Randon SA Implementos e Participacoes
BOVESPA:RAPT4
Randon SA Implementos e Participacoes
BOVESPA:RAPT4
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[Foreign Language] are being stable in comparison with the previous year. And we see a strong demand for fuel tax. Also, after market continues very strong, especially in Brazil.
Political and economic factors continue both in the domestic market and abroad with additional challenges. But the scenario of uncertainties is what we have had a lot in the last few years, and we have been prepared for this more and more, reinforcing our strengths by diversification. One of the important factors to diversify our business is innovation, which brings an important competitive edge and new fronts for revenue.
At the end of June, Fras-le mobility through Fremax began the sale of a new line of products with the application of paint, containing sustainable technology unique in the world called [ MAX ] Coatings. This line, which contemplates brake discs and breakdowns has a paint is being painted with nanoparticles of [ niobium ] to increase its resistance to corrosion in increasing the life cycle of the part, especially adverse in adverse climate conditions like snow.
Another factor is that innovation is not only in the product but in the technology applied in the production process. with the use of robots and automation, which increase the versatility of the development of the components. Once again, we're delivering products and processes that are unique in the world that were developed in partnership with the [ Instituto Elisabetha Randon and 91 ].
Another highlight was the delivery of the first for semi-trailer equipped with [ SES ] system here in the domestic market. I remember that since the beginning of the sales of road implements with this technology in the last fair, we delivered products to -- for clients in Brazil and abroad.
The production and sale of semitrailers with [ SES ] system is happening according to our expectations and new units will be delivered to the domestic market. So apart from this, we're expanding the possibilities of using this system in new segments of transportation, such as in sugarcane and tractor terminals, which are vehicles for cargoes, imports and logistics installations.
In the last few years, we made a strong effort to develop sustainable technologies that bring profitability for transportation companies and significant gains for the environment. We're making progress in electromobility contributing to transform road transport in Brazil and abroad.
To close, I'd like to leave the last message. This is something we have said constantly to you during the last quarters. And we have -- for this, we have reached very good numbers. The resilience of our businesses. We will continue looking for more internationalization, also an increase in the aftermarket investments in innovation, technology, products and practices that are more and more sustainable, always focusing on return to our shareholders and the generation of a positive impact for society.
Now I'd like to pass the floor to Paulo, and he will continue the presentation.
Thank you, Sergio. Good morning. Thank you for being with us in this conference call of results. I would also like to thank you for the participation in our Randon Corp day and the recognition by institutional investor. For us, this close contact to you, analysts and investors, and the feedback we received is an important fuel for us to continue making progress.
Now going on to the results. We reached a net consolidated net revenue of BRL 2.8 billion in Q2 '23 and BRL 5.4 billion in the semester. This indicator presents a stability when compared to the same period in 2022, which is very positive due to the current scenario and the drop in the production of trucks, already explained by Sergio and that had a negative impact on the demand for our auto parts. The maintenance of our revenue came from 3 fronts. The sales for aftermarket and road implements that continued on good levels, the expansion of sales abroad, especially semi-trailers and brake systems for the United States and aftermarket in Europe.
This last one, especially with the acquisition of the company, [ DuraTech ] in the U.K. and together with other companies acquired in Q2 '22, Hercules and [ DB ] represented BRL 177.3 million in Q2 '23. Now going on to the revenue in the export market. We totaled $130 million in Q2 '23, a progress of 16%, an increase of 16% versus last year. This growth came especially from new businesses that we added, such as such as the vertical OEM in the U.S. market, both by exports as by the acquisition of Hercules and the revenues coming from Europe by buying [ DuraTech ], which I already mentioned.
The other businesses of the company have had some challenges. For example, the drop in demand for semitrailers in Chile due to the economic problems in the country and sales to Argentina. Although they are at good levels, there is a scarcity of U.S. dollars, and this is a barrier for imports. But the expansion of the business with positive factors overcoming the negative due to a correct strategy of the company to be more and more global and expand its presence in developed countries.
Now talking about EBITDA. Our consolidated margin continued on an excellent level, reaching 16% in Q2 '23 at the top of the guidance projected and close to the level of Q1 '23. This is due especially to the product mix sold with more added value than in Q2 '22. -- deflation of the price of steel and important raw material in our production process, a good performance of acquired companies, which gave consistent results in the quarter and also with the capture of synergies after the integration.
