News › ZEISS • Looks Back on Over­all Good Fis­cal Year 2019/20

Reve­nue rea­ches 6.3 bil­lion euros (-2% vs. prior year) – EBIT at 922 mil­lion euros (-141 mil­lion euros vs. prior year)

• Sta­bi­lity thanks to ZEISS port­fo­lio and glo­bal posi­tio­ning – even during COVID-19 pandemic
• ZEISS seg­ments impac­ted dif­fer­ently by COVID-19 pandemic
• Strong growth over prior year in Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech­no­logy seg­ment due to EUV technology
• Signi­fi­cant invest­ments in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment pay off
• Clear reco­very trend in all ZEISS seg­ments in second half of fis­cal year

Over­all, the ZEISS Group had a good fis­cal year 2019/20 (end of report­ing period: 30 Sep­tem­ber 2020): reve­nue tota­led 6.297 bil­lion euros (prior year: 6.428 bil­lion euros). With a slight decline of 2% due to the COVID-19 pan­de­mic, reve­nue almost rea­ched last year’s level. Around 90% of reve­nue was gene­ra­ted in mar­kets out­side Ger­many. Ear­nings before inte­rest and taxes (EBIT) were also rela­tively high, rea­ching 922 mil­lion euros (prior year: 1.063 bil­lion euros). The EBIT mar­gin was 15%. Inco­ming orders increased to 6.814 bil­lion euros (prior year: 6.575 bil­lion euros).

»On the whole, we were able to achieve a good busi­ness result for the ZEISS Group, thanks also to our broad port­fo­lio and glo­bal posi­tio­ning. We con­sider this an excep­tio­nal achie­ve­ment by our employees – in unu­sual times,« says Dr. Karl Lam­precht, Pre­si­dent and CEO of ZEISS. »Our glo­bal cri­sis manage­ment, sup­ported by resi­li­ence mea­su­res that had alre­ady been deve­lo­ped, hel­ped us tackle the cur­rent chal­lenges of the COVID-19 pan­de­mic as well as possible.«

Seg­ment development

The four ZEISS seg­ments deve­lo­ped dif­fer­ently in the prior fis­cal year due to the COVID-19 pan­de­mic. Thanks espe­ci­ally to its inno­va­tive EUV litho­gra­phy, the Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech­no­logy seg­ment hardly felt the eco­no­mic impact of the pan­de­mic. With growth tota­ling 12%, the seg­ment achie­ved record reve­nue and made a sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tion to the ZEISS Group’s good result.

The indus­trial metro­logy busi­ness of the Indus­trial Qua­lity & Rese­arch seg­ment was affec­ted con­sider­a­bly by the COVID-19 pan­de­mic, as it inten­si­fied the struc­tu­ral and tech­no­lo­gi­cal trans­for­ma­tion of the auto­mo­tive indus­try in par­ti­cu­lar. The aero­space mar­ket was also stron­gly impac­ted. The busi­ness with opti­cal 3D mea­su­ring tech­no­logy could be kept at the prior year’s level through an expan­ded cus­to­mer base. On the whole, the micro­scopy busi­ness decli­ned slightly. There was increased demand from the life sci­en­ces and the phar­maceu­ti­cal indus­try. Inter­na­tio­nal rese­ar­chers are using ZEISS micro­sco­pes to study the coro­na­vi­rus and its trans­mis­sion mechanisms.

In the ZEISS Medi­cal Tech­no­logy seg­ment, the over­all sta­ble deve­lo­p­ment of con­su­ma­bles, implants and ser­vices was able to limit a decline in reve­nue. The top prio­rity was working clo­sely tog­e­ther with those cus­to­mers who showed an increased inte­rest in tele­he­alth and remote solu­ti­ons as well as in uti­li­zing digi­tal forms of col­la­bo­ra­tion. This suc­cessfully com­pen­sa­ted in part for the tem­po­rary fall in demand.

