At yesterday's Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar, ILS Editor-in-Chief David Belforte presented his published Economic Review of the Global Market for industrial lasers. A condensed version of this report appears in the January/February issue of ILS. One of his themes in this presentation was that fiber lasers have been and are still leading the growth of industrial laser revenues.
Belforte cautioned the record-attendance crowd that his published numbers are based on published corporate reports and guidance guidelines issued by these corporations. At the time his report was prepared, he did not have access to the calendar year 4Q12 reports from leading suppliers of industrial lasers. As soon as these become available, he would make corrections in an updated report, a procedure that ILS has followed for many years.
Later in this seminar, keynote speaker Dr. Valentin Gapontsev, CEO and Chairman of IPG Photonics, in his prepared remarks, "Advances and Opportunities in Fiber Lasers," made note of differences he had with Belforte's numbers, which he acknowledged occurred because IPG has a better last quarter than their guidance numbers had suggested. He implied that IPG's 4Q performance would increase the fiber numbers that Belforte had reported earlier. A number of financial analysts in attendance at the Seminar commented that Dr. Gapotnsev's numbers seemed to be outside of the guidelines IPG stated in their last published report.
IPG Photonics has issued a Form 8K with The US Securities and Exchange Commission about these comments. See IPG's web site.
Belforte is quoted as saying that he will make any necessary adjustments needed in his published report.
For more details on the seminar, Laser Focus World senior editor John Wallace reports on it in his blog.