Good afternoon, and welcome to Bruker's first quarter 2016 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star and then one. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Today's conference call is also being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Joshua Young, VP Investor Relations, Corporate Development. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you very much, Jamie. Good afternoon. I'd like to welcome everyone to Bruker's first quarter 2016 earnings conference call. My name is Joshua Young, and I'm the Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Development for Bruker. Joining me on today's call are Frank Laukien, our President and CEO, and Tony Mattacchione, Bruker's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In addition to the earnings release we issued earlier today, we will be referencing a slide presentation as part of today's conference call. The PDF of this presentation can be downloaded by clicking on the earnings release hyperlink on Bruker's Investor Relations website. During today's call, we will be highlighting non-GAAP financial information. A reconciliation of our GAAP to our non-GAAP financial statements is included in our earnings release and in our webcast presentation.
Before we begin, I'd like to reference Bruker's Safe Harbor statement, which I show on slide number two. During the course of this conference call, we will be making forward-looking statements regarding future events or the financial performance of the company that involve risks and uncertainties. The company's actual results may differ materially from the projections described in such statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in today's earnings release and in our Form 10-K, as well as other subsequent SEC filings. Also note that the following information is related to current business conditions and our outlook as of today, May 4, 2016. Consistent with our prior practice, we do not intend to update our projections based on new information, future events, or other reasons prior to the release of our second quarter 2016 financial results in August.
We will begin today's call with Frank providing a business summary. Tony will then cover our financials for the first quarter of 2016 in more detail. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Bruker's CEO, Frank Laukien.
Thank you, Joshua. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call this afternoon. I will begin today's earnings presentation on slide four. I am pleased to report that Bruker's momentum continued in the first quarter of 2016 as we reported solid organic revenue growth and operating margin expansion. We clearly started off the year on a positive note. That being said, our performance reflected a mix of both positive business drivers and demand challenges in parts of our portfolio. We reported revenues of $375 million in Q1 of 2016, with year-over-year organic revenue growth of 5.6%. This growth was driven by our BioSpin and CALID groups, which both posted strong performance in the first quarter. Geographically, North America and China were the primary drivers of organic growth in the first quarter.
Our first quarter 2016 non-GAAP operating margin increased by 245 basis points year-over-year versus Q1 of 2015. Some of this outperformance resulted from the completion of our first shielded Aeon 1 GHz NMR system ahead of schedule. We reported non-GAAP EPS of $0.21 in Q1 of 2016, which represented year-over-year growth of 50%. This strong performance was a combination of operating performance and a lower tax rate. Please turn to slides five and six now, where I will provide additional details about the year-over-year performance of our three groups and of our BSI segment for the first quarter of 2016. Let me begin with our BioSpin group, which had a very strong first quarter and delivered double-digit organic revenue growth. This performance was a combination of an easier year-over-year comparison in Q1 and the higher order growth the BioSpin group generated throughout the year 2015.
All of our BioSpin businesses performed well in the first quarter of 2016, with NMR driving most of the improvement due to higher volume and pricing increases implemented last year. Additionally, during the first quarter, we finished the installation of our first actively shielded 1 GHz magnet at the University of Bayreuth. This installation is a technological milestone for Bruker and was one of several positive contributors to our growth and operating margin expansion in the quarter. We experienced steady growth for the NMR products we are selling into applied and clinical research markets, and we also had a strong quarter of performance for selling service and aftermarket offerings under our newly branded offering called LabScape. Finally, we substantially completed the closure of our BioSpin Rheinfelden manufacturing facility during the first quarter.
The restructuring actions taken by BioSpin in 2015 helped lower the group's expenses, which was a driver of our higher operating profitability in the first quarter. Moving on to our CALID Group. The CALID Group reported a strong first quarter of revenue growth as all of its businesses reported higher year-over-year revenues. Our Optics business, which had faced top-line challenges in 2015, delivered a strong first quarter of revenue growth, driven by its near-infrared and remote sensing products. Optics also generated good order growth in the quarter. Our Daltonics business generated high single-digit revenue growth in the quarter, primarily driven by strong performance of our MALDI Biotyper and an uptick in our services revenue, while orders in Q1 started more slowly. Our detection business converted a large legacy order out of backlog and into revenue during the first quarter.
This drove revenue growth, albeit at a low gross margin on this legacy order. The detection business also faced a difficult year-over-year comparison due to a large high-margin project that was recognized in Q1 2015. Please turn to slide six now. The Nano Group in Q1 saw continued soft demand from most industrial markets. Our AXS business generated strong revenue growth in 2015, but saw weak demand in Q1 2016 from both academic and industrial customers. Geographically, Europe was an area of incremental weakness for AXS. We did not see any change in recent trends for our Nano Surfaces business, as most markets remained weak in the quarter. A bright spot for the Nano Group is that we began to see higher demand for our semiconductor metrology tools. Our order growth was good, and we are increasing our backlog, which should result in higher semiconductor metrology revenues later this year.
Finally, our BEST segment reported flat revenues despite good growth in its core superconducting wire business as a result of the phase-out of two multi-year programs, namely Rosatom and DESI. At BEST, we made technical and quality progress with our high-temperature superconducting, or HTS tapes, which have significant long-term potential. We expect our first commercial HTS revenue in 2017, and HTS may benefit our ultra-high field 1.2 GHz NMR business in 2018 and beyond. Over the past two months, we have participated in three important customer and industry conferences: Pittcon, the Experimental Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Conference known as ENC, and the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, or ECCMID. On slides seven and eight, I walk through some of the product introductions and announcements we had at these conferences. I'd like to start with the completion of the world's first shielded Aeon 1 GHz NMR magnet and system.
