Riber’s Q1 revenue falls 10% year-on-year as weak evaporator sales outweigh MBE system sales growth

For first-quarter 2019, Riber S.A. of Bezons, France – which manufactures molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) systems as well as evaporation sources and effusion cells – has reported revenue of €6.6m (32.3% from Asia, 30.1% from Europe and 37.6% from the USA). This is down 10% on €7.3m a year ago due to a drop in revenue from evaporators, despite strong growth in revenue for MBE systems and services & accessories.

Revenue from evaporators (cells and sources) was just €0.8m, down 85% on €5.2m a year ago, attributed to the freeze on investments in equipment for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen production following the major investments made in previous years.

Revenue for MBE systems was €4.1m (reflecting the invoicing of two production systems), up 413% on only €0.8m (just one research system) a year ago.

Revenue for services & accessories was €1.7m, up 31% on €1.3m a year ago, in line with the company’s strategy to develop this business (which makes a strong contribution to gross margin).

The order book at the end of March was down 11% from €36.1m a year ago but remained high, at €32.2m, despite no orders being recorded for evaporators (€0.1m versus €8.3m a year ago). This was because MBE systems orders were up 25% from €20.2m to €25.3m (comprising 14 MBE systems, including seven production machines). Services & accessories orders were down 11% from €7.6m a year ago, but still at a ‘satisfactory’ level of €6.8m.

Riber notes that, considering the good level of orders (with a high percentage of systems to be delivered in 2019), it is forecasting significant growth in full-year revenue in 2019 compared with 2018.

See related items:

Riber grows annual revenue by 2.3% to another record of €31.3m

Riber reduces 2018 revenue guidance from €35m to €31m after deferral of two system deliveries to Q1/19

Riber grows revenue 42% year-on-year for the first nine months of 2018, driven by MBE systems sales almost tripling

Riber’s first-half revenue grows 36% year-on-year as MBE system sales quadruple

Riber’s Q1 revenue down 21.7% year-on-year due to staggering of evaporator deliveries

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