Materialise NV

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the second quarter 2025 materialize NV Financial Results Conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers presentation there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session you will need to press star one one on your telephone.

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will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Harriet Fried of Alliance Advisors. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us today for materialize's quarterly conference call. With us on the call are Brigitte DeVette, Chief Executive Officer, and Koun Belges, Chief Financial Officer. Today's call and webcasts are being accompanied by a slide presentation that reviews materialize's strategic, financial, and operational performance for the second quarter of 2025. To access the slides if you've not already done so, please go to the investor relations section of the company's website at .materialize.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 certainties 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 annual 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 this live presentation. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Brigitte DeVette. Brigitte, go ahead, please.

Good morning and good afternoon to all of you. Thank you for joining us today. You can find the agenda for our call on slide three. First, I will summarize the business highlights for the second quarter of 2025. Then I will pass the floor to Kuhn, who will take you through the second quarter financials. Finally, I will come back and explain what we expect the remaining months of 2025 to bring. When we've completed our prepared remarks, we'll be happy to respond to questions. Moving to slide four for the highlights of the second quarter 2025. We celebrated our 35th anniversary in the second quarter of this year. 35 years ago, our founders, Friedrich and Kahn, and Hilde Ingelaar started their journey to build a better and healthier world thanks to the power of additive manufacturing. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of our employees for the incredible energy and hardship they put into growing the adoption of additive manufacturing every single day. In the 35 years, we have grown into a leading, profitable, cashflow positive company in the sector, and we keep pushing the boundaries. Our strategic position remains excellent as we benefit from the ongoing R&D investments in strategic areas driving long-term value creation in our growth segments. I am very proud that this quarter, again, we made significant progress in our medical business. As you know, in our medical business, our strategy is to grow in existing markets and in new markets in order to reach more patients with our personalized solutions. This is what we call our mass personalization strategy. Now, one of the new markets that we are developing is the respiratory markets. Two years ago, we launched a dedicated 3D surgical planning solution with a focus on addressing the challenges in thoracic surgery to treat lung cancer patients. The MIMICS Thoracic Planner. Now advances in screening and surgical techniques in that area have created an opportunity for earlier diagnosis and less invasive lung sparing procedures, but these approaches in the respiratory field are technically demanding to remove a tumor from the patient's lungs. Surgeons want to remove as much as needed for the tumor to be gone, but as little as possible in order to leave as much lung capacity for the patient after surgery. All of this while minimizing the incision to enable speedy recovery of the patient. To plan these complex interventions properly, the surgeon uses our three dimensional view on the lung lobes and segments and the airways and blood vessels that he or she cannot only view, but also engineer on. That means that he or she can simulate what happens when he or she takes a three centimeter margin around the tumor, rather than a four centimeter margin, and what lobes or segments are impacted. Now surgeons using our Mimic Thoracic Planner have reported that the software has actively helped them better understand each patient's unique anatomy and planned surgeries with precision, supporting this shift from minimally invasive care, sorry, toward minimally invasive care and lung sparing procedures. Now building on these encouraging results, we are proud to announce a pilot collaboration with Johnson & Johnson Surgical Business in EMEA to advance the adoption of this solution in the region. As a leader in surgical technologies that help clinicians and patients in the lung cancer community, Jane J will offer surgeons our planning solution alongside their full portfolio of surgical technologies. And we also keep making progress in our existing markets. One of our oldest and most mature markets is the orthopedic market, and in particular our knee guides. Knee guides are amongst the most well known and mature applications of 3D printing in the medical market. Knee guides are used to provide surgeons with surgical instrumentation that is customized to the patient's anatomy using pre-op CTs or MRIs and help surgeons to make accurate bone