Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Medistim 2022 presentation. My name is Kari Krogstad, and together with my colleague, CFO Thomas Jakobsen, we will take you through the results from this quarter, a nd we are going to follow our agenda, starting with the highlights, and then Thomas will take us through the financial statements, and t hen we will go through some further comments on the business segments, and also some comments with regard to implementing our strategy. So, let's get started on the highlights. So I'm very pleased to being able to present that, again, we are presenting an all-time high sales quarter. This is actually the fifth quarter in a row where Medistim is delivering a sales number above NOK 100 million.
As we can see, reaching NOK 116.1 million, compared to the NOK 102.6 million last year, a growth of 13.2%. As we can see we have a little bit of favorable currency here, but not much, and t he growth is coming from where we want it to come from. As we can see, the imaging portfolio, so the combined imaging and flow devices and the imaging probes are growing at 36.2% this quarter, and t his is, of course, our strategic targeted segment. So very pleased to see that. The flow sales is also up 4.4%.
Then when it comes to the split between the Vascular segment and the Cardiac segment, remembering that the cardiac segment still constitute about 85% of the total, revenues from our own products. Vascular is still at about 15%. Th is quarter, we're seeing very good growth from the vascular side, almost 40% growth. So very pleased to see that. And then we are also adjusting for the currency effects here, we see that we have currency neutral growth of 11.9% in total and l ooking at only our own products, that is at 10.9%. And then looking at the regions, we are seeing that again, USA is contributing very strongly at 34.2% currency neutral growth.
Also, Europe is up 8.2%, t he smaller rest of the world region is up 32.9%. And the only region which is down this quarter is Asia, down at 31.4%. And this is due to a lengthy regulatory approval process for the upgraded version of our MiraQ that was released with new electronic components a while back. This means that the sales from this quarter is actually delayed. On top of this, we're also seeing good contribution from our third-party products portfolio growing at 16.7% this quarter. Then, looking at the EBIT ending at 33.4%, t his is the second-best quarter ever for EBIT, so also very strong, and e nding then at the margin of 28.8%, which is definitely also in the higher levels.
Yesterday, the general meeting decided a dividend to be paid out of NOK 3.75 per share. So these are the highlights from the quarter, and with that, I will leave the stage to Thomas.
Thank you, Kari. I will then, as usual, go through our P&L for the quarter, and we go straight to the profit and loss. Kari will, as usual, go through sales split within region and products, and so forth. So I won't go into detail on that, but i n order to explain our cost of goods sold and improved gross margin coming from 78%- 80%, I have to mention that the main reason for this is the very strong development in the USA through our direct operation, a nd obviously, selling through our direct operation, this improves our gross margin, and this is the reason why it's up 2%, comparing to first quarter last year.
Salary and social expenses are up NOK 4 million i n addition to general adjustments, from 2021 to 2022, 3%, we also have increased sales commissions and bonuses, especially related to the strong results in the U.S.. The main reason is that we have an increased number of employees in this quarter compared to the comparable quarter. We have seven more employees this quarter compared to last year a nd this is spread out throughout the organization. We have additional employees within development, but we also strengthen sales within administration, logistics, and also with additional sales rep and also more resources within production. So all over the organization. Other operating expenses are also up with about NOK 4 million. The main reason for this is related to travel activities and participation on exhibitions.
Keep in mind that the first quarter last year was still very much affected by the COVID situation with very little travel, no participation in exhibitions and so forth. This is much more normalized in this quarter and has given us an additional expense of about NOK 2 million. In addition to that, we also had the expenses related to recruitment, about NOK 600,000, and also additional expenses related to audits, which are becoming more and more detailed. All in all, EBITDA ends at 39.3%, which is a percentage of 33.8% approximately on prospect on the same level as last year.
Depreciation ends at the same level as last year, which then gives us an EBIT of NOK 33.4 million, or EBIT % of 28.8%, which is half a percentage improvement compared to same quarter last year. Net finance is related to realized and unrealized gains and losses related to foreign currency. This quarter we have a loss of NOK 533 thousand compared to last year's NOK 1.2 million. This gives us a profit before tax of NOK 32.9 million, compared to last year's NOK 27.8 million, so a good improvement. The tax expense here is relatively higher compared to last year. This is not because we have higher tax rates, but it's related to intercompany profits.
This means that, the mother company in Norway has sold products to, subsidiaries like in Germany and in the U.S. This is taxable income for the Norwegian company. And this is then not sold through the end customers in the U.S., for instance, or in Germany. This increases the intercompany profit that we are eliminating in our consolidation and therefore, seemingly the tax expense is then higher, than what you would expect and would normally be at around 22%. So this is just for this period, i f intercompany profit for the next period is then drastically reduced, we will see the opposite effect. Going through the balance sheet, we have an intangible asset, which has increased slightly, compared to year-end, t hat means that we have activated the development expenses related to projects that we are involved in.
Fixed assets, no major investments. We have then through depreciation reduced this position with about NOK 3 million. Inventory level is at the same level as in the beginning of the year. We are of course securing critical components and end-of-life components, and we are monitoring this very closely these days because we also experience that supply chain has increased lead times and delivery dates are not always kept. So we have to be very on top of this, and we are managing this at this level. But it takes focus and attention, and we follow this closely.
