Good morning everybody here in the room. Good morning, and perhaps good afternoon to some of you on the conference call. My name is Nico Delvaux. I am the new CEO of Assa Abloy. We will present to you our Q1 results. Before I start with the results, as most of you perhaps don't know me that well, a couple of words about myself. I am a Belgian citizen. I am 51 years old. I have an electrical engineering degree, also have an MBA. I worked for 26 years for another Swedish multinational, Atlas Copco, mainly on the compressor side and a bit on the vacuum side. The last 3 years, I was heading their compressor and vacuum business worldwide. I joined Assa Abloy officially, 15th of March. I came from Metso, Finnish multinational, active on the mining side and in industrial valves.
There I was also the CEO. I said officially 15th of March, I already joined earlier, 2nd of February. I had some learning before I really took over. Our result for the first quarter, a good start of the year with a good organic growth of 4%. We believe a good achievement, definitely if we take into account that it was a short quarter with the Easter effect, two working days less as compared to the same period last year. An additional 2% growth through acquisitions. It was a 3% gross. We had some divestments, net 2%. It is a solid performance with a strong growth in Global Technologies and Entrance Systems, a good growth in EMEA, Americas, and APAC, also further strong development of our smart door locks and electromechanical solutions.
A good operating margin because obviously the Easter effect had some negative effect on bottom line and even on balance sheet and therefore also on cash flow. The numbers, sales 18.55 billion SEK, 2% up. EBIT also 2% up, an operating margin of 15.3% versus 15.4% last year. A good volume flow-through of 0.2%, dilution of acquisitions with 0.3%. Interesting also to note that we had an EBITDA margin of 15.7%, 0.1% up compared to same period last year. You know that we are doing more technology acquisitions, it is also important to look at EBITDA margin. If we look a little bit geographically to our sales, I would say overall, good performance. You see emerging markets +2% and total +4%. That means that our emerging markets were growing less than the mature markets, that is mainly because of two countries.
That is because of Brazil, where we all know the economic situation. Although we believe now that market condition in Brazil have leveled out on a lower level, that we should start to see growth again from that lower level. The second market is China, where at least in the first quarter, also market conditions were not favorable, definitely not on the new build side. It is really those two markets that drag the emerging market growth a little bit down. All the other emerging markets were performing strongly. Looking at the different continents, Western world, Europe +2%. Very good performance North America, +7%. As well as on the commercial side, mainly also on the residential side. A very strong +10% in Africa and Middle East, with a strong performance mainly in the Middle East.
Australia, New Zealand plus three, and Asia plus two. We go a bit into the market highlights for this quarter, very happy to announce our first shipment of our specially made door lock for the Nest Home or smart home living solution. It's a lock that we developed together with Nest, specially made for them. What's interesting also to note is that the lock will carry our Yale brand. As far as I know, it's the first time that they use also the supplier name for one of their products in their ecosystem. It shows also the strength of our Yale brand on the residential side. We got the first order. They are filling the sales channels, and that is the idea now to further fill that channel throughout the year. We also got a very interesting first order from Walmart.
You all know those special boxes where they carry the expensive goods, and then you go and ask the employee, and then he says, "Yeah, wait, I have to go and get a key," and then it takes forever to come back. That problem is solved now with a digital solution where they can trace who has access to the different boxes and also to make sure that things don't get lost. That's a very promising business because the idea is also there to roll it out to more stores of Walmart. We launched a new full and comprehensive range of door closers under the Assa Abloy brand name and with the new Assa Abloy design lines, the new design rules. Very excited about that range because that will definitely help us to improve our relative position in that important hardware family.
I went myself also to the ISC West exhibition in Vegas a couple of weeks ago. It's one of the more important exhibitions in our field, and they, by tradition, give out awards for the most innovative ideas, the most innovative solutions. Very happy to see that we won 12 of their awards. That's the vast majority of the awards that we're giving out in our industry, and that is really showing our product and innovative leadership. It's of course rewarding to see that experts in the domain choose us as the winners for these awards. We look a bit over a longer period to our sales growth, 20 consecutive quarters with positive organic growth. I think if you look in the industry, there is not too many companies that can show that track record, so proud about that result.
