DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (XRAY) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

June 1, 2023

NASDAQ US Health Care Health Care Equipment and Supplies conference_presentation 32 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Jonathan Block

analyst
#1

Great. Good morning, everyone. Jon Block with Stifel, and welcome to Day 2 of the 2023 Stifel Jaws & Paws Conference. Good to see everyone again. We've got another great day fully loaded. Yesterday, we had 15 panels. Today, we've got 14 total panels, and that includes our 4 physician panels as well. We're going to start off this morning with dental, and we're going to kick things off with Dentsply Sirona, one of the biggest players in the dental market. Thanks, guys, for joining us. We've got Simon Campion, Chief Executive Officer; and Glenn Coleman, CFO. I'm excited to talk about a broad range of topics.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#2

I'm going to start pretty high level Simon, if I've got this right, you're coming up on roughly your 9-month anniversary at Dentsply Sirona. Just talk to us, what surprised you in a both positives and negatives since you took over at the company.

Simon Campion

executive
#3

Sure. Thanks, Jon. I think on the positive side, we have a very experienced team that's been working in dental for many, many years. And so we have a good base from which to build. And what we found as we've come in is they were just looking for inclusive and transparent leadership. So that's the first and foremost. Secondly, we've had a lot of questions about our portfolio. And I would say that we think our portfolio is in reasonably robust shape. There are no glaring gaps in the portfolio that we have identified. But we're also not foolish enough to continue to ask ourselves are we doing the right thing and answer yes or no. We're actually doing work right now with external partners to engage our customers and have them assess what our portfolio looks like. Thirdly, I would say it's a positive and that comes from a negative. I would say that the integration or lack of between Dentsply and Sirona over the past 6 years, has been eye-opening, shall we say?

Jonathan Block

analyst
#4

Even 6 years later.

Simon Campion

executive
#5

Even 6 years later. But to us, that represents opportunity. And that is what Glenn and I and the rest of the team have been speaking about over the last number of months, and we're bringing people in who can begin to get after those opportunities such as the other restructuring work that we have going on, the SKU rationalization, the network optimization, investment in the commercial teams and clinical education that has been lacking ERP that Glenn has been driving. So in every cloud, there's a silver lining. And even though there have been lots of clouds over our company for a period of time, we see it as immense opportunity, and, hopefully, in the first 9 months of our tenure, folks in the room and investors have begun to see that we laid out a reasonably straightforward plan, and we're executing against that right now.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#6

Very helpful. And maybe about that plan, I was surprised only a handful of months after taking over, you sort of went to a conference and talked about expectations of $3 in earnings in 2026. And at the time, you nor Glenn had any prior dental experience. So just maybe talk to us, and I think you addressed some of this in your prior answer, but talk to us maybe specifically, what were you able to identify sort of the assets that gave you the comfort and confidence that you could put out toward those long-term goals?

Simon Campion

executive
#7

Yes. So I think, firstly, our balance sheet is in good health, and I know that was one of the things that Glenn speaks about when he's asked a similar question to the first one that you asked about. Secondly, I did touch on the portfolio. Thirdly, arguably, despite our best efforts, we still manage to sell $1 billion every quarter. So there's great resilience with our customer base. They like our products. We've been rebuilding our relationship with distributors and DSOs that had been fractured. And as I said, even though we don't have dental experience, we're bringing in people here who can turn that -- turn those clouds into opportunities. So Tony Johnson in Ops and Supply Chain, massive experience working with me in Bard BD around SKU rationalization, there are -- our new General Counsel, significant experience in M&A. And while we have said repeatedly over the past few months, M&A is off the table, we're building a funnel and now we have capability in-house to get after that. And then on the ERP, Glenn, at its previous role at Integra, transformed their ERP system from 25 down to 1. And so we're embarking on that exact same thing. So dental experience, maybe not. But business experience and knowing what levers to pull, we have lots of experience.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#8

And well how to get done and the ability to do it. Very helpful.

Glenn Coleman

executive
#9

And Jon, I would just add what gave us the confidence as we were 2 to 3 months in, and we had really jump-started from day 1 acting with urgency, moving forward with the restructuring initiative, moving forward with the SKU work. And so we had enough of a framework to know what some of the expected savings would be out of those key programs. And so that was a big part of our thinking of -- while we hadn't fully vetted the detailed plans yet, we had enough information to say, we've got a path to $3 by 2026.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#10

Okay. Very helpful. And maybe, Glenn, just to follow up with you. If I look at that $3 number in 2026 and I run it sort of off a 2022 result, it implies about a 10% CAGR. If I run it off the 2023 guidance, midpoint-ish you arrive closer to a mid-teens CAGR. And I get it, right? You're going to have an EPS growth rate that balances around. It's not necessarily consistent every year. But when I think about next year, when I think about 2024, in my mind, I have to call it, a bigger growth rate or benefiting from several variables. And let me maybe run that by you. You'll arguably have an easy comp when we think about 2023 guidance. You've got the 2023 commercial investments that you're making this year that I would think turn somewhat accretive into '24. And then you got the '23 restructuring, but some of that restructuring isn't until really the back part of the year because you've got to work through Europe and the unions over there. And then there's that China VBP headwind that's somewhat unwind. So are those all real headwinds in '23? Do I think about them abating into '24 and for '24, do we sort of have an outside EPS growth rate relative to the CAGR?

