Okay, we start. That's good. Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you on behalf of Ascom to the annual results conference. I welcome the participants here in the Hotel Metropole in Zurich, and I also welcome all the participants following our webcast. The program for today is that we start with the presentations from CEO and CFO, followed by a Q&A session. For the participants in the webcast, you may use the chat function to ask questions afterwards, and then we will read them here in the plenum. With this, I hand over to our CEO, Nicolas Van den Abeele, for the presentation of the results.
Thank you, Daniel. Good morning to everyone here present in the room. Good morning to everyone joining also through the webcast. I want to start the presentation today with actually three main points I wanted to highlight during today's presentation. The first of all is to have a look at 2023, and especially, I mean, do a recap of the major intent of the year. The major intent of 2023 was to restore our finances, to improve our financial profitability, and you will see also throughout the presentation that we've made a good progress there, both in our operating cash flows or EBITDA, but also in our net profit.
The second point is on the implementation of a cost efficiency program that we implemented, which is called Shape Up, which we also executed well upon in 2023. That's the first point in terms of, let's say, the intent of 2023. The second point I would like to highlight throughout the presentation today is an update on our strategy and an update on the second phase of our journey, which is called Expand. It's expanding the position we have in the market, expanding the growth, where last year we had a good start in the first half of the year. The economy and the market went a bit down in the second half. All in all, we still made a good progress in terms of growth.
The second point, or the third point I wanted to highlight today is with respect to our guidance for 2024, but also for the coming years. Let me start with a quick recap of 2023. First of all, we delivered a growth of around 5.5% at constant currency, which is a good growth, but below our expectation and our ambitions. We expected, and we guided also for a higher growth. We started the year with a very strong growth over first half, which was around 10%. Nevertheless, in the second half of the year, we saw a marked slowdown of the market. Now, two good points I wanted to mention there still.
If we compare ourselves with our major peers of industry, we actually had a fairly decent growth profile, and we were in the upper tier compared to our peers of industry. So that's actually, given the market circumstances, a fairly good result. The second point I want to mention, and that's actually more important, a 5% growth delivered a 25% growth in EBITDA and an over 50% growth in our net profit. And I think despite the lower growth that we delivered, we still managed to deliver a fairly substantial increase in our profitability, both at EBITDA level, but also at net profit level, as you can see there, resulting in a sound increase in earnings per share. And last but not least, also a good free cash flow contribution in 2023.
So let me go a little bit deeper in each of these financials. First of all, in terms of revenue, as I mentioned, 5.5% at constant currency, which is about flat in actual currency, but with a very marked growth in the first half. Nevertheless, as I mentioned, below our ambitions on a full year basis, as we saw a marked slowdown in the second half of the year. Likewise, in the incoming orders, the same profile, first half, second half, with, let's say, incoming orders flat at constant currency, and I will go through some of the countries later on in the presentation. Some of the countries actually had a fairly good growth in orders, like in U.S., with about 7% growth, like in DACH, also in the Netherlands.
On the other hand, we've seen our OEM business going down due to the, let's say, market slowdown in the second half of the year, as well as the international markets. Now, still in terms of book-to-bill, a 1.1 ratio in book-to-bill, which is good, which means we have been building additional backlog to deliver growth in 2024 and the coming years as well. As I mentioned, good progress on the other financials in terms of EBITDA and net profit, where we really managed to increase that nicely year-over-year, going from 8% to above 10% in EBITDA. But also in terms of net profit, actually going from CHF 11 million to above CHF 17 million in terms of net profit.
Which is a good result, which we're happy to share, and also with a strong EBITDA performance in the second half of around 12.8%, despite the lower growth that we had in the second half. And then, as I mentioned, free cash flow with a +CHF 20 million year-on-year. We focused a lot on cash, and I think we delivered also there a nice result and a nice step up. Now, let me briefly go through a couple of wins. I will not go through all of them, but here you can see a few wins across the different regions in which we're active.
With U.S., some nice wins and some large IDNs, Integrated Delivery Networks, Baptist Health in in Florida, York Hospital, Trinity Health, which is a very large IDN. I'll come back to that a bit later in the presentation. Also in Asia, with a couple of nice wins, and in Europe, with SPIE, for example, where we have a strategic partnership to work together on a number of healthcare projects in in Germany and beyond. But also in the Nordics, in the Netherlands, and in France, with a nice contract with UniHA , which is a contract for about 12 to 13 hospitals, where we will digitalize and deploy Digistat in these hospitals this year and next year. So a couple of nice wins.
In U.S., for example, four large IDNs where we delivered a combination of Digistat and Nurse Call for a solution, which is what we call virtual nurse solution. Where we provide additional support to the nurses during their nurse roundings. Additional support in terms of technical expertise, where they can call on a specialist in certain fields of expertise to assist and to be more effective and efficient for the nurses during their nurse rounds. So very nice project, which we deployed in a number of large IDNs in U.S., and we're very happy of having won that project. Likewise, in Germany, with the Darmstadt Dieburg clinic, where I will come back to at the end of the presentation to highlight that a little bit more in detail.
But basically, we jointly defined a blueprint for the future hospital, digital hospital, and where we deployed actually the full suite of our solutions, in that hospital as well. And many more. I will not go through the all of them, but a couple of nice references that we want to share this morning. Likewise, actually in Enterprise, and we have renewed also our focus on Enterprise in 2023, as we want to become, as Ascom, the leading enabling platform, both in healthcare but also in Enterprise.
