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Yeah, thank you very much. A very good morning from Norisenburg and welcome to our Q2 2023 investors and analysts call. Today, Romy Acosta and myself will present the results to you and we will be able to answer your questions hopefully all in after the presentation. Our new CFO, Oliver Gansert, he will start on the 1st of September and you will get to know him latest in the Q3 presentation then. I'm very happy to, if you go to the next slide, please very happy to present to you a very successful. Water for just, it's actually the most successful Q2 that we had in the history of just, we had record sales of 330 million in the Q2 quarter of 2023. A very strong growth in transport with 13% and that we were able to compensate the lower demands that we had in our agricultural products that had a minus 25% in sales. Our adjusted EBIT outpaced sales, growing to a record level of 37 million in a Q2 in 2023. And that leads to an adjusted EBIT margin expansion by 1.3 percentage points to 11.3%. Also, our adjusted earnings per share went up by 20% to €1.80 in Q2 of this year. And I'm very happy also about the cash flow development and Romy will explain that a little bit in more detail. We've generated more than 20 million in free cash flow in this quarter. So based on this very strong results, we confirm our positive outlook for the fiscal year 2023. If we look at the market developments that we had in Q2, our business was supported by a very strong truck market, especially in Europe. Trailer markets somewhat normalized a little bit with a minus 3%. Tractor markets was quite weak. Overall, just achieved a minus 3%, so our growth in truck could outweigh the reductions that we had in the other two sectors. North America continued strong in truck and trailer market, also a contraction in the tractor market. So we were more or less even the minus 1% overall. Asia-Pacific Africa, strong growth in the market, especially due to China with a plus 44% and the trailer market plus 15%. We generated 36% higher sales. If you would look at that in original currency, that would be 50% increase, but with the FX effects, it becomes 36% due to exchange rate changes. So very strong quarter, very happy with the development and Romy will present to you a bit more financial details.

