Welcome everybody to our first half's earnings call. As usual, I will first start with the key takeaways of the first half, go into more details about our market and business development. Afterwards, Peter, as CFO, will walk you through the details of the numbers and we lead into a Q&A. Let's start with the key takeaways of the first half year of 2025. In the first half, despite, as you well know, difficult global market conditions, we were able to grow by 7.2% to EUR 59.2 million of revenue. Especially when looking at Q2 only, year-over-year quarter result was 13.5% up. For the first half, we managed through difficult conditions and realized growth. What we clearly saw in Q2, since the tariff situation popped up in April, is challenges in order entry in several of our markets. I'll come to that in more detail in the next slide.
Our customers need to sort out their global supply and production chains, and the uncertainty in the global markets clearly leads to an investment uncertainty. On top of that, in our solar business unit, we see that in low-end and mid-end application, increased competition to which we need to position ourselves correctly. Looking at how the individual segments performed, we saw a good growth and actually a very significant growth in our development and welding business. Here more a sideways trend in electronics and solar in the first half due to the different reactions of these market segments to the global tariff situation. What I consider a positive is that the efficiency program we kicked off in 2024 now shows clear savings in our bottom line and therefore a noticeable improvement in our earnings.
Like for like the past year, we are here close to a balanced result with EUR -0.7 million versus EUR -5.1 million in the previous year. Our focus currently is clearly on cash flow and working capital management. Peter will come to it in more detail later, but we are about to launch a competitive improvement program where we don't focus so much on immediate saving measures like we did in 2024, but at the overall structure of the company on our global footprint and on realizing maximum efficiency in the operations of what we offer to our markets with the goal to secure further EBIT growth without relying on revenue growth. We continue to drive transformation, efficiency, scalability, and the resulting profitability.
Let's come to more details how our markets specifically responded to the tariff situation and what impacts we see on our business development, but also on our operations. Let's look at our markets. When we look at rapid prototyping, which are products that are used not for production purposes, but for development or some small-scale production applications, we saw a growing demand, a nice order entry increase, a nice also revenue increase in the first half. We see all the fundamental trends for further growth here well in place, but always need to watch how the tariff situation develops and continues. In the electronics segment, which very much relies on global supply chains, global production chains, we clearly saw stalled investments in Q2. Despite a really good pipeline, product interest is not the problem due to the tariff situation. What is clearly lacking here in our customers' view is planability.
It's not only an effect that we see with direct U.S. exports, which actually went really well in the first half, but also when we look at Asia and Europe, planability for the end products and their export markets when it comes to the electronics sector. We continue to see a high market activity for LIDE in advanced packaging. As you know, we are over the operational hurdle in display. We are in a market penetration phase, which progresses. For thin film solar, we saw limited investment activity in China in the first half, and we see that stretching through 2025. Basically, no high volume production deals out there, a few smaller niche applications being out there. We are very well on track also operationally with our U.S. lead customer, but we need to expect for this year no strong investment activity in China.
As you well know, we had a very difficult year last year in our welding business due to the fact that we were most exposed in that segment to the automotive sector. We steered it last year more towards consumer and medical applications. We see now the fruit of our labor. We had a strong order entry, also a strong revenue recognition in the first half. Automotive continues to be very slow. We don't see any short-term or even mid-term improvement here. Medical, step by step, we get in. It's more a slower and conservative market. Consumer is fast, and what we achieved in the first half will give us a much improved 2025 relative to 2024 in the welding segment. Quick look at business development. We already have a really good and competitive footprint in advanced packaging for light. We continue the course.
We were able to qualify our offerings at additional customers in the first half, and we see that basically the vast majority of players in that field work now with LPKF equipment. We are basically progressing along the path now of getting high volume qualifications done. We also partnered up for that along the production chains. Those of you who follow our press releases for Metrology, we now started the partnership with Onto. We are staying the course and prepare for high volume ramp-ups and make sure that we stay far ahead of a very strong competitive environment because this market is big and attractive. Many players want to get in. When we look at the solar segment, Perovskite continues to have a strong activity in the field of thin film solar because if Perovskite works, they would really be a disruptive breakthrough for thin film solar.