resections and ensure better knee implant position. Traditionally, knee implants were positioned using standardized angles, aligning them to the straight mechanical axis of the leg. Now today there's a growing trend in the market to restore the natural alignment of a patient's knee by positioning the implants based on the unique anatomy and cartilage wear, mimicking how the knee was before it was damaged. In the second quarter, we received 510K US market clearance for this personalized alignment feature in our knee planner that is used by surgeons that choose to perform surgeries with our personalized knee guides in the US. And this feature allows surgeons to tailor the knee implant positioning to each patient's unique anatomy rather than getting the leg straight, so to speak. And with this clearance, surgeons can now choose between traditional mechanical straight alignment and the new personal alignment mode. We believe that this innovation will not only provide surgeons with greater flexibility, but also advance the field of knee surgery, creating positive impacts for more patients. We will bring this feature to the US market in the third quarter. And software and manufacturing, we continue to face headwinds. Due to geopolitical volatility and the macroeconomic uncertainty impacting many of the market segments we are operating in. Customers worldwide are delaying investment decisions in order to get greater clarity around tariffs and interest rates. Now that being said, we continue to see confirmation of our strategy for the future of the US market. We continue to focus on specific customer and market segments, both in software and manufacturing. And this is particularly true in the current market reality where the growth in additive, as far as industrial markets are concerned, comes primarily from specific sectors and from users that are already familiar with additive rather than from new adopters. As a result of the specific focus on our strategic market segments within software and manufacturing, we delivered growth again on the basis of an already strong quarter two last year in those market segments. As another strategic milestone in the second quarter, we have formally announced our decision to broadly engage in and support the defense sector in light of the current geopolitical landscape and the breakdown of traditional global alliances. Given the close connection between the defense and aerospace sectors, we believe our expertise will be particularly relevant in enhancing the regional defense capabilities across land, sea, and space. Additionally, we anticipate that this broader engagement will strengthen our position in the aerospace segment and open up new opportunities in the future for both our manufacturing as well as our software segment. Last but not least, we continue to make progress on our strategic roadmap in our software segment to build partnerships to complement our -to-end workflows and enable customers to scale their additive operations more efficiently. In this context, we announced a collaboration with Scenera to establish direct connectivity between Magix SDKs and Scenera's agent AI platform for engineers. Additive manufacturing organizations often lose significant production time to manual build preparation workflows with human intervention driving up operational costs. The collaboration between Scenera and us allows users to deploy additive manufacturing agents that handle design to print tasks autonomously, helping scale throughput while reducing manual effort and costs. The new Magix SDK, launched in 2024, allows for platform integration with Magix's powerful build preparation algorithms to prepare even the most complex models for successful printing, reducing failed builds and improving part quality. The collaboration with Scenera will enable users to create -to-end automation workflows for additive manufacturing, significantly reducing build failures, ensuring models are properly prepared for printing and reducing manual efforts throughout the process. Combined with other additive manufacturing solutions in the Scenera marketplace, users can manage the complete AM workflow from design to production with an integration between design and build preparation workflows, providing the designers with immediate feedback on manufacturability and build optimization directly within one environment. Now, while our top line remains under pressure in the current market environment for the industrial division, we continue to control our costs. In the second quarter, we have announced and successfully implemented a restructuring in our manufacturing division. As part of this process, we reassessed what activities are core to our future portfolio, and we classed some of our assets as assets held for sale on our balance sheet as a result of this evaluation. These assets and activities are non-material to our activities. As the pressure on our top line persists, we will continue to manage our costs. By taking steps to reduce costs while continuing focused investment in our strategic areas, we are well positioned to capitalize on opportunities as market conditions improve. I will now turn over to Kuhn, who will present the financial results.

