I would like to wish you a very welcome to this presentation and press conference of the Volvo Group's results for their first quarter 2018. My name is Joachim Rosenberg. I will later on moderate the Q&A session that will take place after the presentations. We will, as always, start with Martin Lundstedt, our President and CEO, and later on he will be joined on the stage by Jan Gurander, Deputy CEO and CFO for the Volvo Group. Please go ahead, Martin.
Thank you, Joachim. Also from my side, good morning to everyone to this presentation. Where to start? Maybe to say that it has been a good quarter, but it has also been a pretty challenging quarter for us. If we look into a little bit the highlights of the quarter, I think to start on why we feel still it's a very good quarter is obviously that we are increasing heavily. Sales, 19%, excluding FX. That we are also increasing the operating results up to SEK 8.3 billion and have a strong momentum in Volvo Construction Equipment, as you have seen, over 13.8%, but also record results actually for Volvo Financial Services and for Volvo Penta. On the truck side, obviously more challenging in a way that we, of course, have anticipated, but also that it is a big quarter when it comes to changes, obviously.
Still, we are very happy that we actually managed to increase deliveries with 17% already from pretty high levels last year's quarter 1. Also that we finally also got operating result that was better in absolute terms than last year. Having said that, obviously, we have a little bit of a diluted margin in this quarter. Some of them are more of a temporary character, obviously, that we have big changeovers in North America right now. We do the big changeover for Mack Trucks during the quarter 1 and also continuing to do the changeover for the full range of Volvo Trucks in North America. We, as you will see later also, had, maybe to the surprise of some of you and little bit to ourselves also on the FX side, a slightly more heavy headwind than expected.
Also obviously that with sales and deliveries going up with 17% also, that means that the continuation of the pressure of the value chain is still there. Even if we have improved, that will continue to be a little bit the case as we are increasing volumes overall, so to speak. Then you have the mix also, natural mix between services and equipment when you're increasing equipment deliveries to that magnitude. When it comes to volume development, as I said, +17% for trucks and mainly related then to North America. Even if we are doing the changeover, we were increasing for Volvo Trucks in total with almost 6,000 trucks in the quarter, whereof 4,000 in North America and 1,400 in South America, and also another 1,000 trucks for Mack in North America.
I have to say, and there I am pleased to see that the organization, the complete industrial system and also our commercial system, also the external industrial system, I promised Andreas to say that because they have been working really hard, has managed that changeover and still increasing volume because, as you see, the demand in North America is really high. When it comes to Renault and UD, slight changes. Renault slight up when it comes to medium and heavy duty and a small decrease for UD, but nothing dramatic there. Machine deliveries also for VCE, very strong, +35%. Volvo brand, +24% up and SDLG a little bit more than +50% up. If you just take China, more than +60% up. Obviously, there is a strong activity in China. Having said that, all regions are moving strongly here.
On the service sales side, +6% excluding currency. Little bit weaker than in Q4, but still a very good and high activity level. You have some impact also on the fact that you have Easter in Q1 here. I think 6% is still good pace, showing the activity level in the installed fleet, and also that we have a good focus in the different business areas. It was particularly strong this quarter for Volvo Construction Equipment. Generally speaking, good development here. Trucks, just to summarize a little bit, good demand as you have seen across the globe. Then resulting obviously that the further increase we are doing now in the industrial system is resulting in this stretched situation that we have. Again, we are gradually moving away from different bottlenecks, but new ones arising.
That is what you have read when it comes to lean, the Japanese sea, you are seeing new rocks coming up here. Still, having said that, I think the organization is working in a good way. What we also see is the balance between the service deliveries, parts into the service market, and also into our new equipment. There is, if I put like that, a constant discussion in the organization on how to make the different priorities here. The new trucks in North America, very well received. I will come back to that in a moment. Also, I think very important that we are now revealing how we are gradually rolling out our electro-mobility strategy also for trucks, and eventually also will come for Volvo Construction Equipment here. If you go down into North America, very good reception, as we said, of the new trucks.
We had a conversation with one of our dealers in Arkansas and in Tennessee, Jim Maddox, really talking about, for example, the Mack truck Anthem here. He had a conquest account of that. What is really encouraging to hear is that those trucks are loved by the drivers. I think that has been extremely important for us to opt that both for Volvo and for Mack, given the fact that the driver shortages and the attractiveness for driver will be an increasingly important decision-making part of different fleets today. That is very good to hear and some other very good receptions of that. Order intake +147% for Volvo.
Mack a little bit hampered, obviously, that we had already long order books given the big changeover, but still we feel that we have a good momentum for the two brands here, and that will continue, obviously, and we are revising upwards that we have seen. Very positive so far. Also the launch, the world premiere of the new FL Electric for urban applications. What we have said so far is that what we see is the demand coming in urban applications and more, so to speak, restricted areas where it makes sense to start with. If you do the abatement curve here, obviously it is in urban transports, it's in refuse collection. It will eventually also move into ports and quarries and mines, what have you, then into regional haulage and eventually into long haulage.
If you want to have bang for the bucks here, that is how we see this market to evolve. Having said that, we are building on the CAST, the common architecture and shared technology modular system that we have, using the experience of 4,000 electric buses in different levels, everything from hybrid to full electric. We are using that modular system also now into the truck platforms to start with for Volvo and also now eventually for Renault and Mack and UD. As you can see, applications that are opted for urban applications, both when it comes to payload and also when it comes to range. 300 kilometers is well suited then for the operation, then you can have different type of infrastructure for charging depending on how you're operating around the clock, so to speak.