Also welcome from my side. I'm very happy today to give you the deep dive into the financials for the second quarter. I will be focusing on the second quarter numbers as usual, and we will start with the European region. As Joachim just mentioned, in Europe, we saw a decline in sales, a slight decline by 3% to 178 million euros, which reflects the development in the underlying markets, a very, very strong development of the truck markets. that almost managed to compensate for the weakening in the trailer markets and in the agricultural markets. We did have a very robust development in the aftermarket, which is a typical development that you see when first-fit sales start to go down, as we saw in the trailer and the agricultural products. And we had a bit of headwinds from the currency exchanges, especially from the Swedish krona, Adjusted for that, actually, the decline in sales could have been only 0.6% compared to prior year. Despite this slight decline in sales, what was very positive was the strong development in profitability and adjusted EBIT, which grew in the quarter by 15% to 14.3 million euros. which was a great improvement compared especially to the prior year where adjusted EBIT margin was 6.8% and we managed to achieve this quarter 8.2% adjusted EBIT margin in the European region despite Europe bearing the headquarter cost for the region. Of course, last year We had a very strong impact from the outbreak of the Ukraine war. And if you remember correctly, a lot of our truck OEMs were affected by the lack of wiring harnesses, which disrupted the supply chain, as well as we had a lot of input costs that skyrocket due to the war. uh especially the supply chain we are happy to see have stabilized at the end of the of the fourth quarter but also continuing so in the first quarter now in the second quarter of the year and sea freight rates have gone down significantly which is very positive for the development of profitability in our act business so despite the decline in sales we saw a very strong development of profitability in the agricultural business due to the fact that a lot of the products that we sell in Europe are pre-produced in China and one of the major input cost factors is logistic costs. So that overall was a very good development and we are seeing Europe going back on track to the profitability levels that we saw in the past and we will continue to work on this in the future. If we move to North America, here we see a bit of the same picture Very strong transport markets. Here, not only the truck markets were good, also the trailer market continues to be very strong in the North America region. However, the decline in the agricultural market was also stronger than it was in Europe. And the reason for that is that if you remember Last year, we had a very strong boom in the so-called compact segment for detractors, which is no longer the case in 2023. So that here is where we saw the biggest decline in sales in agriculture, compensated almost completely by the strong development in the transport sector and also very good aftermarket. Headwinds. For the first time, I think in like two years, the translation effect of the dollar to the euro player worked against us instead of for us, so that we have a 2.3 percentage point headwinds from currency exchanges. Adjusted for that, we would have seen growth in the North American region by 1.7%. Also here, when you look at the bottom line, adjusted EBIT grew outpaced in sales by 8% to 10.3 million euros. And what we are quite happy to showcase is that our adjusted EBIT margin continued to be at 10.5%. higher than last year, but on the same level as the very strong quarter of the first quarter of this year, which is the highest adjusted EBIT margin and profitability we've ever achieved in the North American market. So we are quite happy with this development. Here, too, what we are seeing is on top of the efficiency measures that we've put in place to compensate for the high cost that we saw last year, That with the stabilization of the supply chain and the reduction of logistic costs, these measures are able to unfold further. And of course, North America does not bear the headquarter costs, so you see a major impact as well of this profitability development. And with that, I go to the next region, which is the highlight for this quarter. The Asia-Pacific-Africa region grew by 36%. to 55 million euros, as of 15 million euros more than in Q2 of last year, but also higher than the Q1 of this year, in which we had sales of 50 million euros. And that's despite the fact that currency exchanges worked against us in all regions for headwinds of 13.7 percentage points. Adjusted for that, as Joachim mentioned, it would have been almost 50% growth. Here, too, we see the very strong development that we've already saw in the prior quarters of India, Southeast Asia, the Pacific region, as well as South Africa. But more important, we are seeing the slow recovering of the Chinese market. And that, of course, boosts sales for us because we are well represented in that market. The profitability also developed quite nicely, growing by 31% to €11 million in adjusted EBIT. An adjusted EBIT margin was 20.1%, which is still beyond the 20% despite the fact that China is coming back. And if you remember from the past, China does tend to have a different product mix that we see in the other countries in the regions. with more on-road products. But despite of this, we are still enjoying a very good and strong profitability in the Asia Pacific Africa region, also driven by the better utilization rates in our Chinese production plants. And with that, I'll move on to the group overall. The second quarter, as Joachim mentioned, the strongest second quarter we've had so far with sales of 330 million euros total, growing by 2.6% compared to prior year and adjusted for the negative effects that we saw in all regions that growth would have been 6.4%. Transport developed very, very strongly, both especially trucks and of course the Asia-Pacific Africa region overall growing by 13% compared to the prior year quarter, whereas agriculture declined by 25% to 67 million. So overall, We are quite pleased with this development. You see it also in the adjusted EBIT, the profitability was increased by 16.3% in the group to 37.3 million euros. And the adjusted EBIT margin in the quarter was 11.3%, which is higher than prior year. But even if we look one year further back when we did not have the impact of the war and all these issues, skyrocketing supply costs and supply chain issues that came with the war. In the second quarter of 2021, our adjusted EBIT margin was 11%, so we managed to actually improve open that and i think that showcases the strength of the business and how we are positioned the fact that the markets that are doing really well this year which are trucks and the asia pacific africa regions were markets that last year were doing less well if you remember we had a lot of disruptions uh from truck oems and asia was very down due to china those are the markets that are now pushing the growth and this highlights one of the key factors that we mentioned at just and is that Actually, the fact that we are very widespread geographically and have a very wide product mix and different business lives help us to cope with shifts in demand and that also reflects in the development for the overall group. So in conclusion, when we look at the numbers here today, sales grew by 6% to 672 million euros and adjusted EBIT grew by 16% to 77%. million euros with a year today adjusted EBIT margin