I think good complement of the organic growth by acquisition growth. We managed to realize that growth with a sustained high operating margin within the bandwidth where we want to be between 16% and 17%. We managed to do that despite continued investments in our sales channel, investments in R&D, new product developments, and continued acquisitions that often, at the beginning, are dilutive when it comes to operating margin. If you can keep operating margins within a high, stable level and you grow your top line, of course, you grow your profit in absolute value. That curve also continues to go up, +65% in the last five years. We continue also our actions on optimizing our manufacturing footprint. You know that we have these MFP programs, as we call them, where on a constant base, we optimize our factories.
We have two active ones running as we speak. In the quarter, we reduced headcount with another 500 people, and we still have in plan to further reduce headcount with 1,000 people because of those two programs. We are working on a new program, MFP7, that we will launch towards the end of this year. Acquisitions. We concluded and started to consolidate 4 acquisitions in quarter one. LOB, we announced already earlier in 2017, took a little bit longer to close that one. It's a Polish hardware company. Phoniro, we announced the beginning of this year, elderly care in Scandinavia. Dale & Excel Hardware in the U.K., and then KAD, we never announced because it's a smaller acquisition. It stands for Korean Autodoor. It's a Korean acquisition in Entrance Systems. If we then go to the results per division and zoom in a little bit.
EMEA. Strong organic growth of 3%, and overall, in most markets, strong performance. If I pick a couple of them, France, very happy to see that we have again strong growth in France after a couple of, I would say, depressed years since that France is really back, and France is an important market for us. East Europe, very strong growth, continued strong growth in East Europe. Scandinavia, despite many KPIs perhaps pointing in the wrong direction, we still see good performance in Scandinavia, and we are also still confident for the future in Scandinavia. Strong growth for electromechanical products and smart door locks, so we continue to see that shift from mechanical to electromechanical also in EMEA. I would say strong bottom line, 16% versus 16.3% last year, but diluted by acquisitions, in fact, divestments.
We divested a smaller but not so profitable fencing business in Norway, and that's more a one-time effect explaining the 16%. Overall, I think business-wise, strong performance. If we go to Americas, organic growth of 3%, strong growth in electromechanical and high security. For instance, the Abloy solution for telecom and utility companies. Definitely also strong growth on the U.S. residential side with the Nest order, as I explained, and many others. Good growth in South America except for Brazil and Colombia. I explained Brazil before. Like I said, we are confident that we are now touching the bottom in Brazil and that market conditions will improve. Definitely also Colombia, where market conditions are for sure down, and Colombia is an important market for us, where we have a good position. If the market goes down, we normally also follow the market.
Operating margin of 19.4%, a little bit disappointing for us, on the lower side. Three main reasons. One is dilution because of acquisitions, and that's mainly August. As we explained also in earlier quarters, that August will be dilutive, and that will continue also for the coming quarters. We see that as a growth project. Two internal operational reasons. One is in Brazil, where we consolidated our factories, and we closed down a factory, and we had some startup problems in the transition. Most of those problems are behind us, so we are confident that that will improve in Q2. Of course, we still have a backlog to catch up with. The third reason is our metal door business in the U.S., where we continue to see metal prices going up and where our price increases lag a little bit the material price increases.
That will definitely also continue now into quarter two. We work hard on getting prices up on one side and further improving our operational efficiency and therefore reducing costs on the other side. Our third geographical division, Asia Pacific, also organic growth of 4%. I would say two phases, China and the rest of the region. The rest of the region, good performance. China, not so good performance. In China, also two phases, hardware business is positive, door business negative. We have seen project business further going down in quarter one in China. It is a short quarter, so it is not so easy to come to conclusions for the rest of the year. As you know, we are more on project business.
We are not so strong yet on the replacement market, where we believe that the replacement market is perhaps slowly growing. Operating margin on the same level, 7.9%, as last year. Global Technologies, strong performance as well on HID side as on hospitality side. We have an organic growth of 6% and a solid bottom line of 18.8%. For HID, I would say most of the KPIs pointing in the right direction. Physical access, which is an important business area for that division, very good performance. A bit weak on the Citizen ID side, but Citizen ID is, of course, project business, so it is very difficult to judge on one quarter. We are confident that if you look at the longer period, Citizen ID is also promising business. Hospitality, if you look at the different regions, I would say in all regions, good, strong performance.
