IPG Photonics Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, and welcome to IPG Photonics Fourth Quarter 2023 Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded and webcast.

At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Eugene Fedotoff, Senior Director of Investor Relations for introductions. Please go ahead.

[Eugene Fedotoff, Senior Director of Investor Relations at IPG Photonics]

Thank you, Kieran, and good morning, everyone. With me today is IPG Photonics' CEO, Dr. Eugene Scherbakov; and Senior Vice President and CFO, Tim Mammen.

Let me remind you that statements made during the course of this call that discuss management's or the company's intentions, expectations or predictions of the future are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in our Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2023, and our reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Copies of these filings may be obtained by visiting the Investors section of IPG's website or the SEC's website.

Any forward-looking statements made on this call are the company's expectations or predictions as of today February 13, 2024 only. The company assumes no obligation to publicly release any updates or revisions to any such statements. For additional details on our reported results, please refer to the earnings press release, earnings call presentation and the Excel-based financial data workbook posted on our Investor Relations website. We will post these prepared remarks on our website following the completion of this call.

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Eugene Scherbakov.

[Eugene Scherbakov, Chief Executive Officer and Director at IPG Photonics]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We are pleased to report that fourth quarter revenue came in the top of our guidance. We saw growth in multiple areas, including welding, cleaning, 3D printing and medical applications. That showed success in our strategy to diversify revenue away from cutting and reduce the amount of sales from China.

We remain focused on our strategy to displace legacy technology and processes with highly efficient and environmentally beneficial fiber lasers and laser-based technologies. Revenue in our emerging growth product improved sequentially and accounting for 46% of our total sales. driven by growth in handheld welding, beam delivery and medical products.

However, uncertainty in macroeconomic conditions continue to wait on sales and many general industrial applications. And some of our large OEM customers around the world, who are managing inventories and induced purchasing in the quarter. Also we saw a soft demand for our lasers and e-mobility in China and solar cell manufacturing applications.

Welding sales rebounding strongly in the quarter with growth in North America, more than offsetting lower revenue in China. Laser adoption is growing in general industrial and automotive applications and not just in e-mobility. The increase in welding this quarter was driven by higher sales in our handheld laser welder and growing adoption of our real-time weld measuring tool, which has become the industrial standard for automating process, monitoring and quality control.

Customer understand a significant value proposition of real-time welding process monitoring, which can significantly reduce scrap and improve yields. We are also seeing the high sales of integrated laser welding systems and complete solution for higher speed automating laser welding, which includes laser, scanner, lesion and controllers that are easy to integrate in the manufacturing process.

I am happy to report another quarter of strong growth in handheld laser welder. LightWELD sales beneficial from roll-out of the tool in Europe and increased 50% in 2023. We're expecting that the adoption will continue this year and are excited about the new partnership with Miller Electric to promote laser welding among the large network of MIG and TIG welders. Miller Electric is a leading worldwide manufacturer of arc welding products. We believe that most welding applications can be addressed by laser, including the handheld market and there is a tremendous productivity improvement that lasers enable.

Welding is a large addressable market for our lasers, and we are in the initial stage of developing it. Indicative of success, we are generating in welding IPG largest customer. Larger applications increased 13% year-over-year and accounting for 36% of our total revenue in 2023. IPG remains well positioned in e-mobility market, providing welding, cleaning and cutting and now drying solution for most major EV battery manufacturers around the globe.

While our e-mobility sales were negatively impacted by slowdown in new capacity additions in China. We saw an increase in sales in North America, Japan and Korea during the quarter. Overcapacity in battery production in China after a strong investment cycle in 2021 and 2022, continue to provide a short-term drag on our growth. But we remain optimistic in the future the revenue for this important applications as a new electric vehicle sales continue to grow us worldwide.

We are also looking to increase our expansion by adding more adjacent laser technology around our current offering to the further penetrator e-mobility applications. We successfully shipped the first order of laser drying solution for battery for all manufacturing. The solution replaces a less efficient infrared bulbs and environmental unfriendly gas-fired furnaces and can significantly increase drying speed and reduce energy costs for our customers.

