Voxeljet AG (NYSE:VJET) Reports Third Quarter 2014 Results, Lowers Guidance

This has been a very busy week for 3D printing-related stocks. After a mediocre report by Stratasys last week, followed by 3D Systems reporting numbers better than expected on Monday, and ExOne giving the market a surprise to the downside yesterday, those who invest within the sector must be feeling like they are on the roller coaster from hell.

Today it was German-based voxeljet AG’s (NYSE:VJET) turn to report their third quarter financial results. The company, which has seen their stock drop a staggering 69% this year already, needed to give investors something to rebuild confidence. This, they did not.

Although the company reported year-over-year revenue growth, the report certainly was not something for investors to cheer about. Highlighting the negativity was the fact that voxeljet has revised their full-year revenue guidance to the down-side from €18 million to somewhere between €15 million and €16 million.

“We are revising our revenue guidance for the year ending December 31, 2014 to a range of between kEUR 15,000 and kEUR 16,000, from the previous guidance in excess of kEUR 18,000,” explained Dr. Ingo Ederer, Chief Executive Officer of voxeljet. “This reflects the operating disruption we experienced in Services in the third quarter, as well as the later-than-anticipated opening of our Canton, Michigan facility, which is now expected to start on-demand parts production in the first quarter of 2015.”

Year-over-year revenues for the quarter were up 6.8% from €3.517 million to €3.756 million. While systems revenue increased by 23.3% for the quarter, voxeljet saw a decrease of 11.2% for their service revenue. The company reported that they had shipped record numbers of sand printed parts, as well as generated record revenues for their plastic parts.

Voxeljet saw a net loss of €1.518 million, as compared to net income of €211,000 last year’s third quarter. Some analysts were expecting better, and so was the market apparently, as the share price was down over 6% in after market hours, following the report.

“In Systems, we shipped four printers in the quarter but only received final customer acceptance, which is required for revenue recognition, on three of these printers, explained Dr. Ederer. “This is purely a timing issue. We expect to receive the final acceptance report for the fourth printer in the fourth quarter. Customer interest and quoting activity remains strong, and the outlook for printer sales is positive based on our backlog. We continue to make progress on our growth initiatives, however our results were adversely affected by the temporary operating disruption of one VX4000 printer in our German service center due to technical issues. This resulted in less available capacity during the quarter. This printer did not operate for most of the third quarter and returned to service in late September. We have been operating at normal capacity ever since.”

Just like with ExOne, voxeljet has stated that 2014 is a transitional year for the company as they continue to invest and prepare for future growth. The company maintains long term revenue growth expectations of approximately 50% annually, which would be quite impressive if achieved.

Let’s hear your thoughts on voxeljet’s most recent report in the voxeljet Third Quarter Financials forum thread on 3DPB.com.