In Q2 '23, we also had nonrecurring events recorded in our numbers with a net impact of BRL 12.6 million, which reduced by 0.5 percentage point, the EBITDA margin. They refer to an accrual for contingency with the exclusion of ICMS tax from our controlled Nakata company and the positive effect in the combination of business.
All the details concerning these recordings are explained in the explanatory notes. Adjusting this effect to the consolidated EBITDA, we would have an EBITDA margin of 16.5% in Q2 '23. In the last line, the effect of these nonrecurring was 0 due to its impact on taxes. Finally, our profitability remained at a good level, reaching 4.2% of consolidated net revenue.
Now going on to investments. We invested especially in CapEx totaled BRL 99 million. BRL 63 million for buying for equipment, especially machines and equipment, making our companies -- our plants more automated with important gains in efficiency and productivity and also expanding the capacity. Another important point is the control of our debts. As you can see on the screen, our net debt without Randon Bank had a drop in relation to the last quarter, reaching BRL 2.4 billion with a leverage of 1.53x the EBITDA in the last 12 months. The drop gain due to the following factors: a smaller need for working capital and reduction in investments in the period, the positive effect of the exchange rate and also the reduction of accounts payable because we are combining the businesses of Nakata and Hercules.
Now to conclude, I have some data from our shareholder base. We continue to expand the number of shareholders, reaching 46,000 shareholders at the end of June. To compare at the end of 2022, this number was 41,000 shareholders within the profile that can be seen on the graph, those who increased their position in a more relevant way, where foreign investors and institutional investors.
Now I pass the floor to Esteban to talk about the business verticals.
Thank you, Paulo. Good morning. We're very happy to have you with us in this conference call for earnings. As Sergio and Paulo already said, we had many challenges to overcome during these first 6 months of the year. But even with this, we were able to reach the main goals we had planned for this period with 2 quarters that are very balanced, both in revenue and in margins, the company found alternatives to mitigate the effects of the more complex business environment that showed its strength and resilience once more.
On the screen, we have the numbers in the markets for trucks and semitrailers, which have had different results while the volume of road implements continue the same. The production of trucks had a strong drop, approximately 40%. With these numbers, it's important to reinforce you once again the relevance of having diversified businesses, which allow us to go through these complex times with consistent results.
After this context in the market, I bring the data from OEMs, which had good levels of sales and margins in Q2 '23. We had a revenue of BRL 1.1 billion with a highlight for export market due to the acquisition of Hercules. We added BRL 100 million in the quarter and exports of semitrailers to the U.S. With the exported volumes and the sales of Hercules, we reached 1,602 units sold in the U.S. market.
[ Randon ] continues to be a leader in the market, both in Brazil and with 27% market share and brought 6 76% of the volume exported. Analyzing the revenues per sector, which you can see on the graph, we see a drop in agribusiness, which represented 69% last year and now 57% in Q2 '23. This happened due to the reduction in demand for dump trucks in the period and an increase in the sale of fuel tanks, which are classified as sales to industry.
Another point I'd like to highlight is that we have a good portfolio of products, and we have a portfolio for 2 months production. The EBITDA margin of OEMs reached 8.8% in Q2 2023 due this due to lower prices for raw materials and a better sales mix.
Now going on to auto parts, the great highlight in its resilience, especially seeing the drop in the demand of its product in Q2, especially due to low production of trucks and buses in the country. Net revenue reached BRL 817 million in Q2 '23, represents 18% drop in comparison with Q2 '22.
To mitigate this drop in the volumes for OEMs, the companies that make up this vertical intensified their work in other markets such as agriculture and aftermarket. Apart from expanding its sales in the export markets, for example, the export of brake systems of master which represented 63%. In the net revenue per segment, you can see this movement and also the increase in the participation of semitrailers with 32% of the revenue in Q2 '23, against 24% in the same period last year. The drop was mainly in sale to OEMs due to the situation in the market.
EBITDA margin reached 16% in the quarter, an excellent number superior to -- by 1.8%, the margin in the same period last year, even with market conditions that are less favorable this year. This evolution happened to manufacturers, a reduction in the cost of raw materials caution and discipline in operational expenses and internalization of the production some items by Castertech and Master.