It's still in an evaluation phase. We do not yet have a clear outlook on high volume ramp-ups in that field. We have a foothold both in China and in the U.S. and are prepared once Perovskite makes it over the hurdle to participate in a very strong demand that is to be expanded. We continue to see that the technology shift from legacy technologies to laser in the paneling is fully intact, and we are working step by step and successfully to win large key accounts. On the other hand, in the here and now, as already mentioned, as long as we don't see a clear planning base for our customers regarding the tariff situation, we are faced with a very subdued investment activity.
As you know, besides focusing on new markets in our welding area, we have launched a new product line that significantly expands the addressable market and continues to stay the course here. Looking at operation, execution without bottlenecks, neither in our production nor in supply chain. The cost reductions we brought on the road in 2024 show now the results in our bottom line in the first half. That is good because it gives us stability in a difficult market environment. We continue to focus with various measures on working capital reduction. We will launch shortly our project North Star, which now, on top of short-term cost improvements that we implemented, focuses on the fundamental structure of LPKF and how we can leverage significant efficiency improvements. With that, I would like to hand over to Peter, who will walk you through the detailed numbers of LPKF.
Hello everybody. Thanks, Klaus. On the next slide, you see the overall situation of LPKF, and I walk you through this. When you look at the revenue, we have a very positive development of revenue with growth of 7%. This is backed up by a stable pricing in the market still. We have a very positive development in the first half year with a bigger order in the WQ business in the area consumables. I will come on the next slide a little bit more about the revenue development and by BU, and you get a little bit more detail. Very good development in the profitability in EBIT, in the adjusted EBIT. This is majorly driven by the development of the positive development of our revenue. This launch program last year, the PIP program, the cost savings, this gets now into materialized impacts in our profitability.
That's the reason there's a very good development in the profitability by 69%. It's a good way forward. Incoming orders, this is our challenge here right now. You see this, we have a 30% reduction compared to the last year. This is on the one side driven that we had last year, significant large orders in our business unit, solar business unit. What we do not have in the first half year, that's the reason this is a major driver, what reduced our incoming orders compared to the last year. Free cash flow, I'll come later on a little bit more in detail about this. As you see, two lines up, the incoming orders, the main solar business orders, what's missing compared to last year is missing a significant down payment, advanced payment. This fits our free cash flow significantly compared to last year. Go to the next page.
You see a little bit more about the business unit, what I mentioned. The business unit overall in the development, when you look at the electronics, the slight reduction compared to last year, Klaus mentioned this. We're still good on track on our light business, and it's fully in our expectations. We have in our S&T business this what mentioned this stall due to the order income, what we are missing right now. This harms a little bit the business compared to last year. In consequence, we see this in our profitability, the missing revenue. Very positive development in our business unit development. Good growth compared to last year. This is the positive trend we had already in quarter one. It's just keep going on. Even due to the market situation in the U.S., we're still getting the orders in the U.S. It's a very positive development.
What consequential, you see this in the profitability, what's going on. The profitability in the development business unit is supported even of a stable pricing situation. We have that we really keep going on a really stable pricing without any impact about the market situation today. I mentioned welding, business unit welding, very positive first half year, 31% growth. It's backed up by a significant consumables contract. Very good executed first half year, and it's really brought us a huge, huge step in our profitability. What do you see? A 190% improvement compared to last year, really good story. Solar business unit, when you look at solar, there was already a very strong half year. The previous year, we more likely can confirm this with a slight decrease, but what was expected. It's majorly driven out of order backlog, existing order.
