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The global conference call of Daimler. At our customer's request, this conference will be recorded. The replay of the conference call will also be available as an on-demand audio webcast in the investor relations section of the Daimler website. The short introduction will be directly followed by a Q&A session. If you want to ask a question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad. To remove the question, please press 02 on your telephone keypad. Again, for a question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad and 02 to withdraw. I would like to remind you that this teleconference is governed by the safe harbor wording that you find in our published results documents. Please note that our presentations contain forward looking statements that reflect management's current views with respect to future events. Such statements are subject to many risks and uncertainties. If the assumptions underlying any of these statements prove incorrect, then actual results may be materially different from those expressed or implied by such statements. Forward looking statements speak only to the date on which they are made. May I now hand over to Björn Schaib, head of Daimler investor relations. Thank you very much.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is Björn Schaib speaking. On behalf of Daimler, I would like to welcome you on both the telephone and the internet to our Q2 results conference call. I'm very happy to have today with us our CEO of Daimler and head of the Mercedes-Benz passenger car, Ola Kelenius, Martin Daum, member of the board of management, responsible for the Daimler trucks and buses, and Harald Wilhelm, member of the board of management, responsible for finance and controlling and the Daimler financial services. In order to give you maximum time for your questions, ladies and gentlemen, please stay disciplined and after this short introduction, limit yourself to one and max two questions in order to give everybody on this call the opportunity to raise questions. Now I'd like to hand over to Ola.

Thank you, Björn, and a warm welcome from me as well. Obviously Q2 hasn't been an easy quarter for us. We had to adjust our earnings forecast two times and our free cashflow is reflecting our high level of investment for our future and a significant increase in working capital. So let me be clear, our numbers are far from satisfactory. Looking ahead, we expect a tangible improvement in the second half of this year, with the main driver being our strong product lineup and our own industrial capability. In Q2, Mercedes-Benz cars and Daimler trucks defended their leading market positions based upon their attractive products. And we're building on that, for example, with the premiere of the all new GLB and the startup production of the new Actros. Our pipeline remains very full. At the same time, we intensified the review of our current and future portfolio to focus our resources on the most relevant and profitable parts of our lineup. For smart, as an example, we have already made respective decisions. Plus, we launched efficiency programs in all areas of our business and have moved ahead with the implementation of our new company structure. So what was the situation in our markets in the second quarter? Again, the Chinese passenger car market decreased significantly in the second quarter. That also goes for India. Demand in Europe was slightly below the previous year and the US remained on about the same level as last year. Car sales in Japan exceeded the prior year level. In some, worldwide demand for cars continued to weaken in the second quarter, but the premium segment proved to be more resilient. Truck markets developed favorably in North America and Europe, as well as in Brazil. Some emerging markets faced headwinds, for example, Russia and Turkey. Demand for vans and buses continued to be high in major markets, notably in Europe. Now, Harold will tell you about our financial performance in the second quarter. Harold. Thanks,

Ola, and good morning, everybody. Overall, at Daimler, we sold 822,000 vehicles. That is 1% less than in the prior year quarter and that is mainly due to the sales situation at passenger cars. At the same time, our revenue has increased by almost 5% to 43 billion. The growth is mainly coming from the strong services and parts business in Mercedes-Benz cars in the quarter and a very favorable evolution also in the Daimler trucks and the financial services, coming from a positive structural mix in sales and in the FX development. Looking at the free cash flow from the industrial business, we finished the half year at minus 3.3 billion. On the EBIT side, due to the one of charges of more than 4 billion, the group EBIT came in at minus 1.6, which is obviously significantly below the prior year. As a result of that, the net profit was also significantly below the previous year's figure at minus 1.2 billion. Earnings per share amounted to minus 1.24. The tax income reported in the P&L is due to the deferred tax asset resulting from the pre-tax losses. If we look at the performance evolution on slide five, obviously the 1.6 billion EBIT negative was burdened by the exceptional items reported in our ad hoc statements. If we exclude these, we achieved an EBIT of 2.6 billion this quarter. In other words, it's overall roughly in line with prior year level performance. How did we get there? Overall, if we take volume structure and net pricing together, it was slightly positive. And that is due to an increase in trucks and buses. On the FX side, we faced some headwinds with the Remingbi, the British pound, as well as a couple of emerging market currencies. In the other cost changes, if you take the 350 million of the one of the disclosed items away, you see higher expenses for new technologies and future products at NBC, as well as cost inflation that could not be fully compensated this quarter. Let's have a look at the net liquidity, page six. This decreased to 6.6 billion by the end of the first half. The decline against the end of 2018 is the result of three elements, which roughly weight equally. Number one, the implementation of IFRS 16. Number two, the dividend paid. And obviously number three, the free cash flow of the industrial business. After the first half of the year, this industrial free cash flow of minus 3.3 billion reflects the cash flow from earnings, as well as other impacts of 1.9 billion after a slow start into the year. In addition, the free cash flow reflects the strong ramp up in working capital of 3.5 billion due to the significant higher inventories of finished and unfinished goods in all our divisions. We have continued our strong investments into our future with about 5 billion going into property, land and equipment, as well as intangible assets. That's significantly more than the depreciation and amortization. Clearly we expect the free cash flow to be significantly positive in the second half of the year due to a swing in working capital. Therefore the net industrial liquidity will increase substantially in the second half of the year. In other words, we expect the full year free cash flow to be positive. Despite the temporary lower net industrial liquidity, we're safeguarding our financial flexibilities with a balanced mix of funding instruments, which you can see in the appendix. This allows us to mitigate.