The system was installed at the Research Center for Bio-Macromolecules at the University of Bayreuth in Germany. This system is going to enable researchers to expand their studies in structural biology, membrane proteins, and intrinsically disordered proteins or IDPs. Along with other NMR CryoProbe and other experimental methods innovations, this gigahertz class magnet will enable researchers to explore larger protein structures with NMR and to better understand the role of intrinsically disordered proteins and the dark proteome. With this installation, we have also significantly reduced the space required to install magnets of 1 GHz or higher. We have also eliminated the need for liquid nitrogen and reduced the liquid helium consumption to essentially zero. On slide eight, I show three of the products that we introduced at the ENC and ECCMID conferences. We are bringing the power of NMR to the applied markets, specifically to the food and beverage industry.
Our new Honey-Profiling module of the NMR FoodScreener solution is quickly gaining acceptance by major global food analysis labs and honey packers due to its unique capabilities to rapidly and cost-effectively detect adulteration and mislabeling of content or origin. We have already seen leading companies such as Famille Michaud use our products to increase the scope of their analysis while reducing their honey test time to result from two days with manual labor to just 20 minutes by NMR. Next, or similarly, our NMR Wine Screener module in its latest version is gaining traction because it is an easy, cost-effective NMR solution to conduct comprehensive screening of high-value wines. Bruker has developed a proprietary database of authentic wine samples that allows manufacturers to determine authenticity parameters such as grape variety, geographic origin, and vintage.
Our NMR Wine Screener solution combines quality control and testing of safety issues and authenticity in a unique way, and we are expecting strong growth for this solution in the future. Finally to microbiology. At ECCMID, we announced enhancements to the MALDI Biotyper workflow as we expanded the assay menu to include selected high-value resistance testing for clinical microbiology research. The MBT Biotargets 96, shown on the slide, which were introduced, help to reduce operator error and save time in running tests on the Biotyper solution. We also announced new MALDI Biotyper research use only capabilities for rapid testing for strains and of selected antibiotic resistance mechanisms. Moving on to slide nine, Bruker's key priorities for 2016 remain unchanged from last quarter, and we are making good progress for each of the key priorities listed on the slide.
Overall, we are off to a good start in 2016, and significant work remains to achieve our full-year operating goals. With that, let me turn the call over to our CFO, Tony Mattacchione.
Thank you, Frank. I will now provide some additional details on our financial performance in Q1 2016, starting on slide 11. Bruker had a strong first quarter, and we are continuing to deliver on the operational commitments we are making to shareholders. In Q1 2016, our non-GAAP operating income increased 32% on revenue growth of 6%. This demonstrates the operating leverage we have established in the business from our previous transformation initiatives. We delivered a non-GAAP EPS increase of $0.07 year-over-year, representing a 50% increase. We used free cash flow of $22 million in the first quarter, which reflected customer advances, a Q1 2016 tax payment associated with our 2015 European cash repatriation, and higher bonus payments. We continue to buy back our stock in accordance with our November 2015 authorization and delivered and paid our first dividend of $0.04 per share in the first quarter of 2016.
Now, let me share more details on our Q1 2016 performance. On slide 12, I show the year-over-year revenue bridge for Q1 2016. We generated organic revenue growth of 5.6% in the quarter. The 1.5% portfolio improvement more than offset the negative 0.9% effect of changes in foreign currency translation rates. This was the first full quarter of consolidating the results from our Jordan Valley acquisition. Drilling further into the revenue performance, increased NMR revenue resulting from helping 2015 order levels, the acceptance of the 1 GHz NMR system Frank just mentioned, as well as NMR price increase last year, all contributed to our organic revenue growth in the quarter. Additionally, all of our CALID businesses grew in the quarter, including a double-digit growth of the MALDI Biotyper and improvements in our Optics business, primarily our near-infrared and remote sensing products.
With the Nano Group, weak industrial and academic markets, particularly in Europe, were an offset to this growth. On slide 13, I show our full Q1 2016 profit and loss statement on a non-GAAP basis. Our Q1 2016 non-GAAP gross profit increased $8 million, while the gross profit margin of 46.7% decreased 60 basis points year-over-year, and this was largely due to a strong prior year comparison. From a gross profit margin perspective, there were a number of puts and takes, including the higher BioSpin volume price and operational improvement effects that were also offset by lower Nano volume and unfavorable CALID product mix. All totaled, our Q1 2016 gross margin remained 50 basis points higher than our full year 2015 gross profit margin. Our Q1 2016 operating expenses were down approximately $3 million year-over-year.
Adjusting for foreign currency translation as well as the new Jordan Valley expenses of $2 million, Q1 2016 operating expenses were down also $2 million year-over-year. The decrease in operating expenses was the result of the 2015 BioSpin restructuring, as well as lower discretionary spending in most of our businesses. The net result is that our non-GAAP operating profit margin improved 245 basis points in Q1 2016 compared to Q1 2015. Our Q1 2016 non-GAAP tax rate of 17.7% was significantly lower than last year's tax rate, which added $0.03 to our EPS in the first quarter of this year. This was in part caused by the recognition of previously uncertain tax benefits due to the closing of certain tax audits and favorable changes in the expected mix of earnings amongst our tax jurisdictions. Finally, non-GAAP EPS of $0.21 represented an increase of $0.07 or 50% from Q1 last year.
