It’s often difficult to track the financials of certain 3D printing companies, but that’s not the case with Nikon SLM Solutions.
The company began as SLM Solutions, but was acquired by Nikon some years ago as a way for them to enter the digital manufacturing business. SLM Solutions was a publicly traded company, one we tracked on our weekly leaderboard.
However, after the acquisition, they mostly disappeared into the conglomerate that is Nikon Galactic. Normally, when this happens, it becomes near-impossible to figure out what’s going on in the company because the data is mixed in with everything else going on in the company.
But this is not the case with Nikon SLM Solutions. It turns out that Nikon Corporate publishes their financials — as they should, they are a public company — but they break out the figures for Nikon SLM Solutions. This allows us to have a peek into what’s going on at the company, even though it is part of a much larger enterprise.
Their latest release was for the first quarter of 2025, so I took a look at it to see what I could learn.
Their financial year-end is March 31st, so the 1Q25 report includes their full annual results. The report states their “Digital Manufacturing” segment, which is mostly composed of the activities of the former SLM Solutions operation. Nikon defines this as “manufacturing, sales & services”.
The report lists the revenue for the Digital Manufacturing activity as US$162M (although published in Japanese Yen in the report). They note a loss of US$104M — but this includes unknown restructuring costs, so it doesn’t really tell us much about the profitability of Nikon SLM Solutions.
There was some explanation of how the year went for the company:
“In the Digital Manufacturing Business, the Group recorded a year-on-year increase in revenue because sales of large-size equipment remained strong, while sales of mid-to-small-size equipment decreased. The Group, however, recorded a year-on-year decrease in profit due to higher production costs resulting from lower production volume of mid-to-small-size equipment, the organization of the U.S. footprint, and increased upfront investments in R&D and other areas. As a result, this business segment recorded revenue of 23,356 million yen (up 11.2% year on year) and an operating loss of 15,225 million yen (operating loss of 14,093 million yen in the previous fiscal year).”
The report also talks about future prospects for the company:
“In the Digital Manufacturing Business, the metal additive manufacturing field is expected to remain weak and unchanged, mainly in the mid-to-small-size equipment market. On the other hand, the large-size equipment market is expected to continue growing, especially in North America, as demand is expected to increase.
In the medium-term management plan, the Group has positioned Material Processing and Robot Vision as medium-term growth drivers for its strategic businesses under the Digital Manufacturing Business.
In the Digital Manufacturing Business, the Group will promote the formation of new markets by offering unique value to the increasingly digitized manufacturing industry and introducing competitive new products to the market.”
One challenge facing Nikon SLM Solutions is that their prime products, such as the huge NXG XII 600, are sold intermittently. This is quite unlike manufacturers of smaller equipment that carry more unit volumes. In other words, Nikon SLM Solutions’ revenue will be quite bumpy as sales of these monster machines come and go.
We’ll be watching the company’s financials in this way as information continues to be provided.
