Hello, and welcome to Xaar's 2023 half-year results presentation. My name is John Mills, and I'm joined by our CFO, Ian Tichias. Today, we would like to update you on our good financial performance, the significant progress we are making on delivering our strategy, and why we remain so excited about the future of Xaar. These last six months have been seeing a good performance from Xaar, with an adjusted profit of GBP 1.8 million, and we retain a strong balance sheet with cash of GBP 7.3 million. We continue to execute on our strategy, delivering a compelling product in each of our target market segments and reducing our customers' time to market by offering them the supporting system components. Our products, especially Aquinox, are generating strong and increasing interest from customers, validating the benefits of our high-viscosity technology with the sustainability advantages they deliver.
This last period has seen positive momentum in our sales pipeline continue. We have seen an increase in the number of OEM customers adopting Xaar technology, and we now have clearer visibility of an increased number of product launches from them, which will drive performance in the second half of this year and beyond. This proves our strategy is working. Phase one of our factory organization has been successfully completed on time and under budget, positioning us to deliver increased efficiency and capacity while realizing significant cost savings. We have seen good continued performance from our business units, EPS, Megnajet, and FFEI. And while the current economic conditions remain challenging in Europe, we are seeing clear and encouraging signs that activity in China is building in our target markets.
All in all, Xaar is in a good position, delivering on track with profits in line with expectations, ensuring that we are poised for future growth. Now, before I go into any more detail, let me hand you over to Ian, who will take you through the financial performance of this last period.
Thank you, John. Let me take you through the first half results. Overall, we have delivered a good performance in line with our expectations, and particularly given the context of the external environment. Some key highlights to note: Revenue was GBP 34.5 million, a decrease of 6% compared to the first half in 2022. This reflects both the current economic conditions and the good first quarter we had in 2022, with strong demand in China before COVID restrictions were implemented. We have maintained our gross margin at 40% by successfully managing the effects of input cost increases and the factory shutdown. Our adjusted profit of GBP 1.8 million was in line with our expectations, with the planned one-off disposal of a non-core IP asset offsetting the impact of the recent factory reorganization.
Our balance sheet and financial position remains strong, with net cash at half year of GBP 7.3 million. That is after the investment in inventory made during last year and into 2023. So let's look at the operating results in more detail. Although the printhead revenue is lower at GBP 17.6 million, it is important to highlight that the business unit continues to improve as we have grown our customer base and maintained our market share. The economic conditions in the first half of this year, particularly the rising level of interest rates, have impacted on the purchases of capital equipment. However, we are now seeing encouraging signs of recovery. Revenue is relatively flat compared to H2 of last year. We are optimistic about revenue growth as we now have clearer visibility of customer product launches in new application areas.
As global travel restrictions have lifted, we have been able to engage more extensively and directly with our customers. This means that we have been able to build stronger partnerships, which is evidenced by the 16 new customer product launches this year. John will go into more detail on this shortly. Moving to EPS, this is a business unit that has been transformed and continues to grow in line with its strategic importance to the business. We have increased gross margin to 40%, bolstered by the operational action and process improvements that we have made over the last reporting period. I'm also pleased to say that with single-pass machine sales, we are consolidating our market positions in key areas such as sporting goods and power tools. This has resulted in a strong order book, and we expect continued performance at this level.
So really good progress against the plan. We acquired FFEI and Megnajet predominantly to further expand our customer offering. We are pleased with the progress they have both made, delivering on print engines and ink supply systems. Our plan has been to focus on products that support our strategy. This means that we will be looking at options to exit the non-core life sciences side of the business. The recent sale of IP is part of this process. As a result of the IP sale, FFEI delivered adjusted profit of GBP 2.1 million and Megnajet GBP 0.4 million, both good profit contributors to group performance. The group retains a strong balance sheet and cash position. Net cash at the 13th of June was GBP 7.3 million, representing a net outflow of GBP 1.2 million in the period.
During this period, we have invested GBP 1.7 million in inventory, allowing the printhead business to increase its holding of finished goods. This controlled, planned approach over the last 12-18 months gives us assurance that we can deliver on customer demands for the remainder of the year and into 2024. We believe that we are winning business through the advantage of offering shorter lead times than our competition, which ensures we are well-placed to capitalize on the commercial opportunities we have. We will continue to monitor the product mix of finished goods to ensure it is appropriate for the customer demand. We have also agreed a revolving credit facility with our bank, which is now in place.
