Message from the CEO
“Our customers confirm the relevance of our strategy and portfolio, as evidenced by the further growth of our all-time-high order book. Comparable order intake growth for the Group amounted to 5%, driven by good growth across the Diagnosis & Treatment businesses, as well as Hospital Patient Monitoring and Connected Care Informatics. In addition, we partnered with 12 more hospitals to help them transform the delivery of care, further building on the 80 new long-term strategic partnerships signed in 2021. In China, we signed an agreement with Shanghai East Hospital to provide its hospitals in the Shandong and Hainan provinces with a broad range of advanced imaging and critical care solutions. I am also pleased with the 8% comparable sales growth for our Personal Health businesses, which demonstrates continued strong consumer demand for our propositions enabling people to take care of their health and well-being.
Thanks to the hard work of our people, we recorded better than expected sales of EUR 3.9 billion in very challenging circumstances, with significant supply chain headwinds as well as the consequences of the Respironics field action. Adjusted EBITA margin for the Group was 6.2% in the quarter.
The strong customer demand and order book, coupled with our first-quarter sales performance, support the growth and margin expansion range for the full year as communicated in January 2022. At the same time, it is important we recognize the increasing risks related to the COVID-19 situation in China, the Russia-Ukraine war, supply chain challenges and inflationary pressures, which may potentially impact our ability to convert our strong order book to sales and achieve our margin target if conditions deteriorate further. Our teams are fully focused on everyday execution, delivering on the customer demand and strong order book, and addressing the supply chain risks. We are implementing additional cost measures, as well as price increases, to mitigate the inflationary headwinds.”
Frans van Houten
Chief Executive Officer