We continue to expand our product portfolio to grow our addressable market and provide more products to our key customers where we are already an approved or preferred supplier.
Macroeconomic trends
Electronic devices are becoming ever more pervasive in our lives which means more demand for power conversion products across our target market sectors of healthcare, industrial, semifab and technology.
More and more roles that are performed by people are rapidly being taken over by electronic machines and robotics as augmented intelligence advances. These devices all need safe reliable power to operate. In particular we expect long-term growth opportunities in the semiconductor equipment manufacturing sector driven by the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and Augmented Intelligence. The customers who make the equipment that fabricates these silicon devices value the XP Power proposition. We are one of the few companies in the world that can offer them the complete range of power products they require in their tools from the low voltage converters that power the control and electronics, to the RF Power to produce the plasma used in their process technology, to the high voltage products used for ion implantation. Our engineering services groups can also package these products together in one enclosure to provide a complete power solution that the customer can easily integrate into their tool. While this industry is cyclical we are confident that this sector has strong long-term growth prospects.
Healthcare is a particularly attractive sector for us with good long-term growth trends due to medical advances, an ageing world population and a growing market for home healthcare products.
The current tariff war between the USA and China is concerning as some of our products manufactured in China ship into the USA. We are working with our customers to mitigate the effect of these tariffs. We have an advantage over many of our competitors as we also have factories in Vietnam which are not subject to these new tariffs.
While not immune to potential macro-economic and political impacts we are encouraged regarding our prospects for 2019.
The markets we serve
We have a broad exposure to the Healthcare, Industrial, Semiconductor Equipment Manufacturing and Technology markets. Our customers are manufacturers of capital equipment and their end markets all exhibit different degrees of cyclicality. Generally, the Technology markets are most cyclical but it is clear that the long-term growth prospects for technology are robust. Healthcare is our least cyclical sector with Industrial lying between Technology and Healthcare.
We have a diverse customer base of over 4,500 customers that we deal with directly and many more customers serviced through our distribution channels which have been growing strongly in recent years. The diversity of our business is a significant strength with no single customer exceeding more than 14% of revenue. Further, there is no single dominant player in the markets we address due to the diversity of customer requirements. We have no direct exposure to consumer products.
MARKET SIZE AND OPPORTUNITY
We estimate that since expanding into the RF power and high voltage market XP Power has a 7% share of the available global market. Our overall share in the low voltage market is estimated at 8%.
North America
North America is a significant market for power electronics with many large customers, particularly in healthcare and semifab.
Europe
The European market is much more fragmented than North America or Asia. In particular it contains numerous smaller industrial companies as well as a number of larger healthcare companies.
Asia
Although Asia is a large market much of it is not available to XP Power as many customers value purely cost over service and support. Nevertheless, there are a number of significant niches where our proposition is compelling.
High voltage
High voltage high power is an attractive market where we are finding many new opportunities since acquiring this product range.
* Share is based on annualised revenue
rf Power
The RF Power market is significant. The semiconductor equipment manufacturers are significant users of this product, but it is also used in healthcare and applications involving dielectric and induction heating.
Revenue trends
The revenue trends for each sector are set out below:
Industrial
£ millions
43% of revenues
Reported revenues for industrial grew 7% in 2018 (2017: 11%). The broad based recovery seen in industrials continued into 2018. Industrial is the most fragmented sector we deal in and very few of our top 30 cutomers are industrial despite the fact it made up 43% of our overall revenues.
Semifab
£ millions
24% of revenues
Reported revenues for semifab grew 60% in 2018 (2017: 101%). This sector benefitted from a cyclical upturn in 2017 which continued into 2018 but started to reverse at the end of 2018. The super growth we saw in this sector was also aided by significant new programmes and the acquisitions of Comdel and Glassman.
Healthcare
£ millions
22% of revenues
Reported revenues for healthcare grew 4% in 2018 (2017: 36%). We had a number of significant new programmes ramp in 2017 which have continued into 2018. Our healthcare customers particularly value our high efficiency products which can operate without a fan and are therefore intrinsically more reliable. It also allows the customer to seal their equipment to prevent liquids entering the equipment.
Technology
£ millions
11% of revenues
Reported revenues for technology grew 19% in 2018 (2017: 23%). Our technology customers can often have larger programmes that have shorter lifetimes than the seven to eight years we are used to in the sectors in which we operate. This can make this sector's revenues more volatile from year to year.
Revenue by geography is set out as follows expressed in US Dollars to highlight the underlying trends in North America and Asia and Sterling in Europe.
North America
US$ millions
61% of revenues
North America revenues were US$159.5 million in 2018 (2017: US$121.3 million), an increase of 31%. The increase was 13% after excluding the revenues from the acquisitions of Comdel of US$19.7 millions (2017: US$5.4 million) and Glassman of US$8.8 million (2017: US$nil). North America represented 61% of overall revenues (2017: 57%).
The North America business particularly benefitted from the growth in the semiconductor equipment manufacturing sector but all sectors grew year on year.
Europe
£ millions
31% of revenues
Our European business grew by 6% to £61.1 million (2017: £57.5 million). All sectors grew year on year, but healthcare showed the strongest growth due to a number of larger medical programmes entering production from some of our larger customers.
Asia
US$ millions
8% of revenues
Asia revenues were US$19.9 million in 2018 (2017: US$19.0 million), an increase of 5% with the strongest growth in industrial and declines in healthcare and technology as programmes went end of life. Asia represented 8% of overall revenues (2017: 9%).