Bruker's lower average share count, which declined 3% year-over-year due to our share buyback program, also contributed to the increase. As I mentioned earlier, we used $22 million of free cash in Q1 of 2016. This compares with free cash flow generation of $21 million a year ago. The year-over-year comparison is affected by high customer advances associated with high NMR order entry in Q1 2015, and higher tax and bonus payments in Q1 2016. Our Q1 2016 cash conversion cycle was shortened by 33 days compared to last year. After adjusting for foreign currency translation, we used $44 million less in working capital year-over-year, mostly due to lower inventories. The reduction in the cash conversion cycle had the following elements. Days inventory outstanding decreased 32 days to 201 days.
Days sales outstanding decreased 10 days to 57 days, and days payable outstanding increased nine days to 32 days, all compared to Q1 2015. During the first quarter of 2016, we repurchased 3.4 million shares. Since the inception of the share buyback program until March 31st, 2016, we have repurchased 6.2 million shares at an aggregate cost of $148.1 million. As of the end of Q1 2016, we had approximately $77 million of remaining authorization to buy back shares as part of our $225 million share buyback program that we announced in November 2015. We also paid our first quarterly dividend in Q1 2016. Now turning to slide 16. Bruker's guidance for the full year remains unchanged.
We continue to expect organic revenue growth of approximately 3%, an increase in non-GAAP operating margin by approximately 100 basis points, and non-GAAP EPS in the range of $0.97- $1.02. We expect changes in foreign exchange rates to increase our full year 2016 reported revenues by 1%, with only a nominal positive effect on our non-GAAP EPS. Our currency assumptions have changed modestly as the Japanese yen, euro, and Swiss franc all have strengthened versus the dollar in first quarter 2016. Our currency assumptions include a yen to US dollar rate of 113, a US dollar to euro rate of 1.14, and a Swiss franc to US dollar rate of 0.96.
We continue to assume a non-GAAP tax rate in the range of 25%-28% for the full year of 2016, and we are assuming a fully diluted share count of approximately 163 million- 165 million shares. We continue to expect CapEx of approximately $50 million for the full year of 2016. I would remind investors that much like 2015, we expect the majority of our profitability and cash flow to be generated in the second half of 2016. We also expect our organic revenue growth and operating profitability to see significant fluctuations from one quarter to another, due in part to the large transactions that can occur in several of Bruker's businesses. I will close by stating that we are proud to report solid year-over-year revenue performance, operating margin, and EPS improvements in Q1 2016.
We expect 2016 to be another good year of operating margin expansion and earnings growth. With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to Joshua to start the Q&A session.
Thank you. Jamie, please assemble the Q&A roster.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question- and- answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and then one. If you're using a speakerphone, we do ask you please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, you may press star and two. Again, it is star and then one to join the question queue. Our first question today comes from Brandon Couillard from Jefferies. Please go ahead with your question.
Hey, thanks. Good afternoon. Tony, just to make sure we're understanding the messaging right. Was the first quarter beat and your reiteration of the full year guide just a reflection of timing? Perhaps it was the 1 GHz order, maybe a couple of other items. Is that a fair assessment?
That's correct. The 1 GHz magnet is in our full year guidance. We installed it in Q1. We thought it would install in Q2, but yes, it's baked into the guidance and should be that way.
Fair enough. Then, to what extent does your full year outlook contemplate perhaps another 1 GHz placement? Is that something you have the capacity to satisfy in a single year or two installations? Then Frank, would love to hear your thoughts on what you view as the service opportunity in BioSpin and how you could perhaps better monetize the offering there.
Yeah, Brandon, this is Frank. To your first question, we do not expect another gigahertz this year. We're building up the capacity, but we may expect two next year in 2017, but the next one will probably move into early 2017. We obviously expect to ramp up our capacity for these type of systems in the years 2018, higher than two per year. So no, this year, we do not expect an additional 1 GHz system. To your second question, Brandon, yes, we do expect our service and aftermarket business in a number of divisions, including BioSpin, to grow faster than the corporate average. That's a somewhat under-leveraged opportunity in most of Bruker, and we're working very diligently to grow these areas, which tend to be also profitable for us and help us with customer satisfaction. So, yes to that.
Our next question comes from Steve Willoughby from Cleveland Research. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi, good evening. Frank, I was just wondering, after a strong 2015 of NMR orders, you're starting to see some of those orders turn into revenue over the last couple of quarters. Could you just comment regarding what orders for NMR look like over the last three months and where your backlog looks like compared to the past couple of quarters for NMR?
Yes, Steve, we don't go into orders and bookings and backlog in detail. We had pretty strong NMR orders throughout all of last year, but particularly strong orders in Q1 of last year, which is actually unusual, but that's how it happened last year. Our Q1 2016 NMR orders were solid, but not as high as in Q1 of last year.
Okay. Then just one quick follow-up. After buying back quite a bit of stock over the last five or six months, I am cognizant of the amount that is remaining on the current authorization, but just was wondering, what your thoughts are on future capital deployment from here?