This further demonstrates the strength of our business case, and together with our continued disciplined cash management, will enable further investment in the business, focusing on improving operational capability. Now, as we all know, there have been significant input cost rises across the business, and especially for us in energy, raw materials, and labor. Our operational improvements have enabled us to drive efficiencies and performance across the business to help mitigate these increases. For example, there has been a labor cost increase for this year of close to 6%, and with rising electricity costs, we were faced with an increase in power costs of over GBP 1 million, which represents a 67% rise had we taken no action.
As a result of our proactive approach over the last 18 months, we have constrained the increase to just 20%, and we continue to exercise tight control over these costs. It's easy not to spend money. The key is investing in the right places to drive performance for the future. By creating more space and enabling an improved layout and new process equipment, we have an operation plan to ensure our ambitious growth plans can be realized. As we are positioned for further operational improvements, this will only benefit the business further. phase II of our operational improvement plan will see a further GBP 10 million-GBP 15 million invested over the next 2-3 years to improve capacity and margin, and increase product performance to further extend our market advantage. This will ultimately deliver more modern, efficient, and environmentally beneficial manufacturing facilities across the business.
It will also enable more efficient operations with increased capacity and yields, and we expect this to start ramping up towards the end of 2024. So in summary, this first half of the year sees us continuing to make progress and delivering profit growth in line with our expectations. A good result against the backdrop of a challenging external environment. We have maintained our margins and continue to invest in the business. We are seeing improving market conditions for the sectors in which we operate in China, and an increasing level of customer product launches, which we expect to lead to increased demand for Xaar printheads. Which brings me on to the outlook. With our investment in inventory, we stand well-placed to capitalize on these growing commercial opportunities.
Our strategy of diversifying across a range of market sectors also means that we stand to benefit from further product launches in 2024, all reinforcing our confidence in delivering our midterm growth ambitions. While we are vigilant to broader macroeconomic conditions, we remain confident in delivering on our expectations for the full year.
Thanks, Ian. Before we turn to an update on our strategy, let me provide you with a quick reminder of our commitment and progress on ESG. Our ESG roadmap reflects our continued commitment to ESG at every level of the business, from maintaining net neutral carbon manufacturing for our printhead business to more humble achievements of getting the first honey from our on-site beehives. I'm also pleased that our employee engagement has been recognized with our accreditation as a Great Place to Work , and I am proud of our employees' efforts with our partner charity, Break, and with our community engagement through our schools program. At Xaar, we are committed to working in a more sustainable way. A key factor in all of this is our focus on helping our customers transform their industries through our solutions. Throughout this presentation, we will get into more detail.
We will give you a clearer sense of this. By now, you should have a clear understanding of the good performance that we have delivered over the last six months. While the current economic conditions remain challenging in Europe, we are increasingly confident in the new product launches from our OEMs, which will drive increased revenue in our target markets. Before I get into the detail of the opportunities, I want to remind you of our business model and strategy. Our strategy is clear: sell more printheads. For this to occur, we need to do two things. Firstly, extend our range of products to access all digital print markets, which we'll talk about in more detail shortly. Secondly, make it easier for customers to use our printheads by supplying the supporting sy- supporting system components.
The successful acquisition of Megnajet and FFEI, along with the partnerships we have forged in the areas of ink and data path, give us the ability to supply our OEM customers with whatever they need to develop their printers. We have seen an increase in OEMs taking advantage of this, and we now have a number of opportunities in the pipeline where there is complementary revenue in addition to printhead sales, and where we have shortened our customers' time to market. I am really pleased with the positive contribution that Megnajet and FFEI are making in supporting our customers, and also with their good financial performance. So let's return to the progress we are making against our strategy of delivering a compelling product in each of our market segments. And whilst doing so, I'll highlight the significant opportunities we have that will drive profitable growth.
