Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to welcome you to Sensirion Holding AG's Conference Call on the Results of the Half-Year 2025. From Sensirion, Marc von Waldkirch, Chief Executive Officer; Martin Wirz, Chief Financial Officer; and myself, Lars Dünnhaupt, Director of Investor Relations, are present. In addition to the financial results, the press release we issued earlier today, we will be referencing a slide presentation during today's conference call. The PDF of this presentation can be downloaded from the Investor Relations website under Results and Reports. As we begin today, please note that this conference call is being recorded. During this conference call, we will make forward-looking statements regarding future events or the financial performance of the company that can involve certain risks and uncertainties. The company's actual results may differ materially from the projections described in such statements. Please take a moment to read it.
Marc will begin today by covering the highlights and the business review of the half-year 2025. Next, Martin will comment on the financial performance for the half-year 2025. Martin will then turn the call back to Marc, who will address our financial guidance for 2025. Afterwards, we will take your questions. Please use the Q&A tool of the GoToWebinar app. I will read out the questions at the end of the call. I would now like to turn the call over to Sensirion's Chief Executive Officer, Marc von Waldkirch.
A warm welcome to everybody. Thank you for your interest and also for your attendance this morning here at our earnings call. I'll start first with a short executive summary. I think the first half of 2025 brought us significant growth on the top line, but also a significant improvement in our profitability profile. The growth was mainly driven by three out of four markets, and probably the highlight of the first half of the year is definitely the A12. The ongoing ramp-up of A12 refrigerant leakage sensors for the U.S. HVAC markets. More will come in the details in the slides afterwards. We have also completed the acquisition of Kuva Systems, the U.S.-based startup company we could acquire in order to make a significant strategic step forward for our data-driven business of Sensirion Connected Solutions.
Last but not least, we also continue our very focused and disciplined view on grabbing and catching new growth opportunities while keeping also the benefits we have acquired last year with the productivity and efficiency program. That means this balance of focusing on growth but also keeping the productivity levels, as we have acquired last year, on the same level. This brings me actually to the financials. We closed the first half of the year with CHF 184.5 million. This is a plus of 44% despite a minor foreign exchange rate effect. The gross margin improved to 51.5% and the EBITDA margin to 19.8%. Those profitability levels reflect actually the fact that we are now on a higher level of utilization of our semiconductor component manufacturing lines in Stéphan. For the business outlook, we confirmed the guidance we have already given in March.
While we are narrowing the top line guidance from CHF 310 million to CHF 350 million down to CHF 320 million up to CHF 340 million, that means the midpoint will stay the same. The guidance for the profitability will be confirmed without any further changes. I will come back to the guidance at the end of the call today. I would now like to walk you shortly through all the four segments, the four market segments. Starting first, as usual, with the automotive markets. That's the only segment, by the way, which was not contributing to our growth in the first half of the year. Automotive was more or less stagnating. This is actually reflecting two facts. On the one hand side, there was just a lack of new projects kicking off and ramping up in the first half of this year.
Secondly, it's also reflecting headwinds in the automotive industry in the western part of the world. Our footprint in automotive is significantly stronger in the western automotive markets rather than the Chinese one. This is also reflecting the stagnating situation in automotive this half year. Looking forward, we are very optimistic. We are working hard on very exciting new applications, especially in the area of e-cars, but also ADAS. That means Autonomous Driving Assistance Services, where we can also grow, drive our growth further in automotive in the next years to come. Medical showed a significant growth profile in the first half of the year. This is based on two effects. On the one hand side, a kind of a recovery of the severe restocking effects, which happened in 2023, but also the first half of 2024.
We have already seen in the second half of last year that the restocking came to an end. Now we can actually benefit from this effect. One part of the growth comes actually more from the base effects that we can recover to the levels before. The second element is actually the benefits of the fact that during the pandemic, but also after the pandemic, we could acquire additional customers in our very important core applications of CPAP, but also ventilations. We could even maintain these relationships after the pandemic. This brings us now to a higher level of revenue in these two core applications compared to the situation before all the fluctuations of the pandemic and restocking. Industrial is definitely the fast-growing market at the moment, not just for this half year, but also looking back in the last couple of half years, mainly driven by refrigerant leakage.
