Konecranes released its interim report for January
March 2022, in which the highlight was that in comparable currencies, orders received by Konecranes in the first quarter increased by 32.4% year-on-year to more than 1 billion euros, In a challenging market environment, the order volume reached an all-time high. Konecranes is the world's leading Lifting Businesses
group serving a wide range of clients including the manufacturing and process industries, shipyards, ports and terminals. Konecranes provides productivity-enhancing lifting solutions and services for a wide range of brands of lifting equipment.
KCL Lifttrucks, familiar to Chinese users, is Konecranes' distribution partner in China, as well as the official distribution partner of Terberg, sfPorteq spreaders, Merford Cabins and the OPS Factor service desk, providing services including ports, docks, lift truck owners, manufacturing And the vast number of customers in the processing industry to provide services.
For the interim report, Teo Ottola, Chief Financial Officer and Interim Chief Executive Officer of Konecranes, made the following brief remarks:
Konecranes' first-quarter results were mixed. We booked record orders, but at the same time our profitability declined. The war in Ukraine has shocked us all, and we are deeply concerned for our more than 400 Ukrainian employees and their families. The war made market conditions more volatile and unpredictable, given rising inflation and material supply problems. We continue to work hard and focus on performance, and with our record order book, there is still a lot to do.
Despite geopolitical tensions and the pandemic, overall market sentiment continued to be positive in the first quarter, and at the group level, our order intake reached a record high. In comparable currencies, orders received by Konecranes in the first quarter increased by 32.4% year-on-year to more than 1 billion euros. Our short-cycle product orders returned to growth, better than expected.
Customer lead times, component availability and other supply chain constraints impacted our revenue in the first quarter, and our sales were down 6.7% year over year in comparable currencies. Our order book again broke a new record of EUR 2.485 billion at the end of March, thanks to our record high order volume.
Our adjusted EBITA margin fell to 6.6% year over year. The decline was due to sales delays, our industrial equipment business was impacted by inflation and port solutions delivery times. Services continued its positive earnings trajectory and posted a record-high first-quarter Adjusted EBITA margin.
In comparable currencies, service order volume increased by 6.9% year over year. Although sales were impacted by supply chain issues, good profitability continued with an adjusted EBITA margin of 17.4%. In comparable currencies, the underlying value of the agreement increased by 2.6% over the previous year to more than 300 million euros.
In comparable currencies, external orders for industrial equipment increased by 31.6%. Customer delays and supply chain constraints continued, but external sales in comparable currencies declined slightly, mainly due to a reversal in sales in Russia. Adjusted EBITA margin fell -2.1% year over year, mainly driven by inflation and delayed sales.
Activity within the port remained high, with Port Solutions orders increasing by 55.1% in comparable currencies to a total of EUR 427 million. However, sales are affected by customer delivery times. In our mobile devices business in particular, component shortages persisted and the impact was seen even in our project business. As a result, adjusted EBITA margin totaled 2.9%.
The war in Ukraine has affected our business and operations, as well as our people. We have over 400 employees in Ukraine, and Konecranes has supported them and their families throughout the war. The safety and well-being of our Ukrainian employees and their families is our number one priority. The tenacity, courage and strength of our Ukrainian employees is amazing, and I am deeply impressed by the sincere help and support from Konecranes employees around the world, especially in neighboring Ukraine.
After the war started, our factory in Zaporozhye stopped production and we moved production to our other production sites. We also decided not to accept any new business from Russia. As a result of our decision, in the first quarter, we wrote off 79 million euros of orders booked from Russia and wrote off 32 million euros of Russian project revenue recognized until 2022. In addition, we have weakened the balance sheet value of our Ukrainian assets as the level of uncertainty remains high. The EBIT impact on the sale of these impairments and cancelled items was approximately EUR 47 million, the full amount already included in our adjustments.
We expect market volatility and uncertainty to continue due to the ongoing war. Additionally, the pandemic and associated lockdowns continue to impact global supply chains. We updated our demand outlook for the second quarter to reflect current market sentiment. Despite the healthy demand environment now, we do not expect another record quarterly order book. We reiterate our full-year guidance and expect full-year 2022 net sales to be higher than 2021 and full-year adjusted EBITA margins to improve from 2021 onwards. As for inflation, parts availability and other supply chain constraints, we expect them to continue and impact our performance this year.
Following our cancellation of our planned merger with Cargotec on March 29, 2022, we postponed our annual general meeting scheduled for the following day. As a result, dividend payments have also been delayed. The annual general meeting is scheduled for June 15, and Konecranes' board of directors has proposed a dividend of 1.25 euros per share. The AGM will be held as soon as possible and the proposals will be announced.
To further strengthen our role as a global lifting leader, we are announcing today that, effective June 1, 2022, we will bring our service and industrial equipment business areas under one leadership. The decision follows an assessment of closer cooperation between the two business areas, which began last October. Fabio Fiorino, currently Executive Vice President, Service, will lead both businesses and will further develop the operating model. Bringing these two business areas closer together will improve Konecranes' customer experience and will simplify our industrial business model and strategy.
Considering everything that happened, Konecranes' first quarter was indeed eventful and mixed. I am proud of the commitment of our employees and that commitment remains high. We have been and will continue to focus on business excellence, continuous improvement and sustainability, and delivering the best possible service to our clients.