Talking about movement control, which represents 30% of the revenue Randon Corp. It had another quarter with excellent performance, both for its market, which is booming and also the synergies it has captured between its companies. Fras-le mobility and its controlled company reached together BRL 920 million in net revenue in the quarter, representing an increase of 17.5% comparison with the same period 2022. The main factors for this progress were the good demand of parts for light vehicles and heavy vehicles and aftermarket and also the revenue from DuraTech which represented BRL 47.1 million.
Analyzing the revenue per segment, we see a drop in the export market. This happened especially due to the drop in sales to the U.S. due to the high level of inventory in the U.S. Concerning EBITDA margin, this vertical reached 20.3% in Q2 '23, an increase of 4.3 percentage points in comparison with Q2 '22.
This evolution was possible due to a reduction in the cost of raw materials and the maintenance of sale prices, which gave better margins, gains in synergy among the operations, especially logistics efficiency and a good performance of all the controlled companies with a highlight to Nakata, which with the exchange rate had a benefit in imported items for resale in Brazil.
In this quarter, we had nonrecurring factors as explained by Paulo, which penalized EBITDA in BRL 12.6 million or 1.4 percentage points in the margin. The adjusted indicators of these one-offs are BRL 199.5 million of adjusted EBITDA, 21.7% margin in adjusted EBITDA.
Now talking about financing, financial services and digital service. The main highlights are: accelerated growth with record revenue, reaching BRL 179 million, excellent level of sale of pool sales by Randon Bank, especially to accelerate business in OEMs. And the first quarter added BRL 28 million to this indicator. You can see on the graph of net revenue, the relevance of this new segment? So the vertical really made progress in EBITDA, 8 percentage points when comparing Q2 '23 with Q2 '22, going from 20% to 28%. Also, the progress in [indiscernible], they already have many contracts at levels that are higher than expected for the first year.
Now information about advanced technology and headquarter. Net revenue, BRL 48 million in the quarter, CTR, which had a drop in demand by services from OEMs, mitigated this with a re-composition in prices in some lines. Atom is now stabilized through the purchase of RTS and now is looking for new solutions. The margins obtained in Q2 '23 show an evolution in comparison with Q2 '22 and should continue making progress slowly in the next periods.
To finalize, I would also like to thank all of you who voted in Randon Corp in institutional investor. We from the Investor Relations team are honored and happy to have this recognition for our work, and we will continue to evolve even more materials and also events such as [ Randon Corp Day ], which we took to Sao Paulo, thanks to the feedback we received from the market. I invite you to continue in this journey together with us, giving us support and bringing suggestions, which are always welcome.
Now I'd like to pass the floor to David to begin our Q&A session.
[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Lucas Marquiori, BTG.
Two topics. The first OEMs I heard the impact, the sale of equipment. I'd like to understand if this margin close to 8%, 9% should be the floor this year because of improvements, inflation for main raw material, should we expect better margins in the next quarters? That's for OEMs. And in auto parts, I was curious when I read the launching of [ Max ] Coating, a very interesting initiative. Could you give us some economic information? I know you have a partnership with WEG [indiscernible] -- so it's a new product launched by the company, [indiscernible]. So I'd like to have an update also about the partners. I know there is demand from other industries, too. So more color about this new product.
Okay, Lucas, thank you for participating I can begin answering about OEMs, then Hemerson can talk about MAX coating. And finally, Sergio to talk about new technologies in the possibilities of NIONE.
Lucas, concerning OEM margins, we consider this an interesting margin, especially in a difficult market as we have this year for auto parts and trucks, semitrailers, although we don't have growth, we've seen the possibility of sustaining these margins by the stable demand in the domestic market or growth abroad, especially U.S. with the production of Hercules and the export of products from Brazil.
You can see the price is stable. There is a deflation in raw materials, stability in prices. This is good news considering that the Brazilian market is not growing, but we're not seeing a price war. We're not seeing an aggressive price war as we had in the past. And this is due to 2 factors in the domestic market. First, demand from agriculture and the second factor, you signed the release, fuel tanks, which came back -- in the last 5 years, it was not very significant. Now it's back with the renewal of the fleet and also due to sugarcane and the transportation of fuel.
So while we continue with this market demanding products in the volumes we have now with deflation in costs like we saw in Q2 and our vision the trend for Q2 is for us to continue having deflation in raw materials. I can tell you that we can protect this margin from 8% to 9%. Obviously, we will continue working, trying to increase this margin. But in the vision we have today with the market data we have, 8% to 9% is what we can defend. Hemerson -- and I'd like to congratulate the excellent results of Fras-le.
