Ladies and gentlemen, good morning to all of you. Thanks for joining this earnings call on Barco 's results for the first half of 2025. I'm here in the room today with our CEO, An Steegen, and our CFO, Ann Desender. My name is Willem Fransoo. I'm the Director of Investor Relations. We will first run through the presentation. This will take about 15-2 0 minutes, and then we will go into a Q&A session. An Steegen, the CEO, will kick off the presentation.
All right. Good morning, everybody. I will start with the summary of the results for the first half year of 2025. We saw solid profitable growth. Both orders and sales did increase with 5%. That growth was mainly driven by healthcare and entertainment. [Foreign Language] . Our order book did grow with 3% year- over- year. Also, 70%, and that's 2% up from last year, of our revenue is actually coming from eco-labeled products. All the new products that we introduced in the line are also all eco-labeled. From EBITDA, we basically landed at 10.6% of sales, which is EUR 48 million, 2.5% points up since last year. Gross profit was up with 23 % points. Here, we basically mitigated impact from penalties with better product mix, and of course, with managing our OpEx.
Free cash flow landed at EUR 21.4 million, up EUR 6.8 million year- over- year. Net income doubled and ended at EUR 23 million. For the full-year outlook, assuming that market conditions do not worsen, we reconfirm actually our top line and EBITDA growth for the full year. Ann will going to walk you now through more details on the numbers.
Here we go. Very good morning also from my end. Starting with the key figures. First semester busier compared to last year. In the comparison, happy to see all in the green, so all in improvement compared to year- over- year. Here, top line, both orders and sales growing year- over- year with 5%. Orders above sales, which we could use to an increase of our order book, landing at EUR 548 million year- over- year, increase of 2%.
Gross profit margin landing at 40% on sales, 0.3 % points up, supported by a better product mix. We have higher ClickShare sales in there, higher software sales in there. Overall, I would say also supported by new products which we launched. On the other hand, we did have some impact from the tariffs, which primarily had an impact as we did not immediately calculate this through in our sales price increases on the order book, but we've been able to offset that, concluding on a better gross profit margin. We did meanwhile also, and this is a continuum, contain our OpEx costs year- over- year, actually close our EUR 5 million lower, and with that landing as an extra of EUR 48 million, about EUR 13 million higher compared to last year. Solid free cash flow, EUR 21 million, including EUR 14 million of CapEx investments. Working capital landing at 12%, roughly at 16%.
I'll give more on that in a later slide as well. Net income landing at EUR 23 million, EUR 14 million higher, or indeed doubling compared to last year. We look to a more regional overview, or let's say the angle regional and divisional, actually, and more details will follow later. Americas is about half of our sales, and in fact, actually keeping at that level. Sales 10% up. Orders were some lower, 4% lower. EMEA, 5% growth year-over-year, but there, nice to see that our orders and the delta order book have increased to 27% compared to last year. It's really on a rebound, so reassuring to see that one really as of the beginning of the year already. That was also already in the first quarter. APAC, somewhat softer. Sales lower, 7%. Did have an improvement over the third, over the second quarter compared to the first one.
Orders 3% also there. Some softer in the first quarter, some better already in the second quarter. From a decision point of view, healthcare, 5% increase year-over-year to be driven by surgical and modality, in particular in the Americas. Nice to see, and that's a positive towards the growth profit to have more software in the mix of healthcare goals. Enterprise, 5% lower compared to last year, quite an, I would say, opposite momentum there. ClickShare rebound, double-digit growth year-over-year, both in EMEA and in the Americas. Control rooms lower compared to last year, impacted really by, I would say, uncertainty and then strongness in decision-making in the U.S., linked to the geopolitical situation over there.
We did see, and that was in particular in the first quarter already in the Middle East, LED going down, hardware, which in the end, is our strategy to slightly or gradually go over to software only. Of course, we would like to see it more, I would say, simple, but it's good for the margins, but top line-wise, it was a lower year-over-year impact. Entertainment, really nice on both business units, actually, in there, both cinema and immersive experience year-over-year, 10% growth in sales and decrease across the region. The EBITDA low compared to last year, with a climb from 8.1% EBITDA margin on sales to 10.6%. Higher sales always help at a better margin, yes, of course. Margin impact there. We offset, as I explained, we did offset with a better product mix. The impact from the tariffs. We controlled our OpEx.