Yeah. We are comfortable with the way we are set up right now. Obviously, having implemented the dividend, we expect to do that quarterly as you would expect. We have the authorization, as you know. That is a two-year authorization, so it goes to November of 2017. We bought a little bit more in the first five or six months thinking that our stock continues to be a good value. How we continue from here, we assess that from quarter to quarter. We obviously will not speculate about what we will do in future quarters. We have just reported in what we did in Q1, of course.
Our next question comes from Jack Meehan from Barclays. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi. Thanks, and good afternoon. I just wanted to start with the margin improvement in the quarter and just how much you thought was driven by maybe the one large gigahertz placement. Just maybe how you feel like you are tracking relative to the 100 basis points you talked about for the full year.
Yeah. Go ahead, Tony.
Yeah. Maybe I will start on that one. We are confirming the 100 basis points guidance, first of all. The 1 GHz magnet did have a positive effect on the gross profit margin, but there were a lot of puts and takes in the gross profit margin, including some of the continued soft markets we are seeing in our industrial businesses. There are puts and takes. We are fully confirming the 100 basis points, and BioSpin obviously did help in Q1.
Got it. Maybe just one more on your latest views on the funding environment in Europe, and just curious, making progress towards some of the IDP initiatives that are looking to go in place in the next couple of years. Thanks.
Yeah, this is Frank again. Jack, as you may know, in Europe, there had been more funding for ultra-high field NMR, so it is getting additional funding for 1 GHz or gigahertz class systems. I think we believe this first installation where we have installed the system and got it accepted with beautiful data at a customer site is going to encourage additional groups in the Americas and in Asia as well as in Europe. But in the Americas and Asia, there is more catch-up, quite honestly, to ask for funding and to get this new type of technology now that it has been demonstrated and proven. As you know, the funding cycles and the procurement cycles in this business are long.
Until that turns into additional orders and revenue will take some time, and obviously not going to happen in this year anymore. Nevertheless, we think it's a milestone that together with the new science that is possible on these systems will encourage a number of groups to hopefully successfully apply for funding, particularly in the Americas. The funding situation in Europe is a little unclear. Some of our divisions didn't really notice very much. A couple of our divisions thought that funding in Europe in Q1 started out a little soft. But it's only a quarter, and quite honestly, the data from any given quarter, especially in any given division for us, is just not very statistically meaningful. Before we make any geographic or market funding trends, we tend to want to stitch together two or three quarters.
We acknowledge a little bit of funding weakness in Q1. I'm not sure that that will continue. That may just be a one-timer. It remains to be seen.
Our next question comes from Tim Evans from Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead with your question.
Thanks. Frank, I just wanted to clarify on the Nano Group weakness, how much of this was macro-driven versus any specific product line dynamics? I hear you when you're talking about the funding issues, but I think the slide also had something about the single crystal product. I just want to get a big picture feel for whether you feel like you're addressing the demand that's there, versus just weak demand overall.
You are completely correct. I'll give you a three-part answer on that one. The macro in most industrial business, and you know that pharma, biopharma, we don't include in industrial, obviously. Most industrial businesses, the macro demand continues to be weak and really no particular trends in Q1. We had reported that previously, so this is not new news. But it's about the same type of sluggish demand environment. On the product side, and you focused in on that, it turns out that in our X-ray crystallography product line, which is part of the AXS business in the Nano Group. Their initial demand initially at the beginning of this year looked really quite weak after a very strong 2015, with strong demand for crystallography last year, particularly in India and China and as well as in Europe. We sometimes have these non-macro related cycles in certain product lines.
If you recall, last year, preclinical imaging was pretty weak. Yeah, this year, we're seeing a weak start to crystallography that doesn't seem to be related to macro. They had a strong year last year. Looks like they're going to have a weaker year this year. The last thing that I did want to add is that, while our semi metrology, semiconductor metrology tools revenue in Q1 was still weak, we're just bringing Jordan Valley into the company and integrating it. The bookings and backlog there are actually looking healthier. We expect to see encouraging contributions from semiconductor metrology tools in the next three quarters.
Okay.
Maybe those are the three things that are noteworthy.
It sounds like you feel a little bit better about semiconductors. Is that specific to Jordan Valley or is that kind of your semiconductor business overall might be seeing a little bit of improvement?
Well, I think it is pretty specific to our tools, our atomic force microscopy, AFM tools and X-ray tools. They are, of course, being acquired for smaller nodes or for 3D structures because they can do unique things. These are not really capacity buys. These are primarily still technology demonstration and validation. I am not sure that what we are reporting here is relevant for the semiconductor macro, although that might be getting a little better as well. Although there we hear mixed news from the market. I think it is primarily related to the particular capabilities that we have, the unique capabilities that I think which make us optimistic that we will generally see good secular demand drivers in semiconductor metrology tools in the remainder of the year and in hopefully in the years to come, on top of whatever macro cycle we will see.
Our next question comes from Miroslava Minkova from Stifel. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my question. Wondering if you could help us understand, more specifically, how much did the 1 GHz installation contribute to sales in the first quarter or to organic growth in the first quarter? Specifically, should we expect now that the second quarter may be weaker because of the timing of that? I do have a follow-up.
This is Frank again. Qualitatively, you are correct. These systems, this one sort of worked on first try, and when you have leading edge systems and technology like this, sometimes you have to it takes several times in debugging steps. From the timing that I think what your assumption is correct or good. We are not disclosing the exact amount of revenue or margin contribution from the gigahertz. It was not the only reason why we had outperformance, but it was one driver.