Also in this area, we have good partnerships and good solution selling. We are actually taking the full responsibility of it. We thought it should have been good interest, but it has been huge interest. I think that it has been very positive for us. When it comes to the market environment, small changes. We are actually maintaining the high levels in the forecast that we've had already in Q1 for 2018. The only small changes we are doing is that we are revising somewhat upwards in North America from 280 to 300,000. Also in India, where you can see also it's both medium and heavy duty from 340 to 370,000. Otherwise, we are maintaining, as we said, the market's on high level.
The small change we have done also is that we are just showing heavy duty for Japan, because if you look into our product mix, it's more relevant to see what that is, so to speak. Otherwise, from a figure point of view, no changes. Trucks order, what can you say, continues to be very strong, plus 26% and deliveries plus 17%. Take Europe as one example, where we often get questions also what will happen with the development. As you can see, orders are up 2% and deliveries plus 9. When you look at the figures, obviously, with 2% up for orders, it is up to almost 25,000, and deliveries up 9% to almost 22,000. Still you have a positive book to bill in the quarter of almost 3,000 units. We see that it is a strong activity level here.
Maybe you can also ask yourself why did we have a little bit of decrease in Volvo Trucks orders in Q1, mainly related to some price adjustments that we did as from beginning of first quarter. That tend to have some effect of the anticipation of some of the orders. If you take Q4 and Q1 combined, I think you will see that it's working out pretty well there. Otherwise, again, North America extremely strong. Orders up 106% and deliveries up 72%. That means that order intake almost on the level on par with Europe, 23,400, whereas deliveries was only then on a level of 12,000. Huge delta there. Having said that, one big part is then related to the changeover that we are doing right now.
The biggest changeover again then in this specific quarter has been with Mack, it's going according to plan. It's going well. High pressure to continue with the ramp, maintaining obviously quality and delivery precision, not at least so we can keep the promises to customers here. South America and I think all other markets are continuing on a fairly strong level. Asia is a little bit also there between Q4 and Q1, we had some pushes of deliveries in Q4 last year for Japan and Middle East, again, nothing dramatic. Market shares, what you can say, Europe to start with, figures only to February. We were a little bit to discuss should we reveal a full quarter, we couldn't do that because we are lacking some countries.
Even if it looks like a decrease, and it is a decrease up to February for Volvo Trucks, still a strong start of almost 17%, and we also feel that March was a good delivery month for us. Renault is continuing to do the step-by-step improvement that is important, but not too quick to preserve the quality in the business here. Good to see also that North America for Volvo Trucks, that was more early out with the changeover and has done it more gradual than Mack, due to the nature of the business, is coming back, even though that we are continuing to do the changeover for Volvo Trucks as well. That was important sign. Then obviously with Mack, we did a clean cut, and we had a number of weeks with very low production when we did the phase out and the ramp up.
Japan flat is also Australia after a number of years now with good development, slight decreases, improvements in South Africa and Brazil. Generally speaking, I think a pretty stable picture here. Construction equipment, summary. Pretty straightforward. Very high market demand across the globe. Orders up, deliveries up, and better balance. As you remember, we have said many times, started with a much lower capacity utilization, obviously, but still have done a great job here. Also with the transition and transformation program that the group have been running, and in particular Volvo Construction Equipment, we see that we have a good leverage now. Really utilizing the volume and maintaining the cost base in a very good manner here.
Talking about improved performance in China is obviously the market conditions and also that we are taking market share, but also that our dealers are performing better and better, more stable situation, that I think is also very important for us. We just took a little bit of an extra detour into China. We are not often talking about it. SDLG is a successful joint venture for us and important. We have a 70% ownership, as you know here. Very good relation with our JV partner. I think also successful in many manners. As you can see, we have a targeted. This is just a little bit a snapshot of the product portfolio, some of the main products that we have targeted for emerging markets in a good way. We have a good industrial footprint.
We have good application and development capabilities in SDLG and a close cooperation with Volvo Construction Equipment, not only in China, but on global scale. This is a true asset that I think also we can continue to leverage for other parts of the group. Market conditions are strong. As you can see in the middle, that is also our own performance in China with SDLG, as well as with Volvo brand. This time we are focusing on SDLG. As you can see, we are gaining market shares also in some of the key segments for us, a strong position in wheel loaders domestically and also using as an export base. Also good operating margin. The flexibility in this company is something to write home about, I can tell you. There we have something to continue to learn.
It's a two-way dialogue on how we can use not only products together, but also process and ways of working. Market environment, everything up when it comes to guiding here, except Europe, that we are maintaining on the level that we guided for already in quarter four reporting. Europe is 0% to 10% up. When we see, we come to that in the next slide, that is a little bit overshooting right now with orders in the double digit area for Europe. Otherwise, we are guiding upwards a little bit more than we had in quarter four. It's showing the really strong momentum we have across the globe, not at least in China than in North and South America. Having said that, orders up 37%, deliveries 35%.
As we said again, very strong momentum in China, obviously, also in North America and South America. Also Europe continue to be strong from high levels. Buses. Quarter one, always, if you compare with the different quarters, a weak one. This was in particular weak. We had lower volumes, meaning that we had under absorption. We'll come back to that. Also that 2018 will be for some of our key markets, a little bit of a struggle given the replacement cycle in the tender activities in Scandinavia and in U.K. Nevertheless, that is also a little bit more pronounced in quarter one. Also the order intake decreased by 43%.