We've had some nice wins, for example, in U.S., where we actually started at the end of 2022 with our Enterprise business, and some nice wins in a couple of major references there, General Dynamics, but also Thayer Mahan, which is actually providing mobility solutions for Marine, U.S. Marine, to all the submarines and all the aircraft carrier fleet, actually there. We're in the process of deploying and installing that now, as we speak in 2024. Also in Switzerland, Migros, where we also provide the full mobility solution for the people in the retail shops, which is a very nice project. We're with Migros, we're with Coop, and many other, let's say, Enterprise verticals also in Switzerland.
In energy, Vattenfall, in industry, Schneider Electric, for example, across some European countries. But also a very nice one with the Technical University of Delft, where we also provide a full suite of mobility solutions and surveillance solutions, actually for the whole campus, which is around 14 buildings they have in Delft. So a couple of nice references, which shows the relevance that we have in the market across our Healthcare vertical, but also across our Enterprise vertical. Now, with this, I would like to give the floor back to Dominik, who will give us a key highlight on the financials of 2023, and then I'll come back with an update on our strategy, on expand, and on our guidance. Dominik?
Thanks, Nicolas. Welcome all here in the room from my side, and welcome in the webcast. You may know it's my last presentation today. As it was announced, I will leave Ascom, but I'm proud to stand here up and to show you the results we received in 2023. And you will see it, why I'm proud, when I'm doing this summary at the end of the speech. Let's go into and let's have a look on the key figures. The key figures, looking on IO, as already mentioned by Nicolas, we had a decrease in actual currency of 5%. If you look on constant, it was flat. I will explain you on the following slides then a little bit what's behind and what happened there. It doesn't look the way you see it now, the decrease and so on.
There are some reasons behind which I would like to highlight later on. When we look on the IO and the book-to-bill the way Nicolas explained it, the high order end, the order entry looked or resulted in a record order backlog once again, with CHF 276.4 million. Which is, of course, driven by deals we won in 2023 and deals we won before, like Wales and OEM, because that's still part of the backlog. Looking on net revenue. On net revenue, we were growing 5.5%, as mentioned by Nicolas. If you look it on, on actual rates, and it was flat, sorry, it's flat on actual rates at 5.5% at constant currency, just to highlight that.
When you look on the EBITDA, we were able to grow the EBITDA to CHF 30.1 million, which resulted in an EBITDA margin of 10.1%. If you then looked at constant currency, we realized CHF 32.9 million, with an EBITDA margin of 10.5%. So we lost due to Swiss francs and the Swiss reporting currency 0.4% on the margin, 10.1%-10.5%. On the free cash flow, a really, really good result. The cash flow, we were able to increase by CHF 21.1 million. So why has this happened?
We were having CHF 22.3 million better operating cash, and we looked and we worked on our receivables, which we were able to bring down. We had a little bit higher CapEx of CHF 2.2 million, and both together brought us the free cash flow to the result of CHF 20.1 million better. Good. Now let's dive into it a little bit on the IO, as already mentioned. The IO, we had a strong growth on the maintenance and support part, where we were growing 12%, and which helps us to further benefit of the recurring revenue. And of course, this is showing, too, that our customers are happy with our post-sale services, because we are able to increase the maintenance part of our business here.
On the project products and services, we had a decrease of 5% at constant currencies, which is mostly driven by OEM and rest of the world. The major markets grew at 3% at constant currency, with the largest shares coming from, as already mentioned by Nicolas, Netherlands, DACH, which both were growing on high levels. One was growing at 6.7%, and the other one was growing 4.4%. We had an 8% growth in the USA and Canada at constant currency, which was driven by the project business we were doing there and the services, and which is building and supporting with the backlog, the growth in 2024. OEM sales. OEM, the OEM part, the OEM sales, saw a decline of IO of around CHF 9.4 million on absolute terms.
The lower IO we had here is coming out of the story that we won a deal several years ago, and now we are delivering out that deal, and therefore we do not have IO. We are delivering and destroying here or using the backlog we have on hand. The rest of the world, there we had a decline of 6% at constant currency, which was coming out of project delays and project shipping or moving out of 2023 to 2024, coming out of Australia, Belgium, and the MEA part. For me, just to highlight once again, it's important that you see what happened with the OEM and that you take the OEM part away.
As I said, following the story about a of deals we won in the past, we are now delivering that out of the backlog. If you take out that effect, and you take out the OEM part, the backlog, the IO was growing by 2.5%. So if you eliminate the OEM part, even our total business was growing on IO 2.5% at constant currency. So take that in mind and be aware of that effect. As I already mentioned, the IO, we realized a new order backlog high number following the IO we've produced and due to the fact that the book-to-bill was over 1.1, as mentioned by Nicolas already. When you look on the CAGR, we had a CAGR of 9% on the backlog.
The maintenance and support part has a CAGR of around 6.4%, which year-over-year growth of 13% and 19% at constant currencies. Normalizing with the OEM part and the VoWiFi sales, the CAGR was still 7%, and we had a year-over-year decline of 13.9% on that part. But be aware, as I said, that's part of the overall story, which I mentioned with the OEM part. And if you look the underlying business, if you take away the the big deals, we still were growing on a good level, and we were still growing on a level of 6.7% CAGR. And for me, it's important that you are all aware that you cannot close every year big deals, so this is coming in and coming out.
One year you have one, and the other one you do not have one, and you need to take that in mind, first of all, in the IO, and second, then, on the backlog part, too. Now let's have a look on the revenue growth and where the revenue growth of 5.5% was coming from. I would like to give you a little bit more details and to highlight that we realized or we came from CHF 297.4 million, and we now realize CHF 313.7 million at constant currency in revenue. So we realized a revenue growth of CHF 16.3 million, and we had a negative currency effect of almost the same value. That's the reason, when you look at the revenue growth on actual rates was flat.
