Welcome to Atlas Copco Q4 Report for 2022. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answer session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing star five on their telephone keypad. I will hand the conference over to CFO Peter Kinnart. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, to this quarterly earnings call for the fourth quarter 2022 for Atlas Copco. Welcome to the call. Before we start with the official part and the presentation, I would already now like to remind you that when the Q&A session starts, we would like you to strictly stick to only one question at a time in order to make sure that all participants in the call will have an opportunity to raise at least one question. Should, of course, we have made full circle, of course, you can get back in line for other questions to ask afterwards. Thank you for that in advance. With that, I would like now to hand over to Mats Rahmström, our CEO, who will guide you through the earnings presentation.
Thank you, Peter. Hopefully everyone can see a very nice picture, and if you read the report already, you will see that the Gas and Process division did really, really well. This is one of their products. Yes, this is a thick with natural gas application. This is about to be shipped to one of our customers. This is what they look like when they say refer to bigger machines sometimes. If you start on this slide number two , we said in the heading that we had a mixed demand and orders received were SEK 36 billion. After eight then consecutive quarters with growth, it was -7% organically.
If you look at the graph, you can see that this level of 36 is still what we would refer to as fairly strong, even if this is a country down, but it's still a strong orders received compared to historical data from 2019 and forward. CT continue to grow 3% organically. Industrial Technique, driven by the electric vehicle transformation, was very strong at 18%. Power Technique was down 6%. If you recall Q4 last year, they actually had the best quarter, which is unusual for them, which is normally in Q1. This is a tough comparison. They did very well. The down was the VT, Vacuum Technique, which was linked to the semiconductor industry.
Breaking it down a little bit in Vacuum, we can see that it's memory that is the weaker part, more activity on logic. At the same time, we can see that the Industrial division and the Scientific division is doing really well. On industrial compressors, we say flat, and here we include the bigger oil-free machines and the oil-injected machine. We can still see a positive trend on the bigger machine with a single-digit and a declining trend on the smaller machine with a single-digit as well. As I mentioned in the beginning of the call, Gas and Process, it did really well.
All in all, they represent approximately 10% of revenue for a year, and this is mainly linked to different sustainable application, liquid natural gas, carbon capture, and applications like that. ITBA, Industrial Assembly Solutions, very closely linked it to the EV transformation, but also general industry did quite okay. Pleased to see that we continue the journey, strong journey on service for all business areas. OPEX was still strong among our customers. Sequentially, as expected, down, slightly down. We could also see that we had, considering the number of issues we have in supply still, I was happy to see that we had record revenues at SEK 40 billion and 60% organic growth. CT up 15%, Vacuum Technique also up 14%, Industrial 16%, and Power Technique 24%.
That was really, really good. If we change to next slide. The confirmation of the numbers, but you can also see the operating margin. We did SEK 7.8 billion and a margin of 19.5%, and adjusted for the long-term incentive program, SEK 8 billion and 20%. The 7.8 is the second best quarter we have ever done, of course. CT very good at 23.6%. Power Technique also very good at 18.2%. To some disappointment, I think on VT for ourself, we still have a lot of operational issues at 18.2%. Industrial Technique had some one-time cost this time, so they ended up at 18%. If you go to the full year, which is on slide number .four
Looking at the graph, of course, it was an exceptional year for us, helped by currency, but also strong organic growth. As record orders at SEK 158 billion, that's an 8% organic growth, and revenues at SEK 141 billion +12%, and operating profit also at the record SEK 30 billion on a margin of 21.4%. You could see equipment order growth in all our business areas, with the exception then of Vacuum Technique, and that is still linked to the semi part, the three divisions in the semi. Continued strong growth for service, which is beneficial, strong presence and success in all regions. This year, last year, I should say now, we did 30 acquisitions.
For those that were at the Capital Markets Day, there were 17 of them that are the character more of a rule up, distributor getting access to markets and segments. There were 13 of those were new technology platforms where we buy into widening our scope of supply. Quite pleased with the development there. The board of directors propose a dividend for the year, which is an increase of 21% at SEK 2.30. We change to slide five. There you have the confirmation of the numbers I just mentioned. We go to slide six. This is orders received in local currency. Starting with the Europe, in the light blue, we can see 3% up, and this is helped by the LEWA acquisition in Europe.
