Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the conference call on the results of Barco. I am pleased to introduce to you Mr. Jan De Witte, CEO, Madam Ann Desender, CFO, and Mr. Carl Vanden Bussche, IRO. For the first part of this call, let me remind you that all participants will be on listen-only mode. Afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Sir, please go ahead with your meeting.
Thank you, Clotilde. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Carl Vanden Bussche, Head of Investor Relations for Barco. I'm pleased to welcome you to this conference call on the results of the first half of 2021. Today with me in our office, our Chairman, Mr. Charles Beauduin, our CEO, Mr. Jan De Witte, and our CFO, Mrs. Ann Desender. Ann and Jan will first walk us through the half year results, provide some extra color on how the growth opportunities are evolving and how we navigate the current and next quarters to come.
Our Chairman, Mr. Charles Beauduin, will also provide some extra comments on the leadership changes as announced last Friday. We will do follow the sequence of the first half earnings presentation, which is available on our investor portal since early this morning. I assume most of you will have found that presentation. Following the presentation, we foresee some time for Q&A as well. I'll keep it to that for the introduction, and so let's kick it off here. Jan, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Carl, for the introduction. As indicated, we're happy to be joined by Charles Beauduin, our chairman, to of course, get a bit more color around the leadership change release or the communication that went out on Friday evening. We're going to reserve some time after Ann and I go through the presentation. Before that, I would say first things first, let's go to the first semester 2021 results and numbers. Let's go to, I think it's page five in the documents, exec summary.
Barco's first half results are marked by strong order intake, significantly above what we saw in the first half last year and the second half last year, reflecting the market activity that we see resuming, picking up again in our different end markets. We already saw the first signs of this in the first quarter. This momentum further built up over the second quarters, with order growing in all of our regions. This led to an increase in our order book by EUR 110 million versus the start of the year and bringing our book now to record levels, above pre-COVID levels.
In China, our sales are now also back to pre-COVID levels, while in the other regions, we see some time lag between orders coming in and sales being realized. This was mainly still driven by continued lockdowns in several geographies, which induced project delays or slower back to office movements, both of which impact mainly our enterprise businesses. To a lesser extent, supply constraints also induced some delays for a couple of products.
We've seen our gross margins start to recover 2.7 points up versus the second half of last year, though not yet at first half 2020 levels, as mix and some higher variable costs, like in transportation, still wait on the first half. We continue to keep our costs in check and saw the result of a number of structural actions that we activated last year result in an indirect cost below second half 2020 levels, while keeping focus on key new product developments and innovation projects. Overall, our EBITDA margin further saw a solid step up versus the second half of last year, 4 points up and now at 7.5% EBITDA margin with a positive net income.
We also delivered solid free cash flow generation with good reduction of underlying working capital as our finished goods started to move while payments remained in control. If we turn now to a bit more the regional dynamic on page 6, we get the following picture. We see all regions show positive orders growth compared to the same period last year. Also to remind that the first half last year was a semester with still a strong first quarter and a weakening second quarter, especially in China, as COVID set in at that time. In terms of sales, given the different timing of start and subsiding of COVID, we see positive year-over-year sales growth in APAC already.
That's mainly driven by China, while in Europe and Americas, we are still in the same range below last. In the Americas, we see now the cinema industry reopened since May. Box office is picking up and our customers, the exhibitors, are repairing their balance sheet, while they still aim to start reinvesting near the end of the year, as we assumed before. We see momentum pick up in Pro AV, especially in fixed installs. We are talking here about digital immersive art installations, museum, theme parks. That's a trend that we see across the globe.
ClickShare here, the sell-out has seen a step-up or a step-by-step pick-up over the 2nd quarter as U.S. corporates now start to return to office in earnest and our channel further strengthens. The dynamic in control rooms is picking up too in the Americas. Healthcare in the Americas keeps going with solid order growth as investments in hospitals are resumed. In EMEA, we see the same dynamic in healthcare. Hospitals are resuming their investment plans in diagnostic and surgical.
In enterprise and specifically ClickShare, we have felt the impact of the third wave lockdowns in several big Europe countries, specifically in the second quarter. We saw a clear re-acceleration in June as major European countries started to unlock after good progress in their vaccination schemes. In entertainment in EMEA, again, like in America, a very good pickup in Pro AV, especially in fixed installs, while cinema exhibitors reopened and are working to get box office back and their balance sheets replenished.