We then go to Entrance Systems, our last division, also very strong organic growth of 5%, and all different sub-divisions or business areas good performance, except for our residential doors in Europe, where it is on one side a little bit the market, and on the other side, also some operational challenges in our factory. A solid operating margin of 13.3%. With that, I give the word to Carolina, who will give a little bit more details on some of the financial figures.
Thank you, Nico. Good morning. I will start with the financial highlights. As usual, we will start with the top line. Most important, the organic growth. We had a full 4% organic growth in the quarter. We estimate the price effect or the net price effect of that to be 1% and the volume to be 3%. We have to keep in mind that it is a short quarter with two working days less due to the Easter coming at the end of that quarter. Moving on to the acquired growth. We saw a net of 2% acquired growth in the quarter. It is a gross 3%, and then the divestment of AdvanIDe makes it net 2%. Currency, pretty strong effect on currency, negative on the top line in this quarter, so a minus four on the top line on currency.
If we assume that the currencies stay the way they do, we will see a much smaller effect in the second quarter. For the full year, basically flat on the top line. Top line translated to a good result also on the margin and on the EBIT. It's down 10 basis points, but that is with a good drop-through from organic growth and then some dilution from acquisitions. Interesting to see that for the first time, we have a different effect or a different trend on the EBITA. Here again, EBITA has the same effect from organic, acquired, and FX, but due to the acquisitions that we have made within the more tech side of the business, we have more amortization than in the numbers, and therefore we have a 20 basis point improvement on the EBITA versus the other EBIT.
Cash flow, not to be forgotten. Q1 though is a very weak quarter for us always. The seasonality is very strong here. The first quarter was no different for us this year. From the highlights, more to the details. We start with the bridge. Here it's again to try to show you the effects of the difference we see with the business like for like and then with the acquisitions and the effect from the acquisitions, also taking the currency into consideration. We start with the organic and the organic drop-through. The 4% had a drop-through that improved the margin with around 20 basis points. That's really in line with what we saw last year as well. We had a similar effect for the full year. Within this though, we do have a bit different effect for the different divisions.
It is a very good leverage for Entrance Systems and good also for EMEA. We were sort of flat and slightly positive even on the APAC business, on the organic side, although we do still have the headwinds there of the material. Global Tech, Nico mentioned it. It's really a strong mix here. With sort of the project business, especially FIPS and ID then going up and down. In the quarter it was pretty weak. The leverage was negative from Global Tech here. A tough one also, Americas. Good organic growth, and good savings as well. Not fully compensating for the raw material increase and the effect on the door side. Therefore flat on the drop-through from the organic. Overall, a 20 basis points improvement then. Currency, mainly a translation effect for us.
We do see the minus four translating to similar margin. Therefore no effect on the overall margin. Acquisitions, the net 2% here. Overall it looks, I would say, pretty normal for us, minus 30 basis points here. We do see a bit different effects in the different divisions. I would say we have sort of the typical one in Entrance Systems, a little bit weaker in EMEA. We also have our two sort of outliers here. We have on one hand we have Americas with the tech acquisitions, especially August, which had a significant dilution from August on the acquisition side, which will then carry on for almost the full 2018. On the other hand, we have Global Tech, where we did acquisitions that were profitable and had good margins there.
At the same time, we divested AdvanIDe, a SEK 1.2 billion business with a low margin. We had a significant positive effect for Global Technologies on acquisitions there. Overall, 30 basis points dilution. If you look at the P&L from a little bit different point of view, as components of sales. We do the same here, a like-for-like comparison, excluding the acquisitions. In the first quarter it's a bit short period of time to see strong trends here. We see one thing that has continued from last year, and that is the effect on direct material. Here we continue to see that we have an increase of 50 basis points then on the direct material. Really that comes partly from the mix in Global Technologies, but again from the door sides both in Asia Pacific and in Americas.
We were flat on conversion costs, the overall gross margin then is down 50 basis points. We compensated for that with the lower SG&A, full 70 basis points improvement. Overall, we see an improvement of the margin with 20 basis points like for like. Cash flow. First quarter is not the best quarter to talk about cash flow. As you can see from the graph, we have strong seasonality when it comes to cash flow, and especially the first quarter is very weak. This first quarter was no different. We continue to see the weak cash flow in the first quarter. Important when we look at cash flow is to put it into relation with the growth of the business, and therefore we really look at the different operating KPIs within working capital.
