Xaar Regulatory News (XAR)

21 Jan 2010 07:00



Xaar plc

FULL YEAR TRADING UPDATE

Xaar plc ("Xaar"), the inkjet printing technology group headquartered in Cambridge, presents an update on trading performance for the year ended 31 December 2009.

Trading

Trading for the fourth quarter of 2009 and the year as a whole was in line with the Board's expectations and the financial results for the 12 months ended 31 December 2009 are expected to be in line with market expectations.

The trends reported in the IMS dated 14 October 2009 continued through to the year-end. OEM customers are continuing to develop digital printing machines incorporating Xaar's Platform 3 technology and, whilst some applications are now technically proven and contribute material revenue to Xaar, others still remain some way from full commercialisation. Xaar remains committed to providing its Platform 3 customers with the necessary support to bring these developments to a successful conclusion and has continued to incur some significant costs in doing this.

Sales of Platform 1 products continue to deliver the majority of Xaar's revenues through both new product launches and continuing sales of existing products, albeit at lower margins than seen historically. These lower margins are a direct result of the highly competitive nature of this market and, as is the case for Platform 3, higher than expected customer support costs for some of these products.

The project to transfer those manufacturing facilities located in Sweden to the Group's Huntingdon facility continues to be on track with completion scheduled for March 2011.

Whilst results for 2009 are expected to be in line with market consensus, the level of profitability reflected the benefits of the cost cutting programme previously implemented offset by the higher than anticipated product and customer support costs. The Board is continuing to take appropriate action to improve profitability and is planning on delivering improved results for 2010.

Cash

Net cash and cash equivalents at 31 December 2009 were approximately £11.1m (31 December 2008: £11.0m, 30 June 2009: £10.3m) after payment of £1.5m dividends in the year.

Dividend

It is the Board's intention to recommend the payment of a final dividend, details of which will be provided at the time of the announcement of the final results for the year.

Announcement of final results

The detailed results for 2009 will be announced in accordance with Xaar's normal timetable on 17 March 2010.

Ends

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