component situation. And at most, Kitron had some, what, 7,000, Cathrin, components under declared allocation and another 20,000 or so that were undeclared, basically. And today we're down to under 2,000 components that have declared allocation.
So basically, it's not the problem for us. There are some components, particularly of either very new design or older generations where there can be some difficulty. However, you know, when I follow this closely in the media and in, you know, the sort of channels that we look at on this, there is a possibility of some increase on allocations later in the year. I think, though, that that will more affect mobile and PC than the type of products that we're looking at as those markets are expected to recover more strongly towards the end of the year. Umas Gates asks, "What's the status of the Malaysian plant? How much more profitable DNA orders versus the targeted 9%?
How much more profitable are they, the defense and aerospace orders versus the targeted 9% margin on a company level?" First of all, you know, I'm not going to comment on profitability and prices and margins on particular segments, all other than to say our margins are calculated to pay for the return on operating capital target we have of 25%. So the more capital you use, the higher margin you pay. The less capital you use, the less margin you pay. That varies in general somewhere between 6% and 12% on various products, independent of market sector, really, so more related to volume and resources. The first question, though, was, "What's the status of the Malaysian plant?" The Malaysian plant is open and ready for business. We've built some qualifying products.
There's still, you, we're still utilizing most of the manufacturing resources and engineering resources out of our facilities in China, as was the plan, right? All the same thing that we did when we ramped the Polish facility. We used the Polish facility as a satellite facility for a Lithuanian site, you know, all to make sure that we get the operational leverage and not start taking on cost before we have to. But as of now, there's, you know, as of January, there's no real big impact from Malaysia in our books. Emily, Cathrin, why don't you take the next couple of questions from Emily Engen here? She asks, "Would demand is representative for the outlook for the first half of 2024, this would imply negative growth in H1?
We are guiding at a lower level for next year, the mid-guiding. So, you know, at least stable or maybe slightly negative because we have EUR 775 and we have a mid-guiding of EUR 750. So yes. The question about the correction between defense and in the other one, I need to come back to that, Emily, actually. We did make a correction between. The margin is the same. There's currently a customer that has been moved around. And EBIT margin is down in all the regions in the quarter, Harald. We had normally, you know, we have group cost and we have grown quite significantly during the year, and also the support services have grown. And to be able to manage our sites properly with giving them, what do you call it, things not changing too much to them about the cost level.
So we keep the extended cost in ASA until the end of the year, and then we clear out the group cost. So that means that they will have lower margin in Q4, but if you look on the average margin for the year, you will see that that will be the correct one going forward, basically, because you see that the group margin has not changed that much. I think,
No, I just jump back to Emily's first question about if the R6 is representative for the outlook for the first half of 2024, this would imply negative growth in H1. I think the what were we saying? Was it EUR 370 million? I don't really recall now, but EUR 386 million is the rolling six-month outlook. Now, we like to target around EUR 200 million per quarter. And on top of the actual booked product demand that EUR 386 million represents, there is also service sales, which is, you know, part of our R&D activities, test development activities, other types of logistical activities that we sell to customers. And that also comes in, you know, at an additional few million here and there.
And not included in this is where we have vendor-managed inventory where we're sitting on finished goods and the customers just call off, and maybe they don't even have a forecast in. So there could be some additional business there that backfills that up. But you're right, Cathrin. We're guiding on a lower midpoint guiding for this year. And, you know, I'm not saying that we're going to beat Q2 next year, but, you know, that's we're striving to at least. Let's see what else we have. You picked up Harald was there. I think that's the final.
I have that at the same time.
Right? Or do we have something below that I'm not seeing?
No.
That's it. So I think that wraps up today's presentation and hope to see you guys soon. And we're working hard on, you know, this year and this quarter also. Thank you, everybody.