So the increase we had on constant currency was destroyed by the headwind from the Swiss franc, as the Swiss franc was getting stronger, once again stronger against all the other currencies in the last year. On the next slide, I will now go into it a little bit, where this revenue came from. First of all, H1,H2 comparison, and then, following slide, to have a look on the regions and what happened in the regions. The positive net revenue development of 5.5% at constant currency was driven by the increase in project products and services, which grew at 5.3% at constant currency, related to a strong demand for our mobility and nurse call services and business. We had a solid growth of 5.8% at constant currency in maintenance and support.
Software recurring portion, so our SMA business, grew at 23.8%. This was driven mainly by the U.S. market. If you look what happened the last two years, I'm proud to say that the last two years we were able to grow that part every year over 20%. The hardware maintenance and support part, on the other side, was more or less flat, and that's the reason you do not see a huge increase in the services part, because the hardware part was flat and the software part was growing. If you look now H2, as already mentioned by Nicolas, we had a slowdown. The growth was just 0.9% at constant currency compared to the 10.3% we had in H1.
This is, as mentioned by Nicolas, coming out of the market, the cool down of the market in the last half year, in the last quarter. And, as already mentioned and highlighted by Nicolas, this was having the effect that the overall growth was 5.5%. So now let's, let's have a look on the regions and what happened in the regions on the revenue part. DACH, solid performance of 10%. Coming out of a growth of the year before with 19.7%. So in total, we were growing heavily the last two years in DACH, mainly coming out of enterprise. The enterprise business was growing and is showing that our solutions we have in enterprise are attractive and the customers are buying our solutions and our products. Looking on France and Spain, a moderate growth here.
Despite all the market challenges we had with partners and with customers, we were having a moderate growth here. On the Netherlands, a low growth, but it's influenced by the fire and safety business, which had a decline of 13.9%. Sorry, 13.2%. Despite this part, on our core business that we had in the Netherlands, we were growing 5.9%. So you need to have that in mind, too. One part of the business, the fire and safety, which we have in the Netherlands, was shrinking. Our core business was growing in the Netherlands. Now, on the Nordics, low growth on the long-term care segment, which influenced the overall result of the Nordics, but is to highlight here is that we were having a nice software growth of 8% in the Nordics.
U.K., a very strong growth with 28%. It's the bounce back, because you may remember we had a decline of 3% in 2022, and this growth is mainly coming from our Wales deal, the one we won several years ago, which we are now delivering, and we started to deliver. The U.S. and Canada, as mentioned by Nicolas, good growth of 4.2%. And when you're looking there, where were the biggest acceleration parts was the software growth of 34%, which we are doing in the U.S. And to remind you, too, some of the deals slipped to 2024, so we would even be able to do more things in the U.S. if they would not have been or if they would not have slipped to this year. The rest of the world, a strong growth of 6.8%.
Except Asia and Finland, where we were not growing, all the rest, we had mid- to high single-digit growth in these markets. OEM, as moderate growth of 1.7% comparing to last year, to the year before. It's a moderate growth, and is showing that some of our partners were having some constraints, but that's over now, and we see that the growth is coming back. Let me do a short summary. When you look here on these countries and regions, you see we were growing in all countries. So in all regions, there was a growth. As mentioned, Finland and Belgium not, but all the rest, we were having a growth. And if you look all, all, all over, it's nice that you see that Ascom was having, in all our regions, a growth.
Since I'm in, I have never seen that, so I'm proud that we were able to grow, not the levels, as mentioned by Nicolas, on our own, own ambition, but nevertheless, we were growing. Just to highlight that to all of you. On the P&L. Let's have a look on the P&L, and let me show you some highlights out of the P&L. Starting with gross profit. The gross profit was coming from 45.8%, up now to 47.6%, which is showing that we worked on our productivity and that we worked on our efficiency with the project delivery, that we were able to increase that. To highlight, too, and just, just to be transparent, in 2022, you may remember that we had spot buys.
When you normalize the number with the spot buys, the number you may remember we had last year, 48.7% normalized. If you normalize it once again here in 2023, because we still had some spot buys in, we are on the same level than the year before. The level normalized is the same than one year ago. Looking now on marketing and sales, it's more or less the same level than 2022. Once again, have in mind, we had, one year ago, CHF 1.8 million at special one-off costs, the Swedish pension, and if you normalize that out, our revenue percentage out of the revenue would be 24.7%.
We continue, of course, to invest in marketing and sales, to be able to sell complex solutions, as software combined with hard-hardware is not easy to sell, so we need to have employees having the know-how, and that's the reason we are investing there in sales and marketing people. If you look on R&D, it's the same level than 2022. And once again, here in 2022, we had CHF 1.9 million as special effects out of the Swedish pension, and if you normalize that out, it would be a percentage on the revenue side of 8.3%. The general admin, same story here. It's same level than 2022. If you take out the special effects of Swedish pension and the CEO change, we are on a percentage in revenue of 6.7%.
G&A, just to highlight that, too, is slightly higher due to additional or higher energy costs and higher utility costs, which we are having. And you may saw it, due to the fact that we have less tax, group tax came down, we were able to increase our profit heavily. Our group tax came down from 27.9% to now 13.9%, which is effect of where the gains or the profits were produced in the countries. It's the question on the country mix, and second, it's the question on the tax losses carryforward, which we booked and which we've done. It's the question on the recognizing or of the deferred taxes, which have here an effect on that result.
As said by Nicolas, a really, really good net profit of CHF 17.4 million, which we were able to realize and to bring in in 2022. On CapEx, CapEx increased a little bit due to the fact that we had the launch of new products, products for our OEM partners. You may remember we launched Myco, the Myco 4, and we have additional costs on the intangible parts as we are rolling out our new ERP system. Looking now on the cash and cash development. You may remember last year as when standing here, I said we need to work on our cash flow, and we need to work on our receivables and on our working capital.