R&D lower than last year. Last year was at a kind of peak where we really had a lot of investment also linked to multiple new products in production, which we have then been able to do successfully. We do contain and we do keep on investing in our product roadmap and used to the tune of 13% of sales in the first semester this year. When we look to the notes, maybe, on currencies in the first semester, that not really had an impact on our figures, neither on sales and on EBITDA, as for instance, the dollar average year to date landed at $1.08, which is in line with last year. For more details on net income, actually, the extra EBITDA increases go year-over-year, EUR 13 million.
We on a net income have been able to even add to that amount in order to show that net income being EUR 14 million higher compared to last year. Depreciations and amortization, that is, thankfully, stable year-over-year. The restructuring is lower, about EUR 5.8 million lower than last year. Limited to EUR 2 million, which are layoff costs and diverse organizational efficiencies across the organization, which we started last year and some continuing this year, but more limited. Effective tax rate remains optimized at 18% of the off sales of profitable tax. In that sense, in line with the previous year. Free cash flow, EUR 21 million up year-over-year, rounded EUR 7 million. Net operating cash flow, EUR 45 million. This is EBITDA minus the layoff cost or restructuring cash out.
Net working capital on the free cash flow compared to the beginning of the year, you will see this one is flat. Net operating cash flow is the same as the gross. Working capital landing at 12.2% of sales. When you look to the working capital nominal versus a year ago, mid-last year, then this has been lowered with EUR 15 million, which is then 29% compared to last year, which has been primarily lowered in inventories. DSOs, DPOs are stable and in balance with each other, that's how we like to see it. Inventories do remain a focus area as we further want to improve on our terms. Capital expenditure investments, EUR 14 million. Last year, same period, over EUR 19 million. Since EUR 14 million, Cinema as a Service is a bigger amount. Rounded about EUR 7 million.
We started on the revamp here in Kortrijk of an automated warehouse, which is also included in there, and then the recurring investments. Return on capital employed landing at 16%, 5% up year-over-year with a better EBITDA and EBIT fueled by that, but also a lower capital employed, including in there a lower working capital compared to a year ago. Net cash ending at EUR 182 million. If we compare that to a year ago, then this is EUR 10 million higher. If we compare it to year-en d last year, EUR 77 million lower. This is net cash net after we had about EUR 100 million cash out relating to dividends and then the share buy. The share buyback has been concluded, meanwhile, to the full EUR 60 million in the beginning of July.
A word on what also keeps us busy, to say the least, is the mitigation of trade policies and currency exchange. As we have quite some, I would say, questions also around that, we thought it might be good to give a little bit of overview on what is the impact for us and how are we mitigating those. With respect to the trade tariffs, this is actually the current view. We don't have a glass bowl on how it might change, but that's anyhow how it is per today and how we are dealing with this situation as it is. We have quite some products, actually, meanwhile, being exempt at this moment from tariffs, but not all. Where we have the most impact, actually, is on projection, where we have a 10% coming from Europe, and then the 37.5% is coming from China.
On the healthcare displays, 20% incoming from China. How did we mitigate this on a, let's say, high-level summary over the past month on that is, make use of the factories which we both have in Europe and in Asia, so relocating where that makes most sense. At the beginning of the tariffs were upcoming, we did shift to the U.S. to also make sure that we have some more inventories over there in view of the pre-tariff then. We did adapt logistical flows. For what we cannot mitigate, we offset that by increase of prices, which comes with a certain lagging effect as we still had order books and orders in order books to do that so far. When we compare this to the competitive situation, actually, it is an important piece for us as the U.S. is a large country for us.
When looking to the direct competitors, then actually, they are, call it, in the same or even a worse space than we are. In that sense, not having manufacturing in the U.S. In that sense, making use of our manufacturing footprint, which we have, is the most important. With respect to the currencies, as shortly mentioned when I was commenting on the EBITDA waterfall, currencies did not really have a material impact in the first semester, as for instance, the U.S. dollar landing at $1.08, which is in line with last year. Of course, gradually, the dollar did weaken, and that's also other currencies, actually, except for the euro.