Thank you, Esteban. It's a great pleasure to be here representing Fras-le Mobility, especially about your question about MAX coating. We have our solutions and products, disc brakes with an excellent penetration in the U.S., where we have a great demand for resistant paints, resistant paintings due to the severe winters at greater corrosion. And we offered this product MAX Coating, to many clients and MAX coating initially brings us a product that is unique in the world. We use niobium particles in a process that is totally new. There is no other process like it in the world. We surveyed the world, and we didn't find similar products.
So it's a continuous line, totally automated. It paints the disc brakes, the disks with microwave, water-based paints -- and this brings us an advantage to offer 4x the resistance of the standard product. So we want to make this line grow and offer this to northern countries, North America and Europe as the main clients.
There is a premium price. We're offering it as a product substituting the previous coating systems. But as we make progress, we will also -- we will also have a new price. Lucas, we -- we're now. We want to internalize this painting -- we're still in the beginning of this operation, but the investment was BRL 2.7 million. We were using the resources we have developed by Randon Corp.
We -- as we develop it's a solution that can be applied in other parts that we offer to the market. We're very happy with this Pioneer product through NIONE now being used in Fras-le mobility with products to the market.
Thank you, Hemerson. Sergio, if you wish to comment on new products using NIONE.
Thank you, Lucas, for the question. You mentioned new technologies from NIONE. So let's talk directly about NIONE. We continue evolving -- we have our company focused on intelligent composite materials. And this initiative continues to grow. We have many large projects we're working on. The production -- the agreement with [ Iveco ] trucks continues. The product is being expanded to new applications now outside Brazil, both in Argentina and projects for Europe to being worked on.
We believe that with the exception of one OEM, we have projects with all the OEMs for trucks, and we should make more progress in the second half of the year. We have other products growing in our modular platform. We have a new suspension that we showed at the [ Fenatran ] show during the second half, it will begin to go through production because it's radically different, this suspension. This will bring a competitive edge for us.
So there are many good things happening apart from what we have inside NIONE. NIONE is now operating in a more consistent way in terms of initial revenue. The project linked to painting. We continue with 17 work fronts every month. We begin projects with new clients. We have 65 different work fronts within our segments. And all of this continues to have a great potential. We continue to be extremely motivated with the potential.
For the time being, there is nothing that can decrease our enthusiasm concerning these solutions. 2 areas of NIONE. -- they are a little that are a little closer on is a coating for ceramic floors and the other, the usage in cast components, our own cast components where the greatest benefit is within the unit of our vertical and outside NIONE.
We have projects with [ wheel hubs ], disc brakes and all this development is more advanced together with ceramic floors. So a giant amount of activities we're working on all these developments. So we are leaving research and going to production. So it's taking more time than we had imagined originally due to the fact that it's a radically different solution. So all the clients they evaluate with more attention, the usage of this technology. So it's happening, but at a slower pace than we had foreseen.
Next question, Victor Mizusaki, Bradesco.
Congratulations for the results. Two questions. The first concerning road implements. When we look at local revenue, in Q2, 26% in the past, closer to 30. So my first question, how do you see this trend for the next quarters? Do you see an improvement in demand with a new harvest? Do you believe this can have an impact in the second quarter? And second question concerning M&A, what you are seeing in auto parts, and international expansion, M&As.
Thank you, Victor, for the question. I will begin answering the first part, then I'll pass the floor to Sergio to talk about the M&As, concerning road implements. We have seen, yes, a strong demand coming from the export market. U.S. is doing very well by Hercules and exports, and we have used this excellent moment to expand our activities. It's a priority for us, the U.S. in terms of expansion outside Brazil.
And with this time, we want to gain speed in the U.S. concerning the Brazilian market, what we have seen demand, as we mentioned in the conference call with our portfolio has sales for 2 months. So the market is for 70,000, 80,000 semi-trailers.
We have today the availability. We have -- we're offering another 110,000 in capacity. And the clients now don't have to place orders very early. In other periods, the clients were afraid of not having semitrailers for the harvest, and they used to place orders well in advance. -- for months in advance. On the other hand, in relation to demand in the second semester, what we're seeing, which is positive. And I mentioned to you in Randon Corp Day is the harvest. The corn winter crop, you know there is no capacity to store this corn. So, they will need transportation. We see this in the orders, new orders for dump trucks and grain trucks. This should rise and give us a better demand in the domestic market.
