Xaar Regulatory News (XAR)

4 November 2015

Xaar plc

Scheduled Trading Statement

Xaar plc ("Xaar", "the Group" or "the Company"), the digital inkjet printing technology Group headquartered in Cambridge, UK, announces an update on trading.

Sales to date in the second half of 2015 have been broadly consistent with performance in the first six months of the year. The Board continues to expect 2015 full year revenue to be in the range of £92-95 million.

In ceramic tile printing, the Group's largest end application, monthly sales volumes have been fairly consistent but more recently we have seen some softening in demand in China, the largest market for ceramic tiles.

Sales into packaging in the second half of the year have been encouraging, supported by a strong presence at the Labelexpo show in September by our OEM label printer partners. We also launched the Xaar Print Bar System at the show, a new product which adds single-pass digital inkjet capability to existing analogue printing equipment. The launch has generated a significant amount of interest and we expect to be selling the first Print Bar units early next year. Direct-to-shape printing in packaging and industrial applications continues to gain momentum.

Next week Xaar will be exhibiting at InPrint 2015, the industrial printing show taking place in Munich on the 10-12 November. Xaar will be showing a range of products, including the Xaar 501 GS8 printhead and the Xaar Print Bar System. The Xaar 501 GS8 is designed for high-quality printing of large outdoor banners or indoor point-of-sale material, and is the first product to incorporate Xaar's PrecisionPlus architecture for uniform drop formation to enable exceptional print quality.

The Thin Film programme remains on track and OEM partner discussions continue.

The Group remains in a strong financial position with net cash at 31 October 2015 of £66.9 million (30 June 2015 - £58.6 million).

The Company expects to publish a full year trading update for the year ending 31 December 2015 on Wednesday 13th January 2016.

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