of 11.5%, which is something we are quite pleased to report to you today. And with that, I move further down the P&L to the net income and earnings after taxes. Reported net income went up by 19%. to 45 million euros and you come you see the typical adjustments that sorry we add taxes on that and then financial net income sorry the financial result and that was less that developed negative compared to last year last year our financial result was only minus three million euros This year is at minus 8 million euros, mostly due to the much higher interest payments for bundles that we are seeing due to the fact, of course, that interest rates have increased. If you just see here the numbers, also interest rates Payments were up by 6 to 6M euros compared to 2M on the last year. And then that brings us to the to the reported of 62M euros. We are the with developing as the depreciation and amortization for, which develop in line, like, in the prior years, 12M. Other exceptionals went up to 3 millions and that's also in line with what we had last year. This year they're mostly coming from the India production plant and that brings us to the adjusted EBIT of 77 millions I mentioned before. Then we go down the bridge, subtract the finance result and the adjusted taxes and come to an adjusted net income of 56 million euros for the first half of the year. up 14% from last year and adjusted earnings per share of €3.79, which is the highest we've managed to achieve in the first half of the year. So also here, a very strong development. of the P&L that also reflects again on the development that we see in the balance sheet items, with ROSI going up to 19.8% compared to year end, driven by the very strong development in adjusted EBIT, a very good equity ratio at 37.2%, also an improvement compared to year end, despite the dividend payment. And when we look further down to the net debt here, I too would like to highlight that cash remained very stable at 80 millions compared to year end, despite the fact that we did pay 21 million euros in dividends in the second quarter of this year. And despite this payment, net debt remained very stable at 197 millions. So that the leverage was down compared to year end to 1.18 times on the same level as at the end of the first quarter. And the reason for this strong development is, of course, the cash flow. And here is what Johan mentioned before, something that we are quite proud to show. Free cash flow doubled in the second quarter to 20 million euros compared to the 9 million euros that we saw last year. And if you look at the year-to-date numbers, that's even more impressive because free cash flow was at 33 million euros year-to-date compared to almost minus 4 million euros negative free cash flow in the first half of the prior year. And our cash conversion rate has also doubled to 0.8 times from a free cash flow relation to adjusted net income. And it's very close to coming back to the one time that we actually have as our target. and this development we managed to achieve that despite higher capacity capex expense expenditures of 7.5 millions compared to the 6.4 million in the prior year all well within our guided range of 2.5 percent of capex compared to sales we are in the second quarter at a ratio of 2.3 percentage points and the fact that it went up compared to the prior year has again to do with the investments in the Indian production plan. The reason, of course, for this very strong development in cash flow comes to working capital. The measures that we have implemented through the past quarters are showing effect. We see especially a very strong and positive development in the inventories, which have gone down by 28 million compared to the prior year. we are well below the 200 million threshold and also further down than the 199 millions in inventories that we had at the end of the first quarter. Also, trade receivables have gone down despite sales growing. And the only thing that is different or is atypical or does not impact positively the working capital would be the decline also in trade payables, but that has to do with the measures that we've put in place to reduce inventory if we are trying to continue to reduce the safety stock that accumulated due to the supply chain issues over the past quarters and those are not repurchasing as much materials as before and that's the reason also for the decline in trade payables. So overall, the relation of working capital to sales went down to 19.3% compared to the 21.2% of the prior year, and also better than the 20.6% that we had at the end of the first quarter. And we are very close to achieving our target for the year, which is to be below the 19% threshold. And with that, I've gone through all the financials and I will give it back to Joachim to speak about the outlook for the year. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you, Romy, for the details. And let's look at how we expect the rest of the year to unfold. And these are the numbers now for what we expect for the total financial year 2023. So truck, we expect a very strong year in Europe, 10 to 15% above the level of 2022. Trailers somewhat weaker, I would say to a normalized trailer level. Tractors also weaker than the year before. In North America, still a very high level, little growth expected in truck and trailer for the overall year, a little less in tractors. And Asia Pacific Africa, you've seen earlier that we had big growth rates in the first half year, so those are expected to come down a little bit so that the overall year will be at 15 to 20% in truck and in trailers. So overall, it should be a strong year, but somewhat normalizing the high growth rates that we've seen in the first half year. What do we expect for Yoast out of this? We confirm our positive outlook. So we expect growth in sales. um last year we had 1.265 million and we expect a low single digit growth year over year we also expect a growth and adjusted ebit somewhat outperforming sales also in a low single digit range last year we had 124 million euros ebit So that the adjusted EBIT margin will increase over the 9.8% that you've seen last year. And based on the very good first half, we think that will certainly be a double digit number. Um, CapEx, uh, Romy mentioned already, we usually stick to the two and a half percent and, uh, and that's the way we operate. And so that's also the range that we expect for the overall year, 2023. And our working capital will be below the 19% of sales, um, that we've also seen last year. So to sum it up for the. First half year or the Q2, we had a very strong demand for trucks. We had the recovery of the Chinese market and the high demand in North America. And that continued to be the growth drivers for our business in Q2 of this year. I cannot stress enough the operational flexibility, how important that is to us. And I think the fact that with a minus 25% in our agricultural business, we were able to increase the overall profitability is a testament to that flexibility. So with that flexibility, the increase in profitability and the strict working capital management, we were able to support our strong financial performance and our continuous profitable growth in Q2 of 2023. The market expectations for the overall year continue to be positive. The softening that we are seeing in the agricultural demand, we are able to offset with a stronger demand in transport. And based on those strong operating performance, we confirm our positive outlook for the year 2023. And we're now happy to take your questions. Thank you very much for your attention.