As you can see, we worked heavily, and that's now the positive result you can see, and which I would like to highlight here. We had a really strong cash flow and improvement of CHF 20.1 million, which is a result of, as already mentioned, CHF 22.3 million more in operating cash flow and CHF 2.2 million additional CapEx. So in sum, we were doing a really strong free cash flow out of it. And what have we done with this free cash flow? We paid back our borrowings, so we are now debt-free. And of course, to, just to highlight, to mention it, we used the cash to pay our dividends, the dividends which were approved one year ago for the fiscal year 2022, which we have paid in 2023.
Of course, there is a small translation effect coming out of the currency to show at the end, the cash balance. Just to highlight, too, on the CapEx, CHF 0.6 million is not CapEx, it's the investment we have done to buy back shares for the long-term incentive plan, which is shown here, part of the CapEx. So now, finally, let's have a look on our balance sheet, and I would like to highlight here some points. Cash, same level. Cash equivalents, CHF 24.7 million. As I already mentioned, no borrowings, resulting in a net cash position of CHF 24.7 million. The net working capital was improved. We had CHF 70.5 million, and we came down now to CHF 60.9 million.
So you see, as I mentioned it already, we worked hard to bring it down, the net working capital, to be on a level which we are happy, and of course, we will work further, but we've once again done a big step in this part of our balance sheet. All this with the result and the profit we have produced, we have now a high equity ratio of 39.9%, which is really a highlight. I remember well when I started, we were not at these levels in the past. As I said, let me do a summary out of what happened. And for me, I'm looking back not just for one year back, I'm looking back since I started.
As you may remember, I started in October 2019, and in 2019, we had a decline of 8.5% at constant currency on the revenue side. Since then, if you look and you check, you take out the CAGR on constant currency, we were growing 4.7%. So every year we were growing 4.7% during the last four and a half or almost five years. In those days, we were having an EBITDA margin in 2019 of 0.3%. Now we have an EBITDA margin of 10.1%. So you see on the EBITDA side, not just on the revenue, on the EBITDA side, we came from zero and now up to 10%. Even more impressive is what happened on the cash and the cash position.
On these days, we were having a negative cash, net cash of around CHF 25 million. Now we have a positive net cash of around CHF 25 million. So since these years, the cash position was improved, the stability was improved, the margin was improved, the revenue was improved. So I'm looking back on these years and saying, "Hey, we've done the turnaround," and I'm proud to say it was a nice and story with Ascom. Lots of people hardworking, and I look forward to all success that Nicolas and the team is continuing this story for the future. I thank you, and I hand back to Nicolas.
Thank you, Dominik, and, I mean, on behalf of myself and the whole team, obviously, a big thanks to Dominik for the past four, four and a half years with Ascom. A journey, but a very strong improvement, as Dominik was highlighting. I would like to move on with an update on our strategy, but also, let's say, our growth projections for the next couple of years. First of all, I would like to start with sharing the perspective from the market. The underlying trends in the market are strong.
There are strong tailwinds, as you know, in terms of a growing, aging population, in terms of a continued shortage of medical staff, a need for digitalization, which are all important elements that continue to push for investments in digitalization and workflow automation in healthcare, but also in enterprise. Now, these changes, these demographic changes, really require a change and higher efficiency in the healthcare sector. And that's where Ascom has quite a number of solutions that help to address these challenges in terms of improving the workflows, in terms of digitizing the information, in terms of sharing the data, providing the insights to the caregiver, to the worker, wherever he is, to take the necessary and the right decisions.
In terms of remote monitoring, in terms of RTLS, real-time location services, in terms of medical device integrations, you name it. That is where we act as a key partner to our customers, to our enterprise customers, to our healthcare partners, specifically for healthcare partners across what we call the care pathways. We do so by capturing data, integrating data from the medical devices, from the patient, or from the environment, or from a number of physical assets, in the rooms, in the corridors, wherever, medication administration. We orchestrate a number of algorithms on top of that to generate outputs and to enable the caregiver or the worker to take the appropriate actions in time, because we operate in critical and life-critical environments.
And we do so across the different care pathways, emergency department, intensive care unit, operating rooms, you name it, up to what we also call rehab centers and care at home, which is basically an extension of the monitoring solution that we provide, the surveillance that we provide at home, where a patient is discharged earlier and can also recover, sometimes in better conditions, at home, after a certain intervention. And by doing so, we make actually the invisible patient visible. We make sure that the data, the trends, are captured early on, are also provided early on to the caregiver in order to take the best possible decision for the best possible outcome of the patient.
We do so, we make the invisible patient visible by doing medical device integration, by, integrating wearable devices onto the system, by doing remote monitoring, by doing clinical decision support, by doing alarm and alert management, to enable better outcomes. Better outcomes for the caregiver, better outcomes for the patient, at a lower cost overall for the system. Now, we do so with our two major platforms, the Ascom Healthcare Platform, the Ascom Enterprise Platform, as we have the ambition and the vision to become the leading enabling platform across these two verticals, healthcare and enterprise.
These platforms are an integration of our solution components, or solution building blocks, which are the nurse call systems, which are the software platforms, Digistat Unite, but also SmartSense, which are sensing solutions for patients, in hospitals, but also in long-term care homes, which are also our mobility suite. Now, looking forward, what is our strategy and what are the key elements, underlining or underpinning our, our equity story? First of all, we want to continue to work on, on growth, and I'll come back on the next couple of slides to each of these three elements. The first one is growth. We want to continue to step up our growth in the different markets that we're in.
