Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of our half year results. I'm here together with Rolf Brändli, our CFO. Before we start, two topics for housekeeping. First, during this call, we'll exclusively focus on the half year and the guidance for the full-year. The market developments and longer term topics will be covered in our capital markets day at 1:00 P.M. Swiss time this afternoon. Second, there is a disclaimer on page two of this presentation, which I will assume you have read. With this, I will move directly to page four. Key highlights and market development. We had a strong half year with a new record order intake, following a strong financial year 2021. With these dynamics, we are fundamentally positive about the market, about the company, about our ability to transform, which will be the topic of the capital market day this afternoon.
Moving to page five and the highlights on the financial side, we had, again, an exceptional increase in order intake, strong growth of sales, EBIT and net income. On order intake, we established a new record with CHF 707 million for the half year, which is a growth of almost 57%. It comes first from a continued positive dynamics in the systems market. Again, with the same keywords like I mentioned during the financial year 2021, it's about solar panel related applications, it's about LNG related applications, and it's about hydrogen for mobility and energy, for which we had a very large order in the US. Concerning sales, we had a strong growth of 25%, which comes from the orders of the past years, going to CHF 335.8 million.
EBIT has increased over proportionately by 35%, leading to an EBIT margin of 10.6%, which is an increase of 0.8 percentage points compared to last year. Here, both divisions developed very well, increasing their profitability, and both divisions benefited from something that we will continue to see in the next years, which is the operational leverage on the SG&A expenses as the sales are growing. Net income increased by 37% and the earnings per share, slightly higher, 37.7%, leading to an earnings per share of CHF 7.23. This is really on the financial side, a very strong half year. We also had other highlights, which I'd like to mention on the next page.
First, in the team, my successor as Systems Division president is now in place since one month, joining with a wealth of experiences from global industrial companies. Here, I would like to mention the great job done by the Systems management team who has delivered a very strong result for the Systems Division, in an ad interim solution, since in the last six months. That shows really the strength of our bench. On digitalization, we made further progress with two of our digital services. First, UP! Remote Support, which I mentioned before. It's commercially launched since 6 months, and it's gathering successes. We had several instances where with the tablet, which you see on the picture, the customer. This is a picture of a customer that you see here.
A customer can call one expert, the best expert in the world from Burckhardt, and this expert can solve problems very quickly, in the cases where it's urgent or in cases where travel is not possible. The second service is UP! Predict, which is based on artificial intelligence. Here we can predict in advance when a component is likely to fail. We had pilots running on ships with BW, who is one of our customer, and they've been really convinced, and now they are rolling out this solution on other ships. Moving to hydrogen. Already in the first half year, we have won more orders than in full-year 2021. This shows that the market is growing fast, then our strategy is working.
In particular, we have won a very large order for liquefaction plants in the U.S. We have won orders for the largest green hydrogen project in the world in China, and we have delivered or won orders for HRS, who is building fuel stations in France. Finally, corporate responsibility. I'd like to mention here the further progress made by our teams on defining the KPIs and the targets for our eight material topics related to sustainability. The fact that important rating agencies have increased our rating after the publication of our sustainability report for the financial year 2021. Here we still have a lot to do, but with these new ratings, we are now clearly above the industry average.
Moving to the next page and looking at the outside world, the environment remains challenging, and we continue to define and implement mitigating actions. Energy costs are soaring, but they are actually a very minor part of our own cost. This is not a problem. What we do is to define energy savings measures, mitigating actions, in Europe especially, in Switzerland in particular, in case of potential scenarios of energy shortages. Challenges in the supply chain and logistics continue, just like I reported in the financial year 2021.
We continue to mitigate them by passing on the cost to customers, by re-realizing some savings on some materials which are starting to decrease, and by diversifying our supply chains. Finally, as we explained in June, the exit out of the Russian markets is not a major issue for revenues because we have typically only 2%-5% of our business there. But we have to get out of existing projects which we could not deliver due to sanctions. This created one-off costs, and we have made further provisions for a total of CHF 10 million in the first half year. Moving to the markets on the next page. Here we'll say more during the capital markets day this afternoon.