For the full year, our EV sales increased modestly to the new record level and accounting over 20% of total revenue. Traditionally, we are looking at new growth opportunity in laser cleaning market. Laser cleaning solutions, while still a small contributor in our overall sales have been growing at high rate and there is an increased interest in the market to replace traditional cleaning process, which uses abrasive materials and chemicals. Whether it is paint or rust removal, our laser can do the work quicker, more safely as operator and with less harm to the environment.

Finally, our medical business delivered strong results in the fourth quarter. Full year revenue grew slightly to a new record level despite some destocking by large customer in the second quarter. We have benefited from growth in single-use fibers and some additional demand in aesthetic applications. We believe that there a large installed base of old laser technology that can be replaced with fine lasers over time. As you can see from our guidance, which you will be covered by team later in this call, we are looking at slower step to the year as the industrial demand remains weak.

However, we are focusing on what we can control to offset these headwinds. We are targeting a number of large addressable markets, where fiber laser can replace existing laser or non-laser technology by taking advantage of several new trends, including the automation, increase in efficiency and reducing the environment impact.

We expect that these trends to continue and help diversify our revenue. We also are focused on operational improvement such as lower cost and reducing the inventories in 2024. We analyze them as the future growth and continue to maintain strong balance sheet. Our cash flow generation remains strong, and benefited from inventory management. And I would like to thank you our employees for their contribution to 2024.

And we will turn the call over to Tim to discuss financial highlights in the quarter.

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

Thank you, Eugene, and good morning, everyone. My comments generally will follow the earnings call presentation, which is available on our Investor Relations website.

I will start with the financial review on Slide 4. Revenue in the fourth quarter was $299 million, down 10% year-over-year, but came in at the top of our guidance. Revenue from materials processing applications decreased 12% year-over-year due to lower general industrial demand, which impacted revenue in cutting applications, partially offset by growth in welding cleaning and 3D printing.

Revenue in other applications increased 4%, driven by the strength in medical. GAAP gross margin was 38.2% an increase from last year due to a significant decrease in inventory provision and other charges related to our Russian operations that impacted results in the fourth quarter of 2022. You can find details of these items in the financial tables of the press release.

Additionally, gross margin benefited from lower shipping costs and tariffs, but these benefits were mostly offset by lower absorption of manufacturing costs and slightly higher cost of products sold. As we focused on reduction of inventory, we estimate that the impact of production shutdowns to work down our inventories reduced manufacturing cost absorption and reduced gross margin by approximately 4 percentage points in the fourth quarter as compared to the third quarter of 2023.

Additionally, both revenue and gross margin were negatively impacted by foreign currency translation. If exchange rates relative to the U.S. dollar had been the same as one year ago, we would have expected revenue to be $5 million higher and gross profit to be $4 million higher. Operating expenses came in above our guidance range, driven by continued investments in R&D, and sales organization to support our strategic initiatives in new applications.

In 2023, we created numerous new and important sales roles globally that we expect will drive our sales, deepen customer relationships for the future. We also had higher stock-based compensation and some one-time expenses that increased operating costs in the quarter. Foreign currency transaction loss related to remeasuring foreign currency assets and liabilities to period-end exchange rates had a minor negative impact on operating expenses of $0.4 million or $0.01 per diluted share in the quarter.

GAAP operating income was $29 million and operating margin was 9.6%. Net income in the quarter was $41 million or $0.89 per diluted share. The effective tax rate in the quarter was 2% and benefited from certain discrete items, including closing tax audits.

Moving to Slide 5. Sales of high power CW lasers decreased 19% due to lower sales and cutting applications in China and Europe as a result of lower industrial demand and OEM customers working down inventories as well as increased competition from Chinese players in cutting applications. Sales of ultra high-power lasers above 6 kilowatts represented 48% of total high-power CW laser sales.

Pulsed laser sales decreased 40% year-over-year due to lower demand in solar cell manufacturing and battery foil cutting applications driven by reduced industry demand. System sales decreased 1% year-over-year with strong growth in the LightWELD, offset by lower sales in other laser systems. Medium-power laser sales increased 5%, while QCW laser sales were up 6% year-over-year, driven by higher sales to consumer electronics, 3D printing and e-mobility applications. Other product sales were up meaningfully on strong growth in medical applications and beam delivery.