As Dominik said, despite the slowdown that we've seen in the second half of the year, we still delivered positive growth in each of our markets, which is good. There's still more potential to, to grasp across the three verticals in which we are, in terms of hospitals, in terms of long-term care homes, and definitely also in terms of enterprise. So continuing to leverage our growth is key. Second, moving much more to SaaS and cloud, which with our new platform that we're launching as we speak, which is the convergence of the different solutions into common platforms. This will enable us to also continue to grow, and especially to move to much more recurring revenue, more software revenue, and also cloud-based solutions. So that's very important.
And then third, last but not least, we've implemented our Shape Up program last year, but in the course of 2024, 2025, we will continue to work on productivity and efficiency improvement across the things that we're doing in Ascom. Let me go through each of these three in a bit more detail. The first one, which is on growth. 2023, as I mentioned, our emissions were higher. Still, the 5.5% compared to our peers was in the upper range, which is good. But what's important to show here is the small graph you can see on the left side of the chart, where we have been stepping up our growth from low single digits to actually mid-high single digits over the past number of years.
Going from 2%-3% in the past to about 6% over the past two years, and we want to continue to step that up, actually, to the high single-digit number. So stepping up our growth is key across all of our markets, but in particular, the five key growth markets that we have defined two years ago in terms of our main growth engines, which is U.S., definitely, which is DACH, definitely also a market where we can still grow further, which is U.K., which is Italy, and which is France and Iberia. And as Dominik said, we are further stepping up our investments in sales and sales power in our clinical sales team and our sales consultants, in order to support the growth that we want to achieve in these particular markets.
Likewise, in terms of our digital tools, complementing, let's say, our sales effort by more and better digital tools to have also that digital experience, but also pull through sales through our digital platforms. Now, that is number one, stepping up the growth. Innovation is the next one, and we've launched in 2023 a new mobility suite, both on the DECT side with our new DECT handsets, but also on the smartphone with a new next-generation Myco 4 smartphone, which we have launched last year in fall. We're very proud of that. It's getting good traction. It is also rated by two telco vendors as being really best-in-class in industry, which is... I mean, we're very happy to share that.
Myco 4 is generating growth in the segments in which we are, healthcare, non-healthcare, but also working very, very actively in positioning this in what we call 5G private networks. As you all probably know that you have 5G public network, but a lot of our customers want to set up a 5G private cloud in hospitals, but also in our enterprise verticals. And that's where the combination of our software solutions, Ofelia and Digistat as well for hospitals, combined with Myco 4, actually offer a great solution for 5G private networks, which are secure networks, private networks, not public networks, and which also provide actually an additional level of security for hospitals to be sure that they have a fully secured network on site in view of cyber attacks, in view of all the things that can happen, actually.
So that's an important point to mention. Secondly, our next generation nurse call system. As I mentioned also in one of the previous calls, we are currently launching our new and next gen nurse call system, which is also an integration of our two platforms, teleCARE and Telligence, into one. That next generation nurse call system will not just allow us to bring the next new platform to the market, but also allow us to go much more into the mid and entry level of the market. So really enhancing our share of wallet in the market with our nurse call system. So that's also a new innovation, which actually we're bringing to the market as we speak now, in the first half of 2024.
The next point, which is also supporting our growth is SaaS and cloud offerings. I referred in our previous calls to platform convergence, which is really converging the different platforms, Unite, Digistat, and others, onto one common platform architecture. Also here, in the course of 2024, we are bringing up the enterprise and the long-term care solutions to the market. At the end of 2024, early 2025, the hospital solutions on top of that, because that's medical device regulated. This is a new platform that will enable us to go full cloud, will also enable us to move much more to SaaS recurring revenues, basically. Today, we have around 25% of our revenue, which is recurring. We want to bring that above 30%-35% of our revenue in the coming years.
Now, this platform is a fully scalable platform, is also an open platform through which we can integrate a lot of partners through our, open API, interfaces, basically. It is also AI-enabled, where, we can actually filter much better our alarms, alerts through AI algorithms to give the right alert or filter the right alert to give it to the right, caregiver in a hospital setting. So, SaaS and cloud, that's very important. We're ready. We're in the process now of actually going live with the first applications, of that in enterprise and in long-term care as well. Now, the third point is operational efficiency. As I mentioned, we executed on our, operational efficiency plan shape up last year, which we have now finalized.
This is bringing in around CHF 10 million run rate savings as of 2024 versus a baseline of 2021. But we will continue to work on additional productivity gains. We're working on savings. We are investing selectively in certain markets to grow our sales power, the feet on the street, but we will continue to work on productivity gains in 2024 and 2025. Part of which will come from the platform convergence, as I highlighted, because this will really simplify the way we install, activate, operate, maintain our different platforms, so it will bring quite some productivity gains. But also other things like remote monitoring, like our new ERP platform, which we're in the process of also deploying, which will bring quite some efficiency gains from a process point of view. Sustainability.
We have a clear plan, and you will see in our annual report that we have a very extensive and very good annual report chapter on sustainability, in line with, let's say, the common practices. But I would say we're definitely, I mean, best in class. We have an ambitious roadmap going ahead to reduce our carbon footprint. This is an imperative that we've put ourselves as a company. It's an imperative also from ethical point of view, but it becomes more and more imperative from commercial point of view. As many of our customers, as many of our markets require a very ambitious plan, a very, let's say, well-articulated plan with key metrics and a roadmap going forward, huh?
So sustainability definitely is key, and we continue to work on that at 2023, as we will in 2024. Now, with this, I would like to come back to a number of, nice references. I've mentioned the one on the left, which is the four integrated delivery networks, the four IDNs in the U.S., where we delivered a virtual nurse, type of application, which is a combination of nurse call and our software platforms to basically support the nurses in their nurse rounding and being able to, call upon specialist advice if and when required. There is a generalized shortage of nurses in the U.S., but also elsewhere, and this is a very nice solution that provides the additional level of assistance, the additional level of support, expertise to the nurses while they're doing nurse rounding.