This is for us very good development, but slightly a little bit lower, and we keep the profitability stable. We see a little bit the trend of missing the new orders. Therefore, the profitability gets hurt. You see on the next page what I mentioned already, the topic cash flow. I want to go directly on the line free cash flow. I mentioned this, the missing down payments. When you see we are really in the down payments area, we had a really negative hit about roughly around $6 million. What the countermeasures that we really could, could someone catch up the $6 million? Klaus mentioned this. We really pushed a lot in cash collections and improving our receivables, especially here in these overdue receivables. Therefore, we could compensate the missing down payments significantly towards the situation. It's still a trend.
We're expecting a positive net cash development in the second half year to reduce the receivables reduction. On the next page, you see the working capital situation as of today. You see the inventories. We have a small slight reduction of the inventory. This is really an expected development towards our revenue development and our expectation of what we need on revenue for the half year. We are pretty good on track on this. Trade receivables, as I mentioned, due to our strong, strong revenue in this quarter two, we have a slight increase in the revenue and in the trade receivables, but we had a lot of counter topics in overdue receivables. That's the reason it's a positive trend what we have right now in our receivables, - 3%. Still, when you look at the significant revenue we generated in Q2, a very good positive development.
Here you see what I mentioned already before. What's really for us right now, a strong hit in the first half year is the prepayment received. I mentioned this, approximately $6 million. This is what you see later on now in our working capital, the major, major hit what we received in our working capital situation. Overall, we are pushing further in cash and in working capital reduction with our receivable initiatives, and we will see in the second half year a positive development. Now I want to hand over to Klaus back to give you an overview about the guidance.
Thank you very much, Peter. As you learned in the overall picture and the high volatility we currently see in the global economy, we were able to deliver growth in the first half. With the current picture that we see, we have a well-filled funnel also with projects that are ready to order. That folded with our operational execution capabilities. We stick within our guidance for full year 2025. That means with the cost measures we put in place and with the growth that we see, we see an adjusted EBIT margin of 6 %- 9%, revenue $125 million -$140 million. We also gave you a guidance for Q3, which is pretty wide given that there are some high volatility factors in our current markets that we need to account for.
We absolutely stay the course where we want to be, meaning we get into large addressable markets, display, semiconductor packaging, and with a certain delay array to leverage scale to give us room for growth and develop towards a double-digit EBIT. How do I come to my guidance? We follow the classic weighted funnel adjusted forecasting. We see in all areas, minus solar, solar will not have additional orders and revenue, but nothing like a large high volume factory order in 2025. In the overall picture, a very well-filled funnel, also a very good competitive positioning. We are following and need to continue to follow every day how the global tariff situation develops. That is not only the U.S.-EU tariffs. That is one aspect of it. Quite frankly, in Q2 with the 10%, that worked out well. We are happy with the Q2 U.S. business.
It's also deals like Asia to U.S. that very much affect our customers that buy production assets with the target to ship the final product and sell it in the U.S. We need to follow closely. Factors up or down that could still fall into Q3 and the rest of the year, of course, will also affect our guidance. With that, I will hand back to Bettina and our Q&A.
Thank you very much, Klaus. Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready for your questions. You can write them into the chat or you can give me a hand signal in order to speak directly. If you are calling from a phone, please press star nine to raise your hand and star six in order to unmute yourself. Let's have a look if I can see any hands raised. Yes, I can. Just a second. The first question comes from Robert Jan van der Horst. I have unmuted you, Herr van der Horst.
Hi, can you hear me?
We can.
Perfect. Thanks for taking my question. I just have a question on the North Star project you mentioned, especially about what timeframe you have in mind and how that will affect the kind of adjustments you make to the EBIT. Are you expecting extraordinary costs associated with the measures that are comparable to what we have seen in the past? How many quarters will we see those? Thanks.
Oh, I will take this question, Klaus. I mean, two areas. We did finalize the very successful program PIP. PIP was really based on the actual duration, managing headcounts by using fluctuation, reducing headcounts, and really going on the material, reduce material. North Star should focus on a long, on a mid-term area because we said we need to strengthen a second lever besides growing to improve profitability. Today, LPKF Laser & Electronics SE is a little bit too much influenced by the revenue development. What does it mean? We need to change fixed cost. In the one area, we need to make it flexible that we are not hurting by ups and downs in revenue by quarter. We need to reduce the fixed cost base overall. How we want to do this? I mean, the main lever is really we need to question our structure overall.