Ladies and gentlemen, At this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may click the Q&A button on the left side of your screen and then raise your hand. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two or please lower your hand. For written questions, please click the Q&A button and then write a question button. One moment for the first question, please. And the first question comes from George Gonzalez Zadroni from Hauken Aufheuser. Please go ahead.

Hello. Good morning. Can you hear me?

We can hear you and see you loud and clear. Hello.

So, Romy, Joachim, I have three questions. First one is regarding your outlook for the rest of the year. I'm surprised about the trailer outlook for the second part of the year with this decrease of 10 to 15%. So I was wondering if you see a collapse here in the second part of the year, taking into account that the first part, the first semester only saw a 6% decrease more or less in volumes, 5-6% decrease. And also taking into account that your other competitors are still expecting very modest decreases for the second part of the year. So if you can elaborate a little bit on this figure here. And also in the North America outlook, again, other estimates from other companies are pointing more to 10% growth. So yeah, just wondering if you see some some weaker end of the year here in the region or if there is any other assumption that we should take into account for these numbers. And then regarding APAC, I was wondering if you can also provide us with the weight that you are expecting the share of China in APAC for the full year. What percentage do you think is going to represent China at the end of the year? And how do you see also China next year? Do you think this growth could continue? Or if we should be just cautious with the region? Thank you very much.

Okay. Well, thanks for your questions. On the market outlook, we are using the numbers from the Prognosis Institutes and those are the numbers they are establishing. I would interpret them such that I would say the trailer market is normalizing. And I agree with you, the minus 15 to minus 10 is probably a little bit exaggerated from their view. So we don't see a collapse at all. I would call it a normalization of production. in the trailer market in Europe. But it's also true that we had a very strong year last year. You remember, and Romy mentioned it, the truck suppliers last year, they had a lot of constraints with wiring harnesses and electronic components, computer chips and so on. The trailer industry never had these constraints, so they were able to follow the demand last year better than the truck industry. That's why they're not they're not recovering as much as the truck industry in this year. And that's why you see a little lower numbers. So you would have to look at them over the course of two to three years. And the trailer industry has just been very strong in Europe, especially last year because of those effects that they could follow the market much, much more than the truck industry. For North America, Yeah, I'm positive on North America. And everything that I'm hearing is that the second half of this year will still be quite solid. So overall, we will probably have somewhere, I would say, between 0% and 10% growth in North America. Some of that depends also on the pricing level. There's a certain inflation impact, of course, in there with material prices. So, I don't think we're far away. And as I said, you know, it kind of depends also on which institute you work with and to make your assumptions. So, we certainly don't see a collapse. I would call it a normalization in all these areas.