I think most of you as long-term investors are very well known about this opportunity, but to shortly brief it for probably some new investors, A12 is a kind of a refrigerant category, which is already introduced in the Asian market, that was in the European market. What has happened now is actually that the U.S. has also moved to this new kind of refrigerants at the beginning of this year. This new refrigerant A12 comes with a significantly lower climate impact level. The GWP is significantly lower, the global warming potential. On the other hand, it comes with a higher risk of flammability. In contrast to the European and the Asian markets, the U.S. market decided to regulate these risks by having an obligation to design a leakage sensor to detect any kinds of leakages in order to mitigate the risks of flammability.
This was a great chance for us. We are one of the three sensor companies worldwide that could actually grab this opportunity at the beginning of the year. We can also say honestly that we are the market leader now. We have definitely the highest market share in this respective application of A12. This drove the growth in the second half of 2024 already, but also now in the 2025 first half year. We are now on run rate for this application. We are not expecting to grow further thanks to this ramp-up because the ramp-up is actually over. On top of that, the industrial market has also benefited from additional growth opportunities beyond A12, especially in the appliance sectors, in gas metering, but also in home appliances driven by a stimulus program in the domestic market of China.
For the second half of the year, we expect to have slightly lower demands in A12. The main reason is actually that typically in these kinds of ramp-ups, they are so critical that all the customers decide to make a kind of a front loading. They try to fill up the supply chain, not just the supply chain and the inventories of sensors, but also downwards, downstream to fill up the inventories of finished goods of air conditioners. This comes now to an end. That means now the inventory levels will be balanced out in order to reach a normal level of run rate. Consumer markets, at the end of the day, after several pretty difficult half years, we can now report a significant growth also in consumer markets. This is mainly driven by very strong distribution results.
Consumer markets are a highly fragmented market, which is mainly handled by distribution partners, and they delivered a pretty good result. On the one hand side, also driven by this Chinese stimulus program, but also on the other hand, we saw a lot of dynamics in the markets due to the U.S. tariffs, especially at the beginning of the year. That means a lot of Chinese manufacturers decided to place additional orders in order to be ready for any good moments to import these goods, or not our sensor, but their final goods to the U.S. markets, reflecting these high fluctuations of U.S. tariffs on and off all the time. That brings me to a short update on the tariffs. I think probably this is the topic number one today. By far more interesting, probably, for you than all the details of automotive or medical markets.
There is always our exposure with tariffs. I think we have to divide between direct exposure and indirect ones. In the direct way, our exposure is pretty limited. On the one hand side, this is due to the fact that most of our U.S. customers, they are not going to produce their devices in the U.S. That means they ask us to ship our sensors not to the U.S., but to any other countries, Mexico, Vietnam, but also China, Malaysia, in order to produce their devices on the base of our sensors afterwards. There is no direct import to the U.S. of our sensors needed. In the direct business with the U.S., that means this part of the U.S. business, which is definitely going to the U.S., there we benefit on the one hand side from the fact that still today there is an exemption for U.S.
tariffs for all kinds of semiconductors. That means the humidity sensors and some other components we are delivering to the U.S. are exempted from U.S. tariffs still today. Nobody knows exactly what happens in the next couple of weeks, but at least at the moment, this is the fact. On the other hand, we also benefit in the A12 market in particular from the fact that we are producing our sensors with a production partner in Mexico. Those modules, A12 modules, they can be imported to the U.S. without any tariffs due to the free trade agreement between Mexico and the U.S., which is still in place for this kind of product. On the other hand, there are some limited exposures where we have to ship non-components, so modules from Switzerland to the U.S., where 39% of tariffs are applied.
On the other hand, there are some modules that are shipped from Hungary to the U.S. with a tax tariff of 15%. In both cases, it's not our duty to pay the tariffs because of the agreed income terms. It's the duty of our customers to do so. Again, this business, which is directly exposed, is pretty limited in numbers. What we are doing at the moment is also to look into kinds of optimizations. Thanks to the fact that we have production sites in Hungary, in China, in Switzerland, but also the production partners in Mexico, we have some degree of flexibility also to optimize the setup. The challenge today is that all kinds of optimizations take significantly longer than all changes in the U.S. tariffs policy of the U.S. government. That means we are now looking into kinds of optimizations.