The most important and the largest one here is DSO, days of sales outstanding, and here we increased from 52 days to 54 days, an increase here. On the other hand, we managed to decrease the overall inventories. The inventory days are down to 97 days from 100, an improvement there. On the DPO, also an improvement from 55 to 60 days. Good development there. CapEx basically on the same level as we were on last year. I would say basically as expected in the first quarter for us on cash. The debt side. We ended the year with SEK 25.2 billion in net debt and weak cash flow as usual in the first quarter.
About SEK 1 billion spent on acquisition, some tax payments, also revaluating the debt to SEK having sort of the same effect from currency as you see on the top line. We ended with SEK 27.2 billion in net debt for the group. That put into relation with our size, we look at the KPIs here as well, we see that the gearing is stable on 50%. Also maybe more importantly, the net debt to EBITDA ratio, which is now on 1.9 compared to 1.8 a year ago. Also a solid performance there. Finally, what it all comes down to in the end, the earnings per share. If we start with the EBIT, that was up, the 2% that we talked about. We have a lower financial net, somewhat lower financial net than a year ago.
That said, I would say though that interest rates, especially for long U.S., are going up a bit. But still within the quarter, we did have a bit lower financial net. The estimate for tax for the year continues to be at 26%. We add that all together, and then the EPS is also up 2% in the quarter. Since today in the afternoon we will have our AGM, we can also see from the trend the good results that we had last year on the earnings per share. We have a proposed dividend for the AGM to decide that is SEK 3.30. An increase of 10% on the dividend. With that, I give back to you Nico for conclusions.
Thank you, Carolina. The conclusions we can be short. We are happy with the start of the year, especially pleased with the 6% growth of the top line excluding currency, 4% organic growth, 2% net acquisition, and then a solid bottom line of 15.3%. With overall good performance from all divisions, and also confidence now on the market conditions that we see for the remaining part of the year. With that, I think we can open the floor for questions, and then Holger will explain us the procedure, right?
Thank you, Nico. Thank you, Carolina. Good morning, everyone. My name is Holger Lembrér. I'm Investor Relations Officer at Assa Abloy. Before we start the Q&A session, I would like to remind everybody to limit yourself to one question to allow as many people as possible to ask your questions. I will start by asking a question to you, Nico. A good start of the year with 4% organic. What do you see for the second quarter and for the full year?
Like I explained a little bit before, I think market conditions in general are positive, as well in Europe as in North America, as in the emerging markets, we see overall positive signals. Also the markets that were a bit troublesome over previous quarters, China and Brazil, we have at least the impression that the downward trend has stopped, that they have leveled out on a low level. From now on, we should start to see improvement of market conditions in those markets. So we are overall confident as far as we have the visibility, of course.
Thank you, Nico. To you, Carolina, do you expect the headwind for raw materials to continue into Q2 and for full year? Any elaboration on that one?
Yeah, we saw strong increases already last year. I would say Entrance Systems and EMEA were affected, have basically managed to cover that. Global Technologies is not really relevant from this. APAC and Americas had troubles already last year. Although we have increased prices, it continued to sit in the first quarter. Considering that the prices have gone up or continued to go up, also now, we will continue to see headwind from raw materials also in the second quarter. But of course, we will do our best to mitigate with price increases and operational excellence.
Thank you. Before we kick off the telephone conference, do we have any questions from the floor in Stockholm? We have one question here.
Thank you. Mattias Holmberg at DNB Markets. On the Global Technologies division, could you please elaborate a bit on the quite poor organic drop-through, which is below 7% in the quarter, if you expect that to continue into the latter part of the year as well? Thank you.
You want me to comment? Yeah, I think it's a bit like Carolina explained, it's mainly a mix issue, where some of the more profitable projects were not there in the quarter, but where we are confident that that mix will change over a year and come back to a more balanced shift. To answer your question more directly, yeah, we believe that this volume flow-through will improve in the remaining part of the year.
Thanks.
Thank you very much, Mattias. Before we kick off the telephone conference, operator, will you please remind how to ask questions?