There will be, we need to maybe centralize, decentralize structures, processes to create synergies. We need to go more in the efficiency using in the processes, automate the processes, KI, for example, or AI, AI here. Thinking about outsourcing and footprint. This project will be launched in August, beginning of August. We will go there. I don't expect so significant from the first three areas impact about one-time costs in the next quarters, besides when we really are attacking a footprint topic. We are evaluating right now all the options. I must say, I don't expect any huge impacts today in 2025. In costs, it will hurt. It will really go because it's a more strategic program, more in the 2026 area.
If we're going on a footprint topic and we know we need to think about footprint too, we immediately will inform the market if we really come to a certain level on reality immediately. Do I answer your question?
Thank you. Do you, can you quantify your goals a bit? Just that I understand where you want to go, maybe in terms of break-even or in terms of fixed cost reduction. Do you have any quantitative goals already articulated?
One goal is, and this is the primary goal of the North Star project, we need to go in a double-digit EBIT area. This is the major goal, profitability.
Okay.
Double-digit profitability.
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. van der Horst. The next question comes from Johannes Riis. Mr. Riis, you should be able to speak.
Yes, you can hear me, I think.
Yes, we can.
All good. Yes, good morning. Maybe a short follow-on to the question from Mr. van der Horst. A footprint decision, I believe that's more maybe the areas, if it happens, which are not the highest growth drivers for the future and maybe which are maybe sales which fluctuate strongly with the economy. Is that the right assumption? Without naming one special part of your business, but from...
You got my microphone. Yes, basically yes, but it's about synergies and competitiveness. Therefore, we will attack businesses where we need to improve our competitiveness significantly. These areas we will be thinking about footprint. Yes, and thus, we need to gain synergies.
Okay. Got it. Maybe more a question to the pick-up you expect. If you still stick with your guidance, you expect a strong improvement in Q4. Therefore, maybe you said you look at your funnels. Therefore, you seem to have clear indications that Q4 will be very, very strong. Also, to my calculation, if you still stick with 6 %- 9% EBIT margin for the whole company, adjusted EBIT margin, there must be an enormous last quarter on the EBIT side. It must be in the high, yeah, not in the close to 30% EBIT margin, if I'm totally wrong in the midpoint. For what makes it so optimistic that Q4 could be so strong at the top and especially the bottom line?
Basically, as you know, we are a company with very presentable margins. Scale and volume drive the profitability. Where I basically say, oh, I can, on the current point of view, stay in my guidance, is the fact that we have a lot of piled-up demand within Q2 where people are saying, hey, I actually plan to invest already, but given the current conditions, I don't see the planning background to really release my CapEx. From a funnel and also a funnel that is ready to order and doesn't need further qualifications or samplings and so on, I see myself weighted funnel-wise in a good position. I also see upside opportunities that we, of course, developed within Q2, sales for certain products in certain regions where we said, oh, we don't actually see that for 2025.
That is from a quantitative analysis of what I see in the order entry funnel, the point where I say, yes, we can do that. It is absolutely based on current view possible. Of course, that is based on a tariff situation that basically doesn't bring in further disruption. If my customers continue to say, I don't see a basis for triggering an investment, that would be a point where I would say, no, I need to revisit all this under these boundary conditions. To answer your question, both from operational capability, you know we have different timelines in different product lines, so we analyze that.
Also from the point of view, how many customers are ready to order but haven't triggered the PO yet in Q2, I say, yes, this guidance is from the current point of view doable for the year, and that's why we came to this conclusion.
Okay. How important will be the light business for the strength in Q4?