We will take decisions as soon as we see that there is some kind of sustainable setup in the tariffs, which is not the case today. I'd like also to lose some words about the indirect exposures. Honestly, I'm more concerned about that rather than the direct exposure. That means the indirect ones are more the fact that all these kinds of uncertainties, these ongoing changes of U.S. tariff setups, on and off tariffs, and all this will definitely slow down the geopolitical or the macroeconomic situation worldwide, which also ends and results in significantly lower demand. I think this general effect will definitely hit the company more than the direct exposure of the tariffs. On the other hand, we have already seen a sharp decline of the U.S. dollars and some other currency. They are more or less linked to U.S. dollars against Swiss francs.
Also, this is a higher exposure for Sensirion rather than the direct exposure. Last but not least, before handing over to Martin, I'd like to shortly summarize our strategic view and also to reflect the H1 of 2025, not by results, but more by a strategic view on what we have progressed in that terms. Again, as you might have already heard in our Capital Market Day last November, we are following a strategy under the motto "We make a difference in sensing for a better world." This strategy is actually anchored on our sensor spirit, our cultural baseline, which is the foundation of all what we are doing. The strategy afterwards is actually divided into three different strategic focuses. Focus one is about our core business. That means about environmental sensors, but also about flow sensing, where we are definitely, we have already a very strong position.
We like for the next couple of years, we like also to drive our strong position even further. We extend and expand our market shares to new applications, but also in the existing applications to higher levels. In that terms, I think a very important contribution is the launch of our first chip-based CO₂ sensors in the last couple of months. This is a huge milestone technically in CO₂ sensing. It's the very first one where a sensor can bring reliable CO₂ measurements to a chip level only. This will also unlock a lot of new applications, not immediately within two months, because this new technological opportunity is now a good base for all our customers to think through new applications, to think through new scenarios. This will take some time, but will definitely drive the CO₂ sensing markets significantly in the next couple of years.
When you go to focus two, strategic focus two is actually about going to adjacent markets. They are not already addressed by our core business of flow sensing and environmental sensing, by leveraging our technologies we have already developed in these adjacent markets. In that sense, we have definitely made significant progress with the A12 refrigerant leakage sensors becoming number one in this emerging new market. Secondly, we are working on the next generation of refrigerant leakage sensors. That means A3 category. A3 has the benefit of being completely climate neutral, not just reduced, but climate neutral. It comes with an even higher risk of flammability or even explosion. Therefore, the need for A3 sensors or leakage sensors is even higher than for A12, not just limited to the U.S. markets.
We assume that even in the U.S., in Europe, and also in Asia, there will be a higher likelihood of designing in these kinds of leakage sensors. We are working on that. We have already launched the first product for A3 leakage detection. On the other hand, I have already mentioned it, also the Kuva Systems acquisition comes to this sector of strategic focus two to fuel our strategic target to become also a data business provider for some selected applications with the methane emissions monitoring. Last but not least, strategic focus three, I am fully aware that you are particularly interested in learning more about our technological roadmap. Unfortunately, due to competitive reasons, we cannot be so open about the strategic focus three. What I can share with you is that we are still working on advanced spectroscopic technologies in order to address a lot of new applications.
There are a lot of other ideas around we are working on, but we cannot yet talk about them because of the competitor's situation. That brings me to the end of my short presentation, and I'd like to hand over to Martin for all the financial figures.
Thank you, Marc. Good morning, everyone, and a very warm welcome from my side as well. In addition to Marc's comments on the course of business with a focus on market developments, I will delve deeper into the relevant financial figures for the first half year of 2025. Before I begin, a brief reminder, today's remarks include references to non-first performance measures, and unless stated otherwise, we refer to adjusted figures of the previous period for comparability purposes. Now, let me start with the headline figures and then go into each component individually. For the first half of 2025, net sales were CHF 184.5 million, as we heard, up 44% year- on- year. Gross margin came in at 51.5%, reflecting a stronger capacity utilization and productivity gains.