CT was flat, VT down, Industrial Technique was positive, and also Power Technique was positive. Quite okay for Europe. You can see the only bigger red number is Asia, where we're down 10%. Actually, it was only Vacuum Technique, where we have the main part of our semiconductor sales that was down. All the other business areas was up the double digits. Quite successful quarter for most of our business areas. More activity in Africa, Middle East, strong compressor development in the region, and also strong for Power Technique. South America up 3%, where we had strong Compressor Technique mainly. In Americas, which is flat, CT very strong, semi down and Industrial Technique up, and also PT down.
They had all these strong orders last year from rental companies, they were down as well. A little bit of a mixed picture. Slide seven then confirms the eight consecutive quarters, and now, -7 for this quarter. We go to slide eight, and there you have the bridge, still helped by the currency on orders received 10% and revenues at 14%. Of course, with the changes we have seen in currency, it's still revaluations in the result. Page nine gives the pie of the development. Of course, the declining part here is Vacuum Technique that was growing over the last two years. Strong development for Power Technique with the acquisitions they have done and also for Industrial Technique. Of course, the bigger piece is still Compressor Technique with 44%.
We are at slide number 10, which is the Compressor Technique business. If you look at the graph, we have had four quarters with very strong development on orders received. Although this growth was 3% down versus last year, sequentially down, but still on a very, very strong level. As I said earlier, the project business with the bigger machine is still positive development, and the smaller business is down single digits. Very, very strong business for Gas and Process, and it looks like that trend has continued throughout a number of quarters now. Continue with a very good development of service and its growth in all regions. Record revenues and an operating margin at 23.6%. I was happy with the acquisitions in the quarter.
We talk a lot about being more local for local. Suzhou was an on-site gas for industrial application. Happy with that one. Shandong on medical gases as well. Being more present locally to our customers, that gives us an advantage. We also released product as well, which is called the H2 Power or Hydrogen to Power. It's a modular system that you can use for pipelines for hydrogen, for example. That is strengthening the portfolio of products for the hydrogen market. We switch to Vacuum Technique. Same thing here. Although orders were down 33%, if you look at the graph, you can still see that we have a good level significantly above 2019, 2020.
But we cannot keep up, and we know this is a partly cyclical business. If you look at the semi outlook a little bit, we also look at different parameters. Of course, you see that the expectation for CapEx is down for 2023. Although that level that is indicated by our customers is still probably the third biggest year in CapEx investments. It's not that it's completely dry out. I think there is a lot of orders to fight for this year as well. We have seen down memory and some other projects being moved further in time, even into 2024, and therefore we're also seeing some cancellations.
Pleased to see that our journey to strengthen the industrial business and the scientific business continues, it's mainly driven by innovative products that we bring to the market and the solid growth for service that also helps us out. Record revenues, still, as you can see in the result, a number of problems with specifically electronics. Also the service level that we give to customers, trying to work on the orders on hand that we have, that we run a double shift, we run weekends, and then we're running out of components, so it's a very inefficient way of running operations.
You can see it either as a service to our customer to make sure that we get products to them on time, but I think we are reaching a level now that we can make this a little bit more efficient in the coming quarter. We have a positive price development in Vacuum Technique. It doesn't compensate although for the inefficiencies that we have in our operations, as you can see, with an operating margin at 18.5%. We are at slide number 12, Industrial Technique. They came in very strong, with 18% growth. It's not only out of, but also in general industry. We look at the CapEx spend in the auto industry, it's driven by the transformation to EV and hybrids.
Solid growth for service that continues. Although same here, difficulties with electronics, 16% up on revenues and with some one-time effects, spot market buy might not be this more operational, but you can see the margin at 18%. Power Technique. If you look at the graph, it doesn't look like they had a sequential down, but it's that we had the LEWA only two months in Q3 and now Q4, so they are down slightly. This is also if you look at Q4 in 2021, you can see that they had the best quarter there, which is now benchmarked. That's why we say it's down, but it's actually quite a strong number for them orders received.
You see a big demand in Europe, maybe not surprisingly to generators that we help out in many areas. Also specialty rental, which is good for the mix, continue with the success and broadening the portfolio of what they do. Also we're getting better traction for our service business in Power Technique. Record run revenues, 24% up. We have also here secured a second supplier for NGM, which has been one of the problems earlier for the smaller machines. We are internally quite pleased about that. A very strong margin for them at 18.2%. The recent acquisition, LEWA and Wangen, is doing quite well as well. Return on capital employed at 25%. We come to the profit and loss.
