Materialise N.V. (MTLS) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Second Quarter and Half Year 2026 Materialise NV Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this call may be recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Jody Burfening, Alliance Advisors Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Michelle, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today for Materialise's quarterly conference call. With us on the call are Brigitte de Vet-Veithen, Chief Executive Officer; and Koen Berges, Chief Financial Officer. Today's call and webcast are being accompanied by a slide presentation that reviews Materialise's strategic financial and operational performance for the second quarter and first half of 2026. To access the slides, if you have not already done so, please go to the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.materialise.com. The earnings press release that was issued earlier today can also be found on that page. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that management may make forward-looking statements regarding the company's plans, expectations and growth prospects, among other things. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown uncertainties and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed, including competitive dynamics and industry change. Any forward-looking statements, including those related to the company's future results and activities, represent management's estimates as of today and should not be relied upon as representing their estimates as of any subsequent day. Management disclaims any duty to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or changes in expectations. A more detailed description of the risks and uncertainties and other factors that may impact the company's future business or financial results can be found in the company's most recent report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Finally, management will discuss certain non-IFRS measures on today's conference call. A reconciliation table is contained in the earnings release and at the end of the slide presentation. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Brigitte. Good morning, Brigitte.

Good morning, and good afternoon. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. You can find the agenda for our call on Slide 3. First, I will summarize the business highlights for the second quarter of 2026. Then I will pass the floor to Koen, who will take you through the second quarter and half year financials. Finally, I will come back and explain what we expect the remaining months of 2026 to bring. When we've completed our prepared remarks, we'll be happy to respond to questions. Moving to Slide 4 for the highlights of the second quarter 2026. I'd like to open by drawing your attention to our first half year report now available on our Investor Relations website. This report reflects our compliance with the European reporting requirements, requirements that, as announced in our first quarter earnings call, led us to deliberately schedule this second quarter earnings release later in the quarter. I'm also pleased to announce some changes in our Executive Committee, taking place as of early September. Those changes will further strengthen our leadership team and strategy execution. Annelies Missotten will join us as Chief Human Resource Officer to further strengthen our human resource agenda. Annelies brings more than 30 years of international HR leadership experience with a strong record in shaping people and organization strategies that support business growth, transformation and employee engagement. Throughout her career, she has worked primarily in the life science sector as well as in telecom and fast-moving consumer goods in both Belgium and international environments. Most recently, Annelies served as CHRO of Galapagos, now Lakefront Biotherapeutics, where she acted as a strategic adviser to the CEO and Executive Committee and led the HR function across all disciplines in an international sector. She plays an important role in supporting the company through periods of growth, transformation and organizational change while also strengthening HR as a strategic partner to the business. She brings a wealth of experience, strong energy and a people-centered leadership style that will help us further our people agenda across the organization. Second, Philippe Verlinde will join us in the newly created role as Chief Digital and Information Officer. This new role reflects the strategic importance of digital capabilities to simplify, scale and execute more effectively. Philippe brings more than 35 years of experience in technology, digital and transformation leadership. He spent 26 years at Philips and most recently, he served as the Chief Digital and Information Officer at Barco, where he led IT and software across the global footprint. Throughout his career, he led large-scale technology, product and digital transformation initiatives across engineering, consumer electronics and health care technology. He brings deep experience in cloud and connected platform capabilities as well as AI to further drive our digital agenda across our units and markets. We are also making a leadership change in medical. Our medical unit is delivering strong results as evidenced by the strong growth this quarter. In addition, we see significant opportunities ahead. To fully capitalize on these opportunities, we have decided to look for a new leader for the Medical segment, and Koen Peters will leave the company in September. The second quarter also marked the 30th anniversary of Materialise in the United States, a market that has been central to our growth strategy from the beginning. Over the years, we made several strategic acquisitions in the U.S., including OrthoView, the market leader in orthopedic digital preoperative planning software, Link3D, an additive workflow and digital manufacturing software company; and Identify3D, a company that develops software to interact, distribute and trace the flow of digital parts across complex supply chains. Today, we are one of the leading players globally, and our U.S. office and team