If we assume that the rates at mid-year would stay the same towards the end of this year, this would mean that this average of $1.08 will become $1.14 on a full-year basis, which is then because last year, the $1.08 stayed the same for the full year, actually, until the end of the year. That would then be a change year-over-year of 5.5%, which does have an impact on our EBITDA to the tune of EUR 7.8 million of EBITDA, which is in line, actually, with what we also disclosed in our annual report. In our report disclosing, if we get to that stage, then 10% year-over-year would imply about EUR 15 million of EBITDA. It is about the half. This is included and taken into our guidance, which we have been able to, which we confirm, and which we are confirming today.
On the mitigating actions, the most powerful, of course, is a natural hedge. This stays in the range of 30%- 75%, where we can balance the currencies purchases with the sales. On hedging contracts, we have balance sheet hedging, which then also contains us for fluctuations on AR and EP, etc. The remainder is an exposure to the sales, which we do. Looking to our non-financial KPIs, we're really happy to see a further improvement on those as well. We're taking two particular ones. Our eco-labeled revenues landing in the first half is 70% up versus the 68% which we had on the full year last year. On schedule, actually, towards the 75% which we had as targets, actually, for this year.
New product introductions, which we launched also over the course of the first semester, all had an A eco-label or higher, so in or in the right baskets. It also helps, of course, the new products, but also then in the software products which we have. Every year, as the regulations externally get more stringent, we also update our own methodology. That is taking into account all of the different regulations, which we also have an audit stamp on. With that, happy to see that 70%. The net promoter score from our customers, so we do a survey, a growth survey, twice per year. So we did that again now at mid-year, getting to a score of 56 for the first semester now, which is 2% higher than the scoring over the full year of last year. A nice one there.
Anyhow, we always want to exceed the 50, so that, yeah, we think from last year, it's exceeded. Happy about that. Also, very much learning also from the feedback, which we then always get through those surveys. A very nice improvement across, actually, the different business units. With where we now changed to an open channel for meeting experience, getting even more feedback compared to before. Working on all of those comments from our customers and taking those feedback. With that, I would like to thank you to An and the designers.
I'll give you a quick update on the business unit performance. I'll start with healthcare. Strong performance in healthcare, orders to 15%, sales 5%. EBIT landed at 12.5% of sales, which is 2.7 % points up compared to last year. Looking in on diagnostic imaging, strong demand there, and that was especially in pathology.
We see the pathology market really accelerating, but also in mammography, where we last October, we launched our new flagship, OneLook mammography medical screen, and that's doing very well in the market. We had a softer start in sales in diagnostic imaging in the Americas and in EMEA. That was, for instance, also driven in the U.K., where we saw fewer government tenders. They come in cycles. Last year, we had quite a few of those. This year, a little bit less. That basically slowed us a little bit down in sales in the first half. South Asia performed well, but China remains low. We see their slow government investments in healthcare and as well price competition from the local Chinese competitors. As I said, digital pathology is really accelerating already. It's not only in the displays, but also we launched, actually, last month in June, a new software platform.
It's called SlideRight QA. This is a Barco-developed AI-powered automatic inspection tool to identify quality issues in the pathology flow. This actually increases the operational efficiency from sample prep to basically the review of the pathologist in this end-to-end flow. This was launched in June. It got quite some attention, and we're bringing this to the market now. We're also very proud because it's an AI-developed by Barco. In general, the whole diagnostic imaging roadmap, we see, and we're adding more and more workflow and software applications to differentiate ourselves in this workflow. For instance, one example here, we launched also at the beginning of this year Connect Care in diagnostic imaging, which is actually a smart service tool, which guarantees the lifetime of the natural displays during the lifetime. Also in the total cost of ownership, actually to extend the lifetime of those displays.
That's just one example of what we are doing from service and software and recurring revenue perspective. For surgical and modality, we saw a very strong first half, basically double-digit growth as well in orders as in sales. That growth was mainly driven by the Americas and our software, so the sales of our Nexis platform in the Americas. We see this grow also in EMEA. APAC, again, here remains a little soft, mainly driven off China. The nice growth that we see in Nexis and in our software platform is partially offset by a weaker performance in our modality displays, especially also here in China, where we see also price competition from local Chinese competitors. For the rest, also in surgical and modality, we are expanding the roadmap with more high-end displays, so surgical displays, voice-controlled surgical displays that's coming to the market at the end of the year.