So that's a very nice solution that we have deployed in four large IDNs in U.S., last year, and it's one of the several nice references, and nice entries into new IDNs in the U.S. HSR, a very large hospital network in the southern part of Norway, very large, I mean, 60,000 people that are working there, so it's, it's huge. And we're really a very strong player there, I would say the dominant or the incumbent player there with HSR, and we're proud of being a key partner to them today, and also in the future. We're also there in the process of deploying a full Digistat solution across all of their hospitals in the southern part of Norway. So large project.
And then last but not least, the one on the right, which is, a nice, let's say, innovation project that we're doing together with, Dräger, where we won together a European-funded, innovation project to, work basically on smart and silent ICUs. As you know, intensive care unit, I mean, critical patients, with a lot of machines connected to them, seven, eight machines, on average, generating, different, noises, information, alarms, alerts. And, we are working actually on smart and silent ICUs. I was referring to AI a minute ago, and that's where also AI will be applied to really filter based on patterns, the relevant, the few relevant, basically, alarms and alerts in order to enable to provide much better care to the, the nurse and the, the caregiver.
And then, a nice project in Germany, the hospital Darmstadt Dieburg, where together, we defined a blueprint for Hospital 2.0 on a fully digitalized hospital. And basically, we deployed a full suite of solutions, which is a combination of our mobility plus our different software platforms, Unite and Digistat, to the different care areas of that hospital, and especially also in the newly built intensive care unit. And basically, the objective and the achievement was to harmonize all the full solutions that they have, because they had a legacy infrastructure with really different type of solutions. By doing so, also change the workflows in order to improve and gain efficiency, improve outcomes, deliver better care to the to the patient.
So it was a very nice project that we did in the course of 2023. Now, with this, I would like to say that we're progressing very well in our strategy to become the leading enabling platform across the healthcare and the enterprise industry. Our journey is based on the first chapter, Shape, the second one, Expand, which is the one that we're focusing on right now, the third one being Exceed in a couple of years from now. And expanding really is expanding our presence, our position, our impact in the different markets in which we are growing our top line. And I think we've, over the past couple of years, moved the needle both in terms of moving from 2%-3% growth to 6%.
We want to grow more in the near future, but also improving our financials to, I mean, last year, 10%, but we want to continue to have EBITDA creation in the years to come. And we'll do so by working further on our operating leverage, by growing further our position in the key markets in which we are, in the key segments in which we are, by also, over the next couple of years, continue to grow the share of the proportion of recurring revenue and software revenue versus the total revenue of the group. So that's actually point one, continuing to step up our growth beyond the 6% where we are, on average, over the past two to three years. Secondly, further gross margin enhancement. As Dominik said, we had a nice step up in our gross margin by about 2 points in 2023.
We've also outlined that our ambition is to get back to the 50% in the near future, and beyond 50% midterm, as well. And we're working towards that with a number of actions. Actions coming from the Converge platform, which will deliver a lot of efficiency, not only in R&D, but especially in rollout and in maintenance and in service. Secondly, a better product mix. As I mentioned, more recurring, more software with a better margin profile, but also working with more on pricing and our cost, cost of goods. Thirdly, working further on continued efficiency and productivity gains, and there's quite a number of initiatives that are supporting that, which will help us further to reduce our functional costs in the next two to three years.
Part of which, again, coming from the platform conversions, as well, really simplify the way we roll out and the intensity, the labor intensity of, let's say, our different products. And then last but not least, process efficiency. So with this, I believe we have a strong strategy, a compelling strategy ahead, but also the right initiatives that will support our growth, but especially our margin and EBITDA enhancement in the coming years. And with this, I would like to move to the guidance, which is the guidance for 2024, that we target a mid-single-digit revenue growth for 2024 at constant currency, but also aim to reach an EBITDA margin of around 11% this year. I should say here that, I mean, we have a sequential performance, first half, second half.
As we've seen in the first half, in the second half of last year, that there was a slowdown in the market. We expect that there will be a seasonal effect between first half and second half this year, with a low single digit, flat to low single digit first half and with a higher growth in the second half of 2024. In terms of midterm guidance, we continue with our growth ambitions, while we've slightly lowered that, but we do continue with our growth ambitions to achieve high single-digit revenue growth in the coming years. And with that, also a 100 basis point EBITDA margin improvement until 2027, which will bring us back basically to the 14%-15% EBITDA margin that we have also guided for.
Now, with that, I would like also to announce or inform about the proposal to the AGM in terms of dividends. We, or the board of directors, will propose a dividend of CHF 0.30 per share to the AGM in April, which is an equivalent of a 62% payout ratio, and which is a nice step up in terms of dividend versus the CHF 0.20 we had in 2022 or 2023 for 2022. As we had a significant increase in our earnings per share, going up 50% or more than 50% from CHF 0.31 to CHF 0.48, which I think is a good dividend, a good dividend yield as well, which will be proposed to the AGM.
Likewise, re-election of the board members with most of the board members proposing to be re-elected, but also a new board member, which will be proposed, which is Mrs. Monica Krüsi , which will be proposed for re-election or for election, basically, at the AGM in April. And with that, I would like also to indicate again that Dominik Maurer, our CFO, will leave the company. I would like, again, to thank Dominik for the last four years, four and a half years with the company, for, I mean, the strong support that he has delivered and also working on the growth and the turnaround of the company.