Okay. Clearly, you have had a very strong start to the year here, particularly with organic growth, but also operating margins. Just wondering if I could have you reflect a little bit on your full year outlook and what gives you the path. Why is the full year guidance unchanged? Appreciating it is still a little bit early in the year.
Yeah, it is early in the year for us. One quarter really does not give us enough data. We are not a consumables company where a quarter might give you enough data. We need to stitch together two or three quarters. I confirm the timing effect that you have mentioned, with the gigahertz already being in Q1 that has contributed. There are just also some demand weaknesses and there are some uncertainties. I think our guidance remains, but we think our guidance remains achievable, but it is also far from a shoo-in, and there remains a lot of work to achieve that.
Our next question comes from Doug Schenkel from Cowen and Company. Please go ahead with your question.
Good afternoon. My first question, I guess, is just a cleanup, probably for Tony. Heading into the year, you had expected the majority of operating margin expansion to be driven by gross margin expansion. Is this still the case in light of strong operating leverage we saw in Q1, but the weaker than expected gross margin performance?
Good question, Doug. We still expect a fair amount of the improvement to come from gross profit margin, and the Q1 dynamics may lead you to think otherwise. But we are monitoring operating spending very closely, and we will use that as a way that will contribute to our 100 basis points operating profit margin expansion going forward. As we see the year develop, we will release spending appropriately, but that is a lever that we have to meet our commitments.
Okay. That is helpful. Second question is, you noted that growth in both North America and China was strong. Would you be willing to provide a little more commentary on what were the key end markets? Can you talk about how performance of these geographies compares to the expectations that you had coming into the year?
Yeah. We are referring to revenue. Obviously, sometimes for us, revenue and bookings can be out of sync by a couple of quarters. I really would. Even we internally, we try to not draw too many conclusions from one quarter, because things can change in the following quarter. We try to look at trends after two or three quarters. But it is correct, and as we stated, that in terms of revenue, the best growth in the first quarter of 2016, year-over-year growth, came from China and came from the U.S. I would not read too much color into that. The only other thing that I have mentioned is, from a market is semiconductors clearly seeing an uptick. Crystallography on a product line is clearly getting a weak start. In a couple of areas, we had some weaker orders in Europe in Q1 than perhaps I had expected.
We will be monitoring that as well.
Okay.
If I can just add one.
Oh, sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, just one quick point on China. While the broader economic environment is obviously weak there is a focus on fundamental research by the Chinese government. That helps us. So to your point about where the focus markets will be, it is more on the academic side in China, going forward.
Okay. Thank you guys for all that color. Very helpful commentary, and I appreciate you taking the questions.
Our next question comes from Tycho Peterson from JP Morgan. Please go ahead with your question.
Hey, thanks. First question, just on cash flow. It was a big swing from the $76 million you put up in the fourth quarter. Obviously, there were tax payments and bonuses and things that kind of factored into that. Can you maybe just talk a little bit about how we should think about cash flow conversion for the next couple of quarters?
Yeah. The way I would look at it, Tycho, is we're still expecting the quality of earnings is improved. We're thinking cash flow should come out for the year around what net income will come out at. We're not really changing our thinking in that regard. Some of the Q1 use of cash was just because of the very high order entry we had last year this time, and all the down payments that we got on that, which we didn't have that level this year. We're not really concerned with the use in Q1 and feel that the goal for the year is achievable.
Then you guys highlighted service and aftermarket offerings as source of strength. We don't hear typically as much from you guys as maybe some of the other tool companies about pushing service. Can you maybe just talk on what you're seeing in terms of attach rates and what you see as the incremental opportunity to build out the service business?
Yeah. Without getting too quantitative, but in just about every business we are in, we have put some very focused and experienced management on service and aftermarket business. That is true in Bruker BioSpin. That would be true in our Optics business, in Daltonics, in some businesses we had started earlier, in other businesses we have started more recently. But I would say we are playing catch- up there a little bit. We are coming a little bit from behind compared to some other companies that have driven that for many years. And clearly, this is not something where you are growing to the levels that you think you should be at within a year or two, but over a five or seven-year period, I think we can get there, and we are making actually pretty good progress.
Okay. Last one on operating margin. Can you just break out price versus maybe other factors, supply chain, lean manufacturing, some of the other initiatives you have put in place in terms of contributions to the margin expansion this quarter?
No, we do not go into that level of granularity. There are many moving pieces, but we are not trying to quantitate each and every one of them.
Our next question comes from Bryan Brokmeier from Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi, good afternoon. You highlighted the strong interest that you are seeing in the NMR Honey Screener and the Wine Screener. Is the success of those products surprising you and driving any increased investments in the development of other application-specific NMR solutions?
It is driving additional investment in application solutions, yeah. One does not always need new hardware. These systems, with the NMR FoodScreener, we have a very good basic platform, and we are expanding that as a project for edible oils, as a project for spices. Some of them sometimes are even in part government-funded, because government and government regulators have an interest in that. So yeah, we are expanding and accelerating our investments in other applied markets where the very high degree of automation, you do not need any separation, no GC, no LC, and you get very good quantitation with NMR. It is not a trace detection method because of its sensitivity, but it is just outstanding and giving you sort of an overview of the top 100, 200 metabolites and a metabolic fingerprint that is very quantitative and easy sample prep, no separation. Many things that are favorable.