We're also on the Nexis platform or adding a mid-segmental or more compact version for the mid-segment. We're adding also compute to that Nexis platform so that we can run real-time AI use cases and software applications during the surgery on that platform. When I then switch to enterprise, in enterprise, orders flat and sales like Ann said already - 5%. We landed EBITDA EUR 8.6 million, which is 8% of sales and 3.8 % points up compared to last year. Again, a big contrast between two business units in this division. At first, we had a meeting experience where we saw double-digit growth. That was, of course, also because the channel inventories were normalized compared to the high channel inventories we had at the beginning of last year. We saw the growth, especially in EMEA and the Americas.
We are maintaining our leadership position in the wireless market, although we see that market declining. Meanwhile, we are in full development of our new ClickShare platform that is a completely new operating system, so it's Android- based. It will be also a scale-up in portfolio. We will not offer only BYOD for the wireless version, but also a room system version where we collaborate with Microsoft to get that on the market. We will also expand the form factors and the portfolio from video bar to all-in-one display to modular systems. The first releases on this new platform are due in December of this year. Control rooms face more challenging market conditions. I mentioned it already. That is definitely driven also by the latest projects in the U.S.
The tariffs and the uncertainty around the tariffs definitely play a role in government tenders, and also some price competition, LED price competition in the Middle East. Meanwhile, we brought Control, which is our operating system for control rooms, already more than one and a half years ago on the market. This is a platform that is doing very well. Today, already 35%- 40% of sales is coming from this control platform. We're adding features as we go. This is a complete roadmap that we continue to develop on this platform. On LED, as Ann mentioned already, we stopped our own development on LED. Meanwhile, we have basically closed a partnership with three major LED players: two in China, one in the U.S. They will provide us the latest generation of LED panels, and we will augment that with our state-of-the-art LED image processing.
By bundling these packages in the future, whenever an LED package is needed in control rooms, but maybe also in immersive experience, we basically will tap into this partnership to be able to deliver to our customers. On entertainment, solid growth here. Orders at 3%, sales at 10% across all regions in both business units. EBITDA landed at 10.6% of sales, which is 0.7 % points up compared to last year. In cinema, very healthy climate. After COVID, post-COVID, and the Hollywood strikes, we see a very good movie space, actually, now, and we saw it already the past month, but also through summer, through the rest of the year, and also into next year. That, of course, resumes the lens-to-laser replacement phase.
Today, just to give you an indication, about 30%- 35% of the install base is laser-projected, so all the rest still needs to be replaced over the coming years. Barco has a capture rate of more than 60% in this laser replacement phase. Today, Barco has installed more than 45,000 laser projectors in the field, knowing that there are in total about 70,000 screens. Meanwhile, also at CinemaCon, which is the biggest cinema conference happening in April, we commercially launched our new generation of HDR Light Series laser projectors with quite some success. We have a very nice order book building up on this projector. We also secured the movie slate in HDR format. All blockbusters and more than 25- 30 movies are lined up that you will also be able to see in HDR format on the Barco laser Light Series projector.
For immersive experience, definitely solid growth in the first half. Strong performance against all the regions here. We have invested in our own mid-segment build. That is our i600 projector. We launched that already more than a year ago, and it's getting a lot of good traction in the market, especially also in theme parks. Meanwhile, our flagship 3DLP projector, which is the QDX, we launched the first version of that at the beginning of the year. Here we see a lot of demand. That is replacing our older QDX projectors. There are two more versions coming, one this month and one at the end of this year. Long-lasting Encore III platform, our live event video switcher, very high-end. We brought it to the market. We have a big order book there. We shipped more than 360 systems in this quarter. Order book continues to fill up with E ncore III.
We're very glad to have brought this product with a little delay to the market. For outlook and closing, I mentioned already in the beginning, maybe just first to start, what is our focus for the remainder of the year? Navigating our way through the macro-economical challenges that we see with tariffs, what's coming is very unpredictable at this point. For the rest, we stick to our strategy. What is our strategy? We're expanding in adjacent markets where we can, for instance, pathology and theme parks. We're strengthening our position there. We're completing our hardware portfolio where we believe it's needed. Immersive experience is a very good example of that. We have many new product introductions. We have already many, and there's still quite a lot of them coming. They help us to gain market share. It's good for our margin. Some of them are replacement products.
