Orders were up double digits in all three of our business segments, and backlog was up 23% organically.
Both Western Europe and emerging markets delivered exceptional organic revenue growth, with Western Europe up 11% and emerging markets up 33% year on year and with momentum up strong sequentially.
demand also continued to recover with orders up 18%.
Revenue grew 8% organically versus the same period last year with performance better than our expectations across the board.
Geographically, emerging markets in Western Europe both grew double digits, while the U.S. was down 1%.
But in short, utilities were up 3%; industrial was up 14%; commercial, up 5%; and residential was up 31%.
Organic orders grew 19% in the quarter as all three business segments contributed double-digit order gains.
Margins were above our forecasted range with EBITDA margin coming in at 17.1% and operating margin at 11.4%.
The 480 basis points of EBITDA expansion came largely from volume and productivity, partially offset by inflation.
Earnings per share in the quarter was $0.56, which is up 143%.
Water infrastructure orders in the first quarter were up 14% organically versus last year with revenues up 11%.
EBITDA margin and operating margin for the segment were up 430 and 490 basis points, respectively, as strong productivity and volume leverage offset inflation.
In the applied water segment, orders were up 25% organically in the quarter, driven by recovery in demand in North America and strength in Western Europe.
Revenue was up 13% in the quarter with growth in all end markets and geographies.
Residential and industrial grew 31% and 15%, respectively, while commercial grew 5%.
By contrast, improving commercial demand in Western Europe contributed 15% growth with additional strength in residential.
Emerging markets were up 51% due to the timing of prior-year COVID shutdowns, as well as commercial recovery in Middle East and Africa.
Segment EBITDA margin and operating margins grew 250 and 280 basis points, respectively.
In M&CS, orders were up 19% organically in the quarter with double-digit growth across both water and energy applications, driven by large metrology projects.
Segment backlog is up 29%.
Emerging markets were up 8%, and Western Europe grew 9% from metrology project deployments and demand in the test business.
Segment EBITDA margin and operating margins in the quarter were up 770 and 600 basis points, respectively.
We closed the quarter with $1.7 billion in cash.
Net debt-to-EBITDA leverage was 1.6 times at the end of the quarter.
You've already heard about our emerging markets team's exceptional first-quarter performance with revenue and orders up 33% and 21%, respectively.
The result was solid margin expansion with incremental margins coming in at 55%.
We'll be reporting, for example, that, in 2020, we helped our customers prevent 1.4 billion cubic meters of polluted water from entering local waterways.
For Xylem overall, we now see full-year 2021 organic revenue growth in the range of 5% to 7%, up from our previous guidance of 3% to 5%.
For 2021, we expect adjusted EBITDA margin to be at 90 to 140 basis points to a range of 17.2% to 17.7%.
For your convenience, we are also providing the equivalent adjusted operating margin here, which we now expect to be in the range of 12% to 12.5%, up 120 to 170 basis points.
Benefits from restructuring savings remain unchanged, and this yields an adjusted earnings per share range of $2.50 to $2.70, an increase of 21% to 31% over last year.
We continue to expect free cash flow conversion of between 80% to 90%, as previously guided, putting our three-year average right around 130%.
And we expect to continue delivering cash conversion of greater than 100% going forward.
Our balance sheet will remain very strong even after $600 million of senior notes are retired in the fourth quarter, which clearly offers considerable room for capital deployment.
Those assumptions are unchanged from our original guidance, including our euro to dollar conversion rate of 1.22.
We anticipate total company organic revenues will grow in the range of 8% to 10%.
We expect second-quarter adjusted EBITDA margin to be in the range of 16.7% to 17.2%, representing 140 to 190 basis points of expansion versus the prior year.

Summary:
Earnings per share in the quarter was $0.56, which is up 143%.
For Xylem overall, we now see full-year 2021 organic revenue growth in the range of 5% to 7%, up from our previous guidance of 3% to 5%.
Benefits from restructuring savings remain unchanged, and this yields an adjusted earnings per share range of $2.50 to $2.70, an increase of 21% to 31% over last year.