Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE:MTD) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Matthew Sykes: Great. And then just thinking of some other potential offsets just given some of the challenges in the Lab business. You talked about sustainable materials, batteries and semis. Can you maybe help us understand sort of the sizing of that business and what kind of you’re seeing in terms of growth sort of globally, but maybe also by region. Just so we can kind of better understand what some of the offsets could be over the course of the year?

Patrick Kaltenbach: Yeah. Let Shawn break it down in terms of the size. But I mean, this is what we call the hot segments, right? And it’s really — at the moment, strongly driven by lithium-ion battery segments. We see strong — really good momentum building up in the semiconductor business with the reshoring and homeshoring of some of the semiconductor plants that is gaining momentum in sustainable materials that are gaining importance. And that is, again, we call these pockets of growth in in itself, they have, of course, not super significant in terms of size, but the growth momentum is important for us to compensate and offset some of the weaknesses that we see in other areas.

Shawn Vadala: Yeah. In terms of the size, Matt, I don’t have a specific number for you, but I mean these are still relatively smaller end markets for us in the kind of low single digit kind of a range. But from a growth perspective, they certainly help lot in terms of growth given the higher growth relative to the rest of the portfolio and the longer term opportunities here. And what’s kind of neat about these hot segments is that they — we can provide solutions very end to end. A lot of them — it starts in R&D. It goes all the way through development and to manufacturing. And so, we benefit in some cases, more so in our analytical instrument business, but we also see benefits through a large portion of our portfolio.

Matthew Sykes: Great. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from Catherine Schulte with Baird. Your line is open.

Catherine Schulte: Hey, guys. Thanks for the questions. I guess, first in China, is the weakness concentrated in any product categories within your Lab business? Or is it more broad-based? And are you seeing the consumables and services side of the business holding up better there?

Patrick Kaltenbach: Look, Catherine. I take this, it’s really broad-based in the market segment. I can’t point to any specific product category. It’s pretty broad-based and focused on pharma and biopharma. But for the single product category, I would point you that there is more effective.

Catherine Schulte: Okay. And then, maybe…

Shawn Vadala: And specific to consumables, Catherine, consumables are actually down more so because of all the testing that was still going on in China with COVID last year.

Catherine Schulte: Yeah. Okay. Got it. And maybe on the packaged food side, you’ve been talking about caution in that category for several quarters now. At what point do you start lapping some easier comps there? And is there anything to point to in prior inflationary environment as to when you might start seeing improvements there?

Patrick Kaltenbach: I think we will not face any easier comparison because we have performed pretty well last year in this business, and we are almost confident, but we are confident that we have taken market share as well. Yeah. In the Americas, especially, we have been quite strong. And this is also why we see probably in the second half this year comparison with a bit of a slowdown in growth. We had pointed more reluctance of investment in Europe in the beginning of the year or end of last year. And we continue to see that going on. And Europe is just not the same investment environment right now in the packaged food industry. A lot of the customers are actually under pressure when it comes to their margins, so they’re trying to push out their investments as well.

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