Thank you, Brigitte. Good morning or good afternoon to all of you on this call. I'll begin with a brief overview of our key financial results as shown on slide five. While our medical segment once again achieved high double-digit growth this quarter, total consolidated revenue decreased year over year by .8% to 64.8 million euro. Our gross profit margin remained strong and increased to .3% in the second quarter of this year, reflecting changes in our revenue mix, but also as a result of our ability to optimize direct production costs despite inflationary pressure. Adjusted EBIT for the second quarter of 2025 amounted to 3.1 million euro, showing a strong increase compared to prior quarters, despite the lower revenue that was generated, reflecting once more the positive impact of targeted cost control. The net result for the quarter amounted to a profit of 0.2 million euro, despite being impacted by large unfavorable effects from exchange rate fluctuations. During the first half of 2025, we generated a positive recash flow, which led to a net cash position of 63 million euro at the end of Q2, an increase of 2 million euro first at the beginning of the year. In the following slides, I will elaborate further on these results. As a reminder, please note that unless stated otherwise, all comparisons are against our results for the second quarter of 2024. I would also like to draw your attention to a modification we have made in the adjustments definition that we apply to our adjusted EBIT and adjusted EBITDA. As of this quarter, we will also be adjusting these non IFRS metrics for costs related to non-recurring corporate initiatives, restructurings and reorganizations. We believe this modification will allow for a more correct comparison across periods, while it brings us in line with general market practices. We do not anticipate that this modification will require a restatement of prior period results. Also in the current period, the adjustment made is immaterial to our overall results. Now turning to slide six, you will see an overview of our consolidated revenue. As already mentioned, materialized medical continued its strong performance, delivering consistent high double digit growth, with revenue increasing by almost 17% this quarter and once again, posting a quarterly revenue records. On the other hand, revenues from software and manufacturing segments were further impacted by intensified geopolitical and macroeconomic turbulence. As a result, revenue in both segments declined by 12% and 25% respectively, leading also to a decrease of .8% of our consolidated revenue compared to the same periods of last year. Now this revenue decrease also reflects the unfavorable effects from a weaker US dollar in the second quarter of 2025. As you can see in the graph on the right side of the page, materialized medical accounted for 51%, materialized software for 15%, and materialized manufacturing for 34% of our total revenue for the second quarter of 2025. In the first half of this year, we generated over 131 million euro of revenue, which is stable versus last year's same periods. At the same time, our deferred revenue balance related to software maintenance and license fees, coming both from our medical and software segments, decreased in the second quarter of this year in line with the annual seasonality pattern. Over the last 12 months, however, the balance increased by 3 million euro, bringing the total amount carried on our balance sheet at the end of the second quarter of 2025 to 46.7 million euro. On slide seven, you will see our consolidated adjusted EBIT and EBITDA numbers for the second quarter of 2025. Consolidated adjusted EBIT totaled 3.1 million euro compared to 3.9 million euro for the same period of 2024, representing an adjusted EBIT margin of 4.7%. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter amounted to 8.3 million euro, decreasing from the 9.2 million euro last year, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.8%. Given current market volatility, we believe it's also important to compare our operational performance on a -over-quarter basis. In this context, we saw significant improvement in both adjusted EBIT and EBITDA compared to the first quarter of this year. Our adjusted EBIT increased from 0.6 million euro to 3.1 million euro, while adjusted EBITDA also increased by 2.1 million euro. These improvements reflect the positive impact of disciplined cost control and targeted cost reduction measures that we have taken to safeguard operational profitability. Over the first half of 2025, we generated 3.7 million euro of adjusted EBIT and 14.4 million euro of adjusted EBITDA. Moving now to slide eight, you will notice that the revenue in our materialized medical segment increased by almost 17% compared to the second quarter of 24. This solid growth was generated by both medical software and by revenue from medical device sales, which grew respectively by 14 and 18%. Within our medical devices and services activity, we saw continued growth, both in our direct and our partner sales. In line with top line growth, adjusted EBITDA grew further to over 10.7 million euro, resulting in an increased adjusted EBITDA margin of 32.7%. We continued our planned R&D investments in medical to drive future growth, while we achieved strategically important milestones during the second quarter of this year, as mentioned earlier by Brigitte. Over the first half of this year, our materialized medical segment realized 64 million euro of revenue up by 18% from last year, with an adjusted EBITDA of 19.8 million, representing a 31% adjusted EBITDA margin. Slide nine summarizes the results of our materialized software segments. In the second quarter, software revenue decreased by 12% to 9.9 million euro. This was partly due to the further conversion to a recurring revenue model, but macroeconomic uncertainty and Forex evolutions, but also pressure on our sales volumes, especially in the US markets. During the second quarter, we continued our transition to a cloud subscription-based business model. Over the quarter, around 84% of our software revenue was of recurring nature, versus 80% in the previous quarter, demonstrating the progress we keep making. Despite the lower top line, compared to the same period of last year, effective cost management allowed us to maintain a stable adjusted EBITDA of 1.4 million