Sandra Rowland
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Xylem
Thanks, Patrick. Please turn to slide five, and I'll cover our first quarter results. As Patrick highlighted, the team built on our momentum coming into 2023 with another healthy quarter of growth and margin expansion. Revenue grew 17% year-over-year, led by double-digit growth in the U.S. and Western Europe and high single-digit growth in emerging markets. In a moment, we'll look at detailed performance by segment, but in short, each segment grew double digits and exceeded our expectations. Utilities, our largest end market, was up 23% with strength in the U.S. driven by continued chip supply improvements in, M&CS as well as price and robust opex demand in Water Infrastructure. Industrial, which is approximately 35% of revenues grew 13% with strong price realization and solid demand across all regions, particularly in Western Europe. Commercial, which is approximately 10% of our revenues, was up 16%, mainly due to continued backlog execution in the U.S. And Residential, our smallest end market, with approximately 5% of revenues, was modestly down.
Orders performance overall was better than expected and underlying demand remains resilient. M&CS was down 17% due to unusually high orders growth of 25% last year as a function of supply chain lead times. Water Infrastructure orders were up 1% and AWS was down 1%. EBITDA margin was 16.3%, up 210 basis points from the prior year on higher volumes and favorable price cost dynamics. Our EPS in the quarter was $0.72, up 53% year-over-year. Please turn to slide six, and I'll review the quarter's performance by segment in a bit more detail. M&CS revenue was up 32%, driven by better-than-expected recovery in chip supply. We saw double-digit growth, not only in metrology, but across our M&CS businesses, including test and measurement and pipeline assessment services. There was strong performance across all regions led by U.S. growth of over 40%. As mentioned, M&CS orders were down in the quarter, but up sequentially. Demand for our AMI offerings remains healthy and our $2.1 billion backlog in M&CS is up 8% versus the prior year.
EBITDA margin for the segment was up 690 basis points versus the prior year on strong incrementals. Robust volume conversion, price realization and productivity drove the expansion, more than offsetting inflation and unfavorable mix. And now let's turn to slide seven, and I'll cover our Water Infrastructure business. Water Infrastructure revenues were up 15% versus our guide of high single digits due to better price realization globally and stronger-than-expected demand in emerging markets. Growth exceeded our expectations across the portfolio with revenues up double digits in all regions and end markets. Geographically, the U.S. was up 22%, with strong price realization on utilities, opex demand and backlog execution. Western Europe grew 10% with robust demand in utilities and industrial. Emerging markets was also up low double digits, driven by strong opex demand in Latin America, Africa and China. Orders in the quarter were up sequentially and up 1% year-over-year versus double-digit growth last year. EBITDA margin for the segment was down 80 basis points, primarily due to unfavorable mix and strategic investments in digital and solutions selling, partially offset by favorable price cost dynamics.
And please turn to slide eight for an overview of AWS. Applied Water revenues grew 10% on strong price realization and improved supply chain. Geographically, Western Europe was up 17% due to backlog execution and healthy industrial and commercial demand. The U.S. was up 10%, driven by backlog execution and strong price realization, particularly in the commercial market. Emerging Markets was down low single digits, primarily due to lapping double-digit growth last year in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. And while orders were down 1% in the quarter, they were stronger than expected and notably, book-to-bill was greater than 1. Segment EBITDA margin was up 480 basis points in the quarter, driven by continued strong price realization and productivity, more than offsetting inflation. And now let's turn to slide nine for an overview of cash flows and the company's financial position. Our financial position remains robust as we exit the quarter with over $800 million in cash and available liquidity of $1.8 billion. Net debt-to-EBITDA leverage is one times. Due to seasonality, free cash flow was negative in the quarter, but came in better than expected. While supply chain challenges are not yet behind us, we've made significant progress on working capital and we remain confident in our full year guidance of 100% conversion.
Please turn to slide 10, and I'll hand it back to Patrick.