French 3D printer manufacturer and service provider Prodways (PWG) has reported annual revenue growth of 24% within its FY 2021 financial results.
Over the 2021 financial year, the firm brought in €71 million, which marked a €14 million rise on the €57 million it generated in FY 2020, but was flat against its pre-COVID revenue of FY 2019. Driven primarily by increasing demand for its dental offering, Prodways’ growth represents a relatively strong solo debut, as the results are its first since being deconsolidated from parent company Groupe Gorgé.
Prodways’ FY 2021 financials
As a Groupe Gorgé subsidiary, Prodways’ financials have previously been published both as part of the wider group in its ‘3D printing’ division, and in more detail via its own reporting structure. However, late last year, it was decided that Prodways would be spun-off, with the aim of allowing Groupe Gorgé to streamline its organization, without selling the business on and losing out on its projected growth.
At the time, it was agreed that as part of this restructuring, the Gorgé family would remain Prodways’ leading shareholder, but that CEO Raphaël Gorgé would step down, with shares set to be redistributed in December. While Prodways has yet to confirm how its search for a new CEO is going, or if the deconsolidation process has been finalized, its financials have now been published alone for the first time.
Conveniently, in its inaugural independent financials, the company has kept the same internal reporting structure as before, dividing its revenue into two divisions: Systems and Products. While Prodways has reported the “good performance of all its activities” across FY 2021, resulting in outright growth that exceeded its previously-set 20% target, the majority of this came from Product sales.
In addition to seeing 24% organic growth in Q4 2021, the division’s 3D printing services also benefited from its acquisition of Creabis in July 2021. Since buying the bureau, Prodways says that it has established “one of the largest printing fleets in Europe,” enabling it to offer clients a higher production capacity and faster fulfillment, in a way that drove its overall service-related revenue up by 55%.
By contrast, the firm’s System sales grew slightly more slowly between FY 2020 and 2021, rising by 22% rather than 27%, but demand for its machines and materials still gathered momentum in the last quarter, particularly in the dental sector, where revenue generated by its orthodontic offering rose 16% in Q4 alone.
| Financials (€) | FY 2020 | FY 2021 | Difference (%) | FY 2019 | FY 2021 | Difference (%) |
| Systems | 36m | 44m | +22 | 45m | 44m | -2 |
| Products | 21m | 27m | +27 | 27m | 27m | – |
| Revenue | 57m | 71m | +24 | 71m | 71m | – |
Q4: a tale of two landmark projects?
Over the course of Q4 2021, Prodways generated €20 million in revenue, 17% more than the €17 million it managed to bring in during Q4 2020, a success it largely attributes to two “landmark industrial projects.” One of these, first reported by 3D Printing Industry late last year, will see the firm take part in its largest dental 3D printing program to date, in which it’ll produce up to a million aligners a year.
The other, meanwhile, has seen an unnamed Australian ‘leader in clear aligners’ adopt Prodways’ MovingLight-powered systems, following months of evaluation. Between them, these deals have seen the company sell a total of 12 machines, which are expected to consume up to 17 tons of its resin per year, and it’s thought this figure could rise in future, leading to the sale of a dozen more units.
In terms of its medical on-demand offering, including its audiology, podiatry and dental portfolio, Prodways also managed to achieve a 5% growth in revenue between Q4 2020 and 2021. The firm says it was able to pull this off, despite disruption to appointments during this period, thanks to its audiology range, which generated nearly €10 million after a long-awaited French state reimbursement.
Elsewhere, during Q4 2021, Prodways reported a 10% annual rise in the revenue generated via its integration of 3D modeling software as well, something it believes is the result of the growing diversification of its customer base, a good renewal rate among existing customers and the quality of its team, which has allowed it to grow its French market share.
Charting a course for steady growth
Heading into the 2022 financial year, Prodways has set itself the target of “pursuing a steady revenue growth” of 5-10%, which if realized, would see it generate between €74.5 million and €78 million. According to the firm, this level of revenue increase will be “amplified by external growth operations,” and this could include projects like its ‘Futur3D’ initiative, which has seen it invest in ‘next-gen’ technologies.
When it comes to organic growth, Prodways also says that given its dental-related machine and material sales grew by almost 45% between FY 2020 and FY 2021, it has a ‘strong business model for this activity,’ thus it anticipates being able to increase its recurrent sales in the orthodontic sector, not just in FY 2022, but during the years to come.
Moving forwards, the extent to which Prodways’ financials will be covered as part of Groupe Gorgé’s remains unclear, but the latter is expected to report FY 2021 results in the near future. Groupe Gorgé’s latest financial reports can be found here.
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Featured image shows a set of dental aligners. Image via Prodways.
