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12 Mar 2025
Drop in photonics-related sales offset by stronger performance from medical and defense divisions.
Lumibird, the diversified French laser and photonics company, has posted a slight decline in full-year profits for 2024, after its largest division reported a small drop in sales revenues.
At €207.1 million, the firm’s annual sales figure was up around 2 per cent on the 2023 total. But that overall total masked contrasting fortunes for the different Lumibird divisions.
The largest of those, the photonics division, reported sales of €99.4 million, down 5 per cent year-on-year on a like-for-like basis. The division includes subsidiary brands like Keopsys, which sells fiber lasers and amplifiers, and Quantel Laser, which specializes in solid-state and diode sources.
Lumibird said that sales of industrial and scientific products were down 14 per cent year-on-year, amid weak demand from end users.
And the firm’s recently reorganized “environment, topography and security” business line, which sells lidar systems, saw its sales drop more than 40 per cent year-on-year.
Dry eye therapy
On the plus side, sales into defense and space applications rose by 20 per cent, to €45.3 million, while the company’s medical division recorded annual sales of €107.7 million, up around 5 per cent.
The medical division's growth was largely driven by therapeutic applications, which accounted for €83.9 million of the divisional total and benefited from “buoyant” sales of products for treating dry eye disease, following two CE Mark approvals received last year.
The overall effect on Lumibird’s profitability was negative, with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) down 5 per cent year-on-year, to €32.9 million, and net income falling 20 per cent to €5.7 million.
Despite the mixed picture, the company is confident about its prospects in defense and space applications, lidar systems, and scientific laser sales - the latter boosted by the recent acquisition of historic laser brand Continuum.
Other significant recent developments have seen the firm agree a €105 million debt refinancing package with lenders, and explore the potential sale of its medical division.
Perhaps as a result of that uncertainty, Lumibird’s management team has decided not to set any more financial targets. In recent years the company had been aiming for an annual sales total of €250 million, but remains some way off hitting that goal.
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