Now, having said all of that, it starts from a small base. It is not really moving the needle yet in a very major way. But it is getting there, and it is seeing some of the best growth rates within Bruker and within the BioSpin group, within the NMR business. So we are pretty excited about it. And we think it has a lot of runway in the applications that we have launched already. Wine, pretty big market. Honey, perhaps a little esoteric, but interesting if a lot of people switch over to it or it becomes the de facto standard. And I think there is many, from other alcoholic beverages to other, as I said, edible oils, spice, other things, as many more applied food markets. There are also the clinical research markets for clinical metabolomics, where NMR is also seeing increasing success.
Very enthusiastic about it, but we caution everybody, it is not moving the needle in a big way yet in 2016. But by 2017, 2018, at the growth rate which we are going, this will become more and more interesting. And I think it is going to be a good margin business.
Okay. Do you have any update on the TissueT yper, such as where you are with the development of the library or when we could really start to see this out in the market?
Yeah, I would say that has a bit of a slow start simply because there isn't much content yet and really the early adopters that are then looking to develop content and libraries and so on, they will be getting going through the remainder of this year. So in terms of commercial impact, the TissueT yper is even smaller. It may have very big opportunities over a long time period, 7-10 years. But in terms of short-term commercial impact, it is rather modest, and it really takes, I think, a lot of patience and some investment by us, quite honestly, to work with key opinion leaders and to build out that content and to look what are the best type of applications. Is it more towards proteomic liquid biopsies? Is it in the direction of anatomical pathology? There is a lot of opportunities.
Luckily, we don't have to wait for-- we sell a lot into clinical research, but I think at this point, this market is starting slowly.
Our next question comes from Steve Beuchaw from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead with your question.
Good afternoon. Just two clarification questions for Tony, and then one more of a perspective question for Frank. Tony, the CALID order, I believe it was referred to as a large legacy order, that saw delivery in the quarter. Was that in the full-year guidance, and what was the original timing expectation? Second clarification, also for Tony, was on tax. Was this resolution of an issue contemplated in the original guidance for the full year, and does this give you any bias relative to the tax guidance range? Then I'll just go ahead and round it out. Just one for Frank. Frank, it'd be really helpful to hear you spend a minute on how you want to go about rolling out some of the new functionality on the MALDI Biotyper. Some of this functionality on resistance testing was pretty widely anticipated.
I know it's early days, but it'd be really helpful to hear you talk about how you want to see that roll out. Thanks.
Steve, on the first question, yes, it was contemplated in the plan and guidance and in Q1 as well. Yes to both of those. On the tax, basically, we had a reversal of a reserve because of a completion of a tax audit. We've changed sort of our transfer pricing strategy. We won't have these needs for these reserves going forward. That was kind of a one-off, not contemplated. But it's hard to project these things as well. The range continues to be the 25%-28% that we have out there. Could another discrete item come up? That's possible, but we're not counting on that at this point. I think the third question was-
Yeah. On the new functionality for the MALDI Biotyper workflow for strain typing and high-value resistance. You're right. We've been working on this for some time, and we've talked about it as work in progress. To put together all the kits and to really begin to validate that, does take some time, and we were very pleased that ECCMID in Amsterdam, that about a month ago or less than a month ago, we introduced, initially, a research use-only kit for the carbapenemase resistance mechanism, which is very relevant, very important. We hope to get that towards an IVD-CE status, where we can sell it not only into research but into routine clinical microbiology in Europe and some other countries by the end of this year or early next year. Before that gets FDA or Chinese FDA clearance, it's likely to be at least another year after that.
So some of these things build up slowly. But I think they could, over time, grow into something pretty significant and an additional growth curve more on the consumables and aftermarket, for the MALDI Biotyper. I would add, and hopefully that's not too much detail, we were actually encouraged in that we got some additional resistance mechanisms for which we didn't even have to develop new kits. But by introducing a very robust software and methods for strain typing beyond the species ID that we've offered all along, for strain typing as a research use-only feature, we've actually been able to discover some important additional resistance mechanisms. We didn't expect that that would lead us to additional resistance mechanisms, and that the proteomic fingerprinting approach that we're using would already be amenable to that.
But we were delighted to actually get some easy wins there with additional resistance mechanisms for which we don't even have to develop a different workflow and kits. So that was, in a way, a bonus and was introduced at the same time. That exceeded my expectations as of even a few months ago. But it will also take some time before this moves the needle. On the other hand, all this additional work in research use only and then IVD-CE, new capabilities that are being released or that are in the pipeline for 2017, certainly also increases the demand and the competitive positioning for our system overall. So, we're actually really quite delighted with what we've been introducing there, as additional capabilities beyond fast identification on the MALDI Biotyper workflow.
Our next question comes from Jonathan Groberg from UBS. Please go ahead with your question.
Great. Thanks. Frank, could you be willing to quantify, maybe for the quarter or trailing six months, what your book-to-bill is? If you want to be specific, is it just north of, can you say whether it's north of one, south of one?
Yeah, we don't quantify our orders and our backlog or book-to-bill. I gave one hint and a little bit of color in that, last year in Q1, we had very strong, really unusually strong NMR orders, whereas this year, Q1 NMR orders were at a normal, healthy level.