The light business, basically what I have in the planning for the light business, I feel very confident about. I developed a couple of upside, not I, my team did, a couple of upside opportunities for the light business specifically in the U.S. Very tangible. That would be even some tailwind. I need to watch the tariff situation because if now threat and counter threat and so on gets thrown around, maybe I'm not able to bring it into revenue in 2025 simply because everybody says, let's wait until that stuff is clarified and then place our order. For the light business, I see ourselves nicely on track. Also, with really winning additional customers, qualifying all the high volume needs for customers we already have, getting first repeat orders.
The one thing where I'm at the moment cautiously observing is it's nice that we are over the operational hurdle with the display business, but the products that are behind are consumer products. That's your phone you buy and so on. The consumer market is, of course, affected from the tariff situation because the U.S. is a big market. This could go a bit slower than expected. All in all, light will contribute. If we don't get a spinner thrown in the wheel, it may even contribute more than we planned.
Okay. To follow on to light first on the foldable displays, there's a lot of discussion and rumors that maybe there will be a strong pickup of this segment in the smartphone business, especially because Apple will be introduced in 2026 now a foldable display phone. Therefore, I'm a little bit disappointed that you don't see more maybe demand for your solutions. Are all these phones come with other solutions with traditional glass or what is the background? We don't see anything really follow up. Also, the market even for foldable phones, for example, in China is booming. Samsung brought a new version of its foldable phone with very good feedback. Therefore, do you still see that your technology will benefit from this possible maybe strong development in this foldable display market or foldable smartphone market?
The answer is a clear yes. We bring tangible benefits to the market. You know we are not the one pitching the projects. Our partner, our display partner in Korea, is pitching those, but he has clear and quantitative USPs to pitch to the customers. Of course, we are in a market penetration phase. We have lead projects now. Those first need to be on the road before we get broader in. The fundamentals of both what we bring to the party and of the growth in the foldable display market, I consider fully intact.
Okay. To the semiconductor business, you're in the strong competition. Do you see that your lead has not changed, that you still have maybe one and a half years or so advantage to the competition? Your position is unchanged, although there is a lot of three, four from different region competitors are behind you and try to catch a part of the market.
Yes, I consider our positioning clearly leading and therefore us as the one the customers are choosing and will choose. It's not only our technology leads that we have in time. It's also well protected, as you know, by IP. We definitely defend our IP. It's not a piece of paper in our drawers. If you follow the Korean press, you will learn some details about that. I see that we have this lead. I also see customers are now really going through all the detailed questions that are necessary for a high volume application of LIDE. CPK values, yield figures, position accuracy, you name it. This is, of course, compared in a very quantitative way also to competitors that want in. I see that just the numbers show very clearly, oh, the LPKF solution is the best solution here. We got to stay paranoid.
We are the little LPKF that suddenly muscles into the huge semiconductor market. We got to stay paranoid. We got to listen to everything we hear from our customers and also respond very fast if we see any open flanks that could be threatening. It's not something that runs on itself. It requires full attention. We are doing that. You can expect some further news within Q3. Just this moment, this morning, I got a positive email about a follow-up order from a customer who's already using us. The experience seems to be well good. I continue to say, and I'm fully convinced, our positioning is great, and we will be the ones who also get into the high volume business there. Many want to. A lot of companies want to. There are a few businesses for laser production equipment that are as big as what is coming here.
Everybody wants in.
Yeah. Very clear. If maybe you have to scale this business maybe even faster, you mentioned also with your North Star ambitious that outsourcing is on the plan. Could it also be that you try to maybe make it more flexible and maybe even scale this business faster so that outsourcing could be also a part of maybe especially adapting this market?
I wouldn't see it, to be honest. This is a very high-tech technology that also requires a very close cooperation between operations and engineering. I see ourselves set up to grab a fast scaling business. If we need to expand a little bit in floor space and capabilities, we can do so fast. I wouldn't say no, never. This is a product line where I would also protect our core know-how and IP, not envision an outsourcing.
Great. Thanks a lot. A very last short question on the cash flow. Can you mention how the inventory developed, how many days you have outstanding? Therefore, that's receivable. On the inventory, how it had developed, so these are standing, it's inventory. Maybe how you see this developed to the year end, has your build also some inventory ahead of the strong Q4?