Briefly, we still have the same three keywords which explain our exceptional order intake. Energy, solar panel related applications, and hydrogen, for mobility and energy. We expect them to continue in the coming years as the world needs more secure and more sustainable energy sources. Here, these three keywords, they are driving the four first lines in this table. Now, a few words about the amount of our orders in hydrogen, because I know, you will ask the question. We already communicated that it started in financial year 2020 with CHF 5 million-CHF 10 million order intake. In financial year 2021, I reported that we had between CHF 30 million and CHF 50 million order intake. Now in financial year 2022, we expect CHF 80 million-CHF 100 million, and we have already more than half of that in our order book, by the half year.
The refinery market is doing okay, but actually we have to prioritize our efforts and resources, so we didn't win so many orders in this segment for the first half year. The last one, gas gathering and processing, continues to represent only a very small proportion of our orders. Putting now the order intake figures in the historical perspective on page nine, we see that during this half year we have established a very high new record. This half year is actually higher than any full-year in the company history until financial year 2020. It's 57% higher than the half year of 2021. Actually 59.5% if you put it net of currency effects, which were negative, and acquisitions, which were slightly positive.
Looking now at Systems Division, had an amazing growth again of 75% of orders, driven by exceptional large projects in the three applications mentioned before. Service Division had also very strong growth of about 19%, which is broad-based in terms of business types and geographies. In summary, we had a market which is continuing at a very high, good pace. We have won most of the large orders in this market, and with this we have a very high backlog. Looking ahead, we are now fundamentally positive about the markets, about the company, and about our ability to transform independently of the short-term developments. We'll say more during the Capital Market Day this afternoon. With this, I would like now to hand over to Rolf Brändli, who will go deeper in the financials.
Thank you, Fabrice. Welcome to our half-year 2022 presentation also from my side. Driven by the very high order backlog that Fabrice has just presented, we have closed half-year sales 25.1% above the prior-year period at CHF 335 million. Net of currency translation effects and acquisitions, the year-over-year increase was even higher, amounting to 27.5%. The Systems Division contributed to this growth with the sales of 29% and Services with 21%. On the next slide, on the back of this exceptionally high order volume over the past 18 months, Systems sales has grown 29% in this first half-year period. Gross profit was up 59% as a result of the temporary positive product mix effect and the high capacity utilization.
As a result of the high gross margin and the operational leverage on SG&A expenses, EBIT increased by 41.4%, yielding a slightly higher EBIT margin of 4.5%, that compares to 4.1% in the prior-year period. That is all despite the one-off costs and provisions that Fabrice has mentioned in the amount of CHF 10 million for Russian projects. The services division increased sales by 21% with growth in all areas. A slightly higher gross margin together with an operational leverage on SG&A expenses have led to a higher EBIT margin of 20.6%. That's two percentage points above the prior- year period. While the integration of Mark van Schaick, the service company that we have acquired in December 2021, has been completed successfully.
Also, Arkos continued to grow in the U.S. downstream business and closed the half year with a positive EBIT. How does this add up to the group income statement? Total gross margin was up 2.5 percentage points, despite the higher share of systems business, which was at 54% of total sales in this first half year period, that compares to 52% in the period before. Contributors to that improvement were the temporary positive product mix in systems and the overall high capacity utilization. With 16.5% of sales, we had an operational leverage on SG&A expenses from the clearly higher sales compared to the prior periods, when SG&A expenses were amounting to 19.3% of sales.
In research and development, we continued with higher spending, CHF 1.9 million above the comparable period last period, with ongoing focus on marine solutions. Enhancing comprehensive solutions for hydrogen applications and the development of digital solutions. Other operating income decreased by CHF 14.1 million. That's mainly due to the before mentioned CHF 10 million one-off costs and provisions in the context with option projects. Financial expenses were a similar level as in the prior-year periods, while the tax rate stood at 25.2%. That's 1.6 percentage points above the year ago rate due to the high share of profits in countries with a higher tax rate. Let's have a look at a few selected positions on our balance sheet. As per half-year closing, property, plant and equipment remained at prior-year level. Trade receivables closed marginally lower year-over-year.