You will be familiar with this slide, showing the market opportunity and products that we have launched, giving access to our target markets. You will also remember that historically, Xaar focused primarily on the ceramics and coding and marking sectors, which gave a total addressable market of GBP 200 million. This limited Xaar's potential and also led to exposure to volatility in those two markets. We are delivering on our strategy, as we now have compelling products in four of our five target markets. This more than doubles the total addressable market and significantly broadens the breadth of the opportunities in our pipeline, giving us increased resilience to overcome volatility in any individual market. I will now update you on the opportunities in each of these markets individually, and on when we plan to deliver our fifth product, which will be for wide-format graphics.
Our technology is used in glass and tile printing. These markets are primarily driven by commercial and residential construction, with a small but emerging automotive glass sector. While glass printing is a very small but growing market, we have established a strong market share of over 50%, whereas ceramics, albeit a mature market, still represents a major opportunity for us. So let me update you on ceramics specifically. Higher energy prices have significantly driven up the manufacturing costs of ceramic tiles, and along with the slowdown in construction, particularly in China, has led to the reduction in the size of the ceramic tile market. This decline in market is driving OEMs to look for differentiation to maintain revenue through increasing their market share, and we see this as an opportunity for Xaar. Our new 2002 printhead is the only 720 DPI head on the market.
This is double the resolution of our competitors. This high resolution and our ability to reliably print these very challenging, highly pigmented inks in harsh production environments are key differentiators. I am delighted to report that one of the major global OEMs plans to launch their new 720 dpi printer in H2, which will drive further market share and revenue growth. With this launch, we believe that our high-resolution capability could set a new standard in ceramic tiles, which would further drive adoption of our printheads by other OEMs. So all in all, ceramics remains a good opportunity for Xaar. We are making good progress and expect to increase market share. Moving on to coding and marking and direct-to-shape markets. This is a sector where we have continued to maintain a good market position. Our Xaar Irix and Xaar 501 remain flagship products.
They deliver increased throw distance while maintaining print quality, and we expect three new OEM product launches in H2. In the medium term, we are starting to see more significant opportunities in coding and marking, utilizing our High Laydown Technology . We have also several opportunities in the direct-to-shape market, for example, printing on cans for short-run craft beers or printing on glass bottles. However, the opportunities in this sector are relatively small, as the applications tend to be niche and the market is fragmented, meaning we expect relatively modest growth in this sector. The most significant progress over the last period is in 3D printing. Here, we are seeing a greater level of product launches, where the potential of each opportunity is higher than we had expected. As you all know, Xaar has almost exclusively worked in the B2B space across all of our product ranges and applications.
However, we are seeing a significant emerging opportunity in the B2C space in 3D printing. Today, over 2 million desktop 3D printers are sold each year, typically with a selling price of GBP 250-GBP 2,000. These printers are not inkjet-based. They offer low cost but have limitations on what can be printed and are mostly single color. The Xaar Irix enables a new generation of full-color, inkjet-based desktop 3D printing systems that are high resolution and more flexible than the existing technologies. This is a new sector for Xaar. We are partnering with established system providers and anticipate a new generation of consumer desktop 3D printers to be launched over the next six-12 months. This is an exciting prospect. The exact revenue opportunity is still unclear and will depend on consumer adoption.
If more than 2% of the market transitions to the new inkjet solution, then we will need to invest beyond our current planned upgrade program. In 3D, our main business remains in B2B, where our ability to print high-viscosity fluids is transforming the industry. But 3D is a broad term and covers multiple different technologies and methods, so let me break down the 3D market into the different technology sectors. Polymer jetting is the printing of liquid plastic, which is cured by ultraviolet light. Our ability to print high-viscosity materials opens up the possibility to jet new materials that previously could not be printed. These new materials produce three 3D-printed parts, which have significantly better functional performance. This means that the printed part can be used for low-volume manufacturing, where previously, polymer jetting was mainly used for prototyping.
We are now working with a number of 3D printing companies to commercialize these materials in their 3D printers. Binder jetting and powder bed fusion are methods where inkjet fluids are used to bind together powdered materials to form the 3D-printed part. The powders could be plastic or metal, but the functionality of the fluid is critical to the quality of the final part. Again, our capability to print a wider range of fluids enables higher yield and reliability, delivering larger parts at a lower cost per part. Our technology has been adopted by the market leaders, and we expect increased volumes in 2023 from this sector. The most exciting area is 3D wax printing. One of the key applications is the manufacturing of jewelry. This global market has been revolutionized by using 3D wax printing.
