Announcing Xaar’s results for calendar year 2022 today (28 March) CEO John Mills said that Aquinox had been well received by customers who’ve taken test kits.
The aqueous head was launched four months ago, and is billed as having a potentially transformative effect on a number of markets due to its jetting capabilities.
“We’ve made assertions about the product and the really gratifying thing is that customers that have tested it have validated the points we made,” Mills said.
“What we’ve found is that we can actually formulate the ink to be much higher viscosity, with much more pigment, and because of that you don’t need a primer. And because you’re putting twice as much pigment into the ink, you effectively print quicker.”
He said that customers had found net productivity to be significantly higher because of these factors.
The first machines being developed will be for textiles and direct-to-garment (DTG) printing using pigmented ink. Aquinox can also handle reactive dye inks.
Corrugated is another key target market for the head.
Despite supply chain challenges and sales in Asia falling by nearly a third because of the lockdowns in China, Xaar posted overall sales on continuing operations up 23% to £72.8m, while gross profit jumped by 42% to £28.6m.
Adjusted EBITDA almost doubled, to £6.2m (2021: £3.2m), while the adjusted profit before tax from continuing operations was £2.8m compared to a £600,000 loss in 2021.
Mills described the business as "transformed and re-energised”.
“We have delivered strong profitable revenue growth and the important milestone of achieving full year profitability which represents great progress against our plan.”
US based direct-to-object wing EPS has been successfully turned around, and delivered its “best ever” results.
Xaar said that recent acquisitions FFEI and Megnajet had performed ahead of expectations.
Megnajet’s Kettering facility is being doubled in size to support growth in its fluid management offering.
Xaar has also invested £1.2m in reorganising its Huntingdon manufacturing facility to improve energy efficiency and manufacturing processes.
This included reducing its number of energy-intensive clean rooms from four to two.
“It’s been a massive undertaking and a huge reshuffle of kit and processes. But we have created more space and that means we can add more equipment over the next two-to-three years,” Mills explained.
The revamp took place during Q1 and was completed earlier this month.
Mills also said that OEM customers in Asia were now gearing up for growth again, and Xaar was “cautiously optimistic” there will be a pickup in business there in H2 of this year.
The business has invested heavily in stock both to maintain supplies during its factory shutdown for the reorganisation, to mitigate supply chain issues, and to be able to meet any latent demand from China.
Shares in Xaar rose by 3.33% on the results announcement, to 185.99p (52-week high: 275.00p, low: 140.00p).
