Company: IPGP
Filing Date: 2025-05-06
Form Type: 10-Q
Source: 0001111928-25-000069
Chunk: 38

Company: IPG PHOTONICS CORP
Filing Date: 2025-05-06
Form: 10-Q
Item: Part I, Item 1
Chunk 38
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, we may negotiate discounted selling prices from time to time with certain customers that place high unit-volume orders.

The secular shift to fiber laser technology in large materials processing applications, such as welding and cutting applications, had a positive effect on our sales trends in the past such that our sales trends were often better than other capital equipment manufacturers in both positive and negative economic cycles. As the secular shift to fiber laser technology matures in such applications, our sales trends are more susceptible to economic cycles, which can broadly affect the demand for capital equipment including machine tools and industrial lasers, and competition from other fiber laser manufacturers. Additionally, as our technology matures, we become subject to more competition which can affect sales trends.

Gross margin. Our total gross margin in any period can be significantly affected by a number of factors, including net sales, production volumes, competitive factors, product mix, and by other factors such as changes in foreign exchange rates relative to the U.S. dollar, tariffs and shipping costs. Many of these factors are not under our control. The following are examples of factors affecting gross margin: 

•As our products mature, we can experience additional competition which tends to decrease average selling prices and affects gross margin;

•Our gross margin can be significantly affected by product mix. Within each of our product categories, the gross margin is generally higher for devices with greater average power. These higher power products often have better performance, more difficult specifications to attain and fewer competing products in the marketplace;

•Higher power lasers also use a greater number of optical components, improving absorption of fixed overhead costs and enabling economies of scale in manufacturing;

•The gross margin for certain specialty products may be higher because there are fewer or sometimes no equivalent competing products;

•Customers that purchase devices in greater unit volumes generally are provided lower prices per device than customers that purchase fewer units. In general, lower selling prices to high unit volume customers reduce gross margin although this may be partially offset by improved absorption of fixed overhead costs associated with larger product volumes, which drive economies of scale; 

•Gross margin on systems can be lower than gross margin for our lasers and sub-systems, depending on the configuration, volume and competitive forces, among other factors;

•Persistent inflation leading to increases in average manufacturing salaries as well as an increase in the purchase price of components including, but not limited to, electronic components and metal parts could negatively impact gross margin if we are not able to pass those increases on to customers by increasing the selling price of our products; 

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•Changes in relative exchange rates between currencies we