We give you the EBITA at 20.7%. You see the operating margin then at 19.5%. Now I think I hand over to you, Peter.
Thank you, Mats. Starting then from the operating profit of SEK 7.8, we had somewhat higher financial, net financial items. This was basically related to financial exchange rate differences on revaluation of mostly cash positions across our different subsidiaries in the world, mostly dollar-related.
We ended up with a profit before tax of SEK 7.6 billion, 19% of revenues, and a tax expense of SEK 1.6 billion of that, which is an effective tax rate of 20.5%. That was actually a rather low tax rate one might say, but that was mainly driven by partly, let's say, one-time effects that occurred, but also a very positive contribution from the innovation income deduction plans, etc., that we are making use of with all the R&D efforts that we are doing across the globe, of course.
When it comes to the effective tax rate, I would also give you, let's say, a little bit of a heads up when it comes to 2023 that based on the change of the nominal tax rate across the globe, etc., that we would expect this tax rate to go up rather than down. We believe that the tax rate will be somewhere in the lines of 22.5%-23% approximately, depending of course, also the business across different tax territories. The profit for the period after tax is then SEK 6.1 billion compared to SEK 4.9 billion a year ago, with basic earnings per share of SEK 1.24 compared to SEK 1.00 last year, which is of course corrected for the redemption and the share split.
The return on capital employed reached 29% compared to 27 last year. Admittedly, the change from 27 to 29 was mostly attributed to currency related improvements. The return on equity landed at 32% compared to 30 a year ago. I move on to slide number 15, where we will take a closer look at the profit bridge for the fourth quarter, explaining a little bit how we moved from 21.2% a year ago for the same quarter to 19.5% this year. You can see, of course, that currency had a slightly positive effect, much less positive than it had been prior this. I will come back to that in a second.
The acquisitions were also dilutive, as you can see based on the profit margin on the acquisition revenues. The biggest impact came then from the drop to related to volume price mix and other. That was mainly resulting from the continued stress in the supply chain that we are experiencing. I think we have already also mentioned that in previous communications that we did not see really any improvement in the supply chain. This is very much related to electronic components particularly, also other components in different business areas, some different ones, but the main problem that we are still facing are the electronic components. We have seen continued strengthening of our pricing efforts, and that has been very helpful. Unfortunately, it has not...
It has been strong enough at least to compensate for what we refer to as structural cost increases. We have seen whether it is material prices, labor costs that of course, have also gone up, as well as energy costs that were quite under stress lately. The supply chain constraints cause a number of effects, including for example, spot market buying that we continue to do in order to secure certain components for our electronics, but also quite a significant impact on efficiency in our operations, both for the manufacturing part as well as for the service operations. In December, there was also some impact from COVID, for example, due to the fact that particularly in China then, quite a lot of absenteeism had to be noted.
Last but not least, maybe in this list, there's also an impact from our very focused efforts in product development, which we of course continue to consider a very important investment in the future. It is not only the R&D we do in our existing platforms, that we have been for many, many decades, but also all these new initiatives that we have shown in the Capital Markets Day that will of course also require product development in order to make sure that we have the portfolio to be able to be competitive. Maybe a last point on currency.
If I compare the current quarter to the third quarter this year, and you would look at the same bridge for that period, then you will notice that the currency in the third quarter was quite positive, and that in this quarter, it is close to zero almost. That is mainly related, if not exclusively, to the revaluation of balance sheet items, particularly receivables as well as trade liabilities. That had quite a significant impact, as you can see in the financial statements in the quarterly report as well. That of course, didn't give us the same kind of support in the margin as it has done in the third quarter, for example. When it comes to that currency, what is the outlook for our currency development?
We do believe that even in the first quarter, it is likely to continue to be positive, but even less so than it has been this quarter. We, we expect based on the current exchange rates that the currency impact will continue to diminish gradually over time, but most likely still be positive at the end of Q1. If I then move to page number 16, there's a little bit more detail of all the different business areas. I would say in IT, you can see currency support that is still positive. The acquisitions are dilutive as well, and we have there also a small negative drop through.