Operating expenses remained well controlled with R&D at 16.5% of sales and SG&A at 20.7%, resulting in a total OpEx ratio of roughly 37%. EBITDA was CHF 36.5 million, a margin of 19.8%. The working capital, we closed at 33.5% of LVM revenue, continuing the previous trend of the previous period. Cash generation was solid. Operating cash flow stands at CHF 28.4 million and free cash flow at CHF 15.6 million. We ended the period with cash and cash equivalents of CHF 68.2 million. Now, let me put the top line into context. The CHF 56.5 million increase versus the previous period was driven by organic growth, partially offset by FX. With the exception of automotive, we heard that before, which was flat, all other end markets grew by more than 50%.
As mentioned, automotive remained flat in line with the headwinds that we see in the overall market and after a particularly strong first half year 2024. Industrial growth was powered by the A12 refrigerant leakage sensor ramp-up in HVAC and a strong contribution from home appliances as well. Medical, we saw a rebound in CPAP and ventilation and also first revenues from new project launches. Consumer returned to growth as distribution channels normalized and demand in China improved. This mix shift is reflected in our H1 sales composition. Automotive stands at 21%, medical 16%, industrial 58%, and consumer at 5%. By regions, we are diversified with an APAC share of 37%, EMEA 35%, and Americas 27%. As we heard before as well, the Americas benefited most visibly from the A12 program. As mentioned by Marc, much of the volume is served outside the U.S., which helps on our tariff exposure.
Moving on to gross margin, gross profit margin expanded to 51.5% up from the previous year. Three drivers explained this stata. First, a high utilization in component manufacturing across all markets. This was a headwind last year and a tailwind during this period. Second, strong module demand, especially from A12 and CPAP and ventilation recovery. Third, operational productivity measures initiated last year, which are now yielding tangible benefits. It's worth to note here that module business typically carries a lower margin than components, and the fact that margins improved despite a larger module share underlines the volume leverage and the efficiency gains we've achieved. On OpEx, our priority has been discipline and focus while actively chasing opportunities across all strategic focus. R&D was CHF 30.5 million or 16.5% of revenue.
We continued to invest selectively across all our three strategic focuses to ensure a full innovation pipeline and also a project pipeline. SG&A was CHF 38.3 million or 20.7%. We continued to invest in customer-facing roles where we see long-term potential. The OpEx cost base grew well below the top line, reflecting active cost management. This core discipline supported our EBITDA margin expansion while we continue investing in our innovation engine. This brings me to the EBITDA development. We reached an EBITDA of CHF 36.5 million and 19.8% margin, a significant increase year on year. The volume bridge is straightforward. Strong gross profit growth from higher volumes and better utilization, partially offset by targeted investments in R&D and commercial capabilities. The productivity programs implemented over the last years across all functions continued to support the margin trajectory. Now, let me step you through the other key elements of our P&L.
Operating profit EBITDA was CHF 26.3 million or 14.2% of revenue. Net income for the period was CHF 10.4 million. Two items here weighted on the bottom line. A negative finance result of - CHF 10 million, primarily from currency effects due to the substantial appreciation of the Swiss franc and the proportionate share of losses from our minority investments in the refinance. While these effects reduce the net income, they do not change the solid operating trajectory of the business. Moving on to net working capital, our net working capital increased in absolute terms by CHF 4.9 million to CHF 111.7 million at the end of the reporting period. As a percentage of LTM revenue, the net working capital margin improved to 33.5%, down from 44.1% a year ago and 38.6% at year end. A few remarks here.
Inventory rose modestly while wafer stock maintained at the target safety level under our assurance policy. We improved the balancing between receivables and payables, with receivables continued having a marginal default risk, and we do continue to monitor that closely. On investment, CapEx for property, plant, and equipment was CHF 9 million, largely for plants and machinery in Switzerland and Hungary. We continue to strengthen our Stäfa, Switzerland footprint and diversify our production footprint across our production sites internationally. D&A showed moderate growth, consistent with our investment cycle. Our balance sheet remains a strong core asset. Cash and cash equivalents increased from CHF 54.4 million at year end to CHF 68.2 million by the end of June. The equity ratio stands at 81%, underscoring a robust capital structure and ample flexibility to invest in innovation and market expansion in line with our strategy.
