Mercedes Benz Group Ag

Welcome to the global conference call of Mercedes-Benz. 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 innovation section of the Mercedes-Benz website. The short introduction will be directly followed by a Q&A session. If you have any difficulties during the conference, please press 0 and rhombus on your telephone keypad for operator assistance. I would like to remind you that this telephone conference 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 Steffen Hoffmann, head of Mercedes-Benz Investor Relations and Treasury. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Good morning. Once again, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is Steffen Hoffmann speaking on behalf of Mercedes-Benz. I'd like to welcome everybody here in the room as well as on the phone and the Internet to our full year results conference call. We are very happy to have with us today Ola Kelenius, our CFO, our CEO, Harald Wilhelm, our CFO. You probably all joined the presentation right before, so just as a quick reminder, the respective capital market presentation with all 22 figures and the 23 outlook can be found on our IR website. Ladies and gentlemen, you may ask your questions now. for the people in the room please raise your hand to show you would like to ask a question and after being prompted please use the microphone ahead of you please press the button before you ask a question and please press it again after the question to mute it For the ones who join by phone, the operator will explain the procedure in a moment. As always, we'd like to ask you to identify yourself with the name and the name of the organisation. Please ask your question in English. Please limit the amount of questions to two. Now, before we start, the operator will once again explain the procedure for the ones on the phone.

Thank you very much. If you want to ask a question, please press 9 and the star key on your telephone keypad. To remove the question, please press again 9 star on your telephone keypad. Please note that dialing 9 star a second time during the call will automatically withdraw your question. Please refrain from pressing the key combination multiple times during the call. Again, for a question, please press 9 and the star key on your telephone keypad. If you have difficulties during the conference, please press 0 and rhombus on your telephone keypad for operator assistance.