have been very instrumental in our global success. Looking now further at our business segment highlights at the second quarter on Slide 5, starting with Medical. In the second quarter, we saw further evidence of the growing maturity of personalized care and 3D printing during the eighth edition of our 3D Planning and Printing Hospital Forum in Leuven. Where we welcomed around 200 surgeons, radiologists, clinical engineers from hospitals across Europe and beyond to discuss the use of 3D printing in the hospital. What stood out in this year's discussion was the clear shift from what is the value of personalized 3D solutions to how can we scale this in clinical practice. The continued rise of in-house hospital 3D labs is evidence that 3D printing is becoming more established and operational. Now the discussions also confirmed that Materialise is at the center of this trend, not only as a software and service provider, but as a long-term partner, helping hospitals integrate personalized care more broadly into daily practice. In the second quarter, we also announced an investment in Replasia, a Belgian med tech start-up developing personalized 3D printing solutions and anatomical analysis software for hip preservation. Our goal is more personalized, less invasive orthopedic treatments that help patients maintain their natural anatomy and their quality of life for as long as possible. Our current hip portfolio is focused on replacement. Strategically, the investment in Replasia strengthens our position across the full spectrum of personalized hip care and complements our existing portfolio to hip preservation solutions. Preservation will play an important role as the market shifts towards less invasive approaches. A similar shift to less invasive approaches is happening in markets outside of orthopedics. One example in CMF, cranio-maxillofacial is Minimally Invasive Orthognathic Surgery or MIOS, a technique that allows surgeons to perform jaw surgery through smaller incisions. Smaller incisions mean that more patients will opt for surgery. At the same time, smaller incisions require a high level of precision during the surgery, and that is an area where Materialise is well positioned with our software and device portfolio. A strong proof point of our position was the International MIOS meeting in Brazil in June, which brought together more than 200 maxillofacial experts from 13 countries and where we train surgeons in hands-on cadaver labs to perform the surgery in a safe and effective way. Turning now to Software. In the second quarter, we officially released CO-AM Pro to the market on May 15, 1 month ahead of schedule. CO-AM Pro is our cloud-based solution integrated with Magics that brings AM data management and build preparation together in one workflow, making it easier for teams to collaborate, standardize processes and automate recurring tasks. It centralizes AM data, giving users one source of the truth of the data across teams. We also formally released the CO-AM Bricks offering, our automation platform that helps users reduce manual work, for example, in the new product introduction process and helps embed AM know-how more easily into their daily operations. Early customer onboarding since launch gives us encouraging initial validation of the offering. In addition, we have started the early adopter programs of CO-AM NPI and CO-AM Enterprise. Together, these steps mark the structural expansion of our Magics installed base into a connected platform that grows with customers over time. Turning to Manufacturing now. Following the agreements we announced at the end of the first quarter, we completed the transfer of our RapidFit business to its management team on April 30 and the transfer of our Eyewear business on July 1. With these closings, both businesses now continue independently under the existing leadership with greater focus and flexibility to pursue the next phase of growth. For Materialise, these completed transactions are an important step in sharpening our portfolio and concentrating capital, resources and leadership attention on the business lines with the strongest long-term scaling potential. In the case of Eyewear, we retain a 20% minority stake, reflecting our continued confidence in the business. Looking at the second quarter results in Manufacturing, Aerospace remains a strong growth area for us with 40% revenue growth realized in the second quarter. This reflects our strong position in this space. A good example of our capabilities is a recent project with Lufthansa Technik. The project involved a small part in an aircraft cabin component that repeatedly failed in service and could not be sourced individually, meaning the entire assembly had to be replaced each time. By redesigning that part for additive manufacturing and producing it as a certified stand-alone component, Lufthansa Technik was able to turn a costly recurring replacement into a faster and significantly more cost-effective repair. Following this project, Materialise was named an official workbench for Lufthansa Technik metal parts, an important proof point of the trust we have built in certified aerospace production. Also in the second quarter, we continued to build momentum in the defense market. Additive manufacturing can provide real value in defense by enabling spare parts and critical components to be produced closer to where they are needed, reducing dependence on vulnerable supply chains. With our combination of software and manufacturing capabilities, Materialise is well positioned to support that shift. In the second quarter, the Belgian Cyber Force and the Royal Higher Institute for Defense selected Materialise to lead a research consortium with Sirus and Innocom called Strike IP. The project focuses on secure and reliable digital manufacturing of spare parts, ensuring that digital files remain protected throughout the production process. Our Identify3D and CO-AM technology will be instrumental in this project to build trust in additive manufacturing for mission-critical environments like defense and help make digital supply chains more resilient. Turning over to Koen now, who will present the financial results.