It's a little bit overdramatic here because that was related to an exceptionally strong quarter one last year, where we took in some big tender orders for Nova, but also strong order intake for the markets that I said, by nature, then have a little bit lower replacement cycle in 2018, mainly than the Nordics and U.K. Having said that shows also, Jan will come back to it more from a financial perspective later, but it shows that the platform is still too fragile to stand on, and we are falling down if we have a number of parameters against us, and here we are continuing to work with high focus. Having said that, we also had a number of very important events.
A major and important deal for Brussels of 110 hybrid buses, very important for Central Europe, obviously, with full infrastructure and also the introduction of the all-electric articulated bus. Why that is important, obviously, is that we are showing that with our modular system, we can also move into higher gross vehicle weight combinations that we also can leverage, then obviously for trucks and for construction equipment and other events. So that will come into place now as from summer in one of the main lines in Gothenburg. Volvo Penta, also very strong quarter. Sales ordering took up 19% and sales with 17%, deliveries with 13%. Particularly strong then in the industrial awe speed segments where we have put particular focus over the last years, but also in other segments. For example, the marine, also very strong.
What is encouraging to see for Penta is obviously also that we have a very good range, that we are taking orders now for Stage V. That is the new emission legislation in Europe coming into force as from 1st of January 2019. Also the Easy Connect application for boat owners. I think that will be popular even for guys like you, because that is a B2C also continuing to build on the easy boating, so to speak, how you can control your boat and how you can follow different things, et cetera. That will be our future platform for connected solutions within Volvo Penta. Finally, some words also from a business perspective of financial services. Increasingly important part of our business, as you know, in order to create the full solutions and the financial services, Volvo Financial Services are continuing to perform really, really well.
We see a good growth in the retail financing volumes up to SEK 13.2 billion in quarter one this year. We also have a good growth in wholesale financing. We've also got external technology award on the process, and it seems okay, obvious, but really to work with the quoting, approval, risk control process and to shorten lead times here is actually one of the most important factor of avoiding a lot of frustration with the customers. Here we see that we have improved that with more than 50%. For me, that is one of the keys is why VFS is also not only because this is such an important part of assembling a good solution for our customers, it's also that they are driving a service culture within the company that is extremely important.
I leave the word to our Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Jan Gurander, for the financial figures.
Thank you, Mr. Lundstedt. Figures, net sales up to SEK 89 billion from SEK 77 billion. We have a negative currency effect of a little bit more than SEK 2 billion. Currency plays a role in this quarter, both in terms of revenues, but also in terms of profitability. I think a little bit when you look upon it is actually go back one year, the US dollar was actually pretty strong. It was about around nine to the Swedish crown. Today, it's down to around 8.40, something like that. That plays a role. Without that effect, we would have seen a bigger growth in terms of sales for the first quarter this year. Otherwise, we see that we have a growth in all our market regions.
The adjusted operating income for the group as a whole goes from SEK 6.8 billion up to SEK 8.3 billion, from 8.9% in margin up to 9.3% in margin. You can see that all business areas, with the exception of Volvo Buses, is contributing to the result. Of course, as you see here, a very strong performance, especially from Volvo Construction Equipment. Looking into what is affecting the result, you can see that we have a good development on gross income, and this is valid both for trucks, also for Volvo CE. That is the volume coming through. Obviously, on the negative side here, we see that the stretched supply chain and the changeover we do in North America on the truck side is actually hampering our gross income a bit in this quarter. Selling expenses and R&D is coming in on the negative side.
A few words on the currency, negative SEK 730 million. A little bit more than SEK 200 million out of that comes from what we call the transaction exposure. The rest comes from translation of profits in our subsidiaries and also from when we calculate payables and receivables also to the new currency rates compared to one year ago. Basically, translation exposure is approximately SEK 500 million. Looking for this year, only talking about the transaction exposure for the full year, approximately SEK one and a half billion positive for the rest of the year. By that I mean that it's only the transaction exposure and calculated on the flows that we had during the course of last year. When it comes to the capitalization and amortization, we are in a phase right now where we amortize more than what we capitalize. That will gradually change during the course of this year.
For the whole year, we say that the effect will be approximately ± zero. Maybe a little bit that we will capitalize a little bit more than we amortize for the full year. The cash flow for the quarter, this is, as you know, a seasonally weak quarter in terms of cash flow. This is now the second first quarter in a row that we are on positive SEK 1.5 billion . The underlying profitability is, of course, supporting that we have a positive cash flow in the quarter. We are keeping our CapEx under control, as you can see here. You can say a pretty normal seasonal pattern when it comes to the working capital, where we usually have a pretty good effect from trade payables, but we are on the negative side from receivables and inventory.
That's what it is every first quarter in the Volvo Group. Trucks, up 17% in terms of deliveries. You can see also the net sales, when you currency adjust it, is also up 17%. We see that the vehicles is up 21% and services is up 6%. This, of course, when the mix between vehicles and services changes, that also has a dilution effect on the margins, and compared to if we had grown at the same pace with both vehicles and services. Sales goes from SEK 49 billion up to SEK 56 billion. Operating income improving from SEK 4.7 billion up to SEK 4.9 billion, while operating income margin goes down from 9.6% to 8.8%. Here we have, as on the group level, since trucks account for such a big part of the group. We're having, on the positive side, volumes and of course, the capacity utilization in the factories.