In APAC, starting with China, clearly here we are leaving COVID, I would say largely behind us with progress across the board and where our local capabilities put in a strong position to capture the market rebound. APAC, outside of China, here, it's still very much an on-off dynamic with many countries going in intermittent lockdowns. This keeps most of our segments from really picking up with a clear recovery trend. So far, the regional dynamics view. I'll come back later with more business unit view and a look forward. Let me hand it to Ann Desender to take us into the numbers.
Good morning. Moving over to slide seven, in which we give you the key figures compared to the first half last year, but also compared to the second half of the semester of last year, where we indeed had the two quarters of impact or the full impact of COVID. What this overview and in particular the green colors type of C movements is that we have the worst cycle behind, which was the second semester of last year. Good recovery on orders and order book, whether you compare it to the first or second half last year. This we see in the different divisions and in different regions.
If we then see to the sales conversion, this is still impacted by COVID constraints as well as some component shortages. If we see the sales figures first semester this year versus first semester last year, we are at the -10%. If we exclude currency impacts, it's a -6%. We land our order book at EUR 391 million, which is an additional EUR 110 million order book build up since the beginning of the year. Good start for the second semester of this year. Gross profit margins, we are kind of halfway, we could say in the sense that improved back versus the dip in the second semester last year with 2.7 percentage points, but not yet at the level of the first half last year.
The fact that we did sell more cinema already versus the second semester of last year as well as ClickShare has helped our gross margin back up, as well as what we saw in the second semester last year were more what we call cost of quality related costs, which is typically inventory write-offs and higher warranty costs, which we improved on both back in more recovery times as we are. With that landing at an EBITDA of 7.5%. Free cash flow, come back to that.
We got to a peak in working capital at the midst of last year, really after one COVID quarter, we can say, start to work on that in the second semester last year, continued further in this first semester, irrespective of meanwhile having component shortages, which we have to type of fight for, like other companies do, did manage quite well in this second semester. Net income landing at EUR 2.5 million. Moving over to slide eight, same figures, visual, the operational results, EBITDA, first half this year compared to the second half last year.
How did we get out of type of the dip, I will call it, in the second semester last year. Currencies didn't really play if you compare it to the second semester of last year. Sales started to increase. It's primarily the orders and order book, which are big up. The sales conversion will be more than towards the second semester of this year. Gross margins start to pick up and we did further cost containment along the company within gross profit margin and also indirect costs. With that landing at 7.5% or EUR 27 million EBITDA. Moving over to slide nine, the income lines between EBITDA result and net income.
Also here we compare this versus the first half of last year as well as the second half of last year. Restored the EBITDA back to this 7.5% in the reference versus the second half of last year, improved it with rounded EUR 15 million. Between EBITDA and net income depreciations are some lower compared to last year. Impairments, we still had some restructuring costs in the first semester of this year related to diverse cost resets, which we further did. The main impacts we had and have taken already last year. EBIT EUR 23 million better than the first semester of last year.
Taxes at an 18%, which is in line with the first semester of last year, and then landing at this EUR two and a half million, EUR 17 million better than the second semester of last year, not yet at a level where we want to be. Moving over to slide 10 with an overview of the cash flow and balance sheet or net cash. Free cash flow EUR 35 million, operating cash flow at EUR 21 million. This is not after payouts relating to layoffs, restructuring to the tune of EUR 4.8 million. We reduced our working capital in the first semester this year with EUR 29 million. Now our net working capital is back at 8.3% of sales.
DSOs further improved, certainly compared to where we were at the peak a year ago when we started really having the hit cycle, when we primarily in cinema agreed with customers to give them payment plans. Meanwhile, a year further, we have seen and reported on this at the end of the year and at the end of the first quarter, a good progress. We have not gotten any customers which in the end could not pay. Payment plans were diligently followed up and followed by the customers. In that sense, good news there. Some further improvements still to do, but well on our way.
Inventories versus the beginning of the year are flat, but this is a different mix in the sense that we sell all of the finished goods which we kind of have. Raw materials did pick up in the sense that in the, call it, the fight for components, that we are doing what we can to secure and managing this well our components in. Turns are still low at 2.1. The third, where we do have still too much of finished goods. Except again, these are not all projectors or in that sense, do not have a risk to the balance sheet or the profit and loss.