Thank you, Brigitte. Good morning or good afternoon to all of you on this call. I will begin with a brief overview of our key financial results for Q2 of 2026, shown on Slide 6. In the second quarter, we delivered broad-based growth across the business with consolidated revenue growing by more than 8% year-on-year to EUR 70.1 million. Gross profit increased to EUR 39.8 million, resulting in a gross margin of 56.8%. Importantly, profitability continued to scale faster than revenue with adjusted EBIT reaching now EUR 3.9 million and our adjusted EBIT margin expanding to 5.5%, reflecting stronger operating leverage across our business. Net profit for the quarter amounted to EUR 3.3 million or EUR 0.06 per share. Our balance sheet and cash generation remain key strategic strengths, giving us the flexibility to invest for future growth. Supported by strong operating cash flow and continued debt reduction, we increased our net cash position to EUR 74.2 million, up EUR 3.4 million compared to the start of the year. We also continued our share buyback program, investing EUR 5.2 million during the first half of 2026. I will now walk you through these results in more detail. As a reminder, all comparisons are versus the second quarter and the first 6 months of 2025. Slide 7 provides an overview of our consolidated revenue. In Q2 2026, consolidated revenue reached EUR 70.1 million, up by 8% compared to the same period of last year. Growth continued to be led by Medical with revenue increasing by more than 12% in another quarter of double-digit expansion, reinforcing its position as our primary growth engine. Also, Manufacturing grew by nearly 7% year-over-year, reflecting the benefits of our strategic repositioning towards higher-value series manufacturing. Software, on the other hand, declined by 3%, reflecting cautious customer spending and extended sales cycles in the current industrial environment, although the high level of recurring revenue continues to support resilience of our business model. As shown on the right-hand side, Medical represented 53% of total revenue in Q2 with Manufacturing at 34% and Software at 14%. For the half year 2026, our revenue totaled EUR 136.3 million, up by nearly 4% compared to the same period last year. Our deferred revenue balance for software maintenance and license fees coming from both Medical and Software decreased in Q2 to EUR 46.5 million, but in line with normal seasonal renewal patterns. The total deferred revenue reported on our balance sheet stood at EUR 63 million at the end of the second quarter. Turning now to Slide 8. I'd like to highlight the progress we continue to make on profitability. In the second quarter, adjusted EBITDA reached EUR 9.6 million, an increase of almost 16% year-on-year, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 13.7%. Adjusted EBIT improved to EUR 3.9 million compared to EUR 3.1 million in the prior year quarter, resulting in a 5.5% adjusted EBIT margin. For the half year, adjusted EBITDA rose to EUR 17.6 million, representing a margin of 12.9%, while adjusted EBIT increased sharply to EUR 6.4 million, representing a margin of 4.7%. This clear margin expansion reflects revenue growth, disciplined cost management, operational efficiencies and a sharper focus on our core growth segments as we execute our strategy across our various business units. These results once more demonstrate the resilience of our business model and our ability to improve profitability despite the still challenging macroeconomic environment. Let me now turn to our business segments, starting with Materialise Medical as shown on Slide 9. Medical revenue increased by more than 12% year-on-year, and that growth was primarily driven by Medical Devices, which grew 19% across our partner and direct sales channels, partly offset by a minus 4% realized in our Medical Software segment. Adjusted EBITDA increased to EUR 11.6 million, representing a strong 31% EBITDA margin, while we continued to increase targeted R&D investments to support future growth opportunities. For the half year, Medical segment revenue increased by nearly 10% to EUR 70 million, with adjusted EBITDA reaching EUR 20.8 million at a consistent margin of 30%. Slide 10 summarizes the results of our Materialise Software segment. In Q2 2026, Software revenue decreased, as said, by 3% to EUR 9.6 million, reflecting the cautious customer spending and extended sales cycles we continue to see in the current industrial environment. During the quarter, 86% of our software revenue can now be considered to be recurring, while we are approaching the final stages of our transition from perpetual licenses to recurring subscription model. Adjusted EBITDA in Q2 showed a decline to EUR 1 million, reflecting the impact of lower revenue combined with ongoing investments in our new product functionality. As already mentioned by Brigitte, in Q2, we fully launched CO-AM Pro ahead of plan, and this release marks an important strategic milestone for our future growth. For the half year, Software segment revenue totaled EUR 19.2 million, 2% below 2025. Despite softer revenue, profitability improved with adjusted EBITDA for the first half reaching EUR 2.1 million, representing a