Xaar innovation combats legacy ceramics slump as company charts bounceback
Revenue fell to £28.6 million from £34.5m and Xaar went from a profit of £1.8m last time to a loss of £0.7m.
The UK share price was fractionally higher but at 100.40 still too close to comfort to the 52-week low of 90.24.
Xaar justifiably pointed out that excluding ceramics, the printhead business delivered new market revenue growth of 26 per cent. At £3.4m it also roughly maintained investment in R & D and said the group remains well capitalised, with net cash of £6.8m – up 10 per cent driven by disciplined cash management.
During the period Xaar commercialised new products, with OEM launches in textiles, corrugate, battery coating and wax markets; product launches in the last five years have created annualised revenue in excess of £20 million delivering compound annual growth rate of 26 per cent.
Xaar further reports a strong pipeline of opportunities with a number of key projects expected to deliver in 2025.
CEO John Mills sees nothing to dent his confidence in a bright future for the business. He said: “We remain confident in our strategy which is increasingly demonstrating the unique capabilities of our printhead technology.
“Our pipeline of opportunities has increased in quality in both existing and new application areas and increasing numbers of OEM's are engaged in, or actively planning, new product launches incorporating Xaar printheads.
“Newly developed high viscosity inks enable us to fully utilise the unique technology of our printheads and whilst the legacy ceramics market is challenging masking our success in new market sectors, we have enhanced our customer integration capabilities and are already seeing the benefit in accelerated OEM project launches in other target markets.”
With over 30 years' experience, around 200 patents registered or pending, and major ongoing R & D investment, Xaar's digital printhead and precision jetting technologies continue to create what management label “infinite opportunities for today's sustainable manufacturing innovation.”
