You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: Participating on the call today are Aaron Ravenscroft, president and chief executive officer; and David Antoniuk, executive vice president and chief financial officer.
However, actual results could differ materially from any implied or actual projections due to one or more of the factors, among others, described in the company's latest SEC filings.
I was really pleased with our performance in the first quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA and cash flow from operations exceeded our expectations.
Frankly, this was accomplished in spite of a myriad of production and delivery issues created by the current supply chain and logistics environment, not to mention the ongoing challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nevertheless, the team persevered and delivered a very strong start of the year.
In terms of orders, we were pleasantly surprised for the quarter.
Our orders were up 26% versus the same period last year, and we ended the first quarter with a backlog of 663 million.
The tower crane business was unusually strong during the period.
I attribute this to three dynamics: First, certain European countries such as Italy implemented tax incentives to promote capital investments, which drove orders, particularly for self-erecting cranes.
Second, we had several key dealers placed partial orders during the fourth quarter winter campaign due to economic uncertainties.
As the economy reopened, these dealers placed follow-on orders in the first quarter.
Lastly, as we implemented price increases to offset material cost increases, some dealers placed additional orders in advance of the price change.
Unfortunately, however, the mobile crane business in Europe was not as robust and was more reflective of the cautious tones that we hear out of the EU.
Net-net, we were genuinely surprised by the performance of the region during the first quarter.
Moving east, we continue to feel good about the general activity in the Middle East and Asia Pacific.
The project pipeline in the Middle East is encouraging.
And China, South Korea, and Australia posted strong bookings during the quarter.
Finally, I wanted to end in the Americas to ensure that nobody jumps to conclusion that our total performance for the quarter was reflective of a significant change in the U.S. market.
The order increase in North America was high single digits, which is great news, but we remain tempered with our outlook on the U.S. market.
The signals that we see in the marketplace don't necessarily match all of the positive information that you see in the news these days.
Clearly, the vaccine news is positive, and there is a lot of speculation around the U.S. infrastructure bill.
However, the major crane rental houses are still holding tight to the purses.
Big oil companies are still cautious to invest even as oil is back above $60.
And on top of that, used equipment prices still remain depressed.
Finally, when I look at our dealer inventory levels and consider their orders that are on the books, I would say that our dealer network is well positioned to seize the opportunity for an uptick in business.
So we have a measured view of the North American crane market.
Given the volatility of the trade market, it's essential for us to keep investing in the Manitowoc Way to continuously improve the flexibility of our operations.
As I mentioned, demand for self-erecting tower cranes has been surprisingly strong over the last two quarters.
In order to meet customer demand, our team in Niella, Italy is in the process of executing several kaizens to increase our production by 30% with minimal capital investment.
Using standard of work, the team will rebalance the main assembly line and create a few offline production cells to ensure that we can meet the overall tax time.
In terms of capital investment, we will install a couple of manipulators, but really, this is much about improving safety as it is about increasing productivity.
As always in lean, a little elbow grease and creativity can take us a long way in meeting our unpredictable spikes in the crane business.
With that, I'll pass it to Dave to provide details on our financial results.
Let's move to Slide 4.
Our first-quarter orders totaled $474 million, an increase of 26% compared to $375 million of orders in the same period last year.
On a currency-neutral basis, Q1 orders were up $78 million or 21%.
Orders improved in all of our segments, driven by pockets of higher customer demand within each region.
Our March 31 backlog of $663 million was better by 27% over the prior year and up 23% on a currency-neutral basis.
Backlog also increased across all of our segments with over 85% scheduled to ship within the next six months.
Compared to year-end, backlog was up 22% and, on a currency-neutral basis, up 25%.
Net sales in the first quarter of $354 million increased $25 million or 8% from a year ago.
Stronger results in the EURAF and MEAP segments were partially offset by a decline in the Americas segment.
Net sales were favorably impacted by 5% from changes in foreign currency exchange rates.
On an adjusted basis, SG&A expenses increased by approximately $1 million year over year.
The increase was primarily driven by unfavorable foreign exchange rates, higher short-term incentive compensation expense and increased insurance and legal costs, mostly offset by a decrease in marketing and travel expenses.
As a reminder, the 2020 marketing expenses were higher due to the Triennial CONEXPO trade show.
Our adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $21 million, an increase of approximately 29% year over year.
Higher volumes and a favorable product mix drove the year-over-year increase.
As a percentage of sales, adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 6%, an improvement of 100 basis points over the prior year primarily due to leveraging of our fixed costs over a higher sales volume.
First-quarter depreciation of $10 million increased $1 million compared to the prior year, reflecting the higher level of capital expenditures in the second half of 2020.