In the long term, we don't have an excellent mix between domestic and export market. So we want to continue diversifying our businesses in new geographies and countries with strong currencies. Sergio?
Thank you. Thank you, Victor. M&A is very relevant in our sales. We have a pipeline that is very robust with our opportunities that we're exploring. Our intention, as we mentioned in previous events is to give priority to opportunities in countries with strong currencies, but we have opportunities here that are in the category of opportunities that we cannot avoid in Brazil that we cannot overlook.
So in all the verticals, we have these activities in this area and it's very strong -- we believe, as we always see, not all are successful. We have to work on them. But based on our track record, we believe that we will have good news in the future. One of these opportunities for M&As will become a reality.
Next question, Renata Cabral from Citibank.
Congratulations for the results. I have 2 questions. One is a follow-up on semitrailers. In the U.S., we saw that you are having good results, the expansion you made both in exports and also locally with the acquisition of Hercules -- you mentioned in the past about the intention to organic expansion, diversifying products. So how is this initiative? Is it short term? My second question is about the anti-company. You said they're doing well -- can you give us details about contracts signed in which sector additional information, this will help us a lot.
Thank you, Renata. About the U.S. market, Sergio will comment -- he can share this with us. And a question about [ Adiente Paulo ] can answer -- but reminding you, Renata, a quick comment about the U.S. market. The main difference is in relation to the Brazilian market, we have manufacturers in niche markets. Here, we have a greater portfolio and also regional manufacturers, which allow organic growth and nonorganic growth.
Thank you for the question. We are working to expand the portfolio of products in an organic way, too. And we believe that in the first semester of next year, we will be able to begin selling a new type of product in the U.S.
So in terms of development, it's happening. The product has to be engineered according to the needs of the U.S. market. due to its regulations, it must be tested and approved so we can begin this process. So it's a longer cycle, not as long as in other segments where we have to wait 2 years to begin production. It's going to be shorter, but it is under development now.
Paulo, can you talk about that, [indiscernible]?
Yes. Renata, thank you for your question. We are in an important evolution in [ Adiente ] company. We inaugurated our headquarters in the Fundituba. Many rental contracts closed in sectors of logistics, transportation, agro business and different commodities for agro. And you are right, we have reinforced that we are reviewing our business plan upwards because things are happening more quickly than we had planned. A good acceptance and what we agreed upon with the team at [ Adiente ] that at some time during the second semester, we will share the data of [ Adiente ], the projections with the market in a more detailed way. So right now, we would not like to give more details. We will do this together with our partner, [indiscernible] during the next months. Thank you.
Well, our next question comes from [ Fernanda Urbano ], XP.
A follow-up concerning the domestic market. In this scenario, do you see a recovery in demand in auto parts in Q3 and market data, in your vision, what has justified this better performance in [ road implements ].
Perfect, Fernanda -- concerning. I will begin with your second question. The better performance in semitrailers versus trucks. And production of trucks dropping 35%. And this is explained due to the new engines that are being adopted, Euro 6 and the phenomenon that this provokes especially until March when we made sales and even after that, distributors have to sell the old inventory with Euro 5 engines. In the first semester, 75% of the trucks sold were Euro 5 and hardly and very few of Euro 6. So today, these were not significant, Euro 6 like we had in 2011 when the -- when sales dropped.
So this made the truck market to have this drop that I mentioned. On the other hand, this does not happen in semitrailers. Semi-trailers did not have a significant change in price. The price is stable, and the need for transportation is there.
Now concerning the second semester for trucks, what we see is inventory of Euro 5 dropping as this inventory of Euro 5 drops and the demand continues. And this year, we don't have trucks in -- we don't have trucks that are not on the road. So there will be the need to buy Euro 6. There is also a natural drop in prices by OEMs going back to more acceptable levels. And I believe that this curve between offering demand will meet and bring a recovery.
In practice, we don't see this yet, but we believe that at some time the market will have to offer and demand, we'll have to meet.
Your second question...
Third quarter, how do you see the third quarter for auto parts?
Well, I believe I already answered that.
If you allow me, Esteban...