margin of 10.9%. Turning now to Slide 11. This slide covers our Manufacturing segment. Manufacturing revenue increased nearly 7% to EUR 23.6 million despite the unfavorable revenue impact of the RapidFit divestment. The return to growth reflects continued traction in our strategic focus segments, particularly Aerospace and Defense. This growth in series manufacturing was still partly offset by continued weakness in prototyping demand in Q2. Alongside top line growth, disciplined cost control drove an improved adjusted EBITDA, landing now at minus EUR 0.3 million compared to minus EUR 0.8 million in the prior year period. This improvement demonstrates that our cost actions and portfolio optimization efforts are beginning to translate into improved operating performance. For the half year, the Manufacturing revenue remained fairly stable, declining only slightly to EUR 47.1 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin -- sorry, adjusted EBITDA improving to breakeven. During the quarter, we successfully completed the divestment of RapidFit and announced also the sale of our Eyewear business, which in the meantime was successfully closed on July 1. The latter was recorded as an asset held for sale in our consolidated Q2 financials with EUR 0.7 million of asset impairments impacting that we adjusted for. These actions sharpen the strategic focus of our Manufacturing segment and allow us to allocate our capital and resources towards core growth priorities. With the segment results now covered, Slide 12 outlines our consolidated income statement, showing the drivers behind our improved profitability. Gross profit increased to EUR 39.8 million with the gross margin remaining fairly stable at 56.8%. Operating expenses in the quarter increased by 3.9%, reflecting targeted growth investments while maintaining our overall cost discipline. We continue to invest in innovation with total R&D spending exceeding EUR 12 million for the quarter, which reflects an increase of 11% year-on-year. For the half year, total operating expenses increased by only 2% compared to the prior year period, with the increase again driven by higher R&D investments, while G&A and S&M remained stable. Other operating income decreased in the quarter to EUR 0.8 million compared to EUR 1.3 million last year. The Q2 2026 figure includes nonrecurring charges of EUR 0.7 million related to an asset impairment on the transfer of eyewear. As a result of all this, operating profit reached EUR 2.8 million for the quarter. For the half year, this figure stood at EUR 4.9 million versus EUR 3.3 million in the first half of 2025. This improvement reflects the combined impact of revenue growth, stronger operational execution and disciplined cost management. The net financial income for the quarter was limited to EUR 0.2 million, driven by interest income on cash balances and interest expense on debt. The impact from currency fluctuations remained limited in Q2 of this year. Income tax benefit amounted to EUR 0.3 million. Overall, this resulted in an increased net profit of EUR 3.3 million or EUR 0.06 per share. For the half year, net profit totals EUR 5.1 million or EUR 0.09 per share. Finally, let's review now our balance sheet and cash flow position, which remains a key strength for Materialise on Slide 13. Our cash reserve at the end of the quarter amounted to EUR 133.7 million, while our gross debt was further reduced to EUR 59.5 million. Our resulting net cash position increased to EUR 74.2 million, up by more than EUR 3.4 million compared to the beginning of this year, primarily driven by strong operating cash flow generation. At the same time, we invested EUR 5.2 million over the first 6 months of this year through our share buyback program on NASDAQ, acquiring close to 1.1 million ADSs, representing 1.8% of our total share base by June 30, 2026. Compared to the balance sheet at year-end 2025, net working capital components increased by EUR 3.9 million, driven by higher inventory levels of finished products and work in progress, higher receivables and lower outstanding payables. Deferred income increased to EUR 62.6 million, including EUR 46.5 million related to software licenses and maintenance. As you can see from the graph on the right side of the page, the operating cash flow in the second quarter amounted to more than EUR 8 million. Capital expenditures totaled EUR 2 million, almost all of which is recurring. Even with continued investments in growth initiatives, we again delivered solid free cash flow generation in this quarter, with cash flow after investing activities amounting to EUR 5.6 million. For the half year, operational cash flow was EUR 50 million, significantly up from the same period in 2025. Combined with lower CapEx, this resulted in a free cash flow of more than EUR 11.4 million, almost double of last year. For the first half of 2026, CapEx totaled EUR 3.4 million and remained well below prior year levels. Recurring CapEx of EUR 2.7 million was primarily focused on machinery, while nonrecurring CapEx fell to EUR 0.1 million -- EUR 0.8 million, primarily reflecting investments in our internal digital transformation programs. With that, I'd like to hand the call back to Brigitte.