Yeah, I got that on a year-over-year basis, but just for all the progress. I guess, a lot of people are just trying to figure out, would you be willing to say the first quarter results, were they in line with your plan overall, or were things better than you expected? I guess just relative to your expectations going into the first quarter, how would you kind of qualitatively describe how the quarter played out?
Well, it was mixed. Generally, it was positive. Cash flow started a little slower than we had expected. Gross margin was fine. There was a steady increase over the average for last year. We just had an unusual comparison from high gross margin in Q1 of last year. OpEx was a little better than we had expected. As was discussed earlier on the call, we weren't sure that we would have the gigahertz in Q1. We thought more likely that would be after an iteration, perhaps in Q2 or even Q3. We're delighted that it worked sort of on first try. So that's I think a reasonable perspective. Mostly positive, but as always, not everything going perfectly in one quarter.
Our next question comes from Ross Muken from Evercore ISI.
Hey, guys. It's Luke in for Ross. I guess it's just on the, you guys announced a lot of new products at the beginning of the year and the end of last year. Could you quantify the contribution of those new products to this quarter's growth?
I don't mean to frustrate you, but we don't do that either. As is the case with many of our new products, when the press release comes out, people get excited, but until they're funded, that often takes another six months. Until we then deliver and turn things into revenue, in a way where it begins to move the needle. Sorry, I've been using that terminology too much today. Often is a year from the release of a new product. Of course, for a kit or a consumable or a service offering, it's much faster. Bottom line is we don't quantify the impact of each product. We're sometimes giving some color, as I have on a number of the products we've released. But we don't go into it quantitatively for competitive reasons, quite honestly.
Our next question comes from Amanda Murphy from William Blair.
Hi, this is Arco in for Amanda Murphy. I just had a question about the IDP market and how that is developing. Maybe you could add some more color beyond funding in terms of customer readiness.
Secondly, given the tough comps from last year following large detection orders, maybe you could add some color as to where the largest growth drivers you think will be situated in the business for this year. Thanks.
You were asking about IDPs, intrinsically disordered proteins, or IVD-
Yes.
in vitro diagnostic? I'm sorry.
IDP. Thank you.
IDP. First of all, the announcement that the first gigahertz system with a shielded magnet has been installed successfully at a customer site, I think is a pivotal event to get demand going. A lot of customers have said, "Well, yeah, we believe it when you see it. Yeah, you've been talking about it, but once you've really got it installed and we see publications of these systems, then we may very well go out and get funding from our funding agencies," or wherever they get their funding from around the world. I think for IDP, for our business around this, the first installation is key, even though before that generates that additional funding, additional business, it's going to be more than a year. Nevertheless, a key event.
One other point that I would like to make is that if you recall, in early April or late March, we had a very large order that included an additional gigahertz system from the Weizmann Institute, and that had a number of other MRI and EPR and other magnetic resonance research technologies. But the biggest ticket item was an additional third gigahertz instrument, something probably would go into revenue next year. So, I think there is some incremental funding. More importantly, I think this is a pivotal event. Hey, this stuff really works now, and look what customers can do with it. So I think that will generate a lot of fundraising activity.
Our next question comes from Derik de Bruin from Bank of America, Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi, it's actually Michael Ryskin calling in for Derik. Congrats on the quarter. I just had a quick follow-on question. Something you were talking about, you called out a lot in the slides was actually back to back. You're talking about the 1 GHz system, the really high-end NMRs, but then you're also talking about some of the lower-end applied markets. You talked about how the FoodScreener is coming off of a low base and hasn't really moved the needle for you, I'm going to use your phrase. Just wondering where you see that growing long- term, over the course of the year and further out, how big you see the applied markets getting for Bruker, as opposed to some of the more traditional academic settings.
And as a follow-on on that, also in terms of how we should think of your R&D spend and where you're looking to innovate, what the shift is for you in terms of innovating more towards the higher-end instruments versus applications or additional modules for the FoodScreener.
Okay. Taking it in sequence then, Mike. This is fairly long- term, perhaps by 2018 or so and beyond, I could see that the ultra-high field segment, at least for a few years, could be something like a $50 million- $75 million revenue contributor per year. Not yet this year and not yet next year, but by 2018, 2019, we might get to these type of run rates. And actually, somewhat similar numbers are maybe feasible for the applied food and clinical metabolomics markets for NMR. So those still will not be the largest markets of NMR. There is the traditional core bread-and-butter business, of course, that is larger. But those would be areas that are growing from a small base and really would contribute nicely to the growth rate.
As a three-to-five-year estimate, each one of these market segments, the ultra-high field for IDPs and NMR applied to structural biology, to globular proteins that are larger than when it is possible today. That is also happening in parallel, in addition to all the IDP excitement and the applied markets, food analysis, authenticity, and clinical metabolomics could each be a $50 million- $75 million segment perhaps in three to five years from now. Accordingly, we are actually investing about equally in both of them.
We are investing in HTS materials and magnet technology and new probe technology. We are also investing a lot in pr oprietary models and algorithms and collaborations with customers for new applications. I would weigh them equally, roughly. We are also investing a lot in pharma applications and NMR. We did not talk about that today, but there is a lot of development going on that maybe I will highlight on a future earnings call.
