Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Drägerwerk Q1 2026 Earnings Call. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Stefan Drager, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Stefan Dräger
Chairman of the Executive Board - Drägerwerk Verwaltungs AG

Hello. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining our conference call on our financial results for the first 3 months of 2026. I have with me today Gert-Hartwig Lescow, CFO; as well as Tom Fischler and Nikolaus Hammerschmidt, both Investor Relations.

We would like to take you through the results of the presentation that we made available on our web page this morning. Following the presentation, we will open the floor to your questions.

Let's get started on Page 5 with the business highlights. With continued good demand, positive net sales development and significantly improved profitability, we delivered a strong business performance in the first 3 months of 2026. Order intake rose to around EUR 865 million, while net sales came back to growth at around EUR 756 million. Thanks to the good operating business, the improved gross margin and lower expenses, our EBIT increased significantly to roughly EUR 18 million, lifting our EBIT margin to 2.4% for the first quarter.

As a result of the good earnings performance, our free cash flow rose considerably to more than EUR 44 million. As communicated 2