Okay. Good morning, everybody. This is Jörgen Rosengren. I'm the CEO of Bufab, and I welcome all of you to this conference call introducing the first quarter 2019 results for Bufab. I am here with Bufab's CFO, Marcus Andersson, and we will be going through our PowerPoint presentation, which is available on our Extranet under the Investors section. Throughout this call, we'll be referring to the page numbers in that PowerPoint presentation. I'm going to start off with page two. To summarize the first quarter of 2019 in a few brief points, we can say that, firstly, we had a very continued very good growth, in fact, healthy growth, as we have had now for quite some time of 15%. The order intake was slightly less than the net sales, but in line with it.
This growth of 15% consisted of 6% acquired business, 6% organic growth, and a contribution of 3% from currency effects. The organic growth, in turn, was the result of stable demand in the quarter relative to the first quarter of last year, which was also a good quarter. On top of this, we increased our market share significantly. So 6% acquired, 6% organic, and 3% currency, totaling 15% growth. Our operating profit also increased by 13%, so not quite, but almost the same rate as the net sales, as the top line, indicating a stable margin. Within the P&L, there were some movements on the individual lines. We had a lower gross margin, mainly due to our segment, Sweden. We also had a lower percentage of operating expenses, thus keeping the net margin, the operating margin, stable.
We had, overall, a very good performance in our segment International, basically on all metrics. But as I mentioned just before, our operating segment, Sweden, was burdened mainly by a low gross margin. We'll get back to the details on that. Just in summary, the quarter was our best ever, and it topped last year's first quarter, which also was an all-time high. And we had, in this quarter, our best ever net sales, but also our best ever operating profit and net profit in the same quarter. And we are using this area of development to continue to invest in our strategy to become the leading player in the world in this field, and the strategy we call Leadership 2020.
With that, I would like to turn over to our CFO, Marcus Andersson, who will be taking you through the details of our financial results, starting on page two.
Thank you very much, Jörgen. If we start by going through the financial highlights for the group on page three, you can see that the order intake was up 15%, or SEK 140 million, compared to the comparable quarter. The total net sales was up SEK 146 million, also 15%. And as Jörgen said, out of this 15%, 6% was organic. And organic growth was driven mainly by a higher underlying demand and increased market shares, mainly from segment International. Gross profit, as you can see, the gross profit margin was down with 1.3% at this point. The reason for this is mainly due to the negative development in segment Sweden, which we will talk about in a moment. But on the other hand, we had a good development when it comes to operating expenses.
So due to a good operational leverage, the negative effect of the EBITDA margin was not fully eliminated, but almost. And all in all, the operating profit rise with 15% and also by SEK 30 million, meaning SEK 190 million in EBITDA, which is the best quarterly result that we have seen ever, so another all-time high, we can say. If we take a look at the EBITDA bridge, you can see that currencies contributed with SEK 1 million during the quarter, volumes with SEK 15 million, price/mix minus SEK 7 million, and acquisitions contributed with SEK 3 million. If we turn to page four, we can now see that we have seen solid growth for 23 consecutive quarters, also good growth in the last quarter, as said. And it should be mentioned that it is not only growth.
It is also organic growth that we have seen for those 23 consecutive quarters. If you take a look on the right graph, you can see that we have had growth, as said, for a long time. If you take a look at the rolling 12-month EBITDA graph, you can see that we have had a good development now for 15 consecutive quarters, despite a slight dip in Q2 and Q3 2017, thus due to increased raw material prices, which has been a good development for the group as a whole. If we turn to page five and take a look at Segment International, you can see that Segment International's order intake increased with 12%, or SEK 78 million. Net sales increased with 13%, or SEK 83 million. Out of those 13%, 8% was organic.
This organic growth was mainly driven by higher underlying demand and increased market shares. As you will see on the next page, the development of the gross profit was good in the quarter as well, compared to the comparable quarter. The gross margin is on a high level for the segment, and that is mainly driven by price increases, the customers, and a strong euro, we can say. Also, good development when it comes to operational expenses, good operational leverage. Operating expenses percentage in comparison with net sales was down with almost 0.6 percentage points, meaning a good development on the margin, which was up with 0.7 percentage points to 11.7, meaning an operating EBITDA of SEK 85 million, an increase with 20%.
If we take a look at the EBITDA bridge on the lower right corner, you'll see that currencies contributed with SEK 5 million compared to last year, volumes with top SEK 15 million, price costing another, with minus SEK 7 million, and acquisitions that were none, so to say. If we turn to page six, you can see now that Segment International has shown not only growth but also good growth the last 24 consecutive quarters, still on a fairly high level, even though we have strong comparable month in Q1 2018. If you take a look on the right graph, you also see that Segment International has had a really good development profit-wise or EBITDA-wise during the last seven consecutive quarters, driven by an increased gross margin, good cost control, and also due to some positive currency effects when it comes to a strong euro.
If we turn to page seven and take a look at segment Sweden, we can see that segment Sweden's order intake increased with 21%, or SEK 62 million. Net sales increased with 21%, or SEK 63 million. Out of those 21%, 1% was organic, and 20% was due to acquisition of Rudhäll. Underlying demand and market share is deemed to be unchanged compared to the comparable quarter. The gross margin is down a touch, 4.6 percentage points. The reason for that is mainly the weak Swedish krona, purchase prices, and also due to acquisition of Rudhäll. About 50% of the decrease in gross margin is due to the acquisition of Rudhäll. Rudhäll, as mentioned in earlier presentations, has a different mix when it comes to gross margin, so that explains about 2.3 percentage points of the total decrease.