With that, also, informing you that, we are, progressing well with the process of, selecting a new CFO, and we will also be announcing that quite shortly, to the, to the market. Now, as a conclusion, I would like to, reiterate that, our ambition is to become the leading enabling platform, in the industry, both in healthcare as well as in enterprise. We are continuing to work on our growth strategy, stepping up from mid-single to, to higher single digit, combined with also, let's say, the cost efficiency that we'll continue to work on in order to, support our EBITDA accretion in the years to come. So with this, I would like to thank you for your presence here today, and we will open up for Q&A in a minute. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, with this, we come to the Q&A session. As I already mentioned, the participants in the webinar, they may use the chat function to ask their questions, and then, we will treat them here afterwards. We will first start now with the questions here in the meeting room, and then we do the, in a second step, then the questions from the webinar. Who likes to start? Walter Bamert, please.
Hello, Walter Bamert from Zürcher Kantonalbank. Last year, we had the chairman here, and this gives the opportunity, he's not here. Can you share with us the discussion you have on strategy with the board?
So we have a, I would say, an in-depth strategy discussion in the board at various occasions, but primarily in the May-June timeframe when we work on our strategic plan. So in the first part of the year, we make a strategic plan, which we then discuss in, actually, a multi-day board session, which is typically taking place in June. And that strategy process, it's a yearly process that we do. It's a yearly process, which is top-down, bottom-up, together with the regions, together with the segment leaders, healthcare, long-term care, and enterprise, where we really look at our position in the market, where we look at growth, growth acceleration, where we look at our go-to-market strategy, direct, indirect, partners, partnerships.
Where we look at basically our tools and people, and this is all basically then translated in a three to five year plan, which is a plan at group level, but primarily also an execution plan at region level. So that is the process that we have. It's part of our yearly governance, and we have in-depth discussion with the board in that, in the May-June timeframe. Yeah.
I have a second question I wanted to ask for a long time, which is, currently, the whole world is investing in electronic medical records. Does that change the market position of Ascom? Is medical device integration needed as before, or do all these devices connect directly in the medical records, and you pull it from there, or do you still bypass that database?
Yeah. Good, good point. So there's quite some investments in the healthcare domain, as you say, which is fully right. But both in the EMR, as well as in care delivery and workflow automation, and in digitalization of workflows. So, the difference between the EMRs and the system that we provide, that Ascom provides, is that EMRs actually are static, so they take a picture at a certain point in time, whereas what we do is on the forefront of that, and is dynamic and is real time. And in order to be able to provide care, you need to have a real time dynamic solution that helps you to really capture trends immediately and also distribute it to the right caregivers immediately.
So it is different from an EMR, which is really a picture, snapshot at a certain point in time, right? But investments are happening as we speak in both areas, depending on the level of maturity of the country or the hospital. So it depends really on where they are in the digitalization phase, and where the investments are going. But the two solutions are quite different, actually. Yeah.
Any further questions, Walter? That's okay.
Thank you.
Then we switch-
Okay.
Over, over the floor.
Stefan from Solara Capital. Just a couple of questions, if I may. Call me naive, but in December, you spoke when you adjusted the guidance about macroeconomic problems and also delays.
Yep.
I was under the assumption that delays means that we're gonna see that this year, and hence the guidance, the top line guidance in constant currencies, for me, is a little bit conservative, so to say. So maybe you can venture a little bit into that. Is it delays or is it actually cancellations? Then the second question that I have is regarding the tax. Mr. Maurer, are we, is that a level that is gonna be consistent, or are there more tax losses carried forward that we can-- that you can use? Or are we gonna see slightly higher taxes in 2024? And also, the third question goes to you, Mr. Maurer, which is about the net working capital. Obviously, a nice achievement there, -CHF 10 million in 2023.
Is that trend ongoing, or do you think now we're at the level where it might be a little bit stagnant, or is the net working capital further to going down? That's it. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Solara. I think we start with-
I'll take the first question. Thank you. So, we indeed guided to a lower revenue growth in 2023, on the back of actually a slowdown of the market that we started seeing in Q4 last year. And if you look at the numbers that we highlighted, there was mainly a drop in order intake in OEM, which was around 10%, but also in the region, rest of the world. While, let's say, we were also aiming for high growth in all of the other regions. So that's looking back at 2023. Nevertheless, we have a solid order backlog, which also enables us around 50%-55% of that is actually billable in 2024.
Next to that, we have around 15% on average, of what we call the run rate business, which are extensions, which are replacements. So if you add these two, it brings you really to a fairly good level of our revenue forecast of, of this year. So from, I would say, a security point of view, we have a good visibility, obviously, on the backlog. We have also a good confidence on the run rate business, and we have, obviously, I mean, leading indicators in terms of funnel, in terms of projects that we're working on, with a good line of sight of what we believe we can bring in. Nevertheless, I mean, I don't have a crystal ball at this stage, so I'm guiding towards a flattish, low single-digit growth in the first half.
We're also guiding towards a higher growth in the second half, which brings us on average to around mid-single digit growth in 2024. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Okay, this will give Dominik tax rate.
I start with the tax. There was special effect coming out this year, so you cannot assume that this is going to continue. We will have some benefits out of, out of, that it will have an effect in the future, but let's say the tax rate is gonna be around 19%-20%. So it's not gonna be that you can assume it's gonna have a huge step, or it's gonna continue with the around 14% we had this year. But, but we still have some tax losses which we can carry forward in some of the countries, but the question then is, do you have in that country, the amount and how you can benefit out? But of course, we will look that we optimize it as much as we can.
Mm-hmm.
Then net working capital, the question on net working capital, yes, we came down. I do not believe that we will be able to go further down. It's more or less that we reached a level which is supportive or which is the level we need anyway to have for the group, and therefore, you cannot assume that there's gonna be a big effect out of that in the future too.
Okay.
The question will be that we stabilize and we keep it on that level.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It's okay for you. Then next question here in the room. Yeah, Siegmund Skalar.