Thank you, Koen. Let's now turn to Page 14. I'll open my remarks with a discussion of our full year 2026 guidance. Our solid first half year performance reinforces our confidence in delivering on our financial targets. The strategic actions we are taking to sharpen our portfolio and to focus on strategic growth segments, combined with the targeted investments we are making across our 3 segments are enhancing operational performance and positioning Materialise for profitable growth. Accordingly, we are reaffirming our full year 2026 revenue guidance of EUR 273 million to EUR 283 million, fully absorbing the expected unfavorable revenue impact of the RapidFit and Eyewear divestments. At the same time, we are increasing our full year adjusted EBIT guidance to EUR 12 million to EUR 14 million from the earlier communicated range of EUR 10 million to EUR 12 million, reflecting the strength of our execution and our continued discipline in managing costs and capital. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we are now ready to open the call to questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Alexander Craeymeersch with Kepler Cheuvreux.

So the first one would be on Medical. We saw a reacceleration to 12% year-on-year growth in Q2, and that came after that softer Q1. So I'm wondering what changed sequentially? Can we hold up this double-digit growth? I know that's the target, but how -- like can we expect it to be sustained in H2 and also in 2027, perhaps? Then maybe a related question on this would be, if I look at the underlying drivers, we see medical software down 5% and then devices and services increasing 19%. So the question on this is, how do we need to look at this? Is this basically less customers trying to make the design themselves and opting to outsource the design service to you and hence, there is less need for software? So that's the question on Medical. Then the second question I have would be on basically 2026 EBIT guidance. You guide for EUR 12 million to EUR 14 million in EBIT. Of course, you already delivered EUR 6.4 million in the first half. In the past, the budget cycles always gave you a stronger Q4, especially in Software. Is it safe to assume that you don't expect the same budget cycle to happen this year given your guidance? I will stick to these 2.