Payables increased if you look to the figures of the free cash flow, which we reported, and this is linked with the increased raw material purchases. The average days in which we pay our suppliers, it's not that we did any delays over there. This is 46 days, which is quite well in balance with the DSOs, in fact. We stepped up back our CapEx and CapEx investments. The increase which you see year-over-year is linked to the new healthcare factory in Suzhou, China.
With that, we are landing our net cash at EUR 263 million up versus the beginning of the year with EUR 70 million included in their free cash flow, deducted the dividend, which was a contained one in fact, because it was an optional dividend and about half of the shareholders decided to reinvest in the company. We did sell a minority investment position, which has costs or which has resulted in an increase in the net cash. Next to our financial KPIs, happy to also again report on the progress with respect to our non-financial KPIs and listing here on slide 11, two of those in the area of planets, or we highlight here the percentage of turnover which we do with products which have an Eco-label.
Eco-label within Barco means that it has an A or minimum A+ Ecoscore. The percentage of sales is now at 33% with the new product introductions over the last two years, which we were able to do with products in this category. We are well set to get and move towards our target, which is 70% to reach by the end of 2023. At the right-hand side, we pick and mention here within communities the Net Promoter Score, which we started to measure quarterly. It's not only about measuring it, but also making sure that we pick up all of the recommendations which we find in those with our customers.
Net Promoter Score at the mid-year was at 48 points. The target is to get to a minimum of 50 percentage points. With that, I'm pleased to hand it over again to Jan, who will give more color on the divisional results.
Thank you, Ann. Let's start with entertainment and starting with cinema. I said before, we saw a strong recovery for China already, and we saw that in the first quarter. That continued over the second quarter, also in terms of our technology shipments into the Chinese market. In the rest of the world, we saw cinemas start to reopen again mid-second quarter, with movie slates being released and blockbusters starting to behave like blockbusters in terms of drawing spectators to the cinemas. As expected, the replacement projects, as well as new deployments, still remain at a low level at this point in Americas and Europe as exhibitors repair their balance sheet.
The indication remains that near the end of the year, this will unlock again, and we also do not see any order cancellations in cinema. In addition, cinema starts operating again. We do see our service revenues come back. One overall trend that we like very much is the observation that premium cinema is getting its fair, or rather unfair share, of the box office, which plays into the strengths and capability of Barco. In venues and hospitality, we see first live events, either entertainment events or business conferences, being planned now as of the third quarter, driving positive sentiment for investment pickup later in the year.
In Pro AV fixed installations, we see a clear step up in investments in digital art, immersive experiences, museum theme parks. These are the earlier COVID-proof types of entertainment opportunities that opened early in the post-COVID cycle. We see this across the globe and also in China, which is already above 2019 at this point. We have built over the past years a solid portfolio and market access towards these segments and are enjoying the fruits of that investment at this point in time. For simulation, here again, strong order book, but still some projects delayed in execution as a result of primarily COVID lockdowns in some of those emerging countries.
If you take entertainment overall, we see venues and hospitality and China going strong and other segments, including China, picking up near the end of the year. We have added to this page the bar chart graph showing orders and sale, demonstrating the quarter-to-quarter dynamic that we see in entertainment. Also, at division level, you see a solid step up in EBITDA margin versus the first half of 2020, despite volume still being lower than the first half last year. If we move to enterprise on page 13.
We see for control rooms, solid order intake again in EMEA and Americas, where we are winning share with our expanded value proposition, both in terms of hardware and software and upgrade offerings. The challenge over the first half remained the conversion from orders to sales, where still several project implementations got delayed because either the site was not ready or accessible for the solution integrators or other suppliers beyond Barco technology were shipping late. For corporate, mainly ClickShare.
Here each quarter further proves the correlation between back to office movements and the pickup of ClickShare sales. On a divisional level, you see the gradual resumption of the quarter-to-quarter growth in orders and revenues, but still a lower year-over-year EBITDA margin, mainly caused by mix. If you move to page 14, we go a little bit deeper in ClickShare. The wins that we see with Fortune 1000 and midsize corporates further confirm that over the second quarter, the product market fit of our ClickShare portfolio.
For ClickShare Conference, we continue to extend the channel as well as the number of technology alliance partners. In terms of market and return to office, different entities, different surveys point to return over the third quarter or September after vacation in Europe and U.S. Out of these surveys, it's clear that IT and facility managers increasingly indicate having video collaboration investments on top of their list. The graph on the right shows the sell-outs pre-COVID, during 2020, and now 2021. Sell-out is the sales of ClickShare from our resellers to end users, end customers.