Some are add-on products. We continue with a stream of new products in the coming months. We have more and more software that we basically add to our hardware or even, like in control rooms, we basically go with a full software portfolio. For the rest of the business units, we add it to the portfolio as a key differentiator moving forward. Many of those are actually AI-based. Last but not least, for our gross profit margin, we continue basically our focus factory strategy with, in China, local sourcing of components to basically have a positive impact on our gross profit. For the outlook, again, assuming that the market situation is not worsening, we basically reconfirm our full-year outlook, top line growth, and EBITDA growth. With that, I'll hand it over to the operator for Q&A.
Thank you, An, for the presentation. We are ready to go into the Q&A session. If you have a question, please raise your hand virtually. You can do that by the hand icon at the top of your Zoom window. I will unmute you one by one to ask your questions. Please, two questions at a time. If you have more questions, you can queue again. The first question will be for Matthias Maenhaut. You can first unmute yourself and then ask your question, Matthias.
Yes. Hello. Good morning, Matthias Maenhaut from Kepler Cheuvreux . Can you hear me?
Yes, good morning.
Good morning. Two questions from my end. Maybe the impact of tariffs on the gross profit margin, could you maybe quantify that? Could you give us an idea if there's still a headwind to be expected in H2? That would be my first question. The second question is on the buyback. I see the buyback has been concluded recently. There's good results, and there's outlook for more growth, I would say. Why not buy back more shares? There's clearly room to do it with a EUR 180 million net cash position.
I'll start off with your first question. The impact on the margins was lower than EUR 5 million in the first semester, which was primarily in the second quarter. In to-go, I would say, there we go for in the remainder of the year. Actually, based on the current tariffs, we'll have that fully or really largely compensated with the different changes we did on changing factories, changing incentives, and also price increases we have implemented.
Yeah. On the share buyback, the reason why we did the previous share buyback was indeed because we had cash. We also think we're undervalued for the prospective for us to buy in. We also needed it for our own option program here within Barco. We completed that program, as you said. We have indeed the cash. At this moment, we have not decided. Basically, we started a second program on share buyback. The shares are now in treasury. What we do with them is a decision of the board. That could be, we could use them for M&A. We could also cancel them. That decision on the current buyback is not done. The decision made for a new buyback is also not done. We have the cash, and that could be something that we can decide as we go. We leave all the options open there.
Okay. Thank you for those questions, Matthias. Next question is for Marc Hesselink from ING. You can unmute yourself before.
Yes. Thank you. Actually, my question is about growth. I think growth in the first half of the year was still quite okay, also given the easy comps in the first quarter. Looking ahead, if you look through the divisions, where do you expect growth? Where do you have maybe a bit higher visibility? Where's visibility very low at this stage? Maybe if you can talk us through.
Yeah. If you can add, yeah. Okay. Yes, of course. Let me maybe start with entertainment. I think when we look at the entertainment market, both cinema and immersive experience, we see healthy market conditions. As I explained, the lens-to-laser replacement wave in cinema is in full swing. On top of that, we've launched our new flagship projector, which is doing well. Also here, we're ramping up the factory to ship those and to basically follow up on the orders there. Looking at the forecast for movie slates, which is typically a good indicator for cinema, that looks actually very healthy. In immersive experience also, as well, image processing as the projector market are doing well. I think with the new products that we have been developing for the last year and are now on the market, we have a very good momentum, also against our competitors.
This, of course, also allows us to take market share there. Just to give you an indication, in the first semester on the 1DLP, so this is the smaller projector range, we were marketing this in the first semester. That was actually another good indication that we are taking market share from some of our big competitors there. Also there, we see the outlook continuing actually to be positive. In healthcare, again here, we see in diagnostic imaging, this new product that we have brought to the market gaining momentum. That is definitely also continuing. There is also a matter of our manufacturing making sure we can continue to produce at a high yield, the products to ship them out. Part of that is on us. We see, again, good momentum around mammography.