Glenn Coleman

executive
#11

Yes. No, it's a good question. I think first and foremost, we frame 2023 as a year of stabilization for our company. And I think we've done a nice job to stabilize the organization, bring the new management team in. And for me, based upon the initiatives that we have outlined and how we're advancing, 2024 should be a year of inflection for this company, better growth, accelerated top line performance and obviously much better EPS performance year-over-year. To your point, I think, number one, I don't think we have easier comps versus 2023. So I would say that's probably not a driver. I think what is a driver is we should expect to see better top line performance with the commercial investments we've made in the business. In particular, we've made big investments in our implants team in the U.S. business. So we're expecting that to turn around and achieve growth next year. We've made investments in the DSOs, which has been an area that in the past we've ignored and not spent enough money on. And we've invested in geographic expansion in Europe, as an example. So I do think that those will be key drivers to help us get better top line performance, get better leverage across the P&L and ultimately get better results. China, for sure, should show better results. We're already expecting to see that this year in the back half of the year. So I think that momentum, barring any major setbacks with COVID lockdowns or anything else that we don't see right now, should result in much better performance year-over-year. And yes I think there's a lot of positive signs in China, which I'm sure we'll talk about in just a few minutes. But that should be a nice tailwind for us. FX has been a big headwind, not so much in '23, but certainly in the first quarter. So I think as long as rates stay stable, that will no longer be a headwind for us next year and actually could be a tailwind. And to put it into perspective, 2/3 of our business comes from outside the U.S. And in 2022, we had a $300 million impact to our top line and $0.30 to EPS. So it is something to keep an eye out for relative to what it could do to our business. But most importantly is the restructuring work, right? We're well along on the restructuring. We're getting $200 million of annualized savings when we're fully complete. Most of the work in parts of the world like the U.S., Asia, LatAm are complete. Europe is taking us longer, which was expected. We have to go through the workers' council approvals, co-determination processes. And so those benefits really won't start until 2024. But that should give us a nice tailwind and better performance next year. And I do think, next year, probably in the back half of the year, we'll start to see the benefits from the SKU rationalization work that we're doing. So you factor all those items in and '24 should be an inflection year for us. And then we've got a couple of good things that should happen in 2025 and 2026. And that includes the ERP benefits that I would expect to see. Our ability to centralize, consolidate, automate a lot of our back office functions, getting further benefits from the SKU work. So we'll get kind of a full year in 2025. And there's opportunities for us to really simplify the company. So for example, one of the things that we haven't started yet, but we're going to be getting to shortly is distribution and logistics. We have about 60 distribution centers today. There is a clear opportunity for us to really streamline that whole distribution network. So there's things like that, that give us confidence that we've got a lot of opportunity to get us much better profitability, better margin expansion, ultimately, get us to the $3 of EPS.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#12

That's a great time line and trajectory. I think just 1 clarification question, Glenn. You mentioned working with the workers' council and that more of a '24. Was that always the expectation or do you expect resolution late '23 or is it '24 sort of unchanged?

Glenn Coleman

executive
#13

It depends country by country.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#14

Okay.

Glenn Coleman

executive
#15

So many of the countries will be complete, I would say, by the third quarter of this year. The largest of which, though, is Germany, and that is usually the longest one to get done. And so that's where we have the biggest part of the population that will be affected. And so that one will likely hopefully get done and approved this year, but the benefit is really happening in 2024. But nothing different versus our plans that we previously outlined.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#16

That you communicated.

Glenn Coleman

executive
#17

Yes.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#18

Okay. And there are some high-level questions, and I'd like to try to funnel down. So more near-term trends and some stuff around inventory. So the trends questions I'm going to try to lay out would be excluding China because there's a lot going on there, as we know. Glenn, on the recent earnings call, you talked about improving patient traffic in key markets. And I guess, is that a fair characterization of what you continue to experience again outside of China?

Glenn Coleman

executive
#19

Yes. No, I think it is. And we make that comment based upon survey results that we see from third parties, our own survey results, information they actually see in terms of our business performance and retail demand with our consumables business. And that business has continued to do really well at the retail level. And so when I look at Europe, the U.S., some of the bigger markets, consumable growth continues to show positive signs and stability in the market. And then, obviously, we look at external data points to kind of further validate some of our comments that we've made. We're still cautious on the equipment side. That's one area I'm still pretty positive on. But when you think about the larger ticket items in imaging as an example, with 2D or 3D imaging, there are markets that are actually slowing down, and we're seeing some headwinds. But we contemplated that in our guidance. Obviously, I was very cautious on how to think about equipment for the rest of this year. But on the whole, I would say the trends, from a patient traffic perspective, have been pretty positive.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#20

And maybe a little bit more representative of what you saw in April. I wouldn't call it sawtooth pattern on your 1 call, but you did call out sort of a good Jan, Feb, March maybe pull back a bit and then strengthen back into April. So when we think about that, is it for sort of extrapolate more of that April data point into May?