Where you see once more the correlation with the lockdowns in the European and Americas market primarily, you also see for 2021, the June pickup as Europe started to unlock and corporates in the U.S. started their back to office drives. ClickShare Conference grows also faster than ClickShare Present as expected and is now 40% of the volume, up from 26% six months ago. If we then move to healthcare. Here for diagnostic imaging, we've seen intensified demand from our OEM customers as they step up production for modalities and diagnostic imaging solutions in North America and EMEA.
Here, we also expanded the portfolio with displays for digital pathology, a new category that we launched. Collaboration-enabled displays software solutions to manage display installed base for hospitals. For surgical here, we see the market for digital integrated operating rooms further expand, or the penetration of digitization in operating rooms is further increasing. Displays to our Nexxis software offering. Here, we are further expanding the partner base, both from a channel, an integrator as well as from an OEM partner perspective.
While further expanding the portfolio with software offerings like NexxisLive, a solution that enables hybrid collaboration in and around the operating room. Overall, and the graph maybe show this best, we see the strong quarter-to-quarter progress on orders and sales again across all regions that were China showing strength with our in China for China strategy, and where at this point we are already in the startup of our new factory in Suzhou, a new healthcare factory in Suzhou.
The EBITDA margin for healthcare is still below the first half of last year, but this is mainly driven by the investment setup we did in new products and the investment in the China factory and some inflation on components and freight costs. This far, the updates on business and market dynamics, we saw that for the first semester. Let's now look forward to the second half, the second semester. On page 17, I think some of you may remember this slide from previous calls, giving a high-level view on how and when we see full recovery across our different divisions.
At the start of the year, we indicated that we expected healthcare to grow in 2021 compared to 2019, enterprise recovering to 2019 levels during the year 2021, and entertainment only starts to get to 2019 levels over 2022. I would say today these projections are still largely correct with some pluses and minuses. For healthcare, we're on track with these assumptions. The market is steadily coming back to 2019 and beyond levels over this year. Hospitals are getting back to normal on their investment plans while catching up delayed procedures in surgery and diagnostic.
Here the cautiousness at the beginning of the year that we had with regard to potential new COVID waves has proven to be warranted, definitely in Europe and large parts of Asia beyond China. Which makes or which made that some of the revenue shifted from second quarter to second half. For entertainment, cinema is on track, meaning good momentum in China and in the Western world, cinemas reopening with blockbusters being released, and the expectation that pickup in shipments of projectors would come in late 2021.
For Pro AV venues and hospitalities, we see a more positive dynamic than assumed. This linked to the fixed install markets where you see strong pickup in investments in new venues in Asia as well as Europe and U.S. With that, we can go to a short outlook update on page 18. Looking ahead to the remainder of 2021, the two main uncertainties we are planning and managing around. The first is the steadiness of the economic recovery, where we expect to see our markets further progress in their unlocking and resumption of volume. Second, there are the factors that impact the orders to sales conversion speeds.
The first one is the back to office movement linked to the unlocking of the COVID restrictions. Here we assume further progress in EMEA and U.S. with China already unlocked. The rest of APAC, we expect still to be in a start-stop mode over the next several months. There is the impact of component shortages in supply chain. That risk was already there in the first semester, we managed that down to a limited impact. We do see some more risk in the second half, specifically in the third quarter, though we believe we can retire a large part of it.
A s we continue to execute on our daily war room work with suppliers, with brokers, our supply chain, as well as our design engineers designing in alternative components. With that in mind, and based on our very solid order book, we're confident that we will see sales for the full year show a marked increase versus last year. With the full year EBITDA margin higher than the EBITDA margin that we saw for the first semester of 2021. As the business maintains its focus on operational execution while leveraging our investments in the market and portfolio to strengthen our position.
With that, we are at the end of the financials updates and the PowerPoint. As I indicated at the start, I'm going to now hand it to Charles Beauduin, our chairman, to talk to the organizational announcements that went out last Friday evening. After that call, we'll open it for Q&A.
Thank you, Jan. I would like to thank Jan for the great work he has done at Barco. From a very loose organization when he came in, he has structured, streamlined, organized, and developed the organization. It has been a pleasure to work with him, I think all of us will have great memories and draw great inspirations on everything he has done for Barco. The board has decided that it was time for new challenges or to face the new challenges, Barco has, at the same time, its biggest opportunity and its greatest challenge in technology.