Let's say a margin that is positive, but then affecting the operating margin negatively from one quarter to the other, slightly. In Vacuum Technique, we see, of course, a quite big impact. Both currency as well as acquisitions are here slightly negative. The biggest impact here is again, from the volume price mix and others. Here, when we talk about pricing efforts, we have been more successful than before in implementing price increases, but not to the same level as we see in some of the other business areas, which is a little bit typical of the segment, with very few customers, and rather long-term contracts with strict clauses in those contracts, allowing very little room to change the prices. Particularly because of this, Copy Exactly!
concept that they tend to implement. On Industrial Technique, we see basically no impact from the acquisitions, very small negative impact from the currency, and then a bigger negative impact also here on volume price mix and others. In Industrial Technique, also here, the supply chain constraints have been continue to be challenging. Also here spot market buying is used quite actively in order to secure the electronic components, for example. This leading then to the drop through as we see it here. Finally, Power Technique with I would say nothing less than a fantastic performance from 16.3 to 18.2 with a small positive currency effect here. Slight dilution from the acquisitions of course, especially considering the size of these acquisitions.
This is maybe more important for Power Technique in the total margin, a very strong performance from organic revenue volumes. I think that summarizes the comments on the detailed profit bridges on page 16. I go to the balance sheet on page 17. I think if we compare to the last quarter, then there are no dramatic changes. Comparing year on year, a big impact that we see in the movements is of course the currency impact here as well, by about SEK 14 billion. That was a bit higher even in the third quarter. That has come down over the last quarter by about SEK 3 billion. That SEK 14 billion is predominantly almost half linked to the intangible assets.
The rest is, you could say, largely linked to inventories and receivables in relatively equal terms. Of course, the balance sheet is also affected by the fact that we did a number of acquisitions over the year. If you compare December 31st last year with this year, there's quite a significant impact there. If we go to the liability side, on the equity, there is of course an increase, which is related to our profit that we have generated over the year, also a translation difference on our holdings in subsidiaries that is quite substantial, as you can see in the details of the quarterly report.
The interest-bearing liabilities went up due to some increase in short-term funding. The non-interest-bearing liabilities are predominantly almost exclusively linked to the increase of trade payables, which, when we look at the third, fourth quarter, you could say that the increase in working capital in the fourth quarter has mainly been on the receivable side related to the high level of invoicing, while the inventory's increase has been fully compensated by an equal increase roughly in the payables. I move to page number 18 to give you a few insights on the cash flow. A few important points maybe to comment upon here are to start with the high operating cash surplus generated to the operations of SEK 10.3 billion, compared to SEK 7.6 the same quarter last year. Quite a substantial difference.
We also see that the taxes paid are a little bit higher than what we saw last year. That is mostly related to timing difference, I would say, in how these payments are executed. The change in working capital, which was SEK 1.4 billion compared to a positive of SEK 0.5 billion a year ago. On the working capital, I think it's important to compare also to the SEK 7.4 billion for the full year. There is still an increase in our working capital, as I said, mostly linked in the last quarter to the receivables. The pace of the increase is much, much lower than it was at the early stages of 2022, where we saw much more significant amounts.
That gives us a cash flow from operating activities of SEK 6.8 billion compared to SEK 8 billion. We also see, as we have in the previous quarters, the increased expenditures on the investments in property, plant, and equipment related to the many initiatives that have been initiated around building additional production capacity, mostly on the Vacuum Technique side, but also in Compressor Technique and other smaller initiatives across the other business areas. In total, we say that the expenditures on investments have doubled this year compared to the previous year, looking at the full year numbers. That then gives us, in the end, a total cash flow, operating cash flow of close to SEK 6 billion compared to SEK 6.7 billion last year.
We have spent, let's say roughly SEK 1 billion of that operating cash flow into acquisitions throughout the fourth quarter, bringing the total acquisition expenditures for 2022 to SEK 11 billion almost. On slide 19, just a few highlights on the earnings dividend and redemption historically. Earnings are at SEK 4.82 per share, as you can see here. The dividend that will be proposed to the annual general meeting for approval will be SEK 2.30 per share. That dividend will be paid out in two installments as that's been the case over the last number of years. Equal installments of SEK 1.15 per share each time. The record day of those payments will be May second and October 20th, 2023.