On the negative side, it is the stretched supply chain and the production changeover. When you talk about the stretched supply chain, it is about the logistics system is very much in a stretched situation. We do actually have a rush transport or speed transports, too much basically components that are up in the air instead of on the ground with the trucks or on the sea. That is costing us too much. Also due to the fact that we get late incoming materials and so on, which means that we have to have extra shifts in the weekend to complete the trucks and so on. These are the efforts that we do to actually be able to get the trucks out to the market, increasing sales with 17%, but also getting the trucks out there on time for our customers.
When it comes to the changeover effect, Martin mentioned it before. We are doing a clean cut in Mack in the quarter, which means basically that you close production on a Friday and you start up from zero on the Monday, and then you start to ramp the whole way up. I think the ramp went more or less according to plan, but it also means that you get, of course, an under-absorption in that factory when you do it, apart from the fact that you have a lot of resources and so on to do the ramp. We have selling expenses and R&D expenses being done on the negative side. Construction equipment going from SEK 16.1 billion up to close to SEK 21 billion in sales. Strong delivery quarter, 35% up. When we currency adjust, sales is up 33%.
Here is the same thing, strong deliveries, of course, in machine, 37% currency adjusted, but also a very, very good quarter for service sales, up 12% for service sales for Volvo Construction Equipment. Results from SEK 1.6 billion up to SEK 2.9 billion, 10% in EBIT margin last year, close to 14% this year, 13.8%. Here we see that higher volumes, capacity utilization goes in on the positive side. Even if we tried very hard, we didn't see anything that took us on the negative side. CE is here extremely cost conscious as well. We don't see any drift on the cost side here as well. That's very good to see. We come to buses. Remember that deliveries was down with 6%, 7%. When it comes to sales, it's up with 6%, currency adjusted, due to the fact that we have the product mix affecting us positively.
More fully built buses with bodies than what we had last year. It was more chassis last year. That is why we have this swing from a negative on deliveries to positive on sales. Good development also on the service side, as you see, up 9%. That also obviously is affecting us on the positive side on the operating income. On the negative side, we are, of course, affected by the fact that we have lower volumes in our industrial system. The 7% in terms of deliveries meant that we built less buses. It actually brought down the production pace in two our factories during the first quarter. We can see that selling expenses and admin is on a basically too high level increasing.
Here what Martin talked about before, yes, the first quarter is seasonally the weakest quarter. We obviously not satisfied with what we see. We have a lot of activities ongoing on the bus side. I think we just need to continue to work with these and also see what we can do to strengthen it. It shows you when you are weak and have weak results, you don't have any room to maneuver. If you then have a negative effect as we have here from the currency with SEK 90 million, it brings you actually from a profitability level, basically down into to a negative. That you should have more room to maneuver. We need to structurally continue to lift the profitability on the bus side. We came from a fairly, you can say, over time flat situation. EBIT was around zero. We managed to lift it up to somewhere between 3% and 4%. We have plateaued on that level and we need to continue to lift it further upwards because otherwise we don't have any room to maneuver.
Penta, strong in terms of deliveries and also sales, 17% up. Strong on the engine side, 22%. A little bit less good quarter in terms of service sales. We can say only 3%. When we see here also everything is positive, it's a higher sales level, good favorable product mix in terms of what type of engines we sell as well, and an operating margin that is just above 16%. This is the first quarter that Penta is doing that is over SEK 500 million . Finally, Financial Services, also a strong quarter, first time above SEK 600 million, return on equity close to 15%.
We have a solid and good growth as Martin Lundstedt explained, but we also have a very good performance in the portfolio in terms of credit risks. It's a very low levels that we see right now in terms of write-offs and expenses for credit losses. By that, Martin Lundstedt. Time to come back on stage. Thank you, Jan Gurander. I'll take it like this. I think we have already done the summary pretty extensively, why don't we open up for question and hopefully answers as well?
We mix the questions as always. Should we start in the back? We take three questions here, then we go over to the telephone conference. Please go ahead. I'm putting it to you.
Thank you. Andreas Bok at Coeli. A question on the European market. How do you see volumes playing out in the next two to three years? Do you expect the market to plateau? If it does that, will the competitive pressure, especially the pricing pressure, will it increase in the next coming years and thus hurt margins? Secondly, on to Mr. Gurander. On the R&D expenses, you expect to do more capitalization going forward, i.e. you have more exciting research projects. Anything you can share? Any details you can share?
First of all, on European market, obviously, we are on a good level, I should say, in Europe. At the same time, I should not say that we are on exceptionally good level. We talked about that a little bit also in quarter four reporting, that if you see, so to speak, the long-term trend line, probably should be a little bit under where we are right now, but nothing super dramatic. Obviously, there is always a little bit of looking for signs, when will it plateau, how it look like. ACEA came in, for example, with figures now in March that registrations was down 2%. I think, if you only just think about what was March when it came to Easter, for example, then you are at the 2%.
If you look at Q1, if you think that we have guided for more or less a flat, but still good levels in Europe, I think that is how you should think about it for us. That we see that it's a good level, but not similar to the overshoot that we saw, for example, before the great recession in 2009. Having said that, it is super important that we are keeping the right flexibility. With the increases we have done in the system, obviously we have had that also with the right mix between, so to speak, fixed and temporary contracts, et cetera. Also that we are using our European machine for a lot of the global markets as well. We also have that spread.
From that reason also, finally, if anything, we are seeing some positive price development also in Europe, during the last quarters, we are continuing to push for that. Let's see what that will bring to market. That is important for us now with the tight volumes that we have, that we are also working on the price realization and we see signs of that. In terms of R&D, we have, of course, always a very interesting portfolio of projects. We spend every year SEK 15 billion and for all our business areas. We invest. We always have this debate whether it's investment or not. We have this SEK 15 billion. Of course, we have a lot of projects that come into new phases, passes gates, and so on.