We need to accelerate on R&D and innovation, Barco, like ASML, the greatest European tech success, and a lot of other tech companies, will move from a single CEO to co-CEOs. An Steegen and myself will have the honor to lead the company. Aside the focus on technology, we will also accelerate the internationalization and put much more emphasis on developing our different business units to serve our customers better and grow Barco. The results that we have seen today are a first indication on where the company can go.
We believe very strongly in the future of the company and in the possibilities that we can develop together in the company.
Thank you, Charles. With that, I'm going to hand it back to Carl to start and manage the Q&A.
Yes. Thank you, Charles. Thank you, Jan. Thank you, An. We will indeed now open to the Q&A session. The operator will also tell you how that works. First of all, two housekeeping topics. We do have a hard stop at 10:25 A.M., so we will have to keep up to that. Please stick to our traditional approach of maximum two questions at a time. In case you have more questions, then please queue again. Over to the operator.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, you may press zero one on the telephone keypad. It's zero one on your telephone keypad. We have one first question from Mr. Matthias Maenhaut from Kepler Cheuvreux. Sir, go ahead.
Yes. Hello, and good morning, everybody. Two questions from my end. First question is actually on the leadership transition. As Charles has mentioned rightly, there will be a focus on internationalization and technology. What can we expect in terms of M&A? Will there be an approach? Will there be an intensification of M&A efforts? That would be my first question. Secondly, a question maybe on the financial guidance. You speak about a marked increase and a full-year EBITDA margin that will be higher than the first semester.
How should we read this from a quantitative perspective? Do we need to see sales up double-digit? Will the EBITDA margin be close to 10% or how should we interpret this? Thanks.
First question, Charles, was for you, I think. On the leadership transition and perhaps more focus on M&A.
I think what the team and the board really aim for is to accelerate investments in R&D in order to basically be able to grow and expand the company. Also that we have attracted the top technologists as Co-CEO. On specifically the M&A structure or the M&A for the moment, I think there are no concrete plans. Of course, we always look on the radar. We do have the cash if an opportunity presents itself to act.
Maybe I pass to Jan on the second question.
I'll take the second question. Thank you for the question, Matthias. On the outlook statement and the market increase. It is clear that visibility is gradually improving, but there are still uncertainties as we move into the third and the fourth quarter. In terms of back to office speed, also the impact of some supply chain disruptions. Taking these assumptions into a reasonable way into our guidance, we believe with market increase that top line should be beyond light or modest. Without really putting explicit percentage points to what we mean with market increase.
It should be beyond a trivial increase clearly. Both on top line and EBITDA, we believe that the consensus per today is now within that range of the market increase and the EBITDA improvements. We will further update you with the next quarter results on how we are moving towards that target.
Thank you for kicking off the Q&A. We will hand it over to the next.
Question. We have the next question from Mr. Christophe Beghin from Kempen. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Hello. My first question is actually on ClickShare. Can you simply explain to me if the volumes of units sold of ClickShare in the first half of 2021 is higher or lower compared to 2021 second half?
Okay. Perhaps, Christophe, I'll take this one as well. I'm not going to talk exact amounts, so you can definitely reach out to me after the call.
Yeah.
The numbers that we indicate where we talk about install base, where we talk about percentage points, they are clearly there to indicate a trend, or always also rounding numbers. Just two words of explanation. If we talk total install base, that is a rounding based on ClickShares installed in meeting rooms, so close to sell-out data. In the current case, the number shared is a very conservative data point. If we talk about the split between the sub-segment ClickShare Conference and ClickShare C-10, that is then based on actually the sell-in data and on sales of not unit sold.
There may be sometimes temporary discrepancies between the sell-in and the sell-out, but that typically shows a good convergence as we move on. We can definitely take that a level deep later today.
Okay. I'm still a bit puzzled simply on the EBITDA result of H1 on enterprise. It's of course very interesting to know whether control rooms was EBITDA positive or not. Also on the presentation on slide 14, you give a short image on the evolution of units, and we see a drop after March. Is that explained by the prolongment of work from home trends, and do you expect that maybe to come back in June, July until September?
