To the C-RAD Q1 2025 report presentation. For the first part of the presentation, participants will be in listen-only mode. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing #5 on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to CEO , Cecilia De Leeuw and CFO Linda Frölén. Please go ahead.
Welcome to our Q1 presentation. We started the year with a solid quarter in a wait-and-see market. As most of you know, C-RAD is active within radiation therapy, and more than half of all cancer patients undergo radiation therapy at some point of the treatment. Our focus at C-RAD is the end-to-end surface-guided workflow from CT room to treatment room, where our surface-guided radiation technology, or SGRT, supports that the dose reaches the tumor and not the healthy tissue of the patient. Let me first zoom out and remind you of C-RAD's long-term strategy and priorities. Also, as many of you know, we have announced our medium-term financial targets, which I will come back to later on in the presentation. First, I will take you through our progress for Q1. Let me take you through the slide left to right.
First, I will start to the left with the market. We C-RAD have a global reach and are expanding step -by -step to grow our sales. In line with our ambition to grow in the U.S., we had U.S. retrofit wins on Varian linacs also for this quarter. That is a good step in the right direction to strengthen our position in the U.S. With our focus on EMEA, we are pleased that order intake was up 15% in the quarter. In addition, we also held an EMEA distributor training in the quarter. In APAC, we received a large multi-hospital order in Taiwan. Secondly, we have a market-leading patient-centric portfolio, and we invest in innovation. At the important trade show ASTRO, we launched new patient-centric functionality with a focus on the clinical workflow, and that we have developed in close collaboration with strategic customers.
At ASTRO, we also presented our new Catalyst Plus Lite offering for the first time. This offering is designed for clinics that are in the beginning of their SGRT journey for safe patient positioning. Thirdly, we see an untapped potential in the market, supported by SGRT becoming standard of care in many markets, and also an untapped potential of equipping existing linear accelerators or proton machines. Growing services is another priority for us, which not only drives recurring revenue, but is also key for long-term customer partnerships. For Q1, order intake for service grew 58% compared to Q1 last year. Finally, C-RAD has good financial stability. We continuously work with operational efficiency improvements to step-by-step improve scalability. For Q1, we continue to display a solid profitability in a challenging market. Let's take a look at the Q1 performance. The.
Started with a solid order intake of SEK 97 million, a 5% growth compared to Q1 last year. That is in a wait-and-see market. The main contribution came from EMEA, but also from APAC. Revenue increased with 1% to SEK 119 million, mainly driven by strong deliveries in the Americas and APAC. We had a solid underlying EBIT margin in Q1, mainly due to cost efficiency. We are both driving cost control and implementing measures to streamline our operations. The EBIT margin, when excluding for unrealized currency effects, was 18%. Let's look further into the regional performance. I will start off with the Americas. Addressing Varian's installed base of linacs is part of our long-term focus to strengthen our position in the U.S. market, as I mentioned earlier. We had good progress also for this quarter.
In addition, we confirmed our strong position in the proton segment by a prestigious Wisconsin contract. However, the overall U.S. market is affected by the uncertainty created by the tariffs, and we see a slowness in the decision-making. Order intake for Americas decreased by 21% to SEK 19 million in Q1. It is worth noting that we have not yet seen the tariffs come up in any customer discussions so far. For the revenue, on the other hand, we have growth of 35% in the quarter due to a strong backlog conversion. Moving over to EMEA, I am pleased to see that the hard work by the team is paying off in the quarter in sales activities, campaigns, as well as actively supporting our customers in their clinical use. While the German market continues to be slow, we closed sizable service contracts, both new and extensions of expiring contracts.
We also took important product orders in Germany, as well as France and in the U.K. Order intake increased by 15% to SEK 38 million. Revenue in EMEA was down 39% to SEK 36 million, and this is mainly impacted by the lower order intake of last year. Finally, APAC. In APAC, SGRT adoption is growing across the region. Order intake increased by 15%. This was supported by orders from Taiwan, as I mentioned earlier, but also increased SGRT uptake in Australia and China. India is a market with large potential, still at an early stage. I was pleased that we received a number of important orders to research hospitals in the country. This gives us a good foothold across the market in this emerging market.