euro, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 14%. Over the first half of this year, our software segment realized 19.6 million euro of revenue and an adjusted EBITDA of 2 million euro, representing a 10% adjusted EBITDA margin. Now let's turn to slide 10 for an overview of the performance of our materialized manufacturing segments. In the second quarter of 2025, geopolitical uncertainty added to the macroeconomic headwinds that we have been facing for some time, and drove our manufacturing revenue down by almost 25%, compared to last year's same periods, realizing quarterly revenue of 22.1 million euro. Also in the second quarter of this year, we realized further growth in our strategic focus areas, while the automotive segment specifically continued to be under severe pressure. As a response to revenue pressure, we took further steps to bring the cost of our manufacturing segment structurally down. In addition to strict cost control, we reviewed in depth the performance and potential of our manufacturing portfolio. And as an outcome of this review, we decided to stop our metal prototyping operations and to focus exclusively on metal series production, which resulted in a non-recurring severance costs that we adjusted in our quarterly numbers. Furthermore, we reclassified some of our manufacturing business assets on our balance sheets as assets held for sale. The operating results and net assets of this reclassification are immaterial to our consolidated results of operation and our financial position. Mainly as a result of the lower top line, the adjusted EBITDA of our manufacturing segment still ended negatively at minus 0.8 million euro in the second quarter. Slightly below the results of the first quarter of this year, which was at minus 0.4, but significantly up from the minus 3 million euro adjusted EBITDA realized in the last quarter of 2024. Over the first half of this year, our manufacturing segment realized revenue of 47.6 million euro with an adjusted EBITDA of minus 1.2 million euro. Slide 11 provides the highlights of our consolidated income statements for the second quarter of 2025. Over the periods, our gross profits amounted to 37.8 million euro representing a gross profit margin of .3% significantly up from the 57% realized in the second quarter of 2024. As mentioned earlier, this increase can be linked to mixed effects, but it's also the outcome of the efforts we made to generate further production efficiencies. Our operating expenses in the quarter decreased by 0.3 million euro or close to 1% in aggregate compared to the same period of last year with R&D expenses remaining flat year over year. During the quarter, we invested again over 11 million euro in R&D, the majority of which in our medical segments. Sales and marketing and G&A expenses decreased by .1% and .6% respectively, reflecting the impact from further indirect cost optimizations, compensating inflationary pressure. Net operating income in the quarter was 1.3 million euro compared to 1.2 million euro last year. As a result of these elements, the group's operating result in the quarter was positive at 2.7 million euro. In Q2 2025, the net financial results amounted to a loss of 3.1 million euro, which includes interest income of 0.7 million euro from our cash reserves and interest expense on our financial debts of 0.4 million and a significant negative impact from foreign exchange fluctuations of minus 3.3 million euro. The last year's corresponding period, the net financial result was positive by 1 million as we benefited from higher interest rates in our cash deposits and from favorable exchange rates effects at the time. Income tax in the quarter amounted to a positive 0.5 million euro, resulting from the recognition of deferred tax assets compared to a tax expense of 1 million in the corresponding period of last year. Despite the large negative effect from exchange rate fluctuations, we were still able to report a net profit for the second quarter of 0.2 million euro. Now please turn to slide 12 for a recap of balance sheet and cash flow highlights. Also for the second quarter of 2025, we can report a strong balance sheet. As already mentioned during the review of our manufacturing segment, we reclassified a limited amount of business assets as held for sale, representing a net asset value of 3.6 million euro, which can be considered immaterial compared to the total consolidated balance sheets. Our cash reserve increased to 170 million euro by the end of the quarter. At the same time, also our gross debt increased to 54 million euro. Both changes were largely impacted by 20 million euro drawing we made on an existing bank credit facility in line with earlier contractually agreed drawing periods. In the next 12 months, we will be drawing the remaining 30 million of this facility. The net cash position at the end of the quarter amounted to 63 million euro, up by 2 million euro compared to the beginning of this year, and was as such not impacted by the previously mentioned drawing. Trade receivables, inventory and payables, positions on our balance sheet all decreased, but when corrected for the asset held for sale reclassification, the net working capital slightly increased by 0.7 million euro compared to the beginning of this year. Total deferred income position increased to 60 million euro, out of which 47 million was related to deferred revenues from software license and maintenance contracts, as mentioned before. As you can see on the graphs on the right side of the page, the operating cashflow in the second quarter of this year was just negative, as the cashflow generated from P&L was entirely offset by a negative evolution of working capital components. Over the first six months of this year, however, the operating cashflow is positive at 9.7 million euro. Capital expenditures for the second quarter amounted to 4.7 million euro, including 3.1 million euro of non-recurring CAPEX, mainly spent on remaining machinery for the new Actec plans. Over the first half of this year, total CAPEX amounted to 6.6 million euro, out of which 60% can be considered to be of a non-recurring nature. Taking into account also cash inflows from limited asset sales and from government grants received for the Actec investments, the free cashflow over the first half of this year is positive and amounts to 6 million euro. And with that, I'd like to hand the call back to Brigitte.