Maybe on that one. The drop after March in that red line is Germany going back into lockdown. Several Nordic countries going into lockdown. France remained quite strong. The U.K. at that point was weak. What you see in June is Germany and Nordics coming back, France continuing to do well, and U.K. starting to pick up. That's what I said before, if you plot the, let's say, the different movements in Europe with lockdowns, you get a very clean correlation with the sellout trend.
On the EBITDA, we've not disclosed the exact numbers, but Control Rooms was close but not at break-even level.
Okay. I will queue in again. Thank you.
Thank you, Christophe.
Thank you, sir. Next question is from Mr. Marc Hesselink from ING. Sir, go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Also on the leadership change. You mentioned, I think a few things like accelerate R&D investments of different business units. Should we read that this is going to be a change of strategy from what it is? Going to invest more in the coming years? Also the different business units, what do you mean with that comment? Could you please share it a bit more?
The transition phase is ongoing. Jan is fully CEO till the 1st of September, and we will have a press or an analyst moment in October together with the co-CEOs. I think at that point, we will be better in position to answer this question. Thank you, Marc. You still have credit for one more question.
Next question is from Mr ?
Yes. Can I ask a question?
Yes.
I'm still a bit on a follow-up on that one, because I would still like to understand why this was the moment to make that change. Are there, maybe because of COVID, so many new opportunities that you really have to accelerate your S&OP thinking on this one? I'm just kind of more forward just to understand a bit better why now?
To answer your question, there is no link with the results. It's purely due to calendar timing that the two press releases went out together. There is absolutely no link between them. The board has had a lot of discussions on how and where to go. Out of these discussions came, in the end, the decision to have a leadership change. This is going in a positive way, which we want all involved to see the opportunities, and to see that it's a way forward for the company.
Okay. Thank you, Charles. Over to the next question.
Next question is from Mr. Kris Kippers from the Degroof Petercam. Sir, please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. First one back on ClickShare. Now that we've been working in the office for about, not in the office, for about 15 months, the return has been quite slow. How can you make sure that when the offices do reopen, that indeed corporates do go for ClickShare versus competition? Are you still confident the current offering is sufficiently advancing for corporates? My second question would be on the component side. To what extent could you mitigate the component risk?
You've already mentioned the ASML evolution, of course, there clearly there is a shortage in the entire sector. Can you differ from one component to the other, or how is the stock level? Could you share some light with us on that? It might also be, of course, a hindering of growth in the second half, or is that not an issue? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Kris. Good questions.
I'll take both. Maybe the first one on ClickShare. It's one reason why we refer to the Fortune 1000 customers, big ones and mid-size. At the end of the day, what they buy and how they look is the best confirmation for, is ClickShare Conference, ClickShare Present, is that providing the right solution for them at the right cost and the right flexibility that they need in terms of this complex ecosystem where agnosticity is a very important factor for the future. Quarter by quarter, we see fantastic deals, big deals, big corporates, smaller deals.
Other factor is the channel. I keep close touch with the channel, and my question is still, do you guys feel you can make good money with this product? As long as I see the fire in their eyes, I think that's a good sign for the potential of ClickShare. Of course, ClickShare and ClickShare Conference is a product that requires hybrid operation and requires people or a part of the people to be back into office, which our surveys and also the channel indicate would now be happening at earnest over the summer and definitely as of September.
In terms of your question on components. I said before of the first half that risk was there. We've managed very well through it. In fact, in the fourth quarter last year, we already saw this coming and have upped a number of our components. At the same time, we are managing this risk on a daily basis. We're working with our suppliers in helping them to find new components. We're working with brokers to buy components from places where we typically do not buy them. We help our supply chain to swap sometimes components between some of our suppliers.
We're very active with our R&D managers to redesign either new components or older components. Okay. What we see is that sometimes, a new version of a component is not available anymore, but two versions or older is still available in the market with brokers and is fully operational into our printed circuit boards. Okay. That's the hard work, the hard daily work that's going on every day. It is a work of two steps forward, one step backwards every day. We assume that we're going to continue doing that definitely over the rest of the year, maybe into next year.
To give you a little of a feel, when we look back at the first half, we estimate the impact on our top line of component shortage at around EUR 5 million in top line shortage. A bigger risk that we brought down to a relatively benign impact on the sales. For the second half, we assume a bigger risk, although we step up or continue to step our actions. At this point, bigger means in the EUR 25 million impact range as compared to the first half.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you, sir. We have a next question from Mr. Matthias Maenhaut from Kepler Cheuvreux. Go ahead, please.
