As expected, continued weak demand from key sales markets and declining economic expectations are weighing on SGL Carbon's sales and earnings performance in the first quarter 2025. After three months of fiscal 2025, SGL Carbon generated sales of €234.3 million. This was 14.0% below the previous year (Q1 2024: €272.6 million). Consolidated sales were mainly impacted by weak demand in the Semiconductor & LED market segment, which contributed the majority of the €38.3 million decline in consolidated sales with a €30.0 million drop in sales compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
Based on the significantly lower sales, particularly of higher-margin products for the semiconductor industry, SGL Carbon's adjusted EBITDA decreased by 20.4% to €33.5 million compared to the first quarter of the previous year (Q1 2024: €42.1 million). Accordingly, the adjusted EBITDA margin declined from 15.4% to 14.3%.
“Sales figures for electric vehicles have risen slightly again in recent weeks. This is basically a good sign for our graphite business. However, weak demand from our semiconductor customers confirms our assumption that demand for specialty graphite products for the manufacture of silicon carbide-based semiconductors will not pick up again until the high inventories in the entire semiconductor value chain have been reduced,” explains Andreas Klein, CEO of SGL Carbon.
With depreciation and amortization remaining almost unchanged at €12.8 million (Q1 2024: €13.0 million), EBIT for the first quarter of 2025 was primarily impacted by one-time effects and special items of €17.3 million. This was due to the restructuring of the Carbon Fibers business unit (Q1 2024: €2.5 million). EBIT decreased accordingly from €26.6 million in the same quarter of the previous year to €3.4 million.
Development of the business units
The Graphite Solutions (GS) business unit reported sales of €116.7 million in the first quarter of 2025, down 17.4% on the same quarter of the previous year (Q1 2024: €141.3 million). The majority of the decline in sales is attributable to weaker demand in the Semiconductor & LED market segment, which recorded a significant drop in sales of 41.4% (€30.0 million). The most important customer group here are customers from the silicon carbide-based semiconductors segment, who, as in the second half of 2024, demanded significantly less products in the first quarter of 2025 than in the same periods of the previous year. This is mainly due to electromobility, where growth expectations have declined compared to earlier forecasts, leading to temporarily high inventories at our customers.
The decline in sales had a negative impact on Graphite Solutions' adjusted EBITDA. Compared to the previous quarter, adjusted EBITDA fell by 41.0% to €21.6 million (Q1 2024: €36.6 million). This was mainly due to the decline in volume of high-margin products for the semiconductor industry and lower capacity utilization in our production facilities. The adjusted EBITDA margin decreased significantly quarter-on-quarter to 18.5% (Q1 2024: 25.9%).
The Process Technology (PT) business unit confirmed the positive development of the previous year with a 10.6% increase in sales to €36.5 million (Q1 2024: €33.0 million). This encouraging increase was driven in particular by major projects for international customers and a good order situation in the service business. Based on higher capacity utilization and an attractive product mix, adjusted EBITDA for Process Technology improved from €6.9 million in the same quarter of the previous year to €11.0 million. Correspondingly, the adjusted EBITDA margin developed positively, rising from 20.9% to 30.1% in the first quarter of 2025.
Sales in the Carbon Fibers (CF) business unit amounted to €46.7 million in the first quarter of 2025, down from €57.6 million in the same quarter of the previous year. The decline of €10.9 million (-18.9%) is primarily attributable to the further decline in demand from the wind industry and the associated capacity adjustment in the carbon fiber business.
The reduction in logistics, personnel, and energy costs as part of the capacity adjustments had an initial positive impact, leading to an improvement in adjusted EBITDA for the CF business unit of €4.0 million to minus €1.2 million (Q1 2024: minus €5.2 million). It should be noted that the activities accounted for at equity, in particular the joint venture Brembo SGL Carbon Ceramic Brakes (BSCCB), made a positive contribution of €1.7 million to the adjusted EBITDA of the CF reporting segment.
Sales in the Composite Solutions (CS) business unit declined by 19.4% to €29.9 million in the first quarter of 2025 (Q1 2024: €37.1 million). The decline is primarily due to the expiry of a project-related contract with an automotive customer, whose sales were still included in the first quarter of the previous year. As a result of lower volumes and the associated lower capacity utilization, adjusted EBITDA for CS decreased by €2.8 million to €2.7 million compared to the previous quarter (Q1 2024: €5.5 million). Based on the loss of the high-margin customer contract and increasing price pressure from the automotive industry, the adjusted EBITDA margin decreased from 14.8% in the same period of the previous year to 9.0% in Q1 2025.
Restructuring Carbon Fibers business unit
”About three months ago, we informed about the upcoming restructuring of the Carbon Fibers business unit, which also includes the closure of unprofitable business activities and sites. The first measures already implemented included further global capacity reductions and associated personnel and cost adjustments. On May 5, 2025, we informed the workforce at our Lavradio site about the phased closure of production,” reports Dr. Stephan Bühler, member of the SGL Carbon Board of Management responsible for this business unit. ”Lavradio has been making losses for years, which have weighed on SGL Carbon as a whole. On the one hand, global demand for acrylic and carbon fibers is below expectations and, on the other hand, the manufacturing costs for fiber materials in Europe are significantly higher than in countries outside Europe, partly due to energy costs. We are therefore not competitive on the global market. Since neither demand nor global overcapacity combined with low prices are expected to improve in the future, we decided to close the Lavradio site,” adds Thomas Dippold, CFO of SGL Carbon.
Outlook
Given the current economic and geopolitical conditions and based on the business performance in the first quarter of 2025 and our expectations for the remaining fiscal year 2025, we confirm the sales and earnings forecast for fiscal year 2025 issued on March 20, 2025.
Our forecast for the current fiscal year 2025 takes into account all four operating business units, as we are still in the early stage of restructuring our Carbon Fibers business unit. For 2025, we expect consolidated sales to be slightly below the previous year (2024: €1,026.4 million) and adjusted EBITDA to be between €130 million and €150 million.
Further details on business development in the first quarter of 2025 can be found in the quarterly report.
Key figures of the first quarter 2025