Looking at our performance by region on Slide 6. Revenue in North America decreased 3% due to lower demand in cutting applications, which were partially offset by higher sales in welding, mostly driven by strong revenue in e-mobility applications. In the face of a widespread economic slowdown in Europe, sales increased 1% as the region continued to perform better than expected, with higher sales across most applications, except for cutting.

Revenue in China decreased 25% year-over-year due to lower demand in general industrial markets, continued competitive pressure in cutting applications and reduced investments in electric vehicle battery production. China represented 24% of total sales in the quarter, its lowest level in the last 10 years.

Moving to a summary of our balance sheet on Slide 7. We ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $1.2 billion and no debt. Cash flow generation remained strong with cash provided by operations of $106 million in the fourth quarter. Our capex was $25 million in the quarter and $110 million for the full year. Net of asset divestitures capex was $79 million.

Our inventories declined in the quarter and decreased by more than 10% during 2023 as we continue to focus on managing inventory and reducing our investments in working capital. We will remain focused on lowering our inventories during 2024 which may have a short-term impact on margins, but will benefit our cash generation.

While maintaining a strong balance sheet, we continue to return capital to shareholders with our ongoing stock repurchases. We repurchased shares for a total of $64 million in the fourth quarter and $223 million in 2023. The Board has approved an additional $300 million in share repurchases. We've returned over $850 million to shareholders via share repurchases in the last three years, and continue to buy back shares opportunistically.

Moving to the outlook on Slide 9. Fourth quarter book-to-bill was below 1. Continued economic uncertainty with low PMI numbers in Europe, North America and Japan is impacting industrial demand and capital investments. We're also seeing cutting OEM customers managing inventory and reducing purchasing which may not restart until the second quarter.

In China, demand has remained soft in some of the mature markets such as cutting and marking are facing severe competition. We expect e-mobility investments to pick up in China in 2024, but only in the second half of the year. While it will be a challenging start to the year, we believe demand will improve as the year unfolds. We continue to focus on emerging growth applications and our strategy to continue to drive laser adoption in new markets and applications in 2024.

For the first quarter 2024, IPG expects revenue of $235 million to $265 million. IPG anticipates delivering earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.30 to $0.60 and with approximately 46 million diluted common shares outstanding. The company expects the first quarter tax rate to be approximately 25%. We expect 2024 capex to be in the range of $120 million to $130 million, net of disposal of assets as we continue to invest in additional manufacturing capacity in Germany, U.S. and other locations.

Significant amounts of the spending in 2024 relates to replacement of fiber and other critical components capacity that we no longer have access to in Russia. We expect capital expenditures at a significantly lower level in 2025 and beyond. As discussed in the safe harbor passage of today's earnings press release, our guidance is based upon current market conditions and expectations, assumes exchange rates referenced in our earnings press release and is subject to risks outlined in the safe harbor and the company's reports with the SEC.

With that, we'll be happy to take your questions.

Questions and Answers

[Operator]

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from James Ricchiuti from Needham & Company. Your line is now live.

[James Ricchiuti, Analyst at Needham & Company LLC]

Hi. Thank you. Good morning. So it sounds like the non-China EV-related business held up better in the quarter. Is that your expectation still as you think about the early quarter '24, just given some of the signs of slowing in the Western markets as it relates to EV and the impact that might have on capital investments, maybe moving -- shifting to the right?

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

Jim, you're right. EV outside of China in the fourth quarter was quite strong with good sales in North America, Korea and Japan. And clearly, given the guidance we've got for the first quarter, at least, there is a sort of lower level of EV sales in, say, North America in the first quarter, in particular, expected. And I don't think there's really a big pickup in the first half of the year. We've mentioned that we think we'll start to see some capacity investment in China in the second half of the year.

There are a lot of R&D projects that we're working on, both in North America and in Europe with a number of the larger automotive manufacturers, there's a significant, I'd say, no rebound, but increase in interest given the success of some companies utilizing the sort of subsystem incorporating the laser weld measurement technology is a renewed or increased interest rather from a broader basis, some of the large automotive manufacturing companies.

So we remain optimistic about it, but I think it's going to be a slow start to the year. We've got a fairly robust number, for example, the new drying application, we expect that to grow strongly. We had a good win for some EV motor applications, some have been welding applications as well. So that was a positive. But yes, it's a difficult start to the year, and I think EV is part of that as well.