That would give us a total amount of SEK 11.2 billion that would be paid out to the shareholders in two installments of SEK 5.6 billion each. With that, I conclude the cash flow and the dividends and would like to give the word back to Mats Rahmström for the near-term outlook.
Okay. When we look at the near-term outlook, then we are trying to qualify then the activity level between Q4 and Q1, among our key segments in the market. As you can see that we've said that activity level will remain at current level. This is of course a very uncertain environment that we operate in right now with the pandemic in China. We see the inflation and energy prices and of course some of the new regulation that has not had full impact yet, like the CHIPS Act, for example. Based on what we see in activity level right now and the quotes we have out, this is support this statement and the forward-looking state. I think we can open up for questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Klas Bergelind from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hi. Hi, Mats and Peter. Klas at Citi. If I had to ask one, I'm gonna focus a bit on Vacuum Technique and the backlog. When we met you at the recent CM D in November, I think Geert said that he felt the backlog was supported, that there hadn't been any cancellations. I think you alluded to, Mats, on the memory side that there has been some cancellation. To what extent is this widespread across several customers? Do you have any indication whether these cancellations will intensify, or was this more of a one-off? Thank you.
No, it is right that we have seen cancellations. It's in the area of SEK 1 billion for the group. The lion's share of that is within Semi. The first one, of course, to move production days have been with the customers that are focused on memory. I don't want to speculate, but I think we have seen a number of handful of customers that have delayed into 2024. Of course, they cancel that project with us, and it's not lost business. We would expect to get that back when they reactivate those programs again.
Thank you.
Thank you, Klas.
The next question comes from Andrew Wilson from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to try and I guess, pick up on the VT and the IT margins. You've obviously provided some kind of detail around some of the challenges and some one-off effects in IT. I just wanted to pick up on VT, I think you sort of... On your comments on the margin, I think you talked about now getting to a position where you felt that some of those challenges would be behind us. Therefore, I guess, should we expect the Q1 to already be moving back to, I guess, the sort of levels of margin that we've seen in vacuum over maybe the last sort of 12-24 months?
I guess similarly on IT, you alluded to some one-time effects, and I appreciate some of that is probably supply chain. Again, should we again in the Q1 expect IT to sort of move back to again the sort of trajectory that was on prior to the Q4? Thank you.
We start with vacuum then, there are a number of issues with electronics. Since you are aware, we have quite a lot on orders on hand still to be delivered to our customers. To gain those and win those orders, of course, we have committed to delivery dates. We have done our utmost to deliver on those dates to customers so they are up and running. That means that we are running evening shifts, double shifts, weekend shifts. Then we utilize our staff, of course, in an inefficient way because suddenly we don't have components. That is actually what happens physically on the floor.
We have the option then to say, "Okay, should we not take this cost to support our customers, or should we." Actually, I say that'd be good to go back to more normalized shifts. I think over time now that we've seen a little bit less of activity and demand, I think we will normalize a little bit operations. The biggest challenge is still for us then to deliver on time with the lack of a secure supply chain for electronics. You might ask a little bit why is it so much difficult here? Why don't we fix it easily? Peter mentioned it before that many of these big customers work with something called Copy Exactly!. That means that they cannot change any components in a product without getting qualified by the customers.
To get the second source or something, we actually need to bring that component and get that qualified at the customers. Of course, then we are limited to one source as well. It's not easy bargaining with pricing either. I think it'll take a little bit more time to recover. We have compensated ourself for some of these things that is more related to pricing of components material, but not fully to this adjustment that we think is more on our side than our customer sides. We don't force that pricing fees to our customer. Maybe you want to comment on IT.
Yeah. On IT, I think it's a mix of different things. There is, I think, similar to what we see in VT, although it's of course a different segment, but also there, the pricing component is not as strong as it is in Compressor Technique and Power Technique, for example. That is also again, related to the segment and the limited, the very concentrated customer base in motor vehicle industry particularly. The supply chain issues are also there, quite important. Again, the electronics is also there, the key issue.
With the pricing that we are able to push in, and which we are improving compared to the last quarter and the previous quarters, we still are not fully compensated there for these kind of effects that we see. On top of that, there are, as mentioned, a couple of one-time items, which are more related to typical procedures that we do in the last quarter of the year, and that required us to make some adjustments across the different divisions. In IT/BA, those I think were a little bit more significant and therefore we took, we felt that it was relevant to mention them in the explanation in the quarterly report as well.