Okay. So, in general, your conversations with OEMs and your backlog is saying something different, no? To these numbers. More optimistic...

you have yeah yeah yeah these are these are the overall uh year numbers and what we typically do is that you know after the vacation period when we get the new recalls uh from the oems then we revalidate that um so right now i would also say that uh the numbers that we've received so far are a bit more optimistic than what's shown here and we will now see when they come back in september and they update their um their call-offs and then we'll have a clearer picture

And I was wondering for the agriculture sector if you have any view on next year if you think that there's going to be some stabilization for the compact sector or if it's too early to really have a view on 24?

Well if we're talking about sectors the compact sector was very strong right after COVID because it's these little tractors with the loaders and the digger in the back. And everybody wanted to be self-sustained and everybody who had the need for one was getting one after COVID. So you have a double effect. Now everybody has one. So that means the market in the future will be lower. And the double effect that we're getting this year is that the dealers are reducing their stock level. So once those are reduced, we will come back to a more normal system, a more normal flow. So that's why I don't expect that weakness to continue that much, because right now it's a lower market, a lower underlying market that is explained by the one-time investment that has been done after COVID. But it's also the reduction in inventory at the dealers, and that will end at a certain point in time. So it's too early to say, obviously, but the agricultural sector is this year already weaker, the compact much more than the regular size tractors. But it's fueled also by a reduction in stock and that will probably be healed by the end of this year. And then for next year, we will come back to a more normal level.

It is again the profitability of agriculture above the average of the company?

Yes, it continues to be the case.

Okay, thank you. Maybe the last one from me for now. How are you doing with your M&A plans? Have you targeted new companies for the agricultural business or is there any progress that you can comment on?

We are continuously working on opportunities. We're in discussions with a lot of targets, but we've continuously been in discussions with a lot of targets. You know our strategy. We're trying to grow overall. We want profitable growth overall. As I said, I'm very happy that this quarter is another testament to that. Therefore, we have very high standards when we talk about M&A. We're focused in developing the ag market for Asia and also for South America. In Asia, Romy mentioned it, we are investing in our own plants. In the other areas, we look at own investments, we look at M&As continuously, but there's nothing to report at this point in time.

Thank you very much, Joaquin and Romy.

You did have one question that you forgot, so I'm going to bring it up to China.

Oh, yes.

I do have the answer for you. And I think if I remember correctly, it was the China weight. And if you remember in the years when China was booming, it was almost 50% compared to the total Asian sales. It went down tremendously last year to below 30%, and we believe that this year it will go up beyond this 30%. It will not still be as high as it used to be because the recovery is quite slow, but it's still positive. And we are seeing much more growth in the other countries in the region, which in other years tended to be lower. So that's a mixed effect. The other regions continue to be very solid in their growth. And China is coming back slowly. So it will be probably beyond the 30% at the end of the year for the Asia Pacific Africa region. and uh but it will not go back to the to the normal level that we used to have of 40 it was how it used to be before the big boom uh that happened in the year 2021 as in the first half of the year due to the to the um to the regulation effect that change so it used to be in the past around 40 and probably between this year and next year it could go back to that but not not this year yet

Okay, very useful. Thank you very much, Romy. I go back to the line. Thank you, Jorge.

And the next question comes from Nicolai Kemp from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Nicolai Kemp speaking, Deutsche Bank. Thank you for taking my question and well done for a very good second quarter. I have three questions. and my first one would be um that many truck oms have frequently highlights to be sold all for this year already um can you share how many months ahead you're fully booked in europe and north america my second question would be on pricing do you intend to further high prices in the months to come on the second half of the year and the my last question would be on the guidance because mean in the first first half you crew sales by six percent earnings by 16 um but your guidance is just looking for um low singularity growth in both areas so it your guidance looks a bit cautious um what are the drivers for this any second half and should be expected kind of slow down to come