The Con­su­mer Mar­kets seg­ment was stron­gly impac­ted by the pan­de­mic in the spring. In the eye care busi­ness, con­su­mers were unable to visit opti­ci­ans and opto­me­trists due to the glo­bal lock­down. Signi­fi­cant reco­very effects were visi­ble start­ing in the summer.

Key figu­res

Free cash flow amoun­ted to 518 mil­lion euros (prior year: 806 mil­lion euros). The company’s equity rose by 7% as com­pared to the prior year, tota­ling 4,287 mil­lion euros (30 Sep­tem­ber 2019: 3,990 mil­lion euros).

Invest­ments in pro­perty, plant and equip­ment amoun­ted to 484 mil­lion euros in the report­ing period (prior year: 437 mil­lion euros) as com­pared to depre­cia­ti­ons tota­ling 256 mil­lion euros (prior year: 234 mil­lion euros).

At the end of the report­ing period on 30 Sep­tem­ber 2020, net liqui­dity tota­led 1,531 mil­lion euros.

The COVID-19 pan­de­mic led to a dis­cer­ni­ble down­turn in reve­nue, par­ti­cu­larly in the regi­ons EMEA and Ame­ri­cas. Con­ver­sely, the APAC region was once again able to grow slightly. ZEISS‹ glo­bal posi­tio­ning and espe­ci­ally the growth in Asian count­ries like China and South Korea con­tri­bu­ted to stability.

»The company’s per­for­mance shows that our mea­su­res to coun­ter the effects of the pan­de­mic have worked quite well. We were able to con­ti­nue pur­suing our long-term, glo­bal invest­ment stra­tegy, which com­pri­ses invest­ments in inno­va­tions, digi­ta­liza­tion and the expan­sion of infra­struc­ture,« says Dr. Chris­tian Mül­ler, Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer of Carl Zeiss AG. »In this fis­cal year, too, we have once again increased our rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment spen­ding – to 812 mil­lion euros. This is the equi­va­lent of 13 per­cent of our entire revenue.«

The acqui­si­ti­ons con­cluded during the fis­cal year include the com­plete acqui­si­tion of the soft­ware com­pany Saxo­nia Sys­tems AG. With this acqui­si­tion, ZEISS is sys­te­ma­ti­cally expan­ding its soft­ware know-how and secu­ring the exper­tise and resour­ces to rea­lize digi­tal pro­jects of stra­te­gic significance.

ZEISS has also ente­red into a multi-year stra­te­gic part­ner­ship with Micro­soft in order to acce­le­rate the expan­sion of digi­tal ser­vices by taking a cloud-first approach. This will enable ZEISS to offer its cus­to­mers an impro­ved digi­tal expe­ri­ence, react more quickly to chan­ging mar­ket requi­re­ments and boost the company’s productivity.

»We are bols­te­ring our digi­tal com­pe­tence by focu­sing on stra­te­gic part­ner­ships, acqui­si­ti­ons and inter­nal pro­grams,« says Lam­precht. »Right now, this know-how is alre­ady being incor­po­ra­ted into many solu­ti­ons and pro­ducts and will be streng­the­ned further.«

At the end of the fis­cal year (30 Sep­tem­ber 2020), ZEISS had a glo­bal work­force of 32,201 employees, a 3% increase as com­pared to 30 Sep­tem­ber 2019.

Out­look

In fis­cal year 2019/20, the glo­bal eco­nomy was con­fron­ted with con­sidera­ble chal­lenges resul­ting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the cur­rent fis­cal year, the COVID-19 pan­de­mic will con­ti­nue to affect ZEISS – to vary­ing degrees at the regio­nal and seg­ment levels. Thanks to the mea­su­res alre­ady in place, the company’s glo­bal posi­tio­ning and its broad port­fo­lio ali­gned with mega­trends, ZEISS feels well-pre­pared to con­ti­nue suc­cessfully maneu­vering through the COVID-19 cri­sis. ZEISS is cau­tiously opti­mi­stic that it will see a slight increase in reve­nue in fis­cal year 2020/21.