However, worth to be mentioned is the reduction of overdue accounts receivables. By September 2022, 33% of the receivables were overdue more than 90 days, and that compares to almost 40% a year ago. This is including ongoing improvements in China. As per half year closing, we continued with a positive balance of almost CHF 50 million between advanced payments from our customers compared to the invested work in progress in projects as a result of continuously favorable payment conditions that we can enforce in the market. Both the equity ratio and our net financial position closed at a similar level as in the prior-year period, net of the dividend payments that were due in July 2022. A word to the CapEx.
CapEx investment for the full-year 2022, so that's an outlook, remains unchanged at approximately CHF 25 million. That is similar to the level of our current depreciation and amortization. Last but not least, a glance on our cash flow for the first half of 2022 and the resulting net financial position. Cash flow from operating activities are with CHF 49 million, CHF 14 million below the prior-year period, which at that time included a significant positive swing of advanced payments from customers compared to the invested work in progress. Cash flow from investing activities, mainly for CapEx, was at similar level, while cash flow from financing activities closed slightly higher. The higher currency translation difference are mainly related to the translation effect of cash positions in local currency, mainly in China and Korea versus the Swiss franc.
Overall borrowings were at slightly higher level, leading to a net financial position that is at similar level as in the prior-year period. With this, I give the word back to Fabrice for the full-year outlook.
Thank you, Rolf. We'll now conclude with our guidance for the full-year on page 19. Overall, I mean there are clearly still challenges in our supply chain, but we are confident that we can fulfill our guidance announced in June, which is CHF 720 million-CHF 760 million for the sales and an EBIT margin similar level at financial year 2021. We will provide a lot more details about the future market developments, their dynamics, the fact that they are changing as you've seen in the past 18 months, and this is going to continue with different scenarios. We'll talk about that this afternoon in the Capital Market Day at 1:00 P.M., Swiss time.
You're welcome to join online, or to join us in Winterthur, where there will be a factory tour organized at the end of the presentation. This closes our presentation, and I would like to open the floor for questions. See if maybe already questions have arrived. I'll see that. We'll ask one question after the other. We go through. I see first the question of Alessandro Foletti regarding your sales outlook for 2022. Can you please indicate the expected split of sales between new machines and services? Rolf, do you want to take that question? A bit of split between systems and services for the full-year.
For the full-year, we have not guided on a sales split. We have a lot of new machine projects with 18-month delivery schedule. These are still uncertainties. We cannot predict exactly when these projects will be invoiced, so we did not provide a sales split, and we will also not do that in this half year closing.
Second question regarding the margin outlook, also from Alessandro Foletti. I am surprised that you don't seem to profit from operating leverage, given the outlook of a stronger H2. I should expect a much higher margin. You probably mean for H2. Am I wrong? Do you expect a stronger margin? Do we expect a stronger margin in H2?
No, we have the full-year outlook remains as is. That comes together with the first question to split between the two divisions. What we have clearly indicated is that we had a temporary very profitable or a beneficial margin mix within the Systems Division that is not expected to continue in the second half. Therefore, we have remained on our full-year guidance with a similar overall EBIT margin. We can really, at that point in time, not give more details between the splits of the divisions and the exact margin splits. I hope you understand that.
The next question from Alessandro Foletti. You mentioned that you won all large orders. Can you please specify in which segments? Are we talking hypercompressors or everywhere? They were very large orders in the three segments I mentioned. Indeed, we won several hypercompressors related to solar panel production. We also won very large orders related to LNG carriers, and we also won one very large order in hydrogen for liquefaction plants in the U.S. In these three segments, we actually won the orders which were on the market, and this is why it was exceptional. These orders were here. They all came in the first half here, and we won all of them, basically. The market continues fundamentally to develop in the direction of these three segments.