Maybe you can say in general when it comes to electronic supply with the order volumes that we place with our suppliers today, we're constantly really pushing the envelopes to the maximum of their capacity. It is difficult for them without machine investment to catch up. Of course, if volume would go down to something more normalized, we wouldn't have any issues. We are sure of physically it's really that pushing to a new level of supply that is struggling to get that right.
Thank you. Appreciate all the commentary on that.
You're welcome, Andrew.
The next question comes from Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I'll stick with one as requested. I was wondering if you could give us some visibility on how much your backlog extends, really. How many quarters or months of visibility do you have across your businesses? The reason I'm asking is when we look at your book-to-bill, there it's one of the lowest I guess we have to go way back probably to 2009, obviously you might have accumulated a lot. As we look about thinking how we should model the next couple of quarters, can you shed some light on how much visibility you have in each of the businesses now after what you've accumulated given the supply chain issues? Thank you.
I think on the revenue side, of course, we continue to push very, very hard to get as much output as we can out of the factories because as you of course know, we do have quite a significant orders on hand position. We have those commitments to customers. We will do everything possible to continue to get the maximum invoicing and output based on the expectations of our customers. If we can continue to boost revenues, we will not hesitate to do so. On the orders, of course, it'll depend quite a lot on the activity level in the market, and that we expect to be similar to the previous quarter.
Sorry, I might not have expressed myself maybe correctly. As for your point on what you have on hand, how much does it cover far out in the future? Does it cover one year of visibility? Does it cover six months? If you could give some color per division, because we have the orders, but we don't have the backlog, especially if you had some cancellations.
No, we are of course, well aware exactly what we have ordered on hand per division and per, but we are not willing to share that fully with the market at this point at least.
Understood. Thank you.
The next question comes from Andreas Koski from Exane. Please go ahead. Andreas Koski, Exane, your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead. The next question comes from Vladimir Sergievskii from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon, gentlemen, and thank you for taking my question. Let me ask about more conceptual question on longer term Vacuum Technique margin. How feasible you think it is to expect them to recover to this historical 24%-25% range, which is above even compressor margins, given that you're obviously delivering to a relatively more concentrated client base and the proportion of aftermarket is lower than what it is in compressors?
Yeah. for us, it's of course, the benchmark for us, to get back to those levels that we have seen in the past. There is not really any reason why we shouldn't be able to. There is no structural changes in the marketplace. The only caveat there is that, we have the pricing, that we work with, and in some time, some cases with the Copy Exactly!, we also deliver the same product. Of course, there is as much as the market accept as a price increase. I mean, sometimes it takes a generation of products then with better efficient, better value generation to get back to the same, gross margins as we have seen in the past. I think that might take...
It's not an overnight thing, and I don't think you will see it in Q1 if that's what you're expecting. I think it's just like Atlas Copco, it's grinding away on both our operational issues, and of course on pricing. I think the more the short term is more that we fix the operational issue and adjustments in our profit and loss. We take it step by step. Of course we see that as a benchmark for ourselves to get back to those levels.
Super clear. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Mattias Holmberg from DNB. Please go ahead.
Hi, Mattias Holmberg, DNB here. I was curious to hear a bit more on the comment that you've seen activity levels in several end markets weaken in the quarter. If you can make any comments on the cadence, perhaps if the run rate was improving or worsening through the quarter, and also if there were any specific end markets in addition to what you've said here that could be interesting to mention?
I mean, if you look at the different businesses of ours, of course, Q4 from an orders receipt perspective, we expect it to be sequentially down every time. The main difference in demand is of course in the memory sectors on semi and the strong side is all the sustainability applications, both in Compressor Technique, but also then in Industrial Technique with electric transformation. I would say, from our perspective then, we are in a strong position when it comes to changing application to more sustainable applications. We have more products than we have had in the past. Even in a slower climate, I think we challenge ourself at least to grow in those segments.
The main downside in the report is on the semi side, specifically on the memory side. I don't know if you want.
Nothing on if the run rate was worsening or improving through the quarter?
I think China I think is the only one. I don't know exactly we have the numbers on Asia in front of us, of course we had at its worst we had 48% of our people homesick. I think that relates to our customers and to our suppliers as well. I assume that there was very little activity, and we can see in some of our factories that we had very little output during December as well. I think that we need to give China and Asia a really look at that in the beginning of the year because we are normally down in China, and it seems like they have new funding coming into the new year.
