What They Say
Barco released its 2021 result which saw sales up 4% to €804 million, although new orders were up by 31% to €979 million with growth over all applications and regions. Ebit was up from €10.2 million to €19.4 million. Component shortages hit sales by around €15 million.
The Entertainment division delivered good growth in both orders and sales in 2021, following a soft 2020. Both business units contributed to the year-over-year growth with Cinema showing order intake growth across all regions and sequential gains in sales. The Immersive Experience business unit recovered well, particularly in the fixed install business reflecting greater demand from museums, projection mapping and theme parks.
Enterprise saw a continuation of quarter-over-quarter improvements in orders as of 2Q21 in both segments. Sales rebounded toward the end of the year, fueled by solid deliveries and deployments in both the Meeting Experience and Large Videowall segments.
Orders for Healthcare reached a record high in 2021 reflecting the resumption of healthcare investments in both the diagnostic imaging and surgical market segments, while sales were flat, hampered by component shortages.
For the first half of 2022, and assuming no further deterioration of the supply chain constraints, management expects sales to increase approximately 20% compared to 1H21. EBITDA margin is expected to be higher than the full year 2021 EBITDA margin, reflecting gradually improving gross profit margin and operating leverage on higher sales.
What We Think
Barco is something of a bellwether stock for the professional AV market. It’s good to see business coming back. I noted that Disney did well in Q4 2021 partly because people were ‘flocking back’ to theme parks as Covid restrictions eased.(BR)
