Group sales at the Belgium-headquartered manufacturer rose by 3.2% last year, excluding currency effects, to €1.15bn (£983m).
Adjusted EBITDA jumped by 52% to €76m.
The bottom line loss was €101m (2022 loss: €223m) after charges including restructuring and for discontinued operations.
Revenue at Digital Print & Chemicals grew by 12% to €409m. Adjusted EBITDA increased more than five-fold to €18.6m, with margins improving from 0.9% to 4.6%.
Radiology Solutions sales slipped by 4.5% to €425m; while Healthcare IT sales were up 4.9% at €249m.
Sales at Contractor Operations and Services – the division that has manufacturing and supply agreements for film and chemicals with spun-off offset business ECO3 – were flat at €68m. Its adjusted EBITDA margin was 3.9%.
Agfa said that, within Digital Print & Chemicals, results had been driven by “growth engines” Digital Printing Solutions and Green Hydrogen Solutions, along with general price increase actions,
Its Digital Printing Solutions wing posted profitable growth despite a “subdued equipment investment climate”.
The business benefited from higher ink sales “across all segments” as well as its ongoing push to convert Inca’s customer base to Agfa’s ink sets.
Agfa had previously compared the ink usage on its Tauro UHS wide-format printers running at 600sqm/hour as being around 3,000 litres per year; while an Inca Onset would consume double that amount at more than 6,000 litres per year if running at 1,400sqm/hr.
A major product launch for 2024 will be the first shipments of the SpeedSet B1 single-pass inkjet press – with The Delta Group just announced as the world’s first SpeedSet beta customer and a second “coming soon”.
Printweek understands that a SpeedSet would be likely to consume around €1m-worth of ink per year.
At next week’s Fespa Agfa will show its new Anapurna H3200 higher-speed printer, and a 5m roll-to-roll device through its fresh partnership with EFI.
The firm is also planning to launch a new mid-range printer at the show alongside a rebrand of its inkjet portfolio.
Agfa said it expected the global deal with EFI to bring in €15m-€20m of extra sales between mid-2024 and mid-2025; and then in following years €30m-€40m of extra sales.
EFI will add Agfa’s high-end hybrid printers to its product range as part of the deal.
However, based on the current Drupa floorplan Agfa will not be exhibiting at Drupa. ECO3 will be at the show, in Hall 5.
Commenting on the results, Agfa president and CEO Pascal Juéry said: “In 2023 all our growth engines performed very well, powering the profitability of the group.
“We have made strong progress in all of them, with the launch of our HealthCare IT cloud and web streaming activities, our strategic partnership with EFI and an unprecedented number of innovative product introductions, including our SpeedSet single-pass packaging printer.
“Furthermore, our Zirfon membrane business grew exponentially and started to contribute to our profitability in the course of 2023. This validates the repositioning of the Group in these future-oriented activities.”
He said the “tangible transformation of Agfa was in full swing… that is not done in two years, it takes a bit of time.”
Regarding the outlook for 2024, Agfa said it expected to achieve significant top line and profitability growth at Digital Print & Chemicals, driven by Digital Print Solutions and Green Hydrogen Solutions.
Agfa’s share price had descended to a new 52-week low of €0.98 at the end of last week, but jumped by more than 15% following the results announcement and was at €1.24 at the time of writing (52-week high: €2.94).