Pathology is definitely an area where we've told you in the past, pathology is where radiology was 10 years ago. This digitalization wave still needs to happen in pathology. We see this actually happening. We are actually in that whole end-to-end flow there from the beginning. Started with displays, but now also expanding in the value chain of pathology. I think that is definitely helping us a lot. In surgical, I think the Nexis products are doing very well. There, we are absolutely developing new features, new models, to basically expand our market reach, but also to fight against maybe or any commoditization that happens on a regular network in an operating room. We need to continue to basically invent their new features. That's definitely what we're focusing on. The modality market is a little bit tougher. Again, as I explained, it's pure price pressure there.
There, it's our China play. That is our strategy there because we fight there against Chinese competition, especially in China, but also starting actually in the rest of the world. That is something where, over time, we see progress actually in bringing the costs of our modality displays down with local sourcing of components. That is our answer actually to that competition in China. For enterprise, ClickShare, again, the market today, the expectation for video conferencing is that that market is growing around, let's say, 5%. We see a difference between the wireless conferencing solution and the room system solution. Wireless conferencing actually is decreasing. It's declining slightly. There, we foresee a growth of maybe 3% market growth, while room systems are around 6%- 7%. We see also consolidation in this market. Our competitors have a very full portfolio when it comes to video conferencing equipment.
Our strategy is here threefold, actually. One is we have to change our operating system to an Android one. We're working on that. The second one is we expand the wireless offerings also into room systems offerings. We're doing this, of course, with a very big partner, which is Microsoft. That one is happening now for the first releases in December this year. The third one is we will also increase our portfolio in the meeting room. Not only wireless offerings and room system offerings, but also the form factor from video bars to all-in-one displays, so that we basically have a similar broad set of portfolios than you would think some of our competitors have. That's our answer to that market situation in video conferencing. In control rooms, we know we have a very strong operating system.
That new platform we brought to the market is actually our ambition to make that the default operating system in control rooms. We're definitely gaining momentum on that one. There, of course, our hardware strategy that we rolled out now already more than a year ago is that we will harvest on the RPC mode. We will continue to offer the LTE mode. We will continue to offer our LED portfolio. Since that is in the renewal cycle, every one and a half to two years, you see that those technologies get old quite quickly. That's why we basically said, "Okay, our focus and development is on software and even workflows and AI applications in the future." Where we need to bundle our software platform still with hardware, with a wall, then for LED, we basically have LED Alliance that is going to help us.
Where we will still put the Barco swaps, which is the high-end image processing for LED walls, we bundle that actually with the LED panel from those key partners. Yes, it was, of course, we knew top line will be affected because part of that top line was hardware. The question is how fast will that fade out? Meanwhile, control needs to pick up, maybe not a top line, but especially in bottom line. That is the key. That was our strategy there.
It was a positive excuse to go for a good second half last year because your question and for your model, I assume, is also on the growth in the second semester. We did confirm our full-year growth. You can all calculate. This also requires a growth in the second half. The second half is typically higher than the first one. Last year, we did about EUR 77 million more in the second semester than the first semester. In that sense, we are up to do that again with that. I cannot compliment more to all of the things that you have said. In that, going for that. Meanwhile, also having to absorb, taking into that guidance, the impacts from the presence, which is then an.
Presence sales is up.
Which is then a headroom over sales in headroom.
A headroom.
Most likely. Is that answering your question?
Yeah, this was a very elaborate answer. Thank you for that.
Yes, okay.
Just maybe a small clarification on the latter part. You said with the currencies, because I think your guidance stays like for like. I assume that it's at constant currencies. I also hear just in your answer that you also expect some growth even with the currency headwind in the reported numbers. Is that correct?
That's correct. If you assume the currencies at where they were at mid-year to continue, we did not like that, but we've compared it into offering that with all of the things which An explained.
Okay, I know.
Thanks. Thank you, Marc, for those questions. Matthias, you can ask more questions here.
Okay. Thank you. I still have my hand up, but maybe follow up on ClickShare. I understood that you said that the market growth in the wireless would be 3%. Can you maybe elaborate a little bit on the sell-out of ClickShare? Because if I recall correctly, in Q1, it was still down, with the high- single digit. Is this still the case, and what will drive the anticipated improvement in market growth?