Revenue in APAC grew 41% to SEK 50 million in Q1, supported by the rollout of SGRT across APAC and the large number of installations we had in the quarter. I just came back from ASTRO 2025, and ASTRO is one of our most important trade shows in the industry. It's a strategic part of our marketing and sales. The visitors are mainly clinical staff or part of the hospital administration, so they are very relevant for us. This was our best ASTRO ever, and it's not only for the record number, more than 7,000 global visitors to ASTRO, of which many were coming to our booth, but for the high-quality discussions, and I would say more advanced than previous years. We were fully booked with live demos and meetings from morning to evening, generating strong interest and differentiation from in a competitive landscape. As I mentioned earlier, we launched our new product enhancements and the Catalyst+ LITE. With that, over to you, Linda, for a closer look at the financials. Thank you, Cecilia.
I will take you through some of the main financials that have shaped our first quarter. As Cecilia has already explained, order intake and revenue, I will not go into that again, but rather focus on gross margin, cost levels, EBIT margin, and cash flow. Gross profit for the quarter was SEK 78 million compared to SEK 76.6 million a year ago. The increase in gross profit is following the increase in revenue year on year and was also slightly positively affected by mixed effects.
The gross margin for the quarter was 66% versus 65% last year, and the current levels are in line with what we have had in previous quarters and within the range of what we would have expected. The gross margin for the quarter was positively affected by proton deliveries, together with a higher share of service revenue. The positive effect was partly offset by sales of other lower margin products. Looking at our main operating expenses, you see at the left-hand side of the chart that they decreased year on year from SEK 64 million last year to SEK 56.1 million in this quarter. Q1 of 2024 was impacted by legal expenses related to the settled dispute with a former employee. The decrease is also related to lower external expenses, as we have gradually replaced external consultants with own employees.
At the right-hand side of the chart, you see that quarter-on-quarter OpEx is slightly down from SEK 57.1 million in Q4 to SEK 56.1 million in this quarter. The decrease is mainly related to lower expenses for traveling. EBIT for the first quarter was SEK 10 million compared to SEK 14.2 million a year ago. This quarter was affected by unrealized exchange rate losses of SEK 11 million on the revaluation of operating balances due to the stronger SEK at the end of the first quarter. Let me emphasize that the losses are unrealized. Excluding for unrealized currency effects, EBIT for the first quarter was SEK 21.2 million compared to SEK 11.9 million a year ago. Looking back a few quarters, C-RAD shows continuous improved earnings and an increased profitability over time.
With this development as a foundation, we are well equipped to continue to grow, as we believe we can increase the EBIT margin even more over time. Our cash balances increased by SEK 10 million during the quarter and stood at SEK 161 million at quarter end compared to SEK 151 million at the beginning of the quarter. Main driver behind the increase is an operating cash flow of SEK 26 million, where improved working capital contributed with SEK 16 million. Working capital was positively impacted during the quarter, primarily from reduced accounts receivable as a result of customer payments. The positive effect from accounts receivables was partly offset by reduced accounts payables, which are normally higher at year-end. We still have a few orders pending final acceptance test on our balance sheet. Some of these are expected to be paid during Q2. Last but not least, I would like to remind you that C-RAD is a company with a strong balance sheet with no long-term debt. With that, I will hand over back to Cecilia for some closing comments.
Thank you, Linda. Summarizing the quarter, we had a solid performance in a wait-and-see market. Looking ahead, we have announced financial targets for the medium term. Our ambition and guidance to you is that in the medium term, we will have an average organic growth exceeding 10%, operating margin will reach 25%, and at least 30% of the net profit will be returned to shareholders. Our midterm targets are ambitious and reachable. Why now? I have been CEO for two and a half years and the new board two years. Together, we have worked intensively building and step-by-step improving the company, making us better suited to grow with improved profitability and resilience. We have come to a point when we feel comfortable sharing our medium-term financial targets with you. We are currently facing an uncertain market situation, but we are looking beyond today.
What is really behind these priorities? It means that we will further penetrate this market. There is untapped market potential, both in advanced and developing markets, that we want to capture. SGRT is standard of care in many markets, but still, it's early days, and there are many systems without SGRT. Hence, we see a potential to retrofit existing linear accelerators or proton machines. We have a highly competitive portfolio, which we will continue to innovate and complement. It is key for us to build long-term customer partnerships and increase the number of reference clinics. We know happy customers are our best sales reference. We see a great opportunity to grow services as our installed base of systems is growing. That is not only important for sales and happy customers, but it's also supporting our profitability. We are building a resilient company supporting scalability, resilient from a market perspective and from building a more mature company supporting growth. Again, our midterm targets are ambitious and reachable. Thank you, and over to the moderator for Q&A.
If you wish to ask a question, please raise your hand. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you all for attending the Q1 presentation. We all know someone affected by cancer, and we have an important job to do in the fight against cancer. This creates value both for patients, for clinics, and for shareholders. Thank you.