Thank you, Gunn. Let's turn to page 13. I'll conclude my remarks with a discussion of our full year 2025 guidance. As we move through 2025, we see a risk that geopolitical volatility and macroeconomic uncertainty intensify and also further impact the business climate for the remainder of this year. Unfavorable foreign exchange fluctuations might also act to the pressure on our revenue line and reported net results. We therefore believe it is prudent to slightly reduce our revenue guidance for the full year from the earlier communicated range of 270 to 285 million euro to a range of 265 to 280 million euro. We remain convinced though that the fundamentals of our business are solid and resilient and believe that further structural cost efficiencies will allow us to safeguard operational profitability. So despite the slightly lower revenue outlook, we therefore are confirming, reconfirming our adjusted EBIT guidance range of six to 10 million euro for fiscal year 2025 in line with our earlier communications in February and April of this year. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we're now ready to open the call to questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Troy Jensen from Cantor Fitzgerald.

Hey, thanks for taking my questions. Good morning, good afternoon.

Hi, Troy.

Hello. Hey, so maybe just a quick question on, well congrats on the opportunity here with J&J and the respiratory side. I wondered maybe could you quantify that opportunity? Is that something that could be as big as this max geocranial facial opportunity you've had with them or just if you could help size it a little bit, that'd be helpful.

Yeah, so that's obviously a very good question. I think, so I wanna make a couple of comments on this. So first, I think we need to keep in mind that this is a very new market. So the cranial maxillofacial and the orthopedic markets are existing mature markets, whereas the respiratory market is a new market. Now when we say new markets, it's really markets that we still are building. So it's the very start of a long journey. So to reach the size of some of our existing markets, we're taking years. So that gives you a bit of a feeling for when to expect some of that impact. The second comment I wanna make is, certainly revenue impact is not to be expected this year. At the very earliest, it's gonna be next year. Third comment is that this is a pilot collaboration. So it's a very first step in the direction in this respiratory market. So why this is a really important milestone that will open up the respiratory market. And in this collaboration, I'm really convinced that this is a game changer. It is a new market and opening up new markets and developing markets as a leader in those markets, it's a long journey. So that's a good point.

Yeah, thank you for that added color. Maybe a couple of questions for Coon. First of all, 20 million in debt, you guys took out during the quarter. And did I hear you say you're taking up more? I'm sorry, I tuned out a little bit during the end of the call, but is that correct?

No, that is correct, Troy. It is part of an earlier agreement we made a couple of years ago, where we signed into a new additional facility of 50 million euro, five zero, and which foresaw a delayed drawing in two tranches in the course of 2025 and a last tranche in the middle of 2026. So we are honoring those commitments, I own engagements, and we have made the first drawing of 20 million in the second quarter.

Interesting. So I guess my first thought was that maybe you guys had a change of thoughts on acquisitions, but this is, I mean, what would you do with all of this additional cash on the balance sheet?

Because you said

cash was positive, and it was a bit of positive, and I don't need it, but there are a lot of assets out there in the market right now, so I didn't know if...

Yes, that cash was indeed, I think that was also the intention when the agreement with the bank was made, and it's still the intention to put that cash to work. Of course not to put it on our bank account, so that it's a bullet loan, so it is targeted at being used for CAPEX or M&A investments in future.

Okay, all right, good luck. And then how about just quick on the gross margins? I mean, they were obviously great this quarter despite the lower revenues, I'm assuming it's mainly mixed, or just getting less manufacturing sales, but was there other stuff behind that driving it better?

No, it's a combination of mixed effects, indeed, like you said, more medical, less manufacturing, but it's also coming from the fact that we are able to reduce the production costs or the direct costs, both in our medical segment and in our manufacturing segments, where they play a

role, it's correct. All right, perfect, well, I'll see the floor, if there's others, got other questions for you guys, but then we can follow up later too,

so.

All

right, thank you, Troy.

Yeah, thanks, you guys, good luck.

Thank you, one moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Alexander Kraemers from Kepler-Shuvra.

Hey, hello, Alexander Kraemers from Kepler-Shuvra here. So maybe to pick up on that first question of Troy, so you have these new features and new pilots coming up, but the next it is, of course, you have still the markets that you're already active in and already very much growing in. I was just wondering if we could maybe get a, like a glimpse into the next years, can we continue to expect like double digit growth in this segment? That would be the first question. Second question would be on the revised top line guidance, it's down just 2%, but I'm just wondering what parameter you used, is this just like the fixed rate on the USD that is declining or what was exactly used that it prompted just a 2% decline? And then maybe if you could just talk a bit about the volume price dynamics in the manufacturing segment. Thank you very much.