Hello, Matthias.
Hello. Yes, sorry, I was on mute. Follow-up question on the CEO succession. Historically, we've been talking here that despite COVID impact, the company would again, in the midterm, revert to the margin bracket that was provided at the last Capital Markets Day, being a 15%-17% adjusted EBITDA margin. We now hear the need to invest additionally in R&D. I was wondering, can we still think midterm the company will revert to that adjusted EBITDA margin, or is that target actually now being reviewed and will be updated in October? Thank you.
Charles, that's a question for you.
At the moment, the target is still valid. We want to focus much more on the effectiveness of our R&D than actually on spending money for spending money.
Maybe add one thing to that. As Charles said, that it's 14-17, not 5-17. That's a detail. We did link it to 2022, okay? Initially. Now with the COVID timing impact, we link to 2023 to get to that level. When we expressed that target or that outlook, already in those longer-term plans, we assumed a further stepping up of our spend on EBITDA, as our top line continues to expand too. I think we've told you in the past, Barco has above-average investment in R&D, if you look at it as percent of sales. As Charles indicates, our challenge is not to spend more money.
Our challenge is to get a stronger return on investment on that spend. That's in part why, in terms of leadership and focus, we need a stronger capability to drive that return on R&D investment.
All right. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Matthias.
Thank you, sir. We have another question. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you that if you wish to ask one, you may press zero one on your telephone keypad. We have another question from Mr. Guy Sips from KBC Securities, sir.
Yes, thank you. My question is actually a mixture of the question of Christophe and another analyst. It's a little bit on the ASP of the ClickShare. Do you see some evolutions of the ASP? Is it going down? A second question is on the entry of the C-5 and the C-10 range in the ClickShare family that was launched at the end of the first half, I presume. How do you see the benefits of this product going forward? Thank you.
Yes. Thank you, Guy. I will take the first one and Jan the second. On ASP on ClickShare, it is somewhat equal. On one hand, you know that the ClickShare Conference is at a higher ASP compared to the conventional ClickShare portfolio. You can take as a thumb rule, approximately one-third higher. In the mix, that is somewhat evolving, of course, and that's something that we will follow up and also be able to give you more insights as we move on. Perhaps on C-5, C-10, Jan?
C-5, C-10, this is what ClickShare Present, the old ClickShare. The C-5, C-10 is an upgrade of that ClickShare Present with a number of new features, but equally important, higher speeds, lower latencies. That's the value for the customer. What's underneath is that the C-5 and C-10 is built on the same platform, software and hardware as the ClickShare Conference portfolio.
This means internal optimization, both from a hardware management but also from a software platform management, where essentially we have one underlying software platform that then gets configured for different type of applications, either video conferencing or pure presentation share. It's both a new product, more value for the customer, and more internal productivity and platform consistency inside Barco.
Yeah. Thank you, Jan. With that, I will hand it over to the operators. Are there more questions in the queue?
Yes, there are two more questions in the queue. The next one is from Mr. Christophe Beghin from Kempen. Sir, go ahead.
Yes, I have a last question on cinema. If you make the math, sales dropped, of course, compared to H2 2020. I think it's by 15%. Can you maybe elaborate or give more explanation on what the major reasoning behind that was? Is it because the service revenues came almost to zero? Can you elaborate there a bit more, please?
Yeah, I'll start on that. Certainly, you gave already one of the reasons. Cinemas were closed, also halted the service revenues. That's something which we expect to be changing as we move into the first quarter, reopening in EMEA, in North America, and so kicking off also the service component again. Next to that, also what we realized and gave indication in our full year results, Q4, we had some extra order intake end of year because extra seasonality, which helped pushing the fourth quarter results.
Where we now see a more kind of steady evolution in the cinema sales. As indicated in the press release, indicated the comment by Jan earlier here, we're still on that same tone of expecting the renewal wave of cinema to kick in at the end of this year, beginning next year. We expect to see some more proof points by the end of the year. Proof points could be orders, contracts, or even funnel dynamics. That has essentially not changed compared to what we have shared before.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you, sir. Next question is for Mr. Sven Médrinal from Unigestion. Sir, go ahead.