About ZEISS

ZEISS is an inter­na­tio­nally lea­ding tech­no­logy enter­prise ope­ra­ting in the fields of optics and opto­elec­tro­nics. In the pre­vious fis­cal year, the ZEISS Group gene­ra­ted annual reve­nue tota­ling 6.3 bil­lion euros in its four seg­ments Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech­no­logy, Indus­trial Qua­lity & Rese­arch, Medi­cal Tech­no­logy and Con­su­mer Mar­kets (sta­tus: 30 Sep­tem­ber 2020).

For its cus­to­mers, ZEISS deve­lops, pro­du­ces and dis­tri­bu­tes highly inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for indus­trial metro­logy and qua­lity assu­rance, micro­scopy solu­ti­ons for the life sci­en­ces and mate­ri­als rese­arch, and medi­cal tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for dia­gno­stics and tre­at­ment in oph­thal­mo­logy and micro­sur­gery. The name ZEISS is also syn­ony­mous with the world’s lea­ding litho­gra­phy optics, which are used by the chip indus­try to manu­fac­ture semi­con­duc­tor com­pon­ents. There is glo­bal demand for trend­set­ting ZEISS brand pro­ducts such as eye­glass len­ses, camera len­ses and binoculars.

With a port­fo­lio ali­gned with future growth areas like digi­ta­liza­tion, health­care and Smart Pro­duc­tion and a strong brand, ZEISS is sha­ping the future of tech­no­logy and con­stantly advan­cing the world of optics and rela­ted fields with its solu­ti­ons. The company’s signi­fi­cant, sus­tainable invest­ments in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment lay the foun­da­tion for the suc­cess and con­tin­ued expan­sion of ZEISS‹ tech­no­logy and mar­ket lea­der­ship. ZEISS invests 13 per­cent of its reve­nue in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment – this high level of expen­dit­ure has a long tra­di­tion at ZEISS and is also an invest­ment in the future.

With over 32,000 employees, ZEISS is active glo­bally in almost 50 count­ries with around 30 pro­duc­tion sites, 60 sales and ser­vice com­pa­nies and 27 rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment faci­li­ties. Foun­ded in 1846 in Jena, the com­pany is head­quar­te­red in Ober­ko­chen, Ger­many. The Carl Zeiss Foun­da­tion, one of the lar­gest foun­da­ti­ons in Ger­many com­mit­ted to the pro­mo­tion of sci­ence, is the sole owner of the hol­ding com­pany, Carl Zeiss AG.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion at www.zeiss.com

»We are bols­te­ring our digi­tal com­pe­tence by focu­sing on stra­te­gic part­ner­ships, acqui­si­ti­ons and inter­nal pro­grams,« says Lam­precht. »Right now, this know-how is alre­ady being incor­po­ra­ted into many solu­ti­ons and pro­ducts and will be streng­the­ned further.«

At the end of the fis­cal year (30 Sep­tem­ber 2020), ZEISS had a glo­bal work­force of 32,201 employees, a 3% increase as com­pared to 30 Sep­tem­ber 2019.

Out­look

In fis­cal year 2019/20, the glo­bal eco­nomy was con­fron­ted with con­sidera­ble chal­lenges resul­ting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the cur­rent fis­cal year, the COVID-19 pan­de­mic will con­ti­nue to affect ZEISS – to vary­ing degrees at the regio­nal and seg­ment levels. Thanks to the mea­su­res alre­ady in place, the company’s glo­bal posi­tio­ning and its broad port­fo­lio ali­gned with mega­trends, ZEISS feels well-pre­pared to con­ti­nue suc­cessfully maneu­vering through the COVID-19 cri­sis. ZEISS is cau­tiously opti­mi­stic that it will see a slight increase in reve­nue in fis­cal year 2020/21.

Pres­se­kon­takt

Jörg Nit­schke
Group Spokesman
ZEISS Group
+49 7364 20–3242
moc.ssiez@ekhcstin.greoj