During the course of this year, we see a little bit more of capitalization. You saw also that we continue to come with new products in a fairly even spread over time as well. You saw the new products for UD Japan last year. You saw also the new UD Value truck, the Croner last year. Now you see the North America. I think we intend to, with a steady pace, come with new products in all our business areas. Nothing that we revealed today. By the way, you saw today the new electric trucks as well, medium-duty. There's always something coming up.
Yes. Hi, Erik Horngren, SV. I have three questions. The first one is on pricing. A pretty tight market in both North America and Europe, which to some extent should allow for price increases. To what extent have you seen that, and will you be able to offset the cost pressures that you see for this year? The second question, obviously we know the negative impact from selling and R&D and so on the results, we have the product changeover in North America and the supply chain constraints. Could you say which one of those is the biggest drag on trucks margins in Q1? If I understand correctly, that the drag from the product changeover should be largely behind us after Q1. Thirdly, a follow-up on the R&D question.
You said you were surprised by the reception and interest of the electric truck. Huge interest. Doesn't that encourage you to sort of accelerate spending in this field further?
If so, do you still feel you can balance higher R&D spending on electrification and so on, with a drawback on the combustion engine related development expenses? Thank you.
Thank you, Erik. First of all, I think on prices, as we said, if anything now, during the last two quarters, we have seen signs of a positive development both in Europe and North America. To your point, I think that is, if anything that must happen now. That, of course, is a high priority for us. In North America also, it's a combination, obviously, that we are working with a new product range that has bigger value for our customers, and in addition to that, a strong market.
When it comes to the cost, Jan, you can also add to this, obviously, as we said, you have a number of more, if I say one time, even if I don't like to talk about that because you need to see that we are developing the business over time, and we will have. This is a big changeover because we are, not at least then for Mack in this quarter, we are introducing also new ranges that we didn't have in that type of volume before. That is a pretty big one that we have talked about also. I think the most important of that part is that it's following the plans. It's no surprises that we see that we are dragging in a negative way, and I can understand that you want to have a feel about what is the real magnitude of that.
I can say that we guide it in the way that we say that the production changeover together with supply chain is the most pronounced one, obviously. I don't think we will go into more details about what is what there. That, obviously, the major event for Mack now, and also when we look at the Volvo changeover in North America, we are coming through, so to speak, the most important phase of the changeover. So that is correct, Erik. Having said that, obviously, we are finalizing for Volvo some small bits and pieces, and we are continuing to ramp for Mack. If you look during the course of the year, obviously that should gradually, and pretty quick in some areas, fade away.
I think you had, as we said, when you really look at the margins here, you had also the FX, obviously, and the mix between services and hardware. When it comes to selling, I think if you compare that between construction equipment and trucks, obviously, we have a more vertically integrated value chain also downstreams for trucks. You have some of the variable items when it comes to selling, since we have both dealers and market companies to a bigger extent. It is also like that, just to be transparent. When you're doing a decentralization, obviously, there are some elements of front-loading enthusiasm into the system. I think that is not something that you necessarily like, but I think it's good for the culture that you feel a little bit of pain if you front-load.
We saw already during the course of the quarter, activities were taking on that. I think that is natural. The most important for us as management has been what is what here? What is selling in terms of volume? What is, so to speak, the introduction cost when it comes to changeover? What is happy enthusiasm that you are driving your own business area, so to speak? I think we have had good discussions around that. Nothing too special about that. I don't know if it's anything more to add on it or?
No. I think there are certain elements in selling that is variable. When you increase your sales, you will see that it follows to some extent. What Martin said as well, I think we are keeping a closer eye on selling today than maybe what we did half a year ago, because maybe the trend is a little bit too strong, and we can call it enthusiasm or whatever. We try to keep it under control right now.
We don't want to kill enthusiasm.
No.
We need to have it balanced with that development. On the electric truck, and the product portfolio, correct in the way that we see a gradual, so to speak, shift when it comes to how we are using our SEK 15 billion-SEK 15.5 billion in terms of R&D. As we have already said, I think with the CAST system in place, it will never be fully in place, but in good shape when it comes to the well-known technologies and the architecture around our trucks. Also for Volvo Construction Equipment and buses, we can actually redirect the means for not only electric mobility, but also connectivity and automation that we need to do. The important thing that we are working on is that we have a smart modular platform also in those areas, so every business area can pull from it.
I think the electric truck now, not only for Volvo but also for Renault, UD, and Mack as we go forward, it will be a good example of that, where we have gained a lot of experience. I think we will see a gradual shift here. Yeah.
Hampus Engellau, Handelsbanken. Three questions, if I may. Coming back to Europe, in Q4, I think you talked about an element of pre-buy, maybe fleet orders on the back of price increases. My question is, where would you say the underlying orders were if you would look at both Q4 and Q1? When should we see the impact of these price increases? Second question is on lead times. Are lead times in Europe becoming a problem for you, or are you managing that? Maybe if you could relate that to ramp up and production. The last question is for Renault. Renault is still hampering around 9%, a small improvement from 8.7. Historically, they have been around 11%, 11.4%. You also have a very new truck in the market where you're aiming for higher prices.
Could you maybe talk about, a little bit, the trade-off between getting up market share and keeping prices? Thank you.