[James Ricchiuti, Analyst at Needham & Company LLC]

Got it. And Tim, you size some of the impact from on Q4 gross margins from the production shutdowns. Has that as we think about the early part of Q1, has that also been a headwind that has factored into the -- presumably the Q1 gross margin guidance?

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

Yes. Part of the Q1 is continuing to try and work down inventories. I was actually really pleased with the progress and the pretty definitive progress we made in that in the end of the year and the way that translated into really strong cash flow generation. I'd say in Q1, it's a combination of continuing to want to manage inventories closely with also a level of revenue guidance that starts to more fundamentally impact our fixed cost absorption relative to, say, a $300 million revenue run rate. It's a combination of the two things, Jim.

[James Ricchiuti, Analyst at Needham & Company LLC]

Got it. I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next question is coming from Ruben Roy from Stifel. Your line is now live.

[Ruben Roy, Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus]

Thank you. Hi, Tim, I would like to stay on the inventory topic, if we could. And move over to the customer side of the equation. I think you mentioned that you were managing inventory at customers. And I'm wondering if you can give us a little bit of detail around that dynamic versus demand? And I know you like -- you don't like to guide for more than a quarter, but you did say probably expect some pick up second half.

So when you think about the first half, do you think that there's further downside as inventories are digested at customers in Q2? Or do you think that we're sort of at a level where we could think about sort of a flat revenue outcome and then perhaps a little bit of growth in second half as the inventories come off -- come down at your customers? Thank you.

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

Yes. So I think it's mainly our cutting OEM customers, who are managing their inventory levels. And not only are they trying to get those down in the first half of the year, but on the other side of the equation, they're also expecting to see some improvement in their business as we get into the second quarter and beyond. So we don't expect cutting market outside of China to remain persistently weak for the entire year. So we're looking for some recovery in that.

I'd say my sense is we're seeing somewhat of a bottom in the demand cycle here. We don't have a great bookings forecast for the first quarter that's been put together, but it's actually relatively stable. January bookings off of -- compared to a very, very weak October, saw some improvement and January is the first month of the year. So that was quite good. It was still down on a year-over-year basis.

So if I'm sort of going to pull together a trajectory here, I think the first half of the year will continue to be -- will be very challenged. But I'd like to target, and we are targeting maybe some moderate growth on a year-over-year basis in the second half of the year. I mean clearly, given the weakness we had in the second half of last year, that shouldn't be too difficult to do if we see even a basic recovery and things. But I think it would be good to get back into some growth on a year-over-year basis, and that's certainly what we're trying to target.

[Ruben Roy, Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus]

Very helpful, Tim. I guess just a follow-up on that, outside of some of the -- your own inventory work downs, etc., and obviously, on the lower level of revenue, there are these absorption costs that we have to worry about. But in terms of some of the other areas that you folks are working on last year, sort of bringing up the expanded factory manufacturing levels, etc., as revenue does recover, are some of the factories set to go.

I mean Germany, Poland, in terms of seeing a little more of a, I guess, inflection in gross margins as those revenues come back second half of the year, or even looking -- sort of exiting this year into next year, should we expect sort of a meaningful recovery in gross margins as revenues recover, I guess, is the question?

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

Yes. We expect to see that basically as we sort of absorb the fixed cost base better. Poland and Italy have made tremendous progress in getting their manufacturing and scale of their manufacturing increase. Germany has also made a lot of progress on that and so is the U.S. I'll leave Dr. Scherbakov to talk about some of the cost reductions that we're aiming to introduce on some of the high-power lasers with new designs there.

[Eugene Scherbakov, Chief Executive Officer and Director at IPG Photonics]

Yes. Not now, but last quarter, we also installed the development of the new technological electromechanical platform for our mid-power and high-power lasers. One of the goal, of course, it was a cost reduction, a material cost reduction. Our evaluation and we will confirm, when we'll start to ship to our customer this quarter. Our evaluation is cost reduction will be up to between 15% and 20%, but it's only initial evaluation and maybe it will be very much -- not much more, but a little bit more.

And this is one of our cost reduction and optimization of our gross margin in the future. Also for laser like components, but also we start to produce a new -- for us, a new product, that means semi-integrated solution. It means we are proposing today to customer, not releases of a set of components like laser scanner, LDD monitor and then there is this special integrated box we are proposing to our customers in our solutions.

