Increasing uncertainty about the future development of global trade, tariff increases between the US and Europe, and weak demand in some of our markets are weighing on SGL Carbon's sales and earnings performance. On the other hand, the restructuring of SGL's Carbon Fibers business unit is showing initial signs of success. After six months of fiscal 2025, SGL Carbon generated sales of €453.2 million, down 15.8% on the previous year (H1 2024: €538.0 million).
The decline in sales within the Group is primarily attributable to negative volume effects, while currency and price effects played only a minor role. In particular, the continuing weak demand from our semiconductor customers in the Graphite Solutions business unit weighed on sales development. Furthermore, the Carbon Fibers business unit reported lower sales as a result of the discontinuation of unprofitable business activities as part of the restructuring.
The cost savings resulting from the restructuring of Carbon Fibers and a slight improvement in adjusted EBITDA in the Process Technology business unit were unable to offset the shortfall in earnings contributions from the decline in the high-margin semiconductor business. Adjusted EBITDA, an important key figure for the Group, decreased by 16.2% compared to the first half of 2024 to €72.5 million (H1 2024: €86.5 million). The adjusted EBITDA margin remained almost unchanged at 16.0% compared to the previous year (H1 2024: 16.1%).
Taking into account depreciation and amortization of €25.8 million (H1 2024: €27.0 million) and non-recurring and special items of minus €49.9 million (H1 2024: €3.6 million), EBIT for the first half of 2025 amounted to €3.2 million (H1 2024: €55.9 million). The non-recurring and special items result in particular from restructuring expenses of €47.0 million.
Development of the business units
The Graphite Solutions (GS) business unit reported sales of €221.0 million in the first half of 2025, down 22.2% on the same period of the previous year (H1 2024: €284.2 million). This significant decline in sales is primarily attributable to lower demand in the Semiconductor & LED market segment, which saw a significant drop in sales of €63.4 million to €78.4 million (H1 2024: €141.8 million).
"Our customers' demand for special graphite components for the semiconductor industry is a key driver of sales and earnings for the entire SGL Carbon business. As expected, demand was weak in the first half of 2025 due to continued high inventory levels at our customers. In addition, Western electric vehicle manufacturers in particular postponed market launches of new vehicle models with SiC semiconductor structures. We generally expect demand to pick up again once our customers have reduced their inventories, but it will continue to be driven by electric vehicle sales figures in the future," explains Andreas Klein, CEO of SGL Carbon and head of the GS business unit.
The significant decline in sales in the high-margin business with our silicon carbide semiconductor customers had a negative impact on GS's adjusted EBITDA. Compared to the same period last year, GS's adjusted EBITDA decreased to €40.8 million (H1 2024: €72.2 million). Measures initiated to reduce personnel and energy costs only partially offset the volume-related decline. The adjusted EBITDA margin decreased significantly to 18.5% in a six-month comparison (H1 2024: 25.4%).
With sales of €70.2 million, slightly up on the same period of the previous year (H1 2024: €69.9 million), the Process Technology (PT) business unit confirmed the stability of its business activities. PT benefited in particular from its global customer base, especially in the first quarter of 2025. The completion of several major projects was also reflected in adjusted EBITDA. This increased from €16.0 million in the same period of the previous year to €19.9 million. Higher capacity utilization and positive cost effects for raw materials led to an improvement in the adjusted EBITDA margin from 22.9% in the first half of 2024 to 28.3% in the first half of 2025.
The restructuring announced in February 2025 showed initial success in the first half of 2025, with positive adjusted EBITDA for the Carbon Fibers (CF) business unit. The discontinuation of loss-making business activities resulted in a 15.1% decline in sales to €93.5 million (H1 2024: €110.1 million) but also led to an increase in adjusted EBITDA for CF from minus €4.4 million to €5.2 million year-on-year.
"As part of the CF restructuring, production at our site in Lavradio (Portugal), which mainly produced acrylic fibers and precursors for carbon fibers, was closed down. Production and consequently also our business activities in the acrylic fibers and precursors product areas were completely discontinued at the end of June 2025. CF will focus in future on profitable products with greater differentiation from the international competition," said Dr. Stephan Bühler, member of the Executive Board responsible for this area.
It should be noted that the adjusted EBITDA of the CF business unit includes an earnings contribution of €4.7 million from its equity-accounted joint venture BSCCB (H1 2024: €7.9 million). The decline in BSCCB's earnings contribution is due to the costs of expanding production capacity and volatile demand from automotive customers. Excluding the earnings contribution of the equity-accounted BSCCB, adjusted EBITDA for CF would have been €0.5 million (H1 2024: minus €12.3 million).
The Composite Solutions (CS) business unit was also unable to avoid the increasing uncertainty in the automotive industry about future growth prospects. CS sales declined by 11.7% to €59.1 million in the first half of 2025 (H1 2024: €66.9 million). It should be noted that the first six months of the previous year still included sales from a contract with an automotive customer that expired in the second quarter of 2024.
As a result of lower volumes and the associated lower utilization of production capacities, CS's adjusted EBITDA decreased by €2.7 million to €5.4 million (H1 2024: €8.1 million) compared to the same period last year. Accordingly, the adjusted EBITDA margin of CS declined to 9.1% (H1 2024: 12.1%).
Outlook
Increasing trade barriers, especially due to US tariff policy, are having a negative impact on the business development of our customers and sales markets. In particular, the high level of uncertainty about future developments in the automotive industry is currently weighing on demand for our products. This also includes expected sales of electric vehicles, which are the main drivers of demand for silicon carbide semiconductors. Special graphite components from SGL Carbon are required to manufacture these high-performance semiconductors.
In light of the current economic environment and our expectations for developments in our sales markets in the upcoming months and taking into account our restructuring measures in the Carbon Fibers business unit, we adjusted our sales forecast for fiscal year 2025 on July 14, 2025. We now expect consolidated sales for the full fiscal year 2025 to decline by 10% to 15% compared with the previous year (2024: €1,026.4 million). Previously, SGL Carbon had expected sales to decrease by up to 10% (slight decline) compared with the previous year.
Due to the discontinuation of loss-making business activities in the Carbon Fibers business unit and cost savings as part of the successful restructuring and associated improvement in profitability, the forecast for the Group's adjusted EBITDA for fiscal year 2025 remains unchanged in the range of €130 million to €150 million.
Thomas Dippold, CFO of SGL Carbon, explains: "SGL Carbon is not immune to the economic environment or developments in our sales markets. But we have taken measures to stabilize SGL Carbon's profitability. The measures already implemented as part of the Carbon Fibers restructuring are showing initial signs of success, and for the first time in many quarters, adjusted EBITDA for CF business unit is positive again. But we are not satisfied yet. We will continue to optimize our cost structures and work on developing new market segments."
Further details on business development in the first half of 2025 can be found in the half-year report.
Key figures of the first half 2025