In terms of auto parts, we have 2 verticals. Mobility on aftermarket continues very well. This is our expectation. And we have heavy auto parts, these that have a greater dependence on the truck sector. As Esteban mentioned, what is being different this year is the fact that normally, there are situations, but the sale of the product produced at this time of the year, in July, we would have very little Euro 5 selling only trucks with the new technology. This is what we saw in the past. But this year, in July, [ Favio ] published that 2,315 trucks with Euro 5 were not sold yet. Although Euro 6 was 5,000, almost 5,400, the greatest results with Euro 6 sold this year, but the fact that they sold 2,300 with Euro 5, no one expected.
At this time, everything I believe that the normal would be to have all the sales in Euro 6 -- so I believe we will see more Euro 6 being produced, and this will generate more production and an improvement in the revenue of our auto parts.
Luiz Capistrano, Itau BBA.
I'd like to discuss with you the U.S. market. Concerning volumes, you're growing. In the short term, have we reached a run rate -- should we have -- do you believe we will have an evolution in the third, you said you will launch a new product for next year. So thinking of the second semester in Q2, did you see the volume growing, should this continue? Also with the impact of this on margins for trailers, OEMs because in Q1 and Q2, we had a marginal increase and a small drop in margin. Do you believe this business has a lower margin? And the second question, I understand a more up-to-date vision. What do you expect an impact in the discounts given by the government in heavy vehicles...
Sergio, the first question about the U.S. market, you can answer, then I can talk about the potential impact of heavy trucks in the domestic market.
The U.S. market, in general, Luiz, thank you for the question, continues to perform well, concerning trucks, semi-trailers the -- they believe in a retention but a recession in the U.S., but it hasn't arrived. The strength of the U.S. market is still present. The economy is strong in the U.S., but we're expecting a drop in the market, but not a drop that will penalize in a significant way. There is a pent-up demand that is helping us. And when we -- but we expect a small drop. And we want to be ready by introducing new product lines, as already mentioned.
Also, we intend we're working to inject new processes in production, improvement in safety, in our operations. So we're doing a lot in our U.S. operation to give priority to modernize our operation in the second semester, we're working in a more important way more strongly. But we continue positive that volumes will continue being good volumes for us.
Thank you, Sergio. Luiz, concerning the discount program by the government for heavy trucks. In practice, we haven't seen -- we haven't seen any expected demand. This is linked to the price -- the investment that is necessary after this discount linked to credit. Credit is more restricted, more expensive now. Interest rates are up. Credit is scarce and expensive -- this due to a higher average ticket makes it difficult for this government program to have a significant impact on demand.
On the other hand, what we have seen a drop in interest rates, this began and the continuity, this should bring a scenario of more positive investments in the second semester with a recovery of demand, both for trucks and also road implements and trailers.
Esteban, if you allow me to add -- the government -- made available BRL 700 million. If, for example, a truck is BRL 1 million. We're talking about 700 vehicles only in the government's program. It's very little. Even if the program was a success, this would not bring a relevant impact because the funds made available were small.
Our next question [ Luis Amuse from Safra Bank ].
I have a follow-up on margins, bear in mind, lower prices for steel. How are the conversations concerning discounts? We saw an increase in administrative expenses. What was responsible for this increase in administrative expenses...
I can comment -- concerning discounts, this is a daily discussion we have purchasing and sales. We try to manage the prices to recover margins to have healthy margins in the business. So, the gains that we have in March, we try not to give discounts to sustain our level of profitability.
We have to remember that it's not only in purchasing, we have worked a lot internally in productivity gains, efficiency gains. Every month, we look at this carefully projects that will bring us gains in productivity and efficiency in the operations and also in back office as a way to sustain this margin in the long term. We don't want to depend only on the market. We want to have internal conditions to sustain this margin.
Concerning administrative expenses, part of these expenses are related to the structure to support the acquisitions. It's a temporary increase because of acquisitions and, for example, to implement an acquired companies, the same system that we use in the others. This generates initially an additional cost, but the trend is to be more agile in the future and standard -- use the standards that we have in Randon Corp.
Would Sergio, Paulo like to supplement? Luis hope I answered your question.
The next question, Gabriel Tinem, Santander.
Congratulations for the results. In semitrailers, how is the price in exports and Hercules? More details. We saw a drop in the volume -- so what was the reason for this difference in revenue and also exports to Europe and Africa...
Okay, Gabriel. What happens in the export markets, excluding the U.S. the main countries are in labs in America. There is a different mix in terms of what is sold in Latin America and the U.S. In Latin America, we sell higher value-added products. And in the U.S. for the time being, we're exporting bases for containers, which is much -- which is very simple. -- and the average ticket is lower. If you look at the total revenue for the volume in the U.S., you will see this difference in relation to other countries in Latin America.