Yeah, hi, good morning. Just thank you, Jan, for everything. Happy to keep in touch. Just two questions. First one would relate to ClickShare. As we're still waiting, basically, most of the people to get back to the office, can you elaborate on the number of dealers? Have you been able to grow the number of dealers and by how much? Because I think it could be one indicator. That's the first question. The second one will be for Charles Beauduin, please.
As you've been buying some shares a month ago, shall we expect, given the net cash position at Barco, that you can implement a share buyback program that could be used also maybe for any potential acquisition going forward? Thank you.
Shall I kick it off on the first one?
Yeah, you have the specific numbers?
Well, not in front of me, we do indicate, Sven , good morning, by the way. We do indicate on that slide 14, the partners that have grown with 50% compared to a year ago. I will look back into how does that change in terms of distributors and in terms of resellers. We have those data points. I'll definitely provide that to you later today. Just a bit extension on the alliance program. Go ahead, Jan.
We'll look back in a minute because we had that number. We didn't put it in here. I think it's okay to share that. Let's maybe after Charles answers to try to find back that specific number.
Thanks. Next question.
On the question of share buybacks or M&A, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I will refer to October and the meeting in October. I think at the moment there is no new news to be given.
Sven, on your first question. The number moved from around 1,000 certified partners, distributors, to 1,500 over the first half of the year.
Okay, that's interesting. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, sir. Next question is from Mr. Kris Kippers from Degroof Petercam. Sir, please.
Yes, good morning. Quickly on healthcare, I'm just wondering what explains the steep drop, you could call it sequentially on the orders in itself, it is not that much impacted normally, I would say, by the lockdowns with hospitals reopening a little bit. Is that one of the explanations at all? Secondly, of course, we also saw some hiccups in the sourcing. That explained why sales were perhaps not at the level that you should anticipate. Could you elaborate a little bit on that? Thank you.
In terms of the order or the order fulfillment in the first quarter, we do have a number of our OEMs that every two years, place order for two years. We've got 1 in the first quarter. Yeah, that gave Sorry, three?
Two.
Two customers. That gave that little peak there. We've seen that every two years, we typically get a good first quarter. You see the trends getting further in the second quarter. In terms of the impact on sales out of the EUR 5 million impact, I would say the majority of that came from healthcare. Specifically on some of our Nexxis shipments that got delayed.
Maybe to complement on that, when you see the - 4% first semester versus last year, if we exclude currency impact, it was a + 1%, so in line. Currencies also do play here.
Healthcare is the one which is more exposed to North America and the results. It faces currency effects. Sorry, I lost track on the second question. Can you just repeat, Kris?
No, indeed it was on healthcare, indeed on the hiccups, and I think it has to do with some order delays, but that has to do probably with some shortages as well from your side, I presume.
Yeah, correct.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, sir. We have the next question from Mr. Christophe Beghin from Kempen. Sir, go ahead.
Last question from my end. I don't know if the question was already raised, but if I'm allowed to pose the question, Jan, do you already know what your next journey will be? Where are you heading to? Is that already known?
The answer is no. At this point in time, I'm fully focused on leading a very good and productive transition over the next few months. In parallel, I'll start, after taking a bit of vacation leave, looking at what's next for me. At this point in time, that's definitely not my focus.
Okay. All the best anyway. Thanks.
Sir, we have no other questions. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you that if you wish to ask one, you may press zero one on your telephone keypad.
Okay. We wait perhaps a couple of seconds if any more question would pop up. Okay. If not, Okay, sorry, one more question. Okay.
Yes, one more question from Mr. Philip Cazabon from [inaudible] Sir, please go ahead.
Yeah, I hope I won't have to wait till October. Just, I try in case. When you say you look for more effectiveness of R&D spending, which division is mostly into focus? Will it be fair to say it's medical?
I'll answer that. I would say it's across the board. I think where we have been working and will continue to work is to strengthen our product management capability in terms of understanding real customer opportunities in significant markets and marrying that with breakthrough technology innovation. To be able to put propositions in those markets that are better in quality, lower in cost, and as such, give Barco a commanding market share in these global markets.
Okay. Thanks, Jan.
Thank you. We have no other questions.
Okay. If there are no more questions, I believe we can conclude this Q&A, and also the well-attended first half 2021 analyst and investor session. Let me thank you all for participating in this call, and should there be any more questions come up, don't hesitate to reach out to me. We remain at your service for the entire week before we then move to a three-week summer break. Thank you all, and have a great day. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.