Customer receivables at the same level. Cash position is very strong, almost NOK 48 million. This will of course be reduced when we pay the dividend, as Kari mentioned, and the total amount of dividend will be NOK 68.4 million, and this will be paid in the beginning of May. Then moving to equity and liability. The change in equity is basically the change in profit for the period. That's pretty self-explainable. Long-term debt is related to lease obligations. We have a lease obligation of just under NOK 23 million and NOK 15.3 million of this is then put up in the balance sheet as long-term debt. The remaining amount is related to service agreement and deferred income.
All in all, a very solid balance sheet with more than 75% equity, and w ith that, I leave the word to Kari.
Okay, let's take a look at the development in the business segments. Starting with the imaging probes and systems in units, number of units. Looking at capital sales, number of imaging systems, as we can see, we're delivering a quarter at the high end with 24 units sold this period compared to the 22 sold in the similar period last year, so a growth of 9.1%. When it comes to the probes, that's also at a good level and growing 19% over the same quarter last year. And we can look here at the U.S. contribution, which is very strong as we can see on the imaging systems in units graph here.
When it comes to the flow probes and systems in units, starting with the number of systems, here we're seeing a decline this quarter. We sold 33 units compared to the 39 same quarter last year. And then as emphasized several times, it's a strategy to convert the market from a flow only to a flow and imaging technology. As long as the imaging portfolio is growing nicely, this is a development that we are fine with. But as I started to talk about in the highlights, we have an issue in China at the moment where we are waiting for a delayed regulatory approval for the upgraded MiraQ, and this is affecting the total number of devices sold this quarter.
So this quarter we are selling four less compared to the same period last year, if you are summing up both the flow systems and the flow and imaging systems. Looking at the flow probes in units sold, this is growing 4% this quarter and really is back to a more normal growth level as we've seen it historically. If you're taking a look at the revenue split per region, starting with Europe, and we remember that we had both own products and also third-party products sold in this region. So the first quarter sales of our own products increased with 6.2% in Norwegian currency, a little bit more if we adjust for the currency, 8.2%.
It is the third party which is really driving the total growth in Europe of 10.6% since that is growing 16.7%. Looking at the USA, so 40% growth here in Norwegian currency. Here we have a favorable situation with regard to the dollar. Adjusted for that, the real growth is 34%, but still very, very strong. In Asia, as mentioned, the decline here is due to the delayed approval of the MiraQ. The rest of the world continues to be a very small sales territory for us compared to the others, and we are always seeing quarter-to-quarter variation here, and t his quarter it is growing in percentage quite a lot.
Looking then at the same revenue but now split per product category and starting with the procedure sales in the United States. As we can see here, 25% growth in Norwegian currency, and this corresponds very well to the number of procedures, which was also increasing with 25% this quarter. When it comes to flow probes, that's also very good correspondence between sales growth in Norwegian currency and also in the volume of 4%. Flow systems capital number of units, we're seeing a decline of 15% for this quarter, as mentioned already. And the Imaging systems, we can see a growth here of 34% in Norwegian currency and corresponding to only 9% increase in number of units for the quarter.
Here we really see the effect of selling a lot of these units through our direct USA channels, and then of course we get a very good return on that sales. Third party again growing at 16.7%. And yes, to follow the development as we are moving from the most critical period from the COVID situation, this graph is telling the story since the second quarter of 2020 when we saw the effects of the COVID situation impacting on the Medistim business for the first time. With a significant sales decline of 19.3%, currency neutral compared to the same quarter in 2019.
Saw a real impact then, and then we saw a gradually decreasing impact in the third and the fourth quarter, and for the first time back to growth in the first quarter 2021. And then as we will remember, all through 2021, we had really strong growth numbers here as a consequence of the weak comparables that we saw in 2020. So, obviously these growth numbers are not representative from what we can expect from sales growth going forward. And here in the first quarter, the 13 or 11.9% growth that we're looking at, currency neutral here, this is much more in line with our historical growth on sales.
Unfortunately, it's difficult to say that we are all back to normal. We are all aware of the lockdown situation in China. We are reading about new virus variants being discovered and also new outbreaks out there, an d we are experiencing still some hospital access restrictions. This leads to from time to time that elective surgeries may still be postponed, but of course not to the same extent that we saw in 2020. So we're not expecting this to impact on the total numbers in a big way but i t is a volatile situation that we need to take into account.
And then as also Thomas was alluding to, both this continued COVID situation and the ongoing Russian Ukrainian war create increased uncertainty both in the global supply chains as such, and we're all part of that, and the world economy at large. So we are monitoring the situation closely and taking the measures that we can in order to protect the business as much as possible. Then, w hen it comes to our strategy, the primary strategy here in the strong CABG markets is of course to convert from the flow systems to the flow and imaging systems. We are also working very hard to develop these less penetrated markets where USA is an example.
We are also positioning ourselves in emerging markets with a lower priced version of the system, and we are working hard to build our position in vascular as we could see this quarter providing very good growth. Last but not least, we are also expanding our direct market coverage, so that will also happen going forward. But looking at the U.S. and how that was developing this quarter, I said currency neutral sales revenues grows by 34%, corresponding very well to the good growth in number of procedures, so up 25% this quarter. And interestingly, we can see that the highest growth is coming from sales of imaging well systems and number of procedures. So very happy to see that.
We're also seeing strong capital sales this quarter, 14 units sold in Q1 compared to the nine units sold last year. And also what we like to see, continued growth in number of new customers. 13 new customers acquired this quarter compared to the 10 last year. Thank you very much for joining, and we will meet again for the next quarterly presentation. Thank you.