For us, Q1 in Asia will be extremely important for our performance in 2023.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Max Yates from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. I just wanted to ask about the Compressor division and the regional trends, and specifically on Industrial 'cause I was slightly surprised to see that kind of orders had grown in Asia and Africa, but had decreased in all of the other regions. I would've thought because of the disruption in China that Asia would have been a bit weaker. Could you maybe talk about in your sort of shortest cycle businesses, when you look at what is happening in Europe, what is happening in North America, are there anywhere kind of in your sort of small and mid-size compressors where you are seeing weaker activity? And how would you sort of characterize how that has evolved?
Because it looks like from the outside that volume growth is now negative, and particularly in places like Europe, is now declining in your short cycle businesses. Could you talk a little bit about how that's evolved for industrial compressors specifically?
Yeah. I think for industrial compressors, especially the smaller ones, we have indicated that we have seen a single-digit decline. I think that's particularly in Europe, something we have seen. It's often of course related to the fact that this business is also going through indirect sales channels, distribution channels, which normally have built up a certain amount of stock. The moment that they see some kind of hesitation in decision-making processes of their customers, they will typically be very hesitant to place new orders. As a result of that, of course, that will have an impact on amount for those type of machines. Typically, even with direct customers, you would have quite short decision cycles.
Of course, an owner that is feeling the impact of maybe lower confidence level in the economy will be feeling that very quickly in his own pocket and therefore will be also quite quickly to decide against a new investment rather soon. Whereas on the large project, of course, we see typically longer discussions, also multiple departments involved, more technical evaluations, and then those decisions have usually already been taken and continue to be executed even at a significantly later stage. I would say Europe was the main area where it was softer, North America a little bit less, and then Asia still...
This, smaller compressor could also be influenced if we have announced price increases, to distributors that actually place orders, a little bit early before those to stock up a little.
Do you have any sense of inventories across your distributors? Are you able to check with them kind of what inventory levels they're running with? Do you get the sense that those are elevated and that might be part of it as well or is that not really the case?
No, we don't really have information on that with our distributors. It is generally a fact that, of course, as business is growing, they tend to build up stock. They want to be able to deliver fast to their customers. That's usually one of their main sales arguments as well, that they have it available and they can simply deliver it immediately. Typically, they will have a significant stock amount when the business is really booming. Then, of course, when things start to turn in the other direction, they will of course be hesitant to order. What typically happens is that the customer would order from the distributor, the distributor would deliver, but would then not be inclined to replenish that stock right away.
He will wait for the next order for that type of machine to come before he will order to us, let's say, in this case.
When we say that we don't know, we mean that we don't consolidate it on our level. Of course, the local customer center and the sales teams are well aware of what they have in inventory.
Understood. Yeah. I understand. Thank you.
The next question comes from Sebastian Kuenne from RBC. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Sorry for drilling again into the cost issues. What surprised me a little bit was the fact that you seem to see those cost rises for suppliers for electronics only now, where many other companies saw it already in, you know, April, May 2020, so more than, you know, two years ago. What has changed now in Q4 that it makes it so different? Why do you have to buy a spot market now, and why was that not the case in the past? Maybe you can, you know, shed some light on that issue. Thank you.
I think that is probably a miscommunication from our side or a misunderstanding on your side. I think we have talked about the spot market buying several quarters. It's been a factor for us to make sure that we can supply to our customers. We have the choice between not supplying or buying to extremely high prices of electronics. It's been ongoing for quite a number of quarters. I think it's been in our report as well.
As I commented also, if you compare the bridge for the Q3 with the bridge for the Q4, you will see that the cost impact in relative terms is at all that different from what it was the previous quarter. The big difference between the two quarters is actually more related on the currency side. That being said, I don't want to indicate that we are hiding behind currency to not talk about some issues that we need to tackle. I think this is quite similar from my perspective, as it has been in last quarter and previous quarters. I think that is nothing new really that we see this quarter.
It seems to be quite persistent and continues to affect our profitability also this quarter.
Understood. Thank you.
