VOLAF - AB Volvo (publ) (VLVLY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
2024-01-26 13:25:10 ET
AB Volvo (publ) (VLVLY)
Q4 2023 Results Conference Call
January 26, 2024 03:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Johan Bartler - Head of IR
Martin Lundstedt - CEO
Mats Backman - CFO
Conference Call Participants
Mattias Holmberg - DNB
Erik Golrang - SEB
José Asumendi - JPMorgan
Hampus Engellau - Handelsbanken
Hemal Bhundia - UBS
Björn Enarson - Danske Bank
Agnieszka Vilela - Nordea
Presentation
Johan Bartler
Welcome to the fourth quarter press conference. Welcome here today. And we will do -- as always, we will look at the presentations from our CEO and our CFO, and then follow up with a Q&A session.
So with that, I hand over to you, Martin.
Martin Lundstedt
Thank you, Johan. And also from my side, most welcome to this quarter 4 2023 reporting and also for the full year, by the way. And I can say that I'm pretty proud and humbled to stand here actually after a year that we have seen here, also given the rather turbulent and complex situation that we have seen around the globe.
But if we start with some comments for the fourth quarter, the Group continued to deliver a strong performance with, as you have seen, strong growth in revenues, plus 8% FX-adjusted; increased deliveries of trucks from high levels; a service business that continue also on high levels that I think is a very good sign, showing also that activity level continues amongst our customers; and with four quarter record levels for operating income and operating margin. And the strong outcomes are linked to the professional and dedicated work from all our colleagues and business partners across the globe, given, as I said in the beginning, that we still have a lot of challenges around us. And you have heard me saying that before, and I would like to take the opportunity now, when we have also the full year report here, it's all about the people. And all our colleagues and business partners have really showed how you make a difference this quarter again.
And for the full year 2023, we achieved many different financial records and strong financial outcomes. We bypassed SEK 500 billion in revenues. It was almost anticipated, I think, after quarter 3, but still a historical milestone for us as a company, but also to our knowledge, the first Swedish industrial bypassing the SEK 500 billion mark. And this strong revenue growth was combined with record high operating income and margin, as well as return on capital employed exceeding 36%.
Then from a business standpoint, we continued to work closely with our customers also in the fourth quarter to stick to the priority, as we have said for some quarters now, of delivering as high volumes as possible to support their demand of equipment by continuously delivering the solid order backlog. Our service operations continued at good levels, supporting the uptime and performance of our customers' fleets....
AB Volvo (publ) (VLVLY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript