[24] Inventories

The reported inventories break down as follows: > TABLE 080

The year-on-year expansion in inventories was largely attributable to increases in materials and supplies (53.5 per cent), work in progress (21.3 per cent) and finished goods (19.9 per cent). This overall expansion was due to short-term supply bottlenecks at suppliers in the Industrial Trucks & Services segment that mainly occurred in the first half of 2018 but had not been completely eliminated by 31 December 2018.

In 2018, write-downs of €25.3 million were recognised on inventories (2017: €18.0 million). Reversals of write-downs had to be recognised in the amount of €6.5 million (2017: €7.5 million) because the reasons for the write-downs no longer existed.