On the other hand, as you can see, the cost development in the segment was positive, leading to good operational leverage. But all in all, if you take a look at operating profit or the EBITDA margin, it was down with about 3.5 percentage points, meaning a decrease with 10% compared to the comparable quarter. And the segment landed in on an EBITDA of SEK 38 million. And of course, this is a disappointing result for the segment as a whole. If you take a look on the lower right corner at the bridge, you can see that currencies affected the EBITDA with minus SEK 2 million, volumes zero, price costing another, minus SEK 3 million, and acquisitions. And this acquisition, it is Rudhäll, with +SEK 3 million. If we take a look at page 8, we can now see that segment Sweden has shown growth for 12 consecutive quarters.
But as you can see, the organic growth the last two quarters are very much lower than the early quarters, but sales level are still on a high level, so to say. If we take a look at the right graph, you can also see that the growth is going in the right direction, but on the EBITDA side, it has been somewhat up on the right, you can say, which is mainly driven by price increase sorry, increased purchase prices in the quarters of the weak Swedish krona compared to comparable quarters, and also due to the mix in Rudhäll, so to say. That was the presentation of the financial figures for the group and the two segments. I'll leave the word to Jörgen Rosengren to talk about page nine.
Thank you, Marcus. So let's talk a moment about acquisitions. We restructured our acquisition strategy in 2014. Because we've had a long history of acquisitions, we made a little more than 1 acquisition a year for the last 42 years or something. But within the last four or five years, we've made seven acquisitions. And we're happy to be able to say that they have all developed in a good way. And they're all contributing, firstly, to the financial results and, secondly, also to the relevance of Bufab for our customers and our suppliers, thereby making Bufab a stronger company. Our latest acquisitions, our last one, is the company Rudhäll Group, which you can see on page 9 in the bottom left corner. We made that acquisition in October, and it's then the only acquisition that is now contributing year on year to our financial development.
We believe also that that company will be a good strength for us going forward, not least in terms of widening our relevance to our customers. On page 10, then, we have a summary of the quarter itself and the EBITDA effects. We have explained before the various segments. Just to summarize for the group, we are then seeing an effect of starting with SEK 106 million of EBITDA in the first quarter of 2018, which was in itself a very good margin, our best ever quarter at the time. This year, we have then enjoyed a slight positive effect of currencies of +SEK 1 million, split, however, between a strong positive effect in International and a strong negative one in Sweden. As you know, the Swedish krona has developed quite negatively over the past year and also into this year.
However, we've had a good effect of organic growth and, therefore, a good contribution to our profit from volume. That effect is much larger than the negative effect of price cost mix in other, which includes operational cost, meaning we have had also good operational leverage in our growth. Finally, the acquisition of Rudhäll contributed SEK 3 million to the EBITDA, which does increase from SEK 106 million- SEK 119 million in the quarter, which, as mentioned, is another all-time high. To summarize the quarter and maybe speak a bit about the output as well, we can turn to page 11. On it, you can see we see the quarter as a very good one. First, we want to mention that we have continued in the quarter as before to execute on our strategy, Leadership 2020, and continued to invest also significantly in various areas of it.
We saw strong growth in the quarter, partly because demand continued in a relatively stable way, but also because we took market share and also because we had a good effect from our acquisitions. Our gross margin was weaker in the quarter due to these effects that we've spoken about in segment Sweden, but the percentage of operating cost was lower. We had good leverage, and thereby, the good growth resulted in a record result in international and for the group as a whole. For the output, then, we can see that the raw material price is leveled off towards the end of 2018. Some have risen further. Some have gone down. But we see also, generally speaking, a better purchasing environment now than we did last year.
And that leads us to our focus for this year, which is, in the short term, of course, to manage the cycle, meaning that we have to be prepared for shifts in demand and also decreases in demand. But we also have to be prepared to continue to service our customers if there is a surge in demand. And that takes up some effort, but we think we've been able to manage it well in 2019 as we have in the two previous years. We want to continue to increase share. That's a big value driver for us. We have done so for the past many years by now, and we think we can continue to do so. And certainly, that's our ambition also in 2019.
And of course, looking at one of the beauty spots in this report, we want to improve the gross margin from its current level, mainly by price increases but also by purchase and savings, which we deem now are easier to achieve now than they were last year. And that also certainly is our ambition. Long term, we want to continue to invest in our Leadership 2020 initiatives because we see good preliminary effects of them and believe that we can have good effects of them also going forward. And always, of course, we have to put quality and our customers first and always also look for opportunities to strengthen Bufab in different ways, for instance, by further value-creating acquisitions. Looking at the outside world, we can see that there is still a lot of uncertainty.
If anything, the macro indicators have been turned down in the first quarter of 2019. Certainly, if you look at the PMI indices around in Europe, especially continental Europe, you see a very negative trend there. But on the other hand, we have strong confidence in our ability to take market share. We have also not seen a dramatic decrease, certainly not in our customers' demand. Therefore, we retain a lot of optimism about the remainder of the year. So a good quarter, in fact, Bufab's best ever, and a good outlook also, we believe, for the rest of the year. With that, that concludes our formal presentation. Now, if you should happen to have any questions, the operator will instruct you on how to ask a question. So, operator, please.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your cell phone and wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A Q&As. This will only take a few moments. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the hash key. And once again, please press star one if you wish to ask a question. Once again, star one to ask a question. There are no questions at this time. Please continue.
Okay. There are no questions, and we will conclude this call. Thank you for your interest this morning in Bufab's first quarter results 2019. Have a great day. Thank you. Goodbye.
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