Good day, and welcome to the Evertz Q1 2022 Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Brian Campbell, Executive Vice President of Business Development. Please go ahead,
sir.
Thank you, Bobby. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Evertz Technologies Limited conference call for our fiscal sir, and myself, Brian Campbell. Please note that our financial press release and MD and A will be available on SEDAR. Doug and I will comment on the financial results and then open the call to your questions. Turning now to Evertz's results.
I'd like to begin by providing a few highlights and then Doug will go into greater detail. First off, I'm pleased to report sales for the Q1 totaled $97,200,000 up 72% from the Q1 last year. The strong rebound From our 1st fiscal quarter of 2021, was experienced across all geographic regions and was driven predominantly by the adoption of Evertz's new Our sales base is well diversified with the top 10 customers accounting for approximately 42% of sales during And with no single customer over 9%. In fact, we had 134 Customer orders of over $200,000 Gross margin in the quarter was $56,700,000 or 58.3 percent of sales, which is in the upper half of our target range. Investments in research and development during the quarter totaled $24,700,000 Net earnings for the Q1 were $14,700,000 while fully diluted earnings per share were $0.19 in the quarter.
Evertz's working capital was $217,000,000 with $31,600,000 in cash as at July 31, 2021. The purchase order backlog We attribute this strong financial performance and robust combined shipments and purchase order backlog to The ongoing technical transition in the industry, channel and video services proliferation, Increasing global demand for high quality video anywhere, anytime and specifically to the growing adoption of Evertz's IP based Software Defined Video Networking Solutions, Evertz's IT and Cloud Solutions, our immersive 4 ks, 8 ks UHD Solutions, our state of the art DreamCatcher IP replay and live production suite and Bravo Studio. Today, Evertz's Board of Directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.18 per share payable on or about October 5, 2021. Furthermore, Evertz's Board of Directors also declared a special dividend of $1 per share, also payable on October 5. Special dividend reflects both the strong long term operating performance of the company and its solid balance sheet, thereby enabling a distribution of cash over and above what is considered necessary to meet known commitments and to maintain adequate reserves.
I I will now hand over to Doug Moore, Evertz's Chief Financial Officer, to cover our results in greater detail.
Thank you, Brian, and good afternoon, everyone. Sales were $97,200,000 in the Q1 of fiscal 2022 compared to $56,300,000 in the Q1 of fiscal 2021, $4,400,000 compared to $35,900,000 last year, an increase of 79%. The international region had sales for the quarter $32,800,000 compared to $20,400,000 last year, an increase of 60%. Gross margin for the Q1 was approximately 58.3% compared to 57.2% in the prior year and Gross margin was within the company's target range. Selling and administrative expenses were $14,000,000 for the 1st quarter as compared to $11,900,000 in the same period last year.
Selling and admin expenses as a percentage of revenue was 14.4% compared to 21.2% in the same period last year. Research and development Expenses were $24,700,000 for the Q1 as compared to $16,600,000 in the same period last year. Research and development expenses as a percentage of revenue was 25.4% compared to 29.4% in the same period last year. Foreign exchange gain was $1,400,000 as compared to a foreign exchange loss in the prior year of $3,100,000 The gain in the quarter was predominantly a result of the increase in the value of the U. S.
Dollar as at July 31 when compared to April 30. Turning to a discussion of liquidity of the company. Cash as at July 31, 2021 was $131,600,000 compared to $108,800,000 as at April 30, 2021. Working capital was 217,000,000 as at July 31, compared to $214,500,000 at the end of April. The company generated cash and operations of 38 $1,000,000 which is gross of a $20,700,000 change in non cash working capital and current taxes in the quarter.
If the effects of the change in non cash working capital and taxes were excluded from the calculation, the company generated $17,300,000 in cash from operations. The company acquired $1,100,000 of capital assets and the company used cash from financing activities of $15,100,000 Which predominantly consisted of a payment of dividends