Of course. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad now. If you wish to withdraw that question, you may do so by pressing 0 then 2 to cancel. The first question is from the line of Lars Brorson from Barclays. Please go ahead, Lars, your line is open.
Hi, good morning, all. Good morning, Nico. Good morning, Carolina. A quick follow-up to Carolina and then one for Nico. Just Carolina, it's a bit unhelpful, I find, that you're taking out the divisional margin commentary from the presentation. Specifically, can you help me with what M&A dilution was in the Americas division in Q1? Secondly, and sort of more higher level for Nico, I wonder whether you could share some initial thoughts, Nico, on the business after your first few months there and give us some flavor for what we might expect in terms of a strategic review from you, and how and when you might communicate that. Thanks.
Yes. On Americas, the dilution from acquisitions and then mainly from August Home was 170 basis points for Americas. You will actually see that because you will have in the presentation the slides in between, which shows the bridges of all the divisions.
Thank you.
On my side, if I start a bit with the market we are in, of course, we operate in a very exciting market with what I believe very strong short-term and long-term positive drivers. If you just look at urbanization, if you look at countries like China, where today 750 million people live in a city, and where they forecast that by 2030 it will be more than 1 billion. Another 250 million Chinese will move from rural areas into cities. 25 times the population of Sweden, or 25 times the population of my country. They all will need locks. Hopefully, they will all need Assa Abloy solutions. That's not only true for China, it's definitely also true for countries like Indonesia, India and a continent like Africa, where they forecast that in the next 50 years, people living in cities will triple. Huge opportunities.
We have, of course, the whole drive into more environmental projects, where today one out of four big projects is already in one way or the other written with a green spec, a sustainable spec, be it a LEED certification or any other kind of certification. That's also good news for us because that drives technology in the market up, and it takes away a little bit the pure cost competitors, people that just compete on cost and not on technology. Of course, the whole shift from mechanical into electromechanical and digital, where we, I believe, have the strong advantage of having a very big installed base, an installed base where we can sell aftermarket, but where we also can upgrade into new technology. We operate in a market which has positive dynamics.
We are for sure a strong market leader in that market, a market leader that makes difference to innovation, to new product development, and that has also a strong position in the different channels. I would say what I'm most impressed about after these first weeks and those first months is really the mentality and the spirit of our people in our company. We have really people that are proud to work for Assa Abloy and people that are willing to go the extra mile to make the difference. Because at the end of the day, you can have the most fantastic products or the most fantastic ideas. If you don't have the right people, it will never work. That's definitely our most important asset.
When it comes to strategy, I believe we have a solid strategy based on the three pillars, market presence, product leadership, and operational efficiency. I think it's overall a proven strategy that has also delivered very good results in the future. I think it's also a solid overall strategy for the future. I definitely don't want to make big changes to the strategy. It's going to be more a fine tuning of the existing strategy, I'm confident that will also continue to deliver good financial results in the future.
Thanks, Nico.
Next. Next question is from the line of Andreas Willi from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Yeah. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for your time. I wanted just to follow up on Lars' question on your first impressions. Was there something you've seen or maybe an area where you think that you can drive some improvement, something you were surprised how it's working, and you think from your experience you can quickly basically drive some improvements or change direction or something that negatively surprised you in your first period at Assa Abloy?
I always say to our people internally, there is no products or no markets where we have 100% market share, we can still improve in all markets and for all products. I genuinely believe that. I think all our divisions and all our businesses have still good potential to grow as well organically as through acquisitions. If I put a little more flavor and perhaps prioritize a little bit, it's clear that if you look geographically, our lowest position is in Asia. We have a stronger relative position in the Western world, in Europe and in the Americas, and it's also long-term region with very good potential. From a growth perspective, that is definitely a region which will get our focus in general and then China in particular.
In short term, of course, we have the challenges, as we also mentioned in the call, on metal prices in our door business. We have an important door business in the U.S. and in China. Getting their prices up and cost efficiencies implemented in order to get the margins that we deserve in that market is a short-term priority. The third one, of course, the whole change from mechanical into electromechanical and digital. In the first place on the residential side, where you see a lot of things happening with a lot of players, a lot of speed, a lot of changes, a lot of new ideas. Making sure that we are there in the forefront and that we are also leading there is also a short-term priority.