The next question comes from James Moore from Redburn. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. It's Peter. Maybe could I just have a clarification on something you said earlier, a question? Just on your order cancellations, the SEK 1 billion, do you adjust your orders negatively to net down for the SEK 1 billion cancellation, or do you show your orders gross excluding that? That's just a clarification. My question is, could you scale the impact on the margin in PT from the one-offs spot buys and the obsolescence, please?
Yes, James. I think very relevant question. The orders that are canceled are recorded as negative orders received. They reduce the number of the total value of the orders received, and they are not excluded from that orders received number. Secondly, I'm not 100% sure what you mean with the second part of your question, because in Power Technique, we also do have some of these effects, just like in all the other business areas, in fact. They are not as prevalent, and we don't really have significant one-time items or one-offs in Power Technique.
My apologies. I thought it was in Power Technique. Which was the division that had the particular inventory adjustment, obsolescence adjustment?
It was in Industrial Technique.
Could you scale that inventory adjustment impact as a % of revenues by any chance?
I think for Industrial Technique, like I mentioned, we basically have done as we do in many of our different organizations, we do, of course, typically in the course of Q4, a lot of stock takings, in order to prepare also for our audit, together with our auditors. We also recalculate our provisions for slow moving items. In the case of Industrial Technique across the different divisions, this was a little bit more significant than it was for the other BAs. In ITBA, it was roughly somewhere around 1.5% of the Industrial Technique revenues for the quarter.
Thank you, Peter.
The next question comes from Rizk Maidi from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
A quick question on your pricing strategy. Correct me if I'm wrong, you seem to be intentionally reluctant to charge your customers from what you call non-structural cost inflation, so that spot buying, inefficiencies in your own operations. Obviously, this question is relevant to Compressor Technique and Power Technique, and not Vacuum and IT, where you have a sort of a concentration of customers and sometimes, you know, this Copy Exactly! thing. It just feels that you're potentially leaving some pricing on the table. Please if you can have any clarification there.
It might sound like that, Of course, we are trying to price all our products, according to the value we generate for our customers. We try our best to increase prices. When we benchmark a little bit, we can see you're right with that, there are a number of components pricing, material prices that we successfully have compensated for. That we have some other areas, where it's also difficult for our customers to accept a price increase. We say, okay, these are things that the operational will arrange anyway, so we get back to the margin where we would like to be. It's not like we are not trying to increase our prices, and we always try to price our product according to value.
The biggest opportunity for us is always the innovation, bringing new value, transforming the market to something new. This is why we can have a higher margin than most industrial companies. This is what we continue to do with innovation. We are not hesitating to increase prices.
Understood. Thank you.
We are approaching the...
The next question comes from Anders Roslund from Pareto Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. I just have one question regarding the FX impact. You mentioned the revaluation of working capital during the quarter. Is that a one-off item, or was it simply that the effect was positive in the third quarter and more normalized in the fourth quarter? Could you help us interpret the revaluation effect?
Yes. I think if you compare the bridge for the different quarters, let's say the third quarter and the fourth quarter, to be precise, and you calculate the impact on the margin of the currency effect between those two quarters, then I think you will get to a difference of approximately minus 1.6%. I think we have a positive impact on the margin in Q3 of 1.9%, and in Q4, only 0.3%. Basically, you can say that the entire difference between those two quarters is actually related to the revaluation of receivables and trade payables.
That is, of course, has to do with the fact that if we look at our currency basket, we were at an absolute summit when it comes to the weak Swedish krona versus very strong dollar and other currencies in the world. That has changed quite dramatically over the fourth quarter, and that has resulted in a revaluation of our balance sheet positions at the period end rate of December versus period end rate September. That was quite a substantial impact. Is this a one-time item, or is this something that will recur in the future? Well, that depends very much on the exact currency development. If the dollar remains on the current and the Swedish krona remain on the current levels, then basically there is zero impact on revaluations.
Should the dollar weaken further and the Swedish krona strengthen, it is possible that or it is normal that we would have new evaluation impacts. The question is, of course, how big that will be, and that will depend very much on the exact exchange rate. That, unfortunately, I cannot predict yet.
We wish. We wish.
We wish. Yes.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
Anders.
Thank you, Anders. With that, we have come to the end of our quarterly earnings call. We thank you all for your participation and for the very good questions. We hope that we've been able to give you a good answer to some of those questions you have had. With that, I hand back to the operator.