Our next question comes from Dan Arias from Citigroup. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon, and apologies, but I just wanted to go back and take one more shot at understanding the impact of NMR here. Tony, I appreciate that you're not looking to call out the financials associated with specific deals, but can you maybe just help us with roughly how much of the 250 basis points about margin expansion came from the overall BioSpin segment during the quarter?
It had a strong contribution, of course, but there was a lot of offsets as well with our industrial businesses. Some unfavorable mix we had in the quarter, as we said, in CALID and in other areas. NMR was a significant driver of revenue and profitability in the quarter. But as we talked earlier, that's been expected, that's in our plans, and it's come earlier as well. Also, NMR had a pretty weak start last year, actually, in the first two quarters of last year. So there's also a question of the year-over-year comparison.
Okay. If I just look at the implied step down in expansion for the next couple of quarters, to the extent that you have visibility on that, is there any way that you might steer us towards modeling the year-over-year expansion to get to the 100 basis points for the year over 2Q, 3Q, and 4Q?
Well, I think when we put our guidance out last quarter, we did say that a lot of the growth comes in the second half of the year, and with the growth comes the profits as well. That is going to continue. I think when you look at the first half, things will get back in line with what we were thinking, but most of it comes in the second half.
Okay, thank you.
Our next question comes from Isaac Ro from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead with your question.
Thanks for the question. It is actually Joel in for Isaac. Can you provide any color on the competitive dynamics you are seeing in the low to mid end of the NMR market, just given some investments by a competitor of yours?
Yeah. I would say the non-biological routine, NMR chemistry and materials NMR is competitive and perhaps getting more competitive again in more geographies. We acknowledge that our Japanese competitor is making some investments and expanding into additional geographies, if you will.
Are you guys seeing any changes in customer demand patterns in Japan, just given the moves we have seen in currency year to date?
Demand in Japan, except in semiconductor, where it is, of course, some semiconductor and data storage is also in Japan, not elsewhere in Southeast Asia, also in China. Other than that semiconductor metrology piece, which is ticking up, at least for us a little bit because of our new tools, customer demand in Japan mostly has continued to be relatively weak. The yen helps us a little bit.
Yeah, I was just going to say, although, we get some benefit where the yen is now in our operating profit.
Mm-hmm. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Sung Ji Nam from Avondale Partners. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just sorry, one more question on NMR. Frank, could you maybe clarify for something like the 1 GHz NMR that you launched, is that largely driving? Obviously, it's not a high volume system, but is that driving a faster replacement cycle, or are there opportunities to further expand the market as well? And then, I guess additionally, do you guys see additional opportunities for pricing increases for NMR in general, or has it been pretty normalized for your typical growth rates? Thanks.
Sung Ji, I think, the gigahertz NMR class is a new class by itself. That's new investment. That's not a replacement cycle at all. And yeah, we do see that business, hopefully, the gigahertz NMR space could, as I said earlier, might increase to something north of $50 million for us annually, by 2018 or 2019 from obviously pretty modest levels right now. It's not a replacement business. The step change in NMR pricing that we took last year, and that's now starting to show a little bit in Q4, more throughout this year, and some of it, of course, is going into 2017. I think that's really the one-time larger opportunity.
In NMR, like in any other business, we're gradually increasing our service and aftermarket costs and for some new products, of course, if they offer more customer value and unique value propositions, we try to get good margins on that. But I think this was a one-time step change in NMR pricing, which really was badly needed after many years of deteriorating pricing, and that wasn't entirely rational in my opinion. But I think that you should think of that as a one-time event. That, however, has an effect over almost a two-year subsequent period, and we're sort of just at the beginning of that.
Our final question today comes from Eric Criscuolo from Mizuho. Please go ahead with your question.
Hey, good afternoon. The 2016 tax guidance range of 25%-28%, is that a range that we can kind of expect over the longer- term, or do you have any tax planning programs or initiatives to try to bring that down a little bit longer- term?
No. We are considering a lot of options we have on the tax planning side, and we have initiatives going on as we speak around that. But you characterized it well. It will have more of a longer-term effect. Of course, for any tax planning program to be effective, it needs to be operationally driven, and that is really what we are focused on. So there is plenty of opportunity, but it will not be short-term. It will be more thoughtful and over a period of time.
Okay. Then just on your end markets in general, Frank, is there any ones that you want to call out in particular that either significantly improved or significantly declined from the fourth quarter into this quarter?
If I have to highlight two things, a little bit more concerned about Europe after Q1 and a little more confidence in semiconductor metrology tools.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the allotted time for today's question- and- answer session. At this time, I would like to turn the conference call back over to Mr. Joshua Young for any closing remarks.
Thank you, Jamie. I would like to thank everybody for joining us this evening. Bruker will be presenting at several investor healthcare conferences during the second quarter, and we invite you to schedule a meeting with the management team. Additionally, for those investors attending the Analytica conference in Munich next week, Bruker will host a press conference on Wednesday, May 11th from 12:00 to 1:15 Central European Time, and a private booth tour for investors will take place immediately after the press conference from 1:30 to 2:30 Central European Time at Hall A2.310. Bruker is also going to host a press conference at the ASMS conference in San Antonio, Texas, on Monday, June 6th. The press conference will take place from 8:00 A.M. to 9:00 A.M. Central Time in the Texas Ballroom A of the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
We invite you to meet us at these conferences or visit us at our headquarters in Billerica, Massachusetts. Thank you and have a good evening.
Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we will conclude today's conference call. We do thank you for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.