Perhaps the fourth one is service and recurring revenue service in general and in Entrance Systems in particular, which represents, I believe, a good potential. With the shift to electromechanical and digital, how to make sure that we also in the value stream when it comes to recurring revenue is also a priority.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Yes, operator, please, next question.
Next question is from the line of Andre Kukhnin from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead, Andre, your line is open.
Yes. Good morning. Thanks very much for taking my question. It's really the main question on your view on the midterm targets of the company. You've clearly confirmed the strategy. You said only mainly maybe small fine-tuning. Are you comfortable with the midterm targets that you inherited?
Yes. You're referring in the first place to our 10% of growth ambition, 5%-
Yes, indeed
organic and 5% acquisition. I first take that one, I don't have a strong opinion if it's now more organic or more acquisition. Of course, we have a preference in the first place for organic growth because that's the most rewarding growth towards the bottom line. We definitely want to focus on how can we accelerate organic growth, and then how can we complement that accelerated organic growth with the right add-on acquisitions. We will continue to put our effort in acquisitions. We will even try to accelerate and see if we can further fill our pipeline. I know there is questions about the 10%. Is the 10% realistic? I say if you look at over the last 10 years, we grew 9% on a yearly base.
You could say, "Yeah, you didn't make it because the target was 10%." We internally see the 10% more as an ambition, as a goal. It's something that the whole organization understands. That's something the whole organization is focused on, and we believe it's a realistic goal, a realistic ambition level long term. When it comes to the operation margin, you know our strategy. We say we want to be between 16% and 17%. We believe that's a good, very healthy high level. We don't want to further increase that. Of course, if we can, we will increase, but we prefer to take that money and reinvest that money in the business, invest in our sales organization, invest in R&D, new product development, and therefore see how we can further boost growth, organic growth.
Of course, some of the money we will also use to buy more companies and then get the growth through acquisitions. Those acquisitions are most of the time at the beginning dilutive from an operating margin point of view. That's why we have that ambition between 16%-17%. For the time being, I believe it's good ambition level. We don't have an intention to change it, at least with the information we have today.
That's great. Thank you. Very clear. Could I just follow up on the startup issue on the plant in Brazil? Could you help quantifying it or just give us an idea if it's meaningful?
Yes. What happened, we closed one factory, and we moved actually the operations to two other factories. When we moved the operations to the other factories, we had some unfortunate issues with personnel. That has affected us over quarter one, also a bit in quarter four. Like I said, these problems are solved in the meantime. We are back with the operational efficiency where we want to be. Of course, we have a strong backlog that we have to catch up for now, and that will definitely drag into quarter two. We are confident that will not be a main reason in our quarter two goal. If you take in quarter one to quantify a bit, you could say that it's around one third of the explanation of the lower margin according to our expectation.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Andre Kukhnin. Back to you, Carolina, with a housekeeping question. You say that you had 30 basis points dilution from acquisitions in the first quarter. What do you expect for the second quarter and for the full year?
Yeah. If we take the acquisitions that we have in the books so far, we will have a little bit lower dilution than in the second quarter, probably around 20 basis points from that. For the full year, somewhere between then, around 20 basis points to max 30 from dilution from acquisitions in H2.
What's the impact on the top line from acquisitions do you expect?
It's going to be the net with the divestment as well. We will be between one and 2% for the full year as it is now.
Thank you, Carolina. Operator, please, next question.
Next question is from the line of Markus Almerud from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Markus at Kepler. A couple of questions on smart locks, please. You say that you see very strong demand for smart locks in Europe. If you could talk a little bit more about that, where, in which markets you're seeing, and if possible, quantify. I know from low levels, but still. Then my second question is on the Nest lock, which you say you are producing only for Google. Does that mean that there's lower profitability if you compare that lock to, for instance, what you have in Amazon Key? Is it similar type of profitability levels? Thank you.