Okay. Thank you, Nikolai, for the questions. So your questions about utilization rates, I typically don't think in utilization rates because our operational flexibility that we're very proud of means that we will follow our customers. And the call-offs that we're getting from them is we get a yearly call-off more or less 12 months ahead on an uncommitted level. And then we get four to six weeks on a committed level. the truck manufacturers, especially in Europe, they have been they have been getting everything they have been calling off. And I should say like this, they have met their call-offs, which in the last years, they always had other constraints and never really met what they initially had plans to produce. So this year, they have been successful in producing really what they had in their programs. And I expect that to continue and it continues to be at a very strong level. talking to those customers they are sold out for the rest of the year and and they also have orders for 2024 so the order intake is not growing as much as as it was and they're probably in a in a slightly negative uh book to bill ratio our customers i'm referring to but it's uh but they still see a very strong market demand and they a strong replacement demand so um i don't expect that they will grow in the next year over what they've achieved this year, because this has been an extremely strong year for them. But they have enough orders to pull through this year. And then I can go to the guidance. And I agree with you that looking at the first half year, that guidance may look a little bit conservative. What we typically do is that we talk to our oem customers in transport that's mainly the truck and trailer customers the oes and also in agriculture the agricultural tractor oes after they come back from vacation and then we evaluate what the what the outlook should be and based on that on that strong year i agree with you that that it may appear a little cautious But we will investigate that once they're back in September and then see if we have to adjust something. But in any case, we will certainly be able to follow their demand due to our operational flexibility. pricing pricing depends to your question about pricing a lot on the energy and especially material cost we have quite flexible pricing agreements meanwhile on the supplier side but also on the sales side with our customers and that means that if our if our prices for energy and material continue to be at the high level the then those will be factored into the sales prices but we will also pay those prices obviously to our suppliers and so the judgment you're asking me for is more or less will the material and energy prices continue to be at the level we'll probably see a small decline and in those prices but i don't expect uh big variations so that there will not be a huge impact in the turnover driven from the pricing effects. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you.

And there are currently no more questions on the phone, so I hand to Romy Acosta for the written questions.

I actually cannot access them from here, so it would be great if you could read them out loud for us.

So we have one written question coming from Klaus Ringel from Odo BHF. The question is, what's your view on pricing in H223? Is there more to come through your P&L?

I think you almost answered that one, but not quite.

As I said, the pricing, we expect to be more or less at the level that we're seeing. I don't expect a huge impact from the material prices in the second half of the year. Will there be more in the P&L? I mean, you've seen over the last, I would say, four or five years that we've continuously improved our margin levels. And if sales went up or down, we were quite resilient. And I think right now with the shift between agriculture and transport, we're also seeing that resilience. So, of course, our target is to continuously improve over the previous year. And we have a track record of meeting that. So that may be the answer to the question about the P&L. But those are continuous improvements that we're trying to take and optimizing our flexibility and our cost structure and not so much pricing effects. Anything to add to that?

No, I think that's...

Okay, so I hope that answers the questions. Are there any other questions in the queue?

Exactly. One question came up by voice as well from Pierre Castella from Fuchs Asset Management. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi guys. Good morning to you all. Just a quick one on India. Can you please give us an idea of how significant this new plant is going to be for years in terms of maybe, I don't know, in terms of turnover, would you expect the turnover to be two, three years out coming out of this plant? And the second question still regarding India would be regarding the ramp-up phase. Is that going to have an impact in one way or another on your EBIT margin for the group? Can you give us a feel on that? Thank you.

Okay, yes, that plant in India right now is booked for business that is happening with customers outside of India. So we will be supporting the business that we have in North America and a little bit of the business that we have in Europe with that plant. So you will see the impact not on the APA sales, but you will most likely see it on North American sales. But there will obviously be an overlay with the overall market development. So it is designed for a new business that we have won and additional business that we expect to win in our agricultural business. But it will mainly be reflected, as I said, in North America. The overall impact on the sales side, as I said, is an overlay with the overall market development. We will not be able to give you a clear number on that. If you would ask for market share, it certainly is designed to increase our market share with the top OEMs in those markets.

And in terms of the ramp-up impact on the margins, is that going to be non-existent, significant? I mean, what do you expect?

I would say it will support our margin structure from the beginning, despite the fact that it is a new plant that we need to obviously still optimize. You can expect that we will operate with the existing margins when we start in that plant.