Shall I start? If we start then with Europe, as we said, I think we were into a situation, first of all, that we saw that lead times are increasing, et cetera. We want to do something and we announced that from little bit different in different markets in Europe than price increases in quarter one. By the nature of the business also you have, so to speak, some sort of pre-buy. I think that is also what you see now that it's balanced a little bit between, in particular, then for Volvo Trucks, where we have been working more actively on that. What was the order intake in quarter four and what was the order intake in quarter one?
Gradually we will see that coming through then, the price realization during the course of the year and starting more or less from now on, so to speak. The lead times, yes, it is longer. If we talk normally, about 6 to 10 weeks depending on specification application, maybe it is about one month more or something like that now, depending a little bit obviously about what customers and what specification we are talking about. Still, it's not on a level in Europe where I should be worried, so to speak, that you have too much of air into the order book because with that visibility, you can follow it pretty okay anyhow.
That has been one of our key focus areas also, not at least then for Volvo Trucks to manage that, so we are not ending up in a situation where you have too much of air. We don't feel that. I have to say, we don't feel that in North America either, because we have had quite animated debate about what is happening in North America, because there we have even a little bit longer order book now, not at least for Mack with the good reception of the truck and also then the transition. I think that the organization has been working through that in a good way. Finally, on Renault, yes, obviously we see a potential of improving that market share.
Having said that, even more important for us is to do that step by step without, so to speak, diluting the price and in particular also the residual values. We will not do that to the expense of not, so to speak, have the right balance on those items. Here I think also the only way of actually continuing to work with that quality between price and RV is by getting more trucks out and people feel that it, to your point also, Hampus, this is a good product. It is not a quick fix, and we are more interested of doing gradual improvement than to regain market shares and dilute the RVs.
We do that with improved profitability on Renault as well. It is the whole mix of these factors that goes in the right direction right now, slowly but steadily.
Okay, we will switch to three questions from the telephone conference. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Klas Bergelind of Citi, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Hi, Martin and Jan, it's Klas from Citi. The first one is to continue on the drop-through in trucks. You managed to get deliveries out quarter-on-quarter in North America and take market share there on the Volvo side as the Volvo rollout is taking place. Against that you have more costs to get that done. You have the changeover in Mack in the quarter. That's straightforward, but it should be very good for pricing on the new trucks, I would have assumed. I'm thinking about the phasing. Are we talking 3%, 4% price hikes and for those to come through maybe late summer? Separately, looking at the second quarter where we are right now, we will have the previous bottlenecks annualizing. We have the launch of the Anthem in the quarter, not Volvo.
Shouldn't the drop-through improve already quite a lot this quarter? As we no longer have the burden of the launches and changeover in Volvo.
Okay. First of all, when it comes to the pricing, obviously we will not comment exactly on that, Klas, as you can understand. What we can say is that since we have both a good market and we have introduction of products that are, so to speak, well received, we should see that during the course of the year in North America as well. When it comes to your analysis about, so to speak, the drop-through and the gradual improvement of the year, I think also as we were writing in the CEO comments, that this is of course the highest focus since we have been pretty clear also that quarter one in many cases was a transitional quarter. We said that already in quarter four.
In order to show that this is the case with underlying profitability still maintained in the truck business, we should see some of these factors fading away already during this quarter, absolutely.
No, that's good. I had a question on the self-help, because these bottlenecks and launch costs have always meant that the focus on the self-help in Volvo has almost been forgotten in the discussions we have with investors. Could you just update us on where we stand on the service penetration on more repair and maintenance in Europe, the turnaround of UD Trucks, the strengthening of Renault and the lean concept? You are very productive in Europe, but you still have to do more elsewhere. If you could update us, Martin, on the underlying margin development in Volvo Trucks in particular.
Yeah. To your point there, Klas, I think it is encouraging to see the business areas on the truck side that didn't have the same type of big changeover activities. Both UD Trucks and Renault actually continued to have a positive development, and that is very encouraging, obviously. Also, I have to say, when we look at the underlying improvements, not at least in the industrial system for Volvo, we see leverage, with the, so to speak, disturbances we have. The reason why I say that, for us, it is very important that we are, and I think we talked about it also in quarter four, that we are seeing what in this market situation with high pressure than on the value chain, but also changeover, that is a big effort, so to speak.
I think from that standpoint, nothing has changed in our beliefs on what we can see in continuous improvements.
Good. My final one is on services. It is a tougher comp, but truck still did 6% and growth in construction equipment was very strong at 12%. Can we talk about which regions that drove this growth? Last quarter, the 9% growth in trucks was owing to that Europe sort of accelerated on top of North America, increased penetration of service contracts. Did Europe continue to accelerate quarter-on-quarter in the service business there? Is the sell-through sort of coming through?
I think to your point, sorry for not answering that question. First of all, I think those are by nature also the main regions. When you have the improvements there, they are coming through in bigger figures. Also to your point, for example, in Japan, we see good development on that piece and where we have also strong assets with very high presence, for example, in the dealer network. There, I think Joachim and the whole gang has done a great job on really putting focus on the service business. Obviously also in North America with a high activity level. That is a little bit across the board. Obviously, activity level has been important to continue to drive this increase in services, but also continuing to drive, for example, service contract penetration step by step in all regions. It's a mix.
You can say, okay, is 6% good? I think everything above 5% is still a good pace that we are pacing. We have 9%, it was a little bit on days, still 6% I think is okay, actually.
Okay, go ahead from the telephone conference once more.