If I start with the second question, of course, if you negotiate with Google or if you negotiate with Amazon, first of all, you negotiate with very professional purchasing people. Of course, you talk also about bigger volumes, bigger values. Yeah. Exactly, gross margins as well for our Amazon orders as well as for our Nest orders are lower than average. On the other hand, of course, it adds also in an important way volume, and it comes also with a lower functional cost. Still it's a very good business to be in. It also gives us volume leverage. It also helps us to spread our brand name in the market, and it also helps to make the market more ready for digital solutions. When it comes to the first question, sorry, I forgot the.
The smart locks one in Europe, I would say that you have, well, the strong presence that we have is in Scandinavia and in the U.K., also parts of Europe through Germany and Finland and some other places. The percentages in those places that were small are very high. I would say overall, also including U.K. and Scandinavia, we had significant growth in the first quarter on the smart locks.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you, Marcus. Operator, please next question.
The next question is from the line of Jeffrey Kessler from Imperial Capital. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Yes. You described some of the project work that you're doing in Global Technologies that has a lumpy revenue pattern to it. Could you go into a little bit somewhat what types of projects do these incur? Are these mainly Citizen ID projects, or are these enterprise card and access and ID types of projects?
No, it is on the Citizen ID one, so it's sort of the governmental type of documents. Governments are very lumpy in ordering, and not very good transparency in when it's coming. That is really the kind of project that we've seen big swings in the quarter.
Okay. That pertains to the geography is not important in that one, that's a general statement about those types of projects in general, particularly.
Yes, unfortunately.
Yeah.
To a certain extent, it's also a timing issue. Some of those projects come back every year, and some of them we got the order last year, quarter one, but this year we'll get the order quarter two or later in the year. Of course, as these are bigger projects, the timing makes the difference.
Great. Thank you very much.
Operator, please next question.
Next question is from the line of Guillermo Peña from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you very much. Hi Nico. Hi Carolina. Just a couple of questions. One on restructuring. Which regions would you be focusing on increasing the efficiency level? A second one regarding the growth target. You said that you're happy with the 10%, but over the last decade, there's only two years really, but it's really driven by one acquisition that the company actually was above 10%. All the other eight years, that 10% has been very far from the real target. I just wonder when do you see that growth happening, and how much of it will be organic, how much of it driven by acquisitions? So far with 10 years back in history, it seems very aspirational, I would say, but not a feasible target. Thank you.
If I start with the second question, if you look back the 10 years, unfortunately or fortunately, I don't agree with you. If you look at the 10 years, like I said, on average we grew 9%, you can argue, indeed, it's not 10%. I think if you can grow 9% over a time span of 10 years, year after year, I think it's a very solid performance. Again, we see this 10% to five plus five as really a goal and ambition in our company. If it's now nine, if it's four and six or six or four, as such, it doesn't really matter. We see it more as a long-term goal where we strive for, it's also an easy figure for our internal organization to remember and to focus on.
When it comes to the restructuring, I would say the existing programs are to a big extent focused on Europe, both for Entrance Systems and EMEA. We still have some in China and also in Latin America. I would say that the best sort of estimate for the next program is that it would be a similar footprint for that one as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Guillermo. Operator, do I have another question?
Yes. The next question is from the line of Gaël de Bray from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Good morning, everybody. I have a question on the pricing development, because obviously the price rises are still coming through, but perhaps a bit less than the previous two quarters, which I think is somewhat surprising given the continued rise in steel cost in particular. Could you maybe elaborate on the pricing momentum across the divisions? That's the first question. The second question relates to the strong acquisition agenda that you mentioned in the press release. Could you elaborate on that in terms of whether we should expect to hear about the first acquisitions and your direction shortly? Thanks very much.
Yes. If I start with the second question, I repeat that when it comes to our acquisition strategy, nothing has changed. If already something has changed, is that we would like to further accelerate those activities. We're working hard to fill the pipeline. It's true that in Q1, we did not announce new acquisitions. It has, I would say, nothing to do with me or with the change of CEO. It's more a timing issue. We have different projects in the pipeline, and we are confident that we will be able to land some of them in the remaining part of the year. When and how much, that depends, of course, also on the other side. Because the tango you have to be with two. We are confident we have interesting projects in the pipeline. Again, that strategy will continue.
