Singulus Technologies (FRA:SNG)

The article is being actively worked on by the Wikinvest Community. You can get involved by adding your suggestions or by editing the article directly.

TOP CONTRIBUTORS

Hermann S

Singulus Technologies is an equipment manufacturer with manufacturing locations in Germany, The Nederlands, Switzerland, Slovakia and China. The company is market leader for optical disc production lines and is the only manufacturer globally to offer the complete range of products: mastering, molding and replication lines. Core competence of the company is thin-film technology. With the recent acquisition of STANGL Semiconductor Equipment AG the company entered the solar equipment market. Singulus is listed in the German TecDAX index^[1].

Company Overview

Business and Financial Metrics

The company follows the IFRS standard and all numbers are reported in Euro. Fiscal year is from 1st of January to 31st of December. The graphics show the data from the available audited annual reports.^[2] For 2008^[3] the company reported net revenues of 212.1 million Euro. Earnings before interest, taxes and consideration of extraordinary items were -1.1 million EUR. Extraordinary items related to the restructuring added a negative contribution to -49.3 million EUR. The new order intake during 2008 was increasing to 226.4 million EUR. Due to a higher share of Blue-ray replication machines the gross margin increased to 31.6 % versus 29.3 % in the prior year.

Business Segments

The company has a global sales network^[4] and regional revenue distribution is shown in the bar chart. The pie chart shows the revenue shares of the different activities in 2008.

Optical Disk Production Lines

Solar Production Equipment

Key Trends and Forces

The companies recent strategy was summarised in a presentation to investors in November 2008^[5].

Optical Disc

The optical disk equipment manufacturers experienced a lack of customer demand caused by the competition of 2 different formats for the 3rd generation optical discs. The two-year long battle between industry giants Toshiba and Sony to be the sole provider of the next generation format of high definition discs has finally been settled, after Toshiba announced in February 2008 that they discontinued their efforts in developing, manufacturing and marketing their HD-DVD players and recorders^[6]. Existing DVD disc production equipment is not capable to produce Blue-ray discs without a major rebuild and latest technology equipment like the Singulus Blueline II is offering advantages regarding manufacturing cycle time (Single Layer < 4s, Dual Layer < 6s), integration and floor space requirements. Taking into account an uptime of 85% and a 6 days/3 shifts per week working pattern a single line is capable to produce between 5 and 6 million Single Layer discs per year. Assuming 4000 million global Blue-ray disc sales in 2012 (a projection shown in the 2007 annual report) a minimum capacity of 660 production lines would be required to make the discs. Singulus reported an order intake for 31 lines in the first half year 2008 and is targeting a 65% market share^[7].

Solar

Competition

Optical Disc

Singulus announced the aquisition of the Oerlikon Balzers Blue-ray disc equipment operations in February 2008^[8]. As part of the deal Singulus acquired all important optical disc patents and licenses as well as Oerlikon's customer base. Oerlikon further announced the discontinuation of their CD/DVD production line operations.
Further competitors to the Blue-ray disk equipment operations are Sony^[9], Anwell^[10][11] and Origin Electric Co. ^[12].

Solar

References

1. ↑ Webpage of Singulus Technologies AG
2. ↑ Singulus Technologies: Annual Reports
3. ↑ SINGULUS Meets Forecast for 2008, 2009-03-27
4. ↑ Singulus Technologies: Sales
5. ↑ Singulus Technologies AG: Vision for Growth
6. ↑ Toshiba Press Release 2008-02-19
7. ↑ Singulus Press Release: Blu-ray Growth Stronger Than Expected
8. ↑ Press Release: SINGULUS acquires OERLIKON's Blu-ray activities
9. ↑ Sony Disc & Digital Solutions Inc.
10. ↑ Webpage of Anwell
11. ↑ Anwell Annual Report 2007
12. ↑ Corporate Profile: Origin (english)