Hi, this is Siegmund from Finanz und Wirtschaft. Maybe for Nicolas, I wanted to follow up on the 5G private opportunity, and I was curious if that was already baked into the guidance, respectively, if you could say if that is an offering that you already have and at what state it is?
Yeah. So it's something that we will see over the next couple of years. 5G networks are starting to be deployed. 5G private networks are, let's say, in the early phases of that. But we are positioning ourselves in that market. We're also working with a number of partners in that field, the Nokias and the Ericssons, a number of telecom operators in the different markets in Europe, because obviously they are the first interested ones to provide that infrastructure, private network infrastructure. So it's something that we expect to really be important in the years to come, both for hospitals, but also for a number of other verticals.
And as you know, we are in really some key interesting verticals. I mean, secure establishments, industry, we are in retail, but let's say a number of verticals also on the enterprise side are quite interested, basically, in that 5G private network technology. We're in the process of ramping that up. It is not yet part of our guidance, but we expect that in the next two to three years, this will pick up, and this will be an important trend we see in the market. Yeah.
Thank you. Further questions?
If I may, a second one, maybe for Dominik. I was curious about... I talked to some of you about the potential for centralization of different country units and the consolidation potential, I guess, between R&D and marketing costs. So looking at the different cost blocks, marketing and sales, R&D, and the administration, I was wondering if you could say something, looking to 2024, what the potential is to see movements there? Thank you.
Maybe-
You or?
I think Nicolas, you should.
So, so-
Future.
So the question was more on R&D and then also the marketing costs.
Also on country organization.
Yeah, yeah. So we're in terms of the regions, we have actually, as I mentioned, selected five key growth regions, which is U.S., U.K., which is France and Iberia, which is the DACH region, which is also Italy, where we still have significant potential to grow. I mean, we want to grow in all of the regions, but these are the ones where we expect to see, let's say, more than proportional growth. On the other hand, we have also revisited our strategy in 2022 and 2023 in a number of other regions. Actually, we scaled down our presence, our operations in certain Asian countries, as well as in certain Middle East and African countries. So we want to have a focused approach.
The biggest markets are indeed Europe and U.S., and that's where we really want to double down much more, as I mentioned, in those five key markets. In terms of R&D and marketing, on the marketing side, we have, as part of the operational efficiency program last year, Shape Up, globalized and centralized our marketing team. It was more decentralized before. It allows us really to pool the resources, to also step up all the things that we do, to do it better at once, rather than really doing it in a decentralized way in the different regions. So from that perspective, we've worked on quite a number of synergies as part of the Shape Up plan last year.
What we're doing this year is to step up further with much more digital tools, digital campaigns, our webshop, which is now live, which will also enable our partners basically to be fully served digitally, and this will really help us to also be more efficient from that perspective. On the R&D side, we have optimized our structure while we've also invested and continue to invest still, and will continue to do so, but we've still invested quite a significant amount of resources given the innovation that we're working on, given also the platform conversion that we're working on. And this will, let's say, gradually come down as we speak once we're done, and this will be in 2025 and 2026, basically. Thank you.
Further questions from your side, Simon? Okay. Other questions here in the room? I don't see any. Ah, sorry! Walter.
To get all those done, a few follow-up questions. Is this dividend policy sustainable? Will you continue to be a good dividend payer? And that means that you perhaps do not make a share buyback to get rid of the cash position, but rather keep it to have a stable to growing dividend in the coming year.
Yeah. I think this is more, questions for the board of directors, and they decided not to give a certain dividend range, but you can see we paid out last year about two-thirds, and this year it's the same, and there is no currently, there is no request for a share buyback, from this side.
Okay. Just to comment on that, I think, I mean, the discussion with the board is to continue to grow also our dividend payout in the years to come. Now, I think this year with CHF 0.30 versus CHF 0.20 before is a good step up. Obviously, as we expect also to have, in the future, improved results, we should also increase further our-
Mm-hmm
... our dividend, while indeed, the payout ratio around two-thirds, probably that's, that's the range that we're putting forward. Yeah.
Could I have an explanation on the financial result? Because you're sitting on cash, but even in the light of higher interest rates, there was a balanced result.
... Yes. First of all, it's depending on the—we were not the whole year debt-free, so that has an effect. Second effect is currency translations, which is having an effect, too. And third, of course, now as we have cash on hand, we are looking forward to invest the money, so we apply the money on the market and to get a return out of it following the policy what we have.
Okay. The last question, I was positively surprised by the number of Digistat implementation projects in the U.S. Can you share your view why in the U.S. you sell Digistat as a standalone solution? Why they don't need Unite to do that, and what is different in the U.S., or who fills the gap that Unite fills in Europe?
We also sell quite a lot of Unite in U.S., actually, so it really depends. Sometimes it's a combination of the two. Sometimes it's also let's say Digistat as a standalone platform to do medical device integration. So I wouldn't say... Because in U.S., we also sell quite a lot of Unite since a number of years, right? So it's not that we do Digistat only in U.S. and not in Europe. So it really depends on the project. As you know, we also have a partnership in U.S. with GE where we're jointly offering the... I mean, our solutions, including Digistat and Unite, as part of what we call the command center. So but there's still room to grow.
I mean, we had 7% order intake, 7.5% growth. We had 4% revenue growth. We want to continue to see a further major step up also in 2024. Yeah.
Thank you. Any further questions here in the Metropole? Otherwise, we just check. There is nothing in addition, from the webcast, it seems. Oh, yeah. No. Okay.
Yeah.
Then I think, we come to the end of the Q&A session. I thank you very much. There were all together about, about 50 participant, together with the webcast. Thank you for your interest, and I hand back to, Nicolas.
Many, many thanks again. Thank you for being here today, and we look forward to good, engaging discussions also in the weeks and months to come. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.