For example, if customers get problems with copper welding, we definitely provided by our subsystem. We guarantee that customer will get the optimal result with copper solution, the same for aluminum solutions, the same for other materials. For us, it's a new experience, and we would like to propose to our customer in the future such kind of product. I mean semi-integrated product with final solution to customer processes. These are our main goals from one side to optimize development of our product to minimize the cost from other side to propose a new product for our customers.

[Ruben Roy, Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus]

Understood. Thank you, Dr. Scherbakov, for all that detail.

[Operator]

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question is coming from Scott Graham from Seaport Research. Your line is now live.

[Scott Graham, Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Yes, hey. Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. I actually have several of them. Would you guys be able to tell us what your pricing was for the quarter?

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

We give some -- historically given some guidance on high-power laser pricing, in particular, which has been more sensitive. Pricing has been very stable Scott for the last 18 months or so and we didn't see any significant change in that in the fourth quarter.

[Scott Graham, Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

So when you say you saw significant competition, you weren't referring to pricing you were just referring to volume?

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

No, we're referring to the fact that we've had a lot of Chinese competition around the cutting market for several years now. We choose not to compete with them on pricing, which has resulted in a loss of share for IPG within the Chinese cutting market. So the Chinese competitors will price at a significant discount to IPG. But we choose to focus on the premium aspect and performance of our product and price it appropriately in that regard.

[Scott Graham, Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Got it. Thank you for that clarification. What would you see -- I think you mentioned that the impact on gross margin quarter-over-quarter was about 400 basis points for the production shutdowns. Is that kind of going to stay with us in the first quarter? Is that a -- again, using the third quarter as the baseline -- is that a reasonable proxy for what the -- what's impacting the first quarter gross margin?

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

Yes. We've given gross margin guidance of 37% to 40%. So some of that is just -- well whether as you're trying to take inventory down or you've got a lower level of revenue, it's an impact on the absorption of the fixed cost base. In conjunction with that, we are closely managing expenses within the business. So we're taking down things like over time very dramatically looking at trying to optimize the cost of the business and also the cost of the product. But basically, whether we're trying to get inventory down or in the first quarter, coupling that with the relatively low level of revenue the gross margin guidance is kind of in line with where we reported Q4 at the top end a little bit better.

[Scott Graham, Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Right. I guess -- and I get that. I guess, what I'm getting to is that if you did not have that item weighing down the gross margin in the first quarter, it actually looks like your gross margin would be up year-over-year. And I just wanted to see why that would be the case?

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

No. On a year-over-year basis growth, even with this level of revenue, gross margin would not be up in the first quarter compared to the first quarter of 2023, when I think gross margin was 42%. You can't just add 400 basis, sorry, I think, I get what you're saying. You can't just add 400 basis points back to the range that we've given you. It's a combination of the lower revenue in the first quarter, as well as, probably a bit more moderate decreases in inventory in the first quarter than we attained and targeted in the fourth quarter. You can't just add 400 basis points to our range. I see what you're saying there.

[Scott Graham, Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

No, yes I see -- and I see what you're saying. I completely follow. Last question. A lot of questions about the outlook for Germany, particularly on the industrial side. I know you had an up quarter. However, it was, of course, against a fairly easy comparison. I'm just wondering what you're seeing in Germany as we start the year?

[Eugene Scherbakov, Chief Executive Officer and Director at IPG Photonics]

Might be -- you see, we are very optimistic about our situation. I mean,there are some orders and also some applications of our lasers in Germany. For example, last year, despite of this strong -- not good economical conditions, our revenue in Europe and also include Germany was a little bit grow up. And you see, of course, EV applications in Germany, in particular, it's a very strong application for our lasers. And we are also observing the trend because all manufacturing potential existing or potential manufacturer of electrical cars, they would like to produce battery for their cars mainly in Europe, including also Germany. And this is for IPG, it's a very good sign because our lasers, our other solutions will be acceptable by our customers here.

[Scott Graham, Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Understood. I'll get back in the queue. Thank you for responding to my questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next question is coming from Keith Housum from Northcoast Research. Your line is now live.

