Laser weapons and battery welding aid IPG Photonics sales growth

IPG Photonics has reported sales revenues of $288 million for the September quarter, up 15 per cent on the same period last year after a significant number of the firm’s “Crossbow” laser weapons were shipped to lead customer Lockheed Martin.

CEO Mark Gitin also reported solid demand for IPG’s industrial fiber lasers used in battery welding applications, and for additive manufacturing across the aerospace and medical device sectors.

The sales uptick carried through to the bottom line, with the company’s pre-tax income almost doubling year-on-year to $28.4 million.

That momentum is expected to continue for the remainder of this year, with IPG’s executive team expecting to post sales of somewhere between $265 million and $295 million in the closing quarter, and an annual total in the region of $1.1 billion - not including any additional revenues from the Lumibird Medical acquisition that is expected to close shortly.

If correct, the yearly total would represent a rise of around 10 per cent on last year’s figure of just over $1 billion.

8kW Crossbow

“Our solutions are critical for high-capacity battery applications used in energy storage, supporting global electrification and growing energy infrastructure buildout - including for data centers,” Gitin told an investor conference call discussing the latest results.

The CEO also said that IPG’s expertise in beam-shaping and multi-beam technologies was helping to improve throughput and cost-per-part metrics in additive manufacturing.

“This quarter, we secured new business in Europe that we expect to meaningfully contribute to our additive manufacturing revenue in 2027,” he noted.

The remaining shipments of Crossbow lasers to Lockheed should be completed before the end of this year, with Gitin reporting plenty of interest in the weapons technology for counter-drone applications - including the new 8 kilowatt “Crossbow SE1” offering aimed at longer-range defense against Group I-III drones.

“We are very excited and we have very strong momentum on the customer side, and see a good future there,” he told investors, while acknowledging that the market remained at an early stage of development and that sales revenues would likely be “lumpy” in the near term. “We believe our technology leadership, decades of directed energy laser expertise, and commercial laser and systems manufacturing capabilities enable us to establish leading positions in these opportunities,” he added.

Commenting on the imminent addition of the Lumibird Medical business, Gitin said that the French firm’s leading positions in urology and ophthalmology applications should expand IPG’s addressable market in the medical sector to more than $2 billion.

• Following the latest update IPG’s Nasdaq-listed stock price held steady at around $74, but has now lost more than half its value since hitting a short-term high of just over $150 back in February.