FULL YEAR RESULTS 2023

Financial highlights fiscal year 2023

•      Orders € 1,061.6 million, in line with 2022

•      Sales € 1,050.1 million, -1% versus sales in 2022 (+1% at constant currencies)

•      Orderbook year-end € 494.8 million, in line with last year

•      EBITDA € 142.5 million versus € 126.5 million in 2022, for an EBITDA margin of 13.6%

•      Adjusted EBIT € 102.1 million compared to € 90.1 million in 2022

•      Free Cash Flow € 38.0 million versus € 13.1 million in 2022

•      Net earnings € 80.2 million versus € 75.2 million in 2022

•      Proposal to increase gross dividend to € 0.48 per share versus € 0.44 last year

Executive summary

Group topline – orders and sales in line with last year

Order intake for 2023 was 1,061.6 million euro, slightly above 2022. This result was driven by Entertainment, where demand surged for laser projectors for Cinema and other applications, followed by Enterprise.  Healthcare declined, mainly in the Americas.

Sales amounted to 1,050.1 million euro, in line with last year. Double-digit growth in Entertainment, mainly driven by Cinema, was offset by a small decline in Enterprise and a more pronounced decline in Healthcare.  While sales grew 4% in EMEA, sales were 4% lower year-over-year in the Americas. EMEA and Americas contributed equal percentages of the topline of 2023. Within the APAC region, there was a clear contrast between lower sales in China and double-digit growth in the other countries, resulting in a net decline of 4%.

Book-to-bill remained above 1, resulting in a strong orderbook at the end of December 2023 of 494.8 million euro, with an important uptake for the Entertainment division year-over-year.

Division topline – strong sales in Entertainment, Healthcare lagging

In Healthcare, orders and sales declined double-digit versus 2022. Sales for both Diagnostic Imaging and Surgical & Modality were impacted by high channel inventories. This followed a surge in customer orders at the end of 2022, in anticipation of possible component shortages.  This was particularly the case in the Americas and for some customers this is continuing into the first half of 2024. Also the soft demand in APAC was hampering the topline for Healthcare, driven by higher customer inventories and anti-bribery actions from the government in China targeting healthcare businesses.

Enterprise had continued strong demand for both its Meeting Experience and Large Video Walls solutions with orders up 8% year-over-year.  Sales for the division declined 4%. Meeting Experience almost equaled the strong result of last year by winning market share in a soft corporate market. The Large Video Walls orders and sales grew towards the end of the year. The business unit executed on the new strategy, with a focus on control room installations that are increasingly software-driven.

Entertainment further built on the strong momentum that began in the second half of 2022, when the supply chain constraints eased for the most part. Sales grew 15% year-over-year, with a strong contribution from Cinema. The laser cinema renewal wave is in full swing, with cinemas investing globally in superior image quality while lowering their total cost of ownership. Also Immersive Experience further grew, fueled by simulation, image processing and projectors for fixed installations, leading to record-high sales for this business unit.

Profitability & free cash flow – significant gross margin and EBITDA improvement

In 2023, the gross profit margin improved 2.8 ppts year-over-year to an all-time record of 41.8% as a result of a favorable product mix with more (embedded) software in all product lines. The biggest expansion in gross profit margin was in Entertainment, where the supply chain constraints which hampered the business in 2022 were no longer present.  

The EBITDA margin reached 13.6% for the full year, up 1.6 ppts versus last year reflecting the strong improvement in gross profit margin combined with stringent cost control in a macro-economic environment where inflation remained higher than the historical levels over the past decades. The EBITDA margin gradually improved throughout the year from 12.5% in the first half to 14.6% in the second half.

Free cash flow for 2023 was 38.0 million euro compared to 13.1 million euro in 2022. The realized net operating cash flow reached 100.8 million euro versus 31.5 million euro in 2022. Executing on our strategy, capital expenditures doubled versus last year including investments in the new factories and in the Cinema-as-a-Service model. Inventory started to decrease but remains a focus area for 2024.

Quote of the CEOs, An Steegen and Charles Beauduin

An Steegen and Charles Beauduin commented: “From a top-line perspective, 2023 was a challenging year. The recovery from the pandemic in China was slower than expected, and the Healthcare markets performed below expectations, partly driven by higher than normal customer inventories. On the other hand, the Entertainment division delivered very strong results, and Meeting Experience gained market share.

Meanwhile, we took important steps on the execution of our strategy: we opened new factories, we established a simplified organization, and we invested further in innovation. It’s good to see that Barco is capitalizing on these efforts, demonstrated by the solid gross profit and EBITDA margin improvements.
We’d like to thank our teams for their contributions to this progress in our journey. In 2024 we will continue to focus on innovation with our ground-breaking visualization and collaboration technologies, and we are looking forward to numerous new product introductions.”

Outlook FY24

The following statements are forward looking on a like-for-like basis and actual results may differ materially

For 2024, while the macro-economic and market conditions remain uncertain, we assume a return to normalized customer inventory levels, and we plan for multiple new product launches over the course of the year. 

Management expects topline for the year to be in line with 2023, with a gradual year-over-year increase as of the second quarter. From 2025, we expect to resume topline growth on a full year basis.

The EBITDA margin is expected to further improve and be above 14% for the full year 2024.

Dividend

Barco’s Board of Directors will propose to the General Assembly to distribute a gross dividend of 0.48 euro per share, up 0.04 euro versus last year’s dividend of 0.44 euro.

Disclaimer
This press release may contain forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the current views of management regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Barco is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release in light of new information, future events or otherwise. Barco disclaims any liability for statements made or published by third parties and does not undertake any obligation to correct inaccurate data, information, conclusions or opinions published by third parties in relation to this or any other press release issued by Barco.

About Barco
Barco is a global company with headquarters in Kortrijk (Belgium). Our visualization and collaboration technology helps professionals accelerate innovation in the healthcare and enterprise and entertainment markets. We count over 3,300 visioneers, whose passion for technology is captured in over 900 unique patents.
Barco is a listed company (Euronext: BAR; Reuters: BARBt.BR; Bloomberg: BAR BB) and realized sales of 1,050 million euro in 2023.
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