When it comes to pricing, you could argue that the 1% is a little bit on the lower side. It's also a bit different from region to region and from product to product. If I start with EMEA. In EMEA, we have a strong price improvement, we, I would say, overcompensate material costing increases with pricing. I don't see too many issues there. It was more challenging in the Americas and then in U.S. in particular, where we had tried to increase prices and where then the market was not always following. Now, of course, material prices are in theory the same for everybody. I know that in previous quarters we have discussed a little bit about some of the competitors hedging or not. Over time, material prices are the same for everybody. As such, it's a good thing because as such, everybody can increase prices.
It's more the timing when the different players in the market do what. The good thing is there that we have seen now in quarter one also competition announcing price increases and some of them also announcing significant price increase. That should ease up a little bit the situation and make it also easier for us to further increase our prices. When you come to China, it's of course, in the first place, a challenge on the metal door business. We have explained and discussed it, I think, several quarters also in the past. What we try to do there to get more pricing power out of the market is come also with new products, new product developments. We see that in China, like for like, the same product, it's very difficult to increase prices in a significant way.
We try to do it through a different angle, coming with new products that then have a better cost structure and that we then in that way can improve our margins. Overall, we are confident that we will be able to further increase prices now in quarter two. That situation should ease up a little bit on the pricing side. On the material price increase side, of course, things are not easing up. Material price increases continue, definitely in the U.S. That problem is definitely not over yet, but it's a good challenge to work on.
All right. Thanks very much.
Thank you, Gael. Over to you, Carolina. Did you have any impact from changed accounting principles in the quarter, IFRS 15 or anything else happening in the quarter?
I think the good news for us and those following us is that there were no material changes, and we don't plan restates. We had a smaller impact in Entrance Systems with revenue recognition. They'll have around SEK 70 million that is now in the first quarter of the year instead of being in the last quarter of the year. You see that now in the first quarter, and you will not see it in the fourth quarter. Overall, no big changes and therefore no restate.
Thank you, Carolina. Operator, do we have another question on the line?
Yes. The next question is from the line of Peder Frölén from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Hi, thanks for taking my question. Thanks, Nico, for sort of opening up a bit what you think about the company and the strategy. Any fine tuning that you mentioned, would this indeed be a good sort of timing for that? That's sort of just my first question. Secondly, to Carolina, we talk about the 50 basis points dilution on direct material. If you just look at the gross raw material sort of cost increase in the quarter, if you could give us that in absolute terms, maybe also to try to give us that figure for Q2 and full year. Thanks.
Yeah. Perhaps on the first question, since I started, traveled intensively, visiting customers, visiting partners, distributors. Visiting in the first place our own operations and meeting our own people. Also for me to learn the business and to learn the industry, because obviously I come from a different industry. There is a lot of things to learn, and I expressed already before that I'm positively impressed with what I see and what I learn. Perhaps a bit too early to make strong and bold statements. I think I will continue in the coming weeks to have my journey of traveling and visiting. With the information I have today, I must say, don't expect big strategic changes. I believe our fundamental strategy as we have it laid down today is a solid strategy that has proven good results in the past.
I'm confident if we continue to execute that strategy in a good way, that we also will see good financial results in the future. For sure, we will fine tune left and right that strategy. Again, with the information I have today, don't expect big changes.
On the material side, there is a starting point what we consider direct material. Out of that, probably in this quarter, around a third is related then to raw material. We have an increase of between 3%-4%, sort of like comparing on the material side. Again, here this is mainly then on the Americas and on APAC, because it's a mixed effect then significantly from Global Technologies, and we will see similar effects in the second quarter. We also have to remember we have 100 days inventory, so we sort of have one quarter of a delay before we really see the raw material prices coming into our direct material effect. For the rest of the year, I think we have to wait and see.
3%, 4%. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Peder. The clock is soon 11. I'd like to thank everybody, and handing back to Nico for your closing remarks.
Okay. First of all, I thank everybody here in the room for being here. Thanks also on the call, also for the interesting questions. Like I also started this call, we are happy with the start of the year. We believe it's a good start of the year. Especially pleased with our 4% organic growth. For me personally, coming into this company and coming into this industry, of course, very excited and very happy and also proud that I can take this position and then work together with the Assa Abloy team to further develop the company and bring it to a next level in its development. Again, very positive about the market we are in and the strong leadership position we have in that market.
Of course, looking forward also to a good cooperation and a good relation with all of you in the coming years. Thank you.