[Keith Housum, Analyst at Northcoast Research]

Good morning, guys. Thanks. I appreciate it. I was hoping you guys could expand on the commentary regarding the hiring of new sales positions in the quarter and expectations going forward. Can you provide some context in terms of how much of an investment you guys are making and perhaps where are some investments can be occurring? Thank you.

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

It's occurring on a pretty broad-based geographically, North America in Europe, some of our Asian entities as well. We're targeting strategically growing a broad set of end markets, right? We've got the tremendous opportunity on the welding side, which covers a very wide diversity of industries, whether it's in automotive or fabrication, other industries as well. So we're investing in key account managements and capability around that application.

We believe we've got very strong opportunities, for example, opportunities and continuing to grow cleaning applications, the new drying application, some of the more specialized areas and more advanced applications such as semiconductor. So we're really -- historically, the company has been very much driven by an OEM customer base across a narrower set of applications. The build-out of the sales force is to really add capability and depth and strength to cover what are very significant growth opportunities in a broader set of applications for the company. That's how I'd best describe it.

[Keith Housum, Analyst at Northcoast Research]

All right. Helpful. I appreciate that. Just as my follow-up, some the cost reductions you were referring to in terms of the mid and high level lasers. At what point during the year, should we start to see some of that benefit gross margins?

[Eugene Scherbakov, Chief Executive Officer and Director at IPG Photonics]

The first results will be demonstrated in the second quarter because in third quarter we will introduce this medium power lasers. And the third and fourth quarter, we will start to introduce to our customer high power. It means for 8 kilowatt up to 20 kilowatt lasers.

[Keith Housum, Analyst at Northcoast Research]

Great. Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next question is coming from Mark Miller from The Benchmark Company. Your line is now live.

[Mark Miller, Analyst at Benchmark]

Can you give us a feeling for your outlook for e-mobility opportunities?

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

Overall, this year, Mark, as I mentioned at the beginning, we're doing a lot of work outside of China with major automotive companies in Europe. We had a robust pipeline of sales in North America as well last year. It's probably, as I said, that the first half of the year is going to be slow on e-mobility, but we're expecting a pickup. I think when you'll start to look at some of the data that's out there last year, maybe 400 gig of total capacity was added, that was a slowdown -- 400 gig going to come on stream this year, which drove sales last year in 2023, there was a significantly higher amount of capacity that came on stream, which drove the strength in 2022.

As you look out there's an expectation that I think more than 1 terawatt of capacity has to come on stream in '25 and '26. That would imply that towards the end of this year and the beginning of '25, there should be a meaningful pickup in demand around EV globally.

[Mark Miller, Analyst at Benchmark]

I'm just wondering in China and especially in terms of EVs, the softness there, how much of it is just attributed to softness for electric vehicle demand versus any competitor having an impact on you in the EV market?

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

I think it's more the capacity that they had built out and that they're actually growing into that capacity. So EV demand in the first half of last year was pretty weak. You're absolutely right. In the second half of the year, though it picks up quite meaningfully. I think -- I should have got the data in hand, but a significant and quite high proportion of total EV sales. In China -- of total vehicle sales in China or EV, I haven't quite got the number right here in hand. So I'd say the EV market, the end market in China has started to improve, particularly in the second half of last year. And I think total EV sales were about 40% of light vehicle sales.

[Mark Miller, Analyst at Benchmark]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next question today is a follow-up from Jim Ricchiuti from Needham & Company. Your line is now live.

[James Ricchiuti, Analyst at Needham & Company LLC]

Thanks. I wanted to ask about the systems business, which showed some nice sequential growth. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what's driving that, whether you're seeing some impact on the systems business on the cleaning side? Or is that some of the newer drying applications? Or is it just strengthened welding in general?

[Eugene Scherbakov, Chief Executive Officer and Director at IPG Photonics]

First of all, of course, we will see there are very big potential for our systems for cleaning applications. We already started the material to our customer into sales and systems and the first reaction from customers is very positive, because a lot of different applications and for such kind of locations, also, we have to provide flexible enough systems. But again, combination of our high-power pulsed lasers, I mean high power up to -- medium power up to 3 kilowatt. Again, together is our scanners, together is our monitor.

