Oct 24, 2015 | By Kira

Despite the wave of optimistic market reports surrounding the 3D printing industry in the US and abroad, 3D printing giant Stratasys and its subsidiary MakerBot seem to headed towards yet another financial rough patch. Stratasys this week warned shareholders and investors that its third quarter earnings will fall dramatically short of expectations—with a net loss of between $155 to $190 million, or $2.98-$3.66 per share. The company will be writing down MakerBot as a result, adjusting its value by $140-$180 million. Though the numbers are not final—Stratasys will officially announce its third quarter results on November 4th—the company’s shares had already plunged 12 per cent Friday morning.

Once the ‘darling of Wall Street,’ with big ambitions to bring the burgeoning 3D printing market to the masses, Stratasys hit hard times after an initial surge in sales during 2013 and 2014. Since then, competition has peaked, resulting in slowing sales and a much more demanding and aware consumer-base. For these reasons, Stratasys has blamed “weaker conditions in the market” for its ongoing losses. Another major factor to take the blame? Poor, poor MakerBot, which was acquired for nearly $500 million in 2013 and has taken hit after financial hit since then—mostly due to selling defective extrusion jets on their 3D printer models.

As a result, Stratasys will take $140-$180 in goodwill (a premium paid for a company above its market value) and impairment charges for the MakerBot division. Just earlier this month, MakerBot announced that it was ‘restructuring,’ laying off 20% of its staff (again) and appointing new leadership roles to ensure the 3D printer manufacturer’s survival.

Despite the dismal forecast, Stratasys is keeping a positive outlook on the future of the 3D printing industry: “We are disappointed with our third-quarter results,” said Stratasy CEO David Reis. “Despite these near-term challenges, we remain convinced of the long-term growth opportunity within 3D printing. We will continue to make adjustments to our structure and operating costs in light of market conditions, but we are moving forward with the longer-term initiatives that we believe will help position our company for future growth, including enhancements to our go-to-market strategy and aggressive investments around new product development.”

All-in-all, the projection is certainly no reason to write-off the company altogether. Stratasys remains one of the biggest names in 3D printing worldwide, making recent headlines for creating multi-color 3D printed kidney models used in cancer related surgeries, and partnering with Adobe to enable 3D printing directly through the popular editing program Photoshop. As of now, Stratasys third quarter revenues should be around $166 million to $168 million, with profits expected to range from a possible loss of $1.5 million, to a profit of $1 million. Actual results may differ, but we’ll have wait until November 4th to find out.

 

 

Posted in 3D Printing Company

 

 

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Petro wrote at 10/26/2015 10:17:08 PM:

Stratasys should buy Zortrax not Makerbot, but who know what was the reason to buy the Maker$hit

Prot wrote at 10/25/2015 4:34:57 AM:

In hindsight, I wonder if Stratasys would have been better off letting someone else buy Makerbot. That's not the whole story, of course, but it is a good portion of it.

Yodahead wrote at 10/24/2015 1:55:41 PM:

...and Bre Pettis laughed all the way to the bank.



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