Okay, we now go to the line of Graham Phillips at Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, good morning. My questions, first of all, really on Volvo Europe. We saw the decline in orders of 7%. The deliveries were up 9. How should we think about that in terms of the impact on margins? Because going into the delivery of these lower orders, this no doubt is your highest margin product of Volvo Europe. Given your targets, Martin, of 10% through the cycle, how quickly do you think we can get to that within trucks? Obviously, Volvo Construction Equipment is shooting well above that, but obviously just focusing on Volvo Europe.
Yeah, I think. Jan, please add here. Again, as we said, we came into this year with a very strong order book, in particular for Volvo Trucks in Europe. When we look into, so to speak, the distribution of volumes moving forward here, we still have a good proportion of our volumes in the industrial system and also for shipment and I mean a reasonable mix of that. You should not think about that is diluted due to the order intake in quarter one, because you need more or less to take the average between quarter four and quarter one there, given, so to speak, a little bit of what Hampus said about the pre-buy, if I put it like that. That is on number one.
When it comes obviously to the financial targets over the cycle, I think still, yes, 8.8%, somewhat you can talk about a disappointment, what is what in this, et cetera. When we look through the underlying performance, take away some of the extraordinary items that we've had now. Also, even if that is nothing that we should talk about, because that will be part of, so to speak, the full cycle, the financial targets. For a specific quarter, when you have a headwind of SEK 500 million, that is, so to speak, the whole delta between the previous year's margin and this year's margin. In addition, you have extraordinary. I think you should think about what is what here when you're reflecting a little about the quality of the 8.8 and the possible upsides you have from that, so to speak.
Okay, understood. I guess it just leads into my second question is around the supply chain issues. It's been a couple of quarters now. What reassurance can you give us that you as a management team are tackling the big issues in there? Obviously the model changeover is different. I can see that as sort of a more of a very occasional cycle issue. In terms of what are the main components, you talk about stuff being up in the air or still sitting on boats. One must be looking to this running on for six to seven months now, that we must be starting to think that there are some serious issues with some particular suppliers.
You may not want to point a finger, but it'd be nice to know what the main problems are here and what you've done to actually get on top of those issues.
Graham, I think also here, I would like to say that you are absolutely right in the way that this is a continuation of, so to speak, an area where we have been talking about as one of the areas where we have had higher costs, et cetera. Having said that I think it's super important also to understand that a lot of improvements have been done since quarter 2, when we started to talk about it last year. Otherwise, it should have been impossible to improve deliveries with 17%, for example, on a global scale, while also doing the changeover at the same time. I think we need to have as a starting point that continuous improvements are happening here. Obviously when you're taking away bottlenecks, new ones are coming as the factor that will determine what is the possible output.
I think the question for us is how should you think about and plan the balance of the output that today, if we could do it in a good way, be even higher given the demand? On the other side, not to put in volumes that will further accelerate costs or other items, for example, delivery promises. I think even more strategically, build in too much of fixed cost into the system, given the fact where we are in this cycle. Here it is the balance. Then you have the second balance on that also with the service market logistics, where a number of the components that are stretch also are going into that. Having said that, I see improvements. We are working on it.
Now it's more or less where should we be when it comes to the increases in the demands in relation to where we are? We can do it a little bit more simple from our side and say we take it down with a couple of percentage points. That will improve margin short-term. Is that the good way you do when you have the market demand and the penetration? I think that is also something to think about. I should not say we are happy. We are not happy. We are working hard on this, but I'm not unhappy with the decision on the balance we have taken so far, if I put it like that.
Finally, clarifying one point that Jan made about the foreign currency. Maybe I misunderstood, but there was some comment about a SEK 1.5 billion positive expected for the year, or what was that comment when you were talking about the currency impact in the first quarter?
The first quarter was a negative of SEK 730. You have approximately a little bit more than SEK 200 million coming from the transaction exposure, and the remaining SEK 500 is coming from what we call translation exposure, i.e., when you take profits in foreign subsidiaries into Swedish crowns, that's one part of it, that's another SEK 200, and SEK 300 negative comes from when you reevaluate payables and receivables to the currency rates that you have at the end of the quarter, and that's another SEK 300. That is the composition of the different types of exposure in the first quarter. Looking for only the transaction exposure, we say that the transaction exposure, as it looks right now with the present currency rates, will give for the full year, including the first quarter, SEK 1.5 billion approximately in positive on the transaction side.
We don't give any forecast on the translation side because that's so complicated also for us to do actually, especially on the receivables and payables side. We only give a forecast on the transaction side.
SEK 1.5 billion positive. Okay.
Okay, one more question from the telephone conference.
Yes, that is over to the line of Erik Paulsson at Pareto Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi, this is Erik Paulsson at Pareto. I'm just wondering, how much do you see e-commerce volume in the underlying transportation markets in mainly North America and Europe affecting your own truck order intake? That is to say now and also going forward, is it possible to quantify this?
I think this is one of the elements what we see that is gradually changing also the dynamics and the nature of the logistic business in Europe and in North America, also in Asia to a bigger and bigger extent. That is also the reason why I say that if you see normally, maybe we should be at the underlying trend midpoint, maybe at the 275,000, 280,000 in Europe. I think there is actually something more there. We have done some analysis on that, but a little bit early to reveal that. I think you have a point here that there is a dynamic that is pushing the whole trend line a little bit upwards actually.
I don't want to stick out the neck and have a figure before feeling a little bit more comfortable, but we are working on that with our connected solutions to see what is what here.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Okay. We continue here. Yeah.