And finally, with integrated box, we can provide this such kind of a subsystem to our customer, not final system because final system is much more complicated. It must be of course, coordinated with final customer. But this subsystem, flexible subsystem for the front applications for us, it will be and we also demonstrated available product.

The second very important application also connected to the welding. I already mentioned that we would like not to present a set of components to our customer. What we would like to produce to our customer final solutions, their problem. It means -- copper because it's for EV applications copper welding is very important for different application and the situation. Aluminum welding also is very important different kind of Aluminum different configurations and so on. And we're proposing to our customers the final solutions. For us, it's absolutely new business model, and we would like to promote this business model for our future -- expansion for a laser system for different kind of applications.

In concern to drying, to drying application, today we are shipping on the lasers. But of course, we are in the close contact with our potential and existing customers and also our status in how we can develop again, not the final system because final system might be more complicated. But again, some solution for our customers, we are working with the directions definitely.

[James Ricchiuti, Analyst at Needham & Company LLC]

Got it. Thank you for clarifying, by the way, on the drying side. Last question for me is just on the medical portion of the business. How would you characterize the outlook as you look at Q1 and perhaps further into 2024 on the medical side of the business?

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

See, I think Q1, actually, Jim, yes medical is going to be after a strong a little bit weaker with one of our main OEM on the surgical side as well, adjusting some of their inventories down. For the full year, we expect Medical to basically be flattish and then we're introducing a lot of two or three new applications and devices at the end of this year, working with an additional partner as well on one of our main applications. So we then expect the medical to start to pick up much more meaningfully into 2025.

[James Ricchiuti, Analyst at Needham & Company LLC]

Thanks very much.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next question is coming from Scott Graham from Seaport Research. Your line is now live.

[Scott Graham, Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Hi. Thank you for taking my follow-up questions. The first quarter operating expenses guidance, I guess I was a little bit surprised that it was at that level and maybe you can't get to it in the first quarter. But what are you doing around operating expenses in 2024 to bring those down as a percentage of sales?

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

I'd say, so the first thing is targeting getting revenue back up, that will bring them down a bit. But we are focused on looking at the total level of expenses. One of the things that happens at the beginning of the year, though, is that we have an annual operating plan that's out there. And last year, we were below that annual operating plan, not surprisingly given the results. So some of your variable compensation accruals do change, when you have a reset on the annual operating plan.

There is though -- we don't believe we want to take a lot of investment. We mentioned, some of the investments on selling expenses is very important because we're not just focused on this year, but we're trying to drive growth out of a wide range of new applications. We're also trying to accelerate bringing some of the newer product to market. So for example, on continuing to invest and develop our ultrafast and UV lasers, which will substantially open up some more of the microprocessing market, which again is a fast-growing area.

On the G&A side, there's a limited amounts of expense that we can take out there. So it's really a question of trying to optimize them as best as possible, but certainly not cutting back on areas, where we think we should be investing in for the long-term growth and benefit of the company. And my personal view and it's a view we've held at IPG for a long time is that cutting R&D and some of these investments just because you're in what you think is a relatively temporary downturn is the wrong thing to do. The longer-term returns had on continuing to make those investments.

[Scott Graham, Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Understood. Thank you. Just my last question would be around your commentary that some of this destocking might ease in the second quarter and you feel that second half revenues can be up year-over-year. Is that customer feedback? Is that trade press, where is that coming from at those views?

[Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at IPG Photonics]

No, with direct discussions with all of our main OEM customers on the cutting side. It just not like just trade news or PMI data. Or it's more specific feedback than that.

[Scott Graham, Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. We've reached end of our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further or closing comments.

[Eugene Fedotoff, Senior Director of Investor Relations at IPG Photonics]

Thank you for joining us this morning and your continued interest in IPG. As always, we will be participating in a number of investor events this quarter and looking forward to speaking with you soon. Have a great day, everyone.

[Operator]

[Operator Closing Remarks]

Participants

Corporate Executives

• Eugene Fedotoff, Senior Director of Investor Relations
• Eugene Scherbakov, Chief Executive Officer and Director
• Timothy Mammen, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President

Analysts

• James Ricchiuti, Needham & Company LLC
• Ruben Roy, Stifel Nicolaus
• Scott Graham, Seaport Research Partners
• Keith Housum, Northcoast Research
• Mark Miller, Benchmark Co.