The method relies on producing a facsimile of the intricate metal part in wax. A mold is then created around the wax part. This mold is then heated, so the wax melts and runs out, leaving the mold into which the precious metal is poured. Xaar's high resolution and productivity, along with the ability to operate at higher temperatures and viscosities, has enabled a new generation of 3D wax printers that will come to the market over the next six months. We've talked a lot about the potential in 3D, and we remain excited about this market, as we expect to take significant market share over the next few years. The advanced manufacturing market is also becoming more exciting, as existing applications move further towards commercialization and new applications enter our pipeline.
We are pleased to report that the use of our technology in the production of electric vehicle batteries is on track to roll out in early 2024, and we are seeing more companies developing printers to be used in the manufacturing of printed circuit boards or PCBs, with product launches expected in H2 this year. You have also seen the press release on our partnership with Axalta to commercialize the replacement of spray painting of cars, which is a significant but medium-term prospect. These three applications are examples of a growing number of industries that are recognizing that their aspiration to use digital inkjet in their business can be realized by utilizing the unique properties of Xaar printheads. The launch of Aquinox in November last year enables Xaar to address the packaging and textile markets, which are dominated by water-based inks.
As we have described previously, the ability of Aquinox to print high-viscosity, water-based fluids gives the opportunity to print with lower energy, higher throughput, and stronger colors. The response to this product has been exceptional, and we expect the first product launches of textile printers to happen in H2 this year. These launches are ahead of expectations. However, we still believe that significant revenue for Aquinox will not start until 2025. As we have discussed previously, wide-format graphics is the single biggest market. We plan to launch a product for this market in H2 next year, which will be the fifth product from our ImagineX platform. We have been asked, "If this is the largest market, then why didn't you deliver that product ahead of the others?" Well, the reason is that we need high resolution and functionality that we currently cannot deliver with our existing driver electronics.
So what have we done to resolve this? Well, over the last three years, we have invested GBP 4 million in the development of a new custom ASIC or printhead driver chip that enables high resolution, higher speeds, and other significant functionality, and we expect delivery of the first units at the start of Q4. We are very excited about this new ASIC and the step-change performance it enables, which we believe will allow us to deliver a compelling product into the wide-format graphics market by H2 2024. So by the end of next year, we will have delivered on our strategy of launching a product in each of our target markets, giving us a total addressable market of over GBP 1 billion. So what does this mean for future revenue generation?
As we have discussed on a few occasions, it can be several years after an OEM has made the decision to use Xaar printheads before they launch their product to the market, which is the milestone that drives increased revenue for Xaar. Over recent years, global supply chain issues have meant that across all regions, our OEMs had to divert R&D resources away from new product development to modifying their existing products to deal with component shortages and obsolescence. This delayed their product launches and consequently, revenue growth for Xaar. The good news is that over the last six months, we have seen supply chains ease and OEMs accelerating the pace of new product development. So what impact does this have?
Well, if you look at our pipeline, the number of product launches we expect this year has now increased from 11 to 16, and there has been good progress in building up the whole of the opportunity pipeline, which will ensure further product launches in 2024 and into 2025. As we gain clearer visibility of product launches from our OEM customers, we can be more certain about the revenue growth they will deliver, and this is why we remain so excited about the outlook for Xaar. So in summary, we have delivered a good performance with first half profit in line with expectations. The easing of the supply chain and refocus on new product development from our OEMs has meant we expect to see an increased number of product launches in H2 that will drive revenue growth into 2024.
We are particularly excited about the opportunities in 3D printing in both the B2B and B2C markets. We are delighted with the interest and adoption of Aquinox, with first OEM product launches expected in H2 this year. As the pipeline matures, we expect to see printhead volumes increase, which is why the successful completion of phase one of operation improvements is so important, as it paves the way for the planned further investment in the factory over the next two years to increase capacity, yield, and margins. Supporting our strategy and group performance, we continue to see strong contributions from EPS, Megnajet, and FFEI. Overall, a good set of results in challenging market conditions. We remain focused on delivering our strategy, building our growing pipeline, and driving revenue growth.
We are positioned well and expect to deliver a full year profit in line with expectations, and we have reinforced confidence in the medium term. We're now happy to take any questions you may have.