In 2021, we anticipate total capital expenditures between $35 million and $40 million, which includes the investment in our European rental fleet.
As a reminder, the company has tax valuation allowances established for certain countries, and therefore, losses in those countries are not available to offset income tax expense in profitable jurisdictions.
Our GAAP diluted loss per share in the quarter was $0.09.
On an adjusted basis, diluted loss per share of $0.06 improved by $0.12 from the prior year, driven by increased operating income and partially offset by higher income tax expense.
We generated $41 million of cash from operating activities in the quarter compared to a use of $79 million in the prior year.
Capital spending in the quarter amounted to $8 million, of which $7 million related to the European tower rental fleet.
As a result, our free cash flow in the quarter was $34 million.
The primary driver of our positive cash flow was a net decrease in working capital.
We ended the quarter with a cash balance of $159 million, an increase of $30 million from year-end.
Our total liquidity as of March 31 was $443 million with no borrowings on our ABL.
Please move to Slide 5.
As I communicated last quarter, I see 2021 as a year of transition.
The COVID-19 pandemic is long from over and in fact our crawler production was significantly impacted during the first quarter when a few of our colleagues at the Shady Grove campus tested positive for COVID.
We took immediate action to protect our workforce and to minimize the possibility of spreading the virus, which resulted in a temporary shutdown of certain production areas.
And in Pune, India, hospitalizations have recently spiked due to COVID, which has resulted in an oxygen shortage.
We have temporarily closed our welding operations and effort to help conserve the local supply of oxygen for medical uses.
Turning to the economy.
As we predicted, the return to normalcy is creating a multitude of dislocations throughout the world supply chain.
A quarter ago, the industrial world forecasted steel prices spiked in the first quarter and to capitulate as the year we're on and capacity was headed.
Unfortunately, today, the general view is that steel prices will remain at high levels for the entire year.
We expect to see costs for steel, logistics, and transportation increased as much as $30 million year over year.
We are raising prices to mitigate the impact, but there is always a lag between raw material lead times and the effective date of the price increase.
The second major complication is the semiconductor chip shortage, which has created significant issues throughout our supply base.
For example, the shutdowns in the heavy-duty truck industry will impact our boom truck shipments during the second quarter.
So while we feel positive about order and backlog trends, we are nervous about inflation and the likely supply chain complications.
In light of this and other headwinds that we discussed on our last call, such as insurance increases, short-term incentive plans, and nonrecurring COVID relief benefits, we anticipate our year-over-year contribution margins to be lower than normal in the second half of 2021.
With that, we are introducing full-year 2021 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $90 million to $105 million.
Please move to Slide 6.
Looking beyond 2021, though we still have some questions about how the European tower crane market may cycle.
We generally believe that momentum is building in the overall global crane market.
Moreover, we believe that our four strategic initiatives will put us in a strong position to take advantage of the cycle.
1, our European tower crane rental fleet strategy is on track.
During the first quarter, we invested approximately $7 million in capex on this initiative, with most of these cranes already rented and in service.
We plan to expand the fleet by another $8 million during the year.
2, our Chinese tower crane business continues to move forward.
We just launched a fourth new model designed by our China team, the Proton MCT 138.
More than 100 customers visit our factory for this product launch and the customer feedback was excellent.
While this strategy helps grow our position in China, it also permits us to grow our market share in the Belt and Road regions.
3, in our altering crane business, we are investing an additional $4 million during 2021 in an effort to fill in product gaps.
While several of these new cranes will be launched at Bauma next year, this is a five-year strategy.
Over the last three years, the main focus of our engineering team and the AT business was to improve our quality on legacy machines while updating designs to meet regulatory requirements, such as Tier 5 emission standards among a few others.
It's a nice change in pace to refocus our attention on innovation.
In addition, I'm very pleased to speak publicly about Grove Connect.
This is a remote diagnostic technology that our engineering team picked off during the fourth quarter.
We are currently testing it and expect to launch the first phase of this new technology by the end of this year with additional capabilities to follow.
Adding Growth Connect to our all-terrain cranes will significantly improve the serviceability of these complex machines.
4, last but not least, we continue to pursue acquisition opportunities that will drive substantial long-term growth.
In closing, the team has performed well under very difficult conditions.
As we stated several months ago, 2021 will be a year of transition as the economy and our supply chain normalizes.
We will continue to lean on The Manitowoc Way to guide us through these challenging times.
Concurrently, we are confident that our four-point growth strategy will improve our ability to deliver greater value to our customers while generating greater long-term returns for our shareholders.

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q1 adjusted loss per share $0.06.
q1 loss per share $0.09.
initiating full-year 2021 adjusted ebitda guidance of $90 million to $105 million.

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