Thanks for your questions. I'll kick us off with the question on Medical. I have previously always said that the structural growth rate for Medical is double digit, but low double digits. Reasonably, a sustainable growth number that I would expect for Medical is around the 10%, which is essentially what you see for the first half of this year. That is absolutely sustainable. Of course, there can be quarter-over-quarter differences, which, again, you see what you see in Q1 and Q2 numbers, and that purely has to do with a couple of timing impacts. Now your question on the underlying drivers. We do indeed see softer software revenue and stronger device and service revenue. There's a couple of elements that explain that. One of the primary elements is on the software side, we have an academic segment that we serve and in particular, in the U.S. So those are academic centers that use our software to train their students, but also to do research based on our product. In the U.S., in particular, research grants have been reduced for the last year, and we see the impact of that in our software sales. That's a segment that we serve with our software portfolio, but not with our device and service portfolio. That's a structural difference between those 2 segments. The second aspect that we need to take into account is the domains in which we are playing and in which our software is used, which are slightly different from the market segments in which the device and services are positioned and are used. Of course, these different market segments and then I talk about anatomical areas, they are subject to different trends in reimbursement hence also affordability. Our software products historically have been positioned a little more very strongly on the orthopedic side, which is, again, particularly in the U.S., a segment where reimbursement changes have led to a bit more cautiousness from our customers' side, and that's what we feel in our software revenue. Those are the underlying drivers that differentiate our Software segment from our Device and Services segment. And I'll hand it over for Koen to tackle your second question on the 2026 EBIT guidance and the fact that you mentioned that we already delivered EUR 6.4 million in the first half of the year.

Alexander to add to that -- to answer that question, I think indeed, what we've been able to demonstrate in the first half of this year, I think that we have been able to improve our profitability and expressed EBIT or EBITDA percentage. We believe that is also largely driven by the fact that we have been able to reduce our cost structure. You have to fill in that, that is also structural cost savings that we're doing there. We are counting to continue them as well going forward. If you, of course, do an extrapolation of the current realized EBIT in the first half of the year, you would indeed end in somewhere in the middle of the guidance range that we put forward now. There is, of course, some seasonality in the quarters. The fourth quarter is typically a stronger quarter. We hope to have that as well this year, of course. But on the other hand, the summer quarter in the third quarter typically is then maybe a bit of a softer quarter typically, if you look over the trend over the past years. Probably those will compensate each other to a certain extent. That's why we see for ourselves as landing in the range between EUR 12 million to EUR 14 million of EBIT over the full year.

Does that answer your question, Alexander?

Yes.

Our next question comes from Guy Sips with KBC Securities.

Yes. First of all, congratulations with the very good results. You highlighted encouraging early adoption of CO-AM Professional and launched early adopter programs for CO-AM NPI and Enterprise and expanded your partnership with HP. Could you share how you see these initiatives contributing to software growth and recurring revenues over the next few years?

Yes. Thank you for your question, Sips. It's a very valid question because the whole CO-AM program is a strategic move, as you know, that we made a couple of years ago and that we are driving as we speak with those 3 offerings, the CO-AM Pro, CO-AM NPI and CO-AM Enterprise offering. Now the way you need to look at this program and the shift that we are making is really on the basis of our installed base of Magics, we bring additional capabilities to the market that are packaged in those 3 offerings, Pro, NPI and Enterprise. Now in particular, NPI and Enterprise for us will be growth drivers. Why? Because we position in those segments where companies have understood the value of additive manufacturing and are now in a need for capabilities to help them scale. That is exactly what NPI and Enterprise are trying to do. As an example, in the Aerospace or Defense segment, where the value of additive is well established, users already have a base of additive manufacturing. They now want to get to the next level, scale, do more and more parts with it. That's where the NPI and the Enterprise capability come in. Those will be driving our growth going forward. The Pro offering is a step into the CO-AM offering as a first step which is a critical one because we want to get customers onto our cloud platform, but the major growth drivers will come from NPI and Enterprise. Does that answer your question?

I'm showing no further questions. I'd like to turn the call back over to Brigitte de Vet for closing remarks.

Thanks again for joining us today. We look forward to continuing our dialogue with you through investor conference or in one-on-one virtual meetings and calls. In the meantime, please reach out if you have any questions. Thank you, and goodbye for now.

Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Good day.