ExOne announced their financial results for the quarter, and it seems they’ve incurred some COVID-19 effects.
The company, which produces sand and metal 3D printers, as well as providing services, is notable in that they are one of the very few large, publicly traded 3D printer manufacturers — the others being Stratasys and 3D Systems. As such, these three must report to the public their financials and thus we have a way to gain some insight into the industry as a whole.
ExOne’s 2020Q2 results were recently released, and they show, unsurprisingly, a bit of a dent in revenues. Their quarterly revenue dropped by 27% to US$11.1M, from US$15.3.
The majority of the dip was attributed to sales of 3D printers, which dropped by about half. Other revenue sources brought the total up to only a 27% drop. Coincidentally, this is almost identical to Stratasys’ revenue drop of 27.9%. Because of this we might be able to say that the 3D printer business has taken a dip of that amount as a whole.
One thing to remember about ExOne is that their machines are high-priced units and they sell only a few per year, quite unlike some other 3D printer companies that produce lower-cost equipment and sell thousands per year. ExOne reported they sold only eight units in the quarter, generating US$4.9M. This represents an average price per unit of US$612K each.
Their average unit sales price for 2019Q2 was higher at US$715K, so the mix of machine models sold this quarter was a bit less than optimal.
However, with so few unit sales it’s easy to get big swings in revenue and percentages, so I’m not fussed about this at all. If even one or two customers changed their orders, then you could see this effect.
One good thing to see is that ExOne is maintaining their research and development funding levels, so we will continue to see new products from the company as before. It would be a bad sign to see a company cutting off their future development, as that would indicate severe financial challenges.
While the company officially posted a loss of US$4M in the quarter, this could easily be made up next quarter with a couple of sales transactions. See what I mean about the chunkiness of large-priced items? In fact, their first half revenue is almost identical to 2019’s US$25M, even including this not-so-great quarter.
ExOne also has significant cash reserves to withstand losses, with cash equivalents totaling over US$20M, and what seems to be another US$10M in credit available to them, with no significant outstanding borrowing at this time. In other words, they seem to be in pretty good shape, similar to Stratasys’ position.
For companies like ExOne and Stratasys, now is the time to capitalize on the renewed interest in 3D printing technologies generated by supply chain effects in the pandemic.
Via BusinessWire