One of the positive effects of going to India, and that's the reason also behind it, especially if we use it to shift products to North America, is that we will have less tariff imports for steel products that we are currently having in North America. So even though at the beginning, of course, you usually have a ramp-up phase, the fact that a lot of these products will be free of the tariff from the steel import will actually offset that effect so that you will not see that negative impact at all.

And I would assume that labor being reasonably cheap in India, that I would have thought that if you are going to sell into North America and Europe and all your quite expensive agricultural equipment, I would have thought that margin-wise it would be positive, but, you know, Maybe I'm wrong. I'm probably wrong.

No, no, no, no. I mean, we are investing in India because it's a positive business case for us. If not, we wouldn't make those investments. But you've been asking for a ramp up costs. And of course, at the beginning, you have to recover investments and you don't have the full efficiency from day one. But as Romy said, that will be compensated by positive effects that we are reducing tariffs of some products that come from China today. And that's why the short answer is you can assume the same profitability level when we start in India that we have today.

And final question still on India. I'm sorry about that. It's the logistics because you spoke about the threat rates going down between China and the rest of the world. But how organized and how volatile is the pricing on logistics out of India into Europe and North America? Is it well organized?

No, it's quite well organized. It's not obviously, it's not the same level and the same volumes in terms of containers that are being shipped. as you see between China and Europe and North America. But since we are in Chennai, Chennai is one of the biggest harbors in India, and there's a lot of a lot of material flowing in and out. So it's on a level where it's it's very well established and therefore no concern on that side, even though the volumes overall are obviously smaller than the than the traffic that we see between China and North America and China and Europe, but on a very well established level. Thank you. Okay, thank you for your questions.

And we do have one follow-up question from Jorge González-Sardani. Please go ahead.

Thank you again for taking my questions. Regarding the comments you did about the next year for the expectations of your clients, the CLACOMs. I was wondering, what's your opinion on the potential pent-up demand on the aging fleet? Do you still think that this is still going to support a little bit of demand in the following years, a fleet that is still above the average age that it had in the past? And well, that will be my first question, please.

Yeah. I would say so that there's still a slight effect that will carry into next year. We had a huge effect of pent-up demand because especially the truck producers in North America and in Europe could not follow the markets in 2020 because of COVID and 2021 because of semiconductors and 2022 because of wiring harnesses and so on. So this is the first year where they are really able to follow and they are reducing that pent up demands. That's what I mean when I say the book to bill ratio is probably negative for them right now that the pent up demand is being reduced. But I still think that there will be pent up demands that carries into 2024, especially the more price sensitive customers will have moved some purchases. The fleets that are still at a relatively high age have some need to replace also the rental companies. They have not replaced everything over the course of this year. So their fleets are being a bit older. So if the base demand industry production and all of that remains, then there will still be some pent up demand to be worked on in 2024.

Also inventories at dealers are also very low because of demand that too will drive demand as well as they start to normalize.

So with what we can see at this point, maybe we are going to see some declines, but not a collapse in the demand. And my last question, please, is regarding the trailer market in Germany. One of your competitors commented that they were expecting some incentives to be approved at the end of the year for trailer. And I was wondering if you also see this. It was commented that these incentives are going to cover up to 20% of the cost of a trailer. and is basically targeted to the fleets. So is this something that you also see that could happen and how do you think this can impact demand for next year?

Um, it, it could impact demand, uh, for, for next year for us, uh, the, the planning for next year is just, just at the beginning. So we don't have our volume planning totally determined, uh, for next year. We're only looking more or less on the underlying market right now. And that's, those are the comments that I've. That I've made. So, um, we will probably come to a, to a conclusion on that once we have analyzed, uh, all of our volume planning and our turnover planning.

Okay. Thank you very much.

OK, thank you, Jorge.

So there are no further questions at this time, and I hand back to Joachim Duer for closing comments.

Yes, thank you very much, everybody. Thanks for your interest and your attention in our Q2 results of this year. We're very proud, as I said, to have once again increased our performance, and especially about the cash flow we were able to generate. I hope we have answered all your questions. Thanks for your interest. And we're looking forward to a fairly good remainder of the year and talk to you soon with the Q3 numbers. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.