Yeah, so let me get started on your first question. So on the medical segment, so the medical market as such, so structurally, I don't see a reason to see a change in the growth that we see in the, you know, concurrently in the medical market. So, you know, in the mix, obviously, you know, we grow in the existing lines, we grow in the, and then concurrently we build the new markets. And so in the mix between existing and new, as we go over the next couple of years, the mix might change, but in total, there's, you know, a lot of promise in the medical market, a lot of growth today, and there's in the future, continued promise in the medical market. I see that growth continue on an ongoing basis over the next couple of years, again, with potentially a different mix in the different markets that we're serving. That is why we are, you know, we're investing in the new markets to keep the growth going over the next couple of years, but overall, the medical business will keep on growing. So that was your first question. I forgot the second and the third. In the meantime, I should be writing down.

So the question on the guidance, that just 2%, what was like exactly the reason why you said, okay, 2% cut, instead of like, let's say a 5% cut, like what was the parameter you used for?

Yeah, so the way we approach our guidance or the re-forecast, you know, every quarter is obviously, we, so it's not a top-down, Koune and I look at each other, and we look out of the window and think, you know, what percentage can we apply? It's a detailed exercise that we have with the different units, and we go through different business lines to, you know, estimate in the different business lines, how we look at, you know, what happens throughout the rest of the quarter. And every business line has a different forecast, you know, obviously we look at medical, different in a different way than, you know, some of the industrial segments, but within the industrial segments, our focus segments that are today going very well, we think they will continue to grow, whereas others, I mean, automotive is one of them, we believe that they will continue to have a difficult time throughout the rest of the year. The US market will continue to have a more difficult time than other geographies. So it's that whole mix that we go through, and it's that balance that has led us to this new estimation of our top line. So it's not a one parameter, but it's a more detailed exercise that we have gone through. One of the factors that helps us obviously in those business lines where we have an order book to base our judgment on, that is obviously a parameter that is helpful. Now, you know that for not all of our business, for some of our business lines that are more transactional, we don't have an order book to base our estimations on. So the more we have an order book that we can base ourselves on, the more visibility we have on the next quarter, but that's not the case for all of our business lines. So all of that taken into account led us to this new guidance that we have now issued.

And maybe if I then just can ask a small follow-up, like which segment was then, yeah, let's say underperforming versus the initial guidance or expectation?

So I think what you see in our current results, you know, those that we have discussed today, it's pretty much for the second half of the year, I think the trend is pretty much what we see continue. I don't think I see, so in the brief, in the forecast that we've done for the next six months, there's no dramatic change in the trends when we look at the different business lines.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, and then the last one was a bit on the foreign price dynamics in manufacturing.

The foreign price dynamics, can you help me? The

volume price dynamics, yeah.

To reply to your question, Alexander, from a more financial point of view, I think as in any manufacturing environment, the challenge we also have in our manufacturing segment is that part of the costs are, I would say semi-fixed. So if the top line becomes under pressure and the semi-fixed cost is then typically related to the labor costs, that the direct labor costs in order to complete the manufacturing processes. And that's of course always the challenge. If the volume is under pressure to protect the margin, and that is difficult to a certain extent. And that is what we have been working hard on, I think also in the second quarter to make that balance or to reduce the cost base in line with the top line that continues to be under pressure.

Yeah, that's clear. And maybe if I can also ask a small follow-up, which would be, so of the decline that we saw in the second half, like how much, is that mostly related to volumes or have you also seen decline in basically the cost base considering that they're fixed?

In manufacturing you mean? Yep. You see a significant top line drop, so that is a pure volume effect, certainly if you compare to last year. But I think if you also make the comparison to the last quarter, you see that there is top line which is volume pressure. We try to offset that and you see that certainly if you compare the gross margin to the prior quarters that we try to compensate that to a certain extent in making our costs as variable as possible, the direct costs. But that is only possible to a certain extent. So top line pressure adds to the gross margin result.

Okay, that's clear. Thank you very much.

Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back over to Brigitte De Vette for closing remarks.

Thanks again for joining us today. We of course look forward to continuing our dialogue with you through Investa Conference or -on-ones, our virtual meetings or calls, and please reach out if you have any questions. Now thank you for now and goodbye to you all.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.