Africa is a continent where we have low demand in the last 5, 6 years. They are suffering in some countries with political stability, lack of foreign currency. So the demand has dropped. And also we have this effect. And we -- in Latin America, we've seen Argentina and Chile with a drop in demand, provoked by greater political, economical instability with lower volumes. So what we have done is we have compensated this with the U.S. market, although the ticket is smaller, they have a greater volume, and a good revenue from OEMs.
Our next question, Marcelo Motta, JPMorgan.
Two topics. The first, can you talk more about [ ES's ] platform, how this can help in revenue -- last quarter, you talked about investments in [ ES's ] platform and working capital. Working capital is behaving well in the second half. Do we -- should we expect stability in the second semester to concerning working capital?
Thank you, Motta. Sergio, you can talk about [ ES's ], -- we announced a sale in the domestic market and Paulo on working capital, you can answer.
Marcelo, thank you for the question. [ ES's ] is following according to plan, low volumes this year -- we mentioned in previous events, there are 3 phases linked to this technology. The first, where you have the early adopters, the pioneers that by thinking of [ BSG ], but with lower volumes, -- maybe to say my company is supporting the environment. And the second phase, where economic factors make more sense. We're close to going to the second phase with better volumes. And the third phase, where the technology would be adopted in a strong way.
We're still in the first phase, but expanding -- we're using this in semitrailers in Brazil, outside Brazil. There's an event in September in California. We will be showing this solution there, too. But even in Brazil, we have port tractor that operates -- and uses this equipment. We announced the forest version. Now we're working with meat packing plants. Our expectation is that the greatest marketing will happen by companies who are using these products. And they will show the benefits. So it is slow, then it accelerates than reaching more higher volumes.
We're growing. There is a great interest on batteries. And other applications. Agro business, we have a project in Sao Paulo for movement of sugarcane, the possible applications are growing for this product. But it's a new technology, it's a radical technology, so it takes time.
Paulo, the second part of the question on working capital...
Marcelo, thank you for your question. Working capital is a topic that we take care of with a lot of care and discipline. So for us, an important metric is number of days equivalent to billing. So to give an idea, in June last year, we closed the semester with 88 days of working capital, June, 75 days, a drop, an important drop in the need for working capital. And this difference comes back to cash. And this, especially in inventory, accounts receivable. And as you said, we hope a drop during the next quarters. Part of this reduction happens in the third quarter and another in the fourth quarter because of cyclic markets and clients. So, the answer is yes. You can expect a drop until the end of this year.
So our last question, Andressa Varotto, UBS.
One question quickly. On auto parts for commercial vehicles. We saw margins at a high at a high level. So, I'd like to understand how did the different factors contribute for high margins? Was it price stability in price increases or the internalization of some processes, some products. We saw an important expansion in the U.S. Is -- do you believe this is the result of the synergies that you mentioned, synergies for auto parts?
Andressa, thank you for the question. That's an important topic. We see a resilience in auto parts. And the results prove that our strategy is on the right track, more than strategy, we have to talk about execution, too.
In the case of auto parts, the higher margins are supported by verticalization. We have mentioned that items at Castertech that were purchased from third parties. Since we have lower production, we are producing them in-house. In the past, we would outsource production because we didn't have the capacity. And strategically, this has helped us. When we need to internalize this helps us to support revenue and margins.
In terms of cost, this helps gross margin. We have talked about the drop in the price of steel. And in the consolidated steel represents 60% of our cost with materials, raw materials. So, it's an important component of cost. And now with a drop in the price of steel, this helps in a positive way for our gross margins.
Third point, new markets, we are after new markets. We have this in our strategy, diversification right now, we -- last year, we began initiatives to find new fronts in the international market to compensate the drop in revenue. And now, trucks sales dropping 35%. The revenue from auto parts dropped only 18%. This shows that our strategies are working in Q2 and in Q1 also. Thank you.
Well, we'd like to close our Q&A session, I'd like to thank Sergio, Paulo, Hemerson, Esteban and to all the participants, and I pass the floor to Sergio for his final comments.
Thank you, David. Just to thank, as always -- thank you for participating. Thank you for the questions. And we continue to say that we're here available for any clarifications that you may need. Thank you very much, and we wish you a good day. Thank you.
[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]