The Waterbeach-headquartered group has issued a trading update for the six months to 30 June. 

It said sales were expected to be around £37m, up 41% compared with H1 2021 and boosted by the acquisitions of FFEI and Megnajet. 

Organic sales growth excluding the two buys was 14%.

Xaar said it had made “further operational and strategic progress” across the business, despite a Covid-related slowdown in China at its Printhead division.  

It invested in inventory to mitigate supply chain cost inflation, and boost resilience, and had put up prices to offset rising input costs. 

“Additional management initiatives are helping in reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency while cutting energy use supporting Xaar's 'net zero' commitments,” the group stated. 

Sales and margins also grew at its Product Print Systems business. 

CEO John Mills said he was pleased at the performance. 

“We are on target, seeing positive momentum continuing to improve performance across the group,” he said. 

“We continue to make strategic and operational progress and remain on track to delivering long-term profitable growth.”

Mills believes the new aqueous head will be “completely transformational” for the business.

Xaar will target the £100m market in printheads for textiles and packaging first, with a roadmap to take its high-speed, high resolution aqueous heads into wide-format graphics and labels in the first half of 2024.

Xaar also launched the FFEI-developed Versatex out-of-the-box print engine during the period.