This resilience is central to fund our growth across all three strategic focus areas. Turning to cash flow, operating cash flow improved significantly to CHF 28.4 million, primarily driven by the return to profitability. Investing cash flow was negative CHF 13.4 million, reflecting CapEx, PPE investments, and acquisition of Kuva Systems within Sensirion Connected Solutions. We closed H1 with free cash flow of CHF 15.6 million and a cash balance of CHF 68.2 million. In other words, we have normalized cash generation and are comfortable self-funding our investment needs while also continuing building up cash reserves. To summarize, we delivered strong broad-based growth with significant gross profit and EBITDA margin expansion and a healthy cash generation. We executed well on A12, medical recovery, and also component manufacturing and productivity, and we continue to fund innovation along our strategy, as we heard earlier, to support our short, medium, and long-term growth.
Our balance sheet and global footprint give us the flexibility to navigate uncertainty and allocate capital to our most attractive opportunities. I would like to hand over back to Marc for the outlook and afterwards for the question and answers. Thank you, Marc.
Thank you, Martin, for walking us through the financial details. I'd like to close this presentation with the outlook. To make the story short, we confirm the guidance we have already given in March 2025. We narrow the top line, but that's the only change. That means the midpoint will remain the same. To shortly lose some words about the market conditions, I think the market conditions are going to be more uncertain in the next couple of months. On the one hand side, we see these high uncertainties and high nervosity on the markets due to the U.S. trade policy. We have already lost a lot of words about that. Secondly, we see a general slowdown in the global markets, a moderate one up to now, but it's less robust, to my assessment, than probably six or twelve months ago.
Another challenge, definitely for a Swiss-based company, is the strong Swiss franc. We are going to report in Swiss francs, and also this is a challenge for the company, despite the fact that we are producing almost half of all our product outside of Switzerland, where we are also reflecting or we are focused on exposed to other currency rather than Swiss francs only. In our business, we expect some kind of an expected slowdown of demand for A12, which is not a fundamental one, but just as I already explained, this is already expected due to the fact that there is the front loading first. The second half of the year is expected to be less strong in A12 compared to the first half of the year without losing any kinds of accounts.
This is more a kind of a seasonality, which is not a fundamental one, but more due to the ramp-up of the first half of the year. Next year, we expect that the A12 business will be more balanced between H1 and H2. On the other hand, we do see some kinds of, we expect, we can't see it, but at the moment, we do expect some kinds of slowdowns in demand from the Chinese market because there are some partial phase-outs of the stimulus program from the Chinese government. Nevertheless, despite the negative foreign exchange developments, we are reaffirming our forecasts or our guidance. That means we expect to close the year with CHF 320 million up to CHF 340 million at the EBITDA margin in the mid to high teens, as already communicated in March.
That brings me to the Q&A session, and I'd like to hand over back to Lars.
Yes, thank you very much. We have already some questions on the call. Let me read out the questions. First question is, apparently, the H1 was very, very strong, and the full year guidance didn't change. Marc, can you please elaborate what you expect for the second half of the year?
I think I have already elaborated on that. That means the full year is actually going forward as we have expected in March. I think that's the main message to you. What we have seen is a slightly stronger H1 than expected due to two reasons: the front loading and, secondly, these kinds of pull-ins due to U.S. tariffs and the stimulus program in China. In the second half of the year, we expect that some of these effects will come back. That means the full year will be more or less on the same level as expected already in March. I think there is some kind of seasonality this year, a stronger H1, a slightly weaker H2, but it's more driven by these specific effects in A12, but also in pull-ins due to the tariffs.
Given the more cautious revenue guidance for the second half, the question goes into 2026. What are the growth drivers into 2026? Is there anything you can say about this?
I think it's too early at the moment to talk about 2026, especially reflecting the pretty low visibility we have on the markets today. What I can share with you is definitely that there are a lot of new opportunities we are working on. There is not one specific ramp-up which is so strong as A12 last year. Last year it was pretty easy to talk about the market growth driver for 2025 because it was just one big thing. This is not the case. That's also the usual way a house in Sensirion grows since many, many years. That means there are a lot of different growth opportunities we are coming in where they are contributing to the growth profile all in general. This will also happen next year. It's too early to go into details. We will do that at the end of the year, as usual.
Good. On the call, I don't see any additional questions. Of course, as always, feel free to reach out to me directly. I'm happy to take your question and answer this also by email. With that, I would like to thank you on behalf of Sensirion Holding AG for your interest in our results.
Have a nice day.
Bye-bye. Have a good day.
Bye-bye.