Yeah. Hi, Mats Liss, Kepler Cheuvreux. Just a couple of questions there. First, regarding construction equipment, you had excellent operational leverage, I guess. Going forward, you have some orders to deliver. Should we expect the same leverage, or do you see bottlenecks or capacity utilization running a bit on the high side now?
I think if anything, as we said, construction equipment started with considerably lower capacity utilization in the whole industrial system and including the suppliers. Having said that, often I think they have done an excellent journey of really keeping good cost control, and also working with the means that they've had. What we see now is, if anything, a little bit coming in some of the flows, nothing similar to the truck side. Some of the most popular product ranges that we are getting closer, so to speak, to very high capacity utilization. Still, I think they are managing it in a good way. As you can see, we also have a better balance between orders and delivery, so to speak.
Even if it has been a strong uptick, the book-to-bill delta is less, therefore we can manage that in a good way.
Coming back to the FX impact there, SEK 1.5 billion, should we expect that to be spread evenly during the remainder of the year? Maybe you can indicate between the business areas there.
I think it will turn more and more gradually positive during the course of the year. When it comes to different business areas, I think it's probably pretty big picture, same effect in all business areas, with the exception of buses that we're always in a perfect currency storm with interesting currencies like Indian rupees, Polish zlotys, and a few other things that we don't have in the other business areas. Apart from the perfect currency storm in buses, it will be the same trend in all the other business areas.
Finally, the question about the margin target and the mix you have currently. Is it possible for you to reach the 10% with the current equipment service mix?
Yeah. Yes.
Thanks.
Yes, hello. Just a question on China. On the car side, they've just now reviewed their JV structures, just to get in more electrification and access to the global effort here. Those arguments would, I guess, be relevant for trucks as well. How do you see that coming, and can you update us on your presence there?
Yeah. I think, first of all, that came now a couple of weeks ago, was the announcement, as you say, that already from this year, obviously, if you are fully electric, that they are releasing, so to speak, the requirements on a JV structure. Then also in the same, so to speak, announcement, it was said that commercial vehicles 2020 and passenger cars as from 2022. Obviously, this I think generally speaking, is good news because we as a global company present in 190 countries, we are actively always working for not having this type of threshold when it comes to ownerships. Having said that, we are starting with, I think a strong footprint already what we have today, both on the truck side, given the fact that we have the joint venture with DFCV.
I have to say we have a positive development there, gradual improvement of the quality of the business, maintaining the market share with very high output and also doing some changeovers now when it comes to products. It's a good starting point. Even if it's early days, I think we are investing a lot of time there to really make sure that we have good position. Also in Volvo Trucks, obviously, we see a positive development on the more advanced segments. Not at least, as we talked about e-commerce here, where we have a strong market share of almost 30% in those more, so to speak, just-in-time flows that are evolving much more quicker than we have seen before in China. Having said that, as we talked about, SDLG and Volvo Construction Equipment, we have a strong presence.
We have a good starting point. Obviously, those announcements are also opening up for further, so to speak, ideas.
Okay, I think we have one more question from the telephone conference. Please go ahead.
We are over to the line of Markus Mittermaier at UBS. Please go ahead, Markus, your line is open.
Yes. Hi, good morning, everyone. Just one quick question as a follow-up on the bottlenecks and the basically cyclical demand versus long-term trend that you've alluded to. What's the level of confidence on the long-term trend issue? If you say that this might be moving up, you're still working through the details that you can, particularly in Europe, work through that with your current capacity levels. I think you are, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think technically capacity probably 100% in Europe. Associated with that, what's the capacity utilization levels in the U.S. at the moment at the current production level?
First of all, I think, as we said, and we have also said a number of times, that when it comes to the industrial footprint in Europe, obviously we are on, you can say 100% utilization level. That I think is, not to over-exaggerate where we are. Having said that, we have also been clear on that we have the right type of footprint. Now when we are, so to speak, looking into how to expand capacity, and we are doing that step by step, we can do that in existing footprint by, so to speak, taking out certain bottlenecks. That is our strategy also, to have a good balance in our, so to speak, PPE flows between CapEx and depreciation. We find that to be fine to do that, and obviously then to continue to work with also our resourcing structure.
That will happen step by step, but in a way where we are using our industrial footprint. In North America, it's a little bit more difficult to say right now, not difficult, but for Mack, obviously we are still in the ramp-up, so there it's more the ramp rather than the technical capacity that is putting the pace for Mack in particular. Obviously some of the flows that we have are global, and there we are also working, and that is in particular on the powertrain side, but with the same type of strategy as I said for Europe, that we are using the existing footprint that we have.
I think it's fair to say also that the bottlenecks are very much when it comes to our powertrain side.
Yeah.
We have a huge success with our AMT. When markets go up, we have higher take rates on the automatic gearboxes. We are at record levels today in Köping, for we have never been higher. That means that we have some bottlenecks internally. When it comes to assembly capacity for trucks, there we don't have any problems at all. What we are working with now is actually to take away the bottlenecks that we have mainly on components, machining, and so on, for powertrain, mainly on the gearbox. Also some of the engine families are doing fantastically fine, which is a good sign that we have very high-performing components into our trucks. We also see that there are a lot of industries that are doing fantastically fine and have high demand levels.
To find casted material, to find forged material to get it into our factories for machining, that's where we see also the bottlenecks. It's not the whole industrial system on the truck side.
No.
I think we are ready. I just want to thank you for coming to this press conference and presentation. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.