Basically, yes and yes. Yes, we prepared because we planned, we're planning, as you mentioned, a strong Q4 and then really a development to the year. We're preparing the business that we have the inventory available for this. Overall, we are stable. You saw this in our days today. We're improving throughput times by measures to get more efficiency. Right now, we are slightly improving. It's not a big hoop, but we are improving the inventory too.
Okay.
Our major lease is hit by really the down payment, as I mentioned before.
Yeah, thanks a lot for all the answers.
Thank you very much, Mr. Riis. The next question comes from Lucas Spang. You should be able to speak, Mr. Spang.
Yes. Hi.
Hi.
Hello. Just again on light, because if we, let's say, summarize this topic a little bit at this moment, you were very optimistic at the beginning of the year to also become or to see the to have the chance to also get some bigger orders for light. If you look at this from today's perspective, what is your view on this? Do you still have this expectation, or do you see still the chance to get bigger light orders during the year or until the end of the year, or will this also get a smaller topic for 2026 due to the tariff discussions?
For the moment, I clearly see that a high activity is happening in Korea and also a bit of a battle who's the first mover. Yes, I absolutely see the opportunity to get first volume ramp-up orders for advanced packaging still in 2025. I just had a call with our Managing Director in Korea yesterday. Of course, what will be required is that also Korea and the U.S. come to an agreement and plan ability here because that puts, of course, on the business plans that are behind that CapEx, just some blank fields that need to be filled with numbers. That is clearly a counter effect that I'm seeing. Otherwise, if you follow also the business news in Korea, quite a few companies are making announcements about we will do X, we will do Y, and so on with tangible dates.
Without mentioning customer names, our positioning is really good. Yes, I see that chance still intact, not for revenue in 2025. That I don't see anymore, but for order entry, yes. On the display side, I got to say, since the consumer market is affected by tariff discussions and what can I even export that phone to the U.S. and so on, I first expect that we execute on what we have in the order books and then can expect further capacity orders in 2026. That's my current view, Mr. Spang.
Thank you. On arrays, is there also some effect from the tariff discussions, or how is this progressing?
Less from the tariffs, actually, but clearly from the university funding specifically in the U.S. As you know, we have a little hub in Boston where we also have been working with customers on qualifying the machine and so on and so forth. There are several universities that were hard hit by funding cuts. These cuts got to a level that those guys couldn't pay their electricity bills anymore. I need to say no. I got to be cautious about my U.S. sales outlook this year. I am basically in a business development phase here. What we have achieved is to position the product to lighthouse customers who are working with it and spreading the news in the market. We are clearly affected here by funding cuts for public research institutions in the U.S.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you very much, Mr. Spang. I can't see any hand signals at the moment, but we still have some time. If there are further questions, please give me your hand signal. Here we are.
Mr. Riis, I guess?
Yes, I think you guys are still unmuted. You should be able to speak.
Let me follow on. If I write it in my head, maybe I see a lot of companies, but was it the case that you intend to plan maybe a capital markets here or something like this in the foreseeable future? Is something in the books?
We are, of course, constantly reaching out to our investors via investor conferences and so on. We put a capital market day on the back burner for the moment because we really focus at the moment on managing through the volatile situations in the global economy. I want to do a capital market day when I have clear and tangible outlooks. These outlooks need planability on my customer side. At the moment, until I see a clear line of sight how the tariff situation continues, I did not put it on the front burner. Mr. Riis, you are always welcome to visit us, have a separate phone call, or join one of the investor conferences where we present our progress.
Okay, thanks a lot.
If there are further questions, please give me a hand signal or you can type into the chat. There don't seem to be any questions at the moment. Most are not. In that case, I think we are through for today, and I would thank you all very much for joining this call. Our next regular call will take place on the 30th of October when we release our Q3 report. Thank you very much, and goodbye.
Thank you. Goodbye.