Yeah. You're right. In the first quarter, the sell-out is still negative. I think we saw in the first semester, but we saw slight improvement in the second quarter compared to the first quarter, but still negative. We were still at a low single digit in the first quarter. We saw it going into single digits in the second quarter. There are also regional differences. In the U.S., it's positive and better. EMEA is down. It's still negative. The outlook there, I think, again, this will stabilize. When you have room systems and you have wireless systems, both will continue to basically grow in the market. At one point, if the market picks up, then you see this gradual improvement also in wireless. Will it be as fast growing as room systems? No, we don't believe so. We don't believe so.
Okay. Fair enough. Thank you.
If other people have questions, please raise your hands, and I can unmute you. At the moment, we have no questions. There is Trion from Berenberg, Trion Reid. Please ask your question, and please unmute yourself before doing that.
Hi, guys. Hi. Yes, Trion here from Berenberg.
Morning.
Good morning. I just wanted to ask you about the new ClickShare product, so the ClickShare hub.
Yes.
Just if you could talk about your sort of expectations for that and what you think that will bring you, I guess, for next year. Related to ClickShare, in terms of the margins, can you talk about what happened to the margin in H1? Because obviously, you had growth in ClickShare, decline in control rooms, but obviously, ClickShare being more profitable. I might have expected that the EBITDA margins, I think, in Enterprise to improve by more. I'm just wondering, are you seeing a sort of decline in ClickShare margins, or can you just give a bit more color on what's happening there?
I'll take the.
I can ask.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
On expecting more. In the U.S., investing quite a bit, I would say, on the product portfolio to bring on the marketing needs in the ClickShare hub. In that sense, it's not that average gross margins on ClickShare have declined. It's really on investments, in particular in R&D, which we go full force to have this product ready to be shipped at the end of the year.
Yes. Like you said, it's a big investment right now to bring the ClickShare hub on the market. What type of platform is this? This is a very new platform co-developed with Microsoft. It's a platform that Microsoft is actually wanting to have all their suppliers going and be consistent on that same platform. We're one of the first adopters. It's a lot of work involved, actually, in getting this on the market. That's one. Secondly, we launched a ClickShare hub officially in InfoComm in June. That was the official launch. It was quite successful. We actually won a few awards, actually, of most successful new product introductions. That's all very promising. It typically takes a little time because now we're going through certification with Microsoft. That means by the end of November.
Then we basically certify the hub, and we can bring it officially into the market and into the channels in December. Typically, it takes six to nine months for the channels to really get into full mode on these new products. We're preparing the channels as much as we can, but we will only be able to deliver the first version because, again, it's a new development, a new form factor coming up next year. It will take in 2026 a little while before the channels are completely up and running. Next year will be a mixed year. We will continue basically with this product that we have today, so our current product. We will, of course, gradually start introducing also the new product.
That is what it will bring us on next year. It is a little too early this year to try and modify.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay. Excellent. Maybe a second one, just on the you mentioned these first orders for the HDR Light Series projectors. Can you talk about the revenue models? I think we've mentioned in the past maybe a service or a recurring element. What does that mean for profitability compared to your existing portfolio?
Okay. The first one, are you? Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Because of the concept of a light theory projector, it's more than just a projector, as we always say. It also comes with a software suite that basically helps to reformat the movie content into an HDR form. This is a software that we also developed. It's now operational in all post-production houses, and that basically means that we have a little bit of a bigger share in the value chain of cinema with this new concept. That's why from the beginning we said as a business model, there is a part CapEx and there is a part recurring for that software. This is basically how we're going in all the discussions and in all the contracts that we have signed today. There is always a recurring piece. It varies a little bit.
I mean, today we have a few models that can go from a yearly software license to a ticket sharing to a pay-per-show. There are a couple of scenarios there. Over time, we might be able to stream that into less flavors. Today, there is always a recurring piece, which, of course, over the total lifetime of the projector, the value of that projector for Barco is going up significantly.
We want to let them see. In that sense, extended warranty anyhow included in there. The more Cinema as a Service reason models as we had before, we're already there.
We can still apply those as the hardware part.
It's really nice to have team landing with two product revenue sharing into the contracts which we now have signed.
Yes. On top of that, maybe to add, it's also, of course, the whole ecosystem who's really speeding up around HDR, also the studios, because it is important, of course, that they endorse this new format as well in the DCI spec. Of course, we need to have the movie slate in HDR format, and today, we're managing that extremely well. It's all basically the same on the fresh review. You need to go see Avatar 3 on ClickShare on our system there. It's going to be an experience.