However, there will not be such exceptional orders every half year and, this is why we are prudent with the growth going forward. From Arben Arsonaj. Oops. Just a bit. Congratulations on strong results. Is solar growing on high prior-year base? CHF 150 million indeed last year. I think on the half year to half year, probably, yes. I can't say how it will be for the full-year, but, compared to the first half year of 2021, we had more orders for solar panels, this half year. What has held back the margin at servicing in 1H 2022 compared to 2H 2021? Higher sales and no one-off. Rolf?
Well, for half a year, even in the services division, we do have different product mix situations where we have more spare parts, less spare parts. Spare parts being the part in the mix with the highest gross margin, obviously. There are fluctuations, I think, with this half year closing where we could reach more than 20% EBIT margin. We're well on track also for the full fiscal year to remain above that 20% level on the bottom line.
Question on advance payments, which seem to have not risen that much despite the strong orders. Can you comment?
Well, I tend to disagree with that statement. We have CHF 174 million advanced payments compared to CHF 136 million in the comparable periods in the prior-year. This fluctuates every day. I think more important is the build-up between the advanced payments and what part of that advanced payment amount is invested in work in progress. There we are at the similar level of CHF 50 million that is over-financed, so to say, by customers because of this strong order momentum, where we typically have initially high amount of advanced payments with not yet that much money invested into work in progress.
Thank you. Next question from Barbara Blaha. Do you have enough capacity for the high order intake in the Systems Division? Also, given the capacity utilization was already very high now. Or will you need to spend more on CapEx? With the current order intake, we have indeed a high capacity utilization. However, we still have some capacity available in Switzerland. If you come for the factory tour, you will see that we have in one base still some capacity. We have still capacity in Korea for these LNG carriers orders. Here we're having a small CapEx to extend the offices, but the factory is good enough. We also have capacity in the U.S. for these large orders for liquefaction plants.
With this, for the next 12 months, we are well, we have this capacity, small debottlenecking CapEx, but nothing major. That's part of the CHF 25 million CapEx that Rolf has mentioned before. Now, we'll talk about this this afternoon, if the market would continue at that pace, then yes, in the next 18 months, we will need to look at where is it coming in terms of segments, in terms of countries, and we'll have to consider additional CapEx if that continues at that level. That's not our expectation so far. As we said, that is exceptional, and we can deliver that for now. Question from Dominik Felges. What are your expectations for the order intake? Will it remain as high as in the first half?
Here, very clearly, I'm sorry, but we don't guide an order intake. One of the reasons is because there are some large projects in the market, and the timing of them depends on their financing. They may come in a half year or not. They may be delayed by a few months. We may win them or lose them, and it makes a huge difference in order intake. This is why we cannot guide on order intake for the full-year. What we are saying is that the first half year was exceptional. Next question from Dominik Felges. What is happening to your former Russian activities? Have you simply closed them down, or is there anybody acquiring them? There we were actually having very light operations.
We had three employees who were actually not our own employees, who were hosted by another company. We didn't have any presence, really, in Russia. We were delivering projects out of, especially Switzerland. Now we stopped deliveries, but we don't have anything to sell. We don't have a business to sell. We have taken care of these three employees. Now we don't have any operations there anymore. Checking if there are some more questions. Does not seem to be the case. Let's wait a few more seconds. I don't see any questions. Again, I really invite you to join our capital market day this afternoon.
We'll really spend the time to explain where we are, where we stand as a company, how our markets are developing strongly towards applications which supports the transition towards more secure, more sustainable energy sources. We'll present our new targets for 2027, the strategy to reach them, and the whole team will present how they want to reach these goals. We'll present our new purpose and at the end, we will offer a factory tour if you're here with us physically, or we'll also have a couple of sessions for Q&A this afternoon. You can also keep your questions for then. With this, I would like to thank everyone for participating and hopefully we can talk later today at the Capital Markets Day. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Rolf. Bye-bye.
Thank you very much. Bye.