Yeah, don't wait for Avatar.
Oh, don't wait for Avatar. No, don't wait for Avatar. Yeah, you said it. No, no.
No, no.
That was a very interesting interview.
Yeah, yeah.
I was shocked by it.
Just to see if I can sneak one last one in. I guess no one else has this HDR, is it? You don't see Christie or NEC with any competing products?
No, no. There is maybe some earlier research at Christie, but absolutely not. The only HDR format that is out there today is an LED wall. This is mainly, again, coming from China. An LED like your TV at home also, of course, is capable to run HDR. You basically go through an LED, very big screen in a cinema theater, very expensive technology, not yet completely up to the performance point of what a projector does. Today, from the 70,000 screens that are out there, there are 100 LEDs, of which 70 in China. You see that that's the only other format that can actually deliver HDR today.
Excellent. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you, Trion.
Thank you, Trion. Other people in the room have more questions, please. You have the opportunity to raise your hands right now. We have some more questions from Marc Hesselink. Please, Marc, unmute yourself, and you can ask your questions.
Yes. Thanks. I was also wondering about the buildup of the margin in the second half of the year because in the second half of the year, again, there are going to be a lot of moving parts. You already discussed the tariff impact, which you should be able to offset in the second half of the year. You will have quite a significant currency headwind in the second half. Normally, the second half is always better than the first half. You have a very good margin improvement in the first half of the year. Just maybe the building blocks that you see for the second half, and if you can also improve the margin in the second half year-over-year.
The building blocks that are the typical ones here, extra top line always helps.
Extra top line and the mix, the mix for sure. We got just some updates to do to get to the same level of gross profit margin as we had on the full year last year, which we are working towards. Operating leverage anyhow on all of the different aspects within the margin and also on the real OpEx lines. These are really things which we all work on. Certainly, a big lever is product mix, which is continuing to be on the whiteboard. Yeah.
Product mix, more software. There are also new products where typically you build up momentum and you set your competition a little bit behind, so you can gain market share. That's definitely also a very important aspect of bringing new products into the market.
Should that be possible to get the right up? Second half versus the second half last year? Last year, you also had a sort of one-off positive effect in the second half of the year.
Yeah, on the EBITDA margin, we are guiding to be higher than on a full year. In that sense, on the non-recurring, which we had indeed last year.
That you have indeed.
You don't have that anymore. From a nominal point of view, we already made that up in the first semester. Now we're already guided about EUR 13 million higher than last year. In that sense, on a full year, that's where we can guide it. For the rest, it will be all of the things which we mentioned to offset any impact from currency.
Great. Thanks.
Thank you. Thank you, Marc. Matthias Maenhaut?
Yes. A follow-up from my end. Maybe on healthcare in China, I saw that the Chinese government would exclude European companies from tenders for medical device products in China. Given your local setup, is this now a threat or is this an opportunity and why?
Yeah. It's a good point. Because of the local setup, we are not in that situation. That's good news for us, of course. There are Chinese competitors who are also making medical modality displays for sure. We still are on a price fight with them, so we have to work on getting our costs down. That's a given. We don't feel threats there. If you look at our customers, of course, you have the Chinese customers, so they play in China. You've also Western customers that make use, or that deliver their systems to the Chinese market. Most of the ones that we know have also local production in China. They could, of course, be affected. If we indirectly deliver to them and they see their China sales drop, that could have an indirect impact.
For what we could basically see so far, that's mitigated also from their side with Chinese local manufacturing. I think in principle, that should be minimal. That should be minimal.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Matthias. Other questions from the room at this point? Okay. If there's no other questions, we will conclude the call. Thank you for all the questions. The recording of this call, by the way, will be available on the website from this afternoon. Before we close, I would also like to invite you for our Capital Market Day, which will take place on October 23rd here in Kortrijk, in our headquarters. We will host our analysts, but also all institutional investors for a day of strategy update, of course. Many product demonstrations will be there, and you will have the opportunity to meet management. Please save the date, October 23rd. Invites will follow soon in September. For today, we will close it here. Thank you very much for your attention, and have a good continuation of your day. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.