Glenn Coleman

executive
#21

I would just say we didn't see anything different in May versus April. And Simon, you maybe want to comment too on some of the survey data that we have.

Simon Campion

executive
#22

Yes. So as we laid out in the Q1 call, we now do our own surveys. And the February survey was 200-odd dentists, the April one was almost 1,600. And the data from that was suggestive of a little bit more confidence on the consumable side and traffic side from dental, but still -- not deteriorating, but still reticence around capital investment. So in the U.S. and Europe, 1 in 4 expressed some concern about investing in heavy capital, and that number was 1 in 3 in Australia and New Zealand. So it wasn't any worse than the February data, but it was 1 in 4 and 1 in 3 in the April data. And we'll run that again before the next earnings call as well.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#23

Okay. Perfect. Very helpful. I want to ask 1 more, maybe 2 more near-term trends, and I'll pivot a little bit more to inventory. And you guys had very solid 1Q '23 results, but you did talk a little bit about a channel build on the consumable side, a price increase in May and some people capitalizing and buying ahead of that. Yesterday at the conference, I won't say a theme, but we heard several times about inventory being worked down, both actually with distributors and also at the practice level, in some cases, just different cost of capital and how businesses are approaching inventory levels. Glenn, your confidence that you've dialed in sort of the right expectations into guidance when we think about how you exited 1Q, and maybe if you could just sort of detail what embedded in your expectations there?

Glenn Coleman

executive
#24

Yes. I mean we focus heavily on, in particular, our U.S. dealer inventory levels. And if you look at where we were coming into 2022, we had high inventory levels at our U.S. dealers. We spent the entire year working those inventory levels down, especially for CAD/CAM equipment to the point where we actually reduced inventory by $60 million in 2022. So we ended up the year and started 2023 in a very good position, with very low dealer inventory levels, especially with CAD/CAM. We did indicate on our fourth quarter call that we expected to see a sequential increase in dealer inventory in Q1 of about $20 million that actually turned out to be less than that. And that's just typical in terms of some of the seasonal things that we see in our year-end with some of our larger dealers, a pricing increase we were passing through. We expected some prebuys as a result of that. But our dealer inventory levels are in very good shape when you think about our U.S. dealers, and we have 2 large dealers in the U.S. For Q2, I would expect the dealer inventory levels to come down sequentially and for year-end kind of be flat to where we started the year in 2023. So it could be down, but listen, relative to our guidance, we've been very cautious and conservative. And the key for us is really driving more retail demand with our dealer partners. That's the key here. And that's what we've been really focused on. And if we get that, then we'll see really strong sales going into the dealers while these inventory levels continue to come down or be kind of at the same level.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#25

Okay.

Simon Campion

executive
#26

I noted Jon earlier that we've had not the greatest relationship with some of our dealers, and we're in the -- well in the process of restoring those relationships. And an example, we just had one of the larger dealers in the U.S., we had their entire equipment sales team into our facility in Charlotte, where they got retrained and reengaged on our scanners in particular in Charlotte. So that rebuilding of this company is well underway, including relationships.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#27

And I've seen your site in Charlotte, it's best leveraging that as well. So to your point with your dealers, with the dentists and consistently bringing those individuals through.

Simon Campion

executive
#28

Yes.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#29

Okay. One more near term, and it's just coming out of yesterday. So we had another dental manufacturer up here yesterday. They talked a little bit about some recent results coming out of rush are not results, but sort of restrictions or regulations on depending on where products are manufactured. Maybe just remind us, Glenn, one, on your overall exposure with Russia, I think it's relatively low. But, two, are you subject to some of those restrictions? Or does it differ for Dentsply Sirona based on where you're manufacturing the product?

Glenn Coleman

executive
#30

Yes. No, we're obviously very well aware of the trade sanctions. There's now dental products that are specifically called out in those sanctions. And so we're evaluating what that means in terms of our ability to ship and sell into Russia. To put it into context, though, our sales to Russia are about 3% of our consolidated sales. So it's not a significant number overall, but obviously, an important market for us. And so if you look at the sanctions, really, the challenge is if you're manufacturing products in the U.S. and selling into Russia, and you have to go through a process, getting special licenses and so forth to actually continue to ship. In our situation, it's a bit different than probably some other manufacturers in that, we actually manufacture most of what we sell into Russia in Europe. So in Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, really, that's how we source the Russia market. So I would expect, if anything, it will have a very minimal impact. But we're still evaluating what it could be. If there is an impact, we'll apply for a special license that usually takes about 60 days or so. And any impact in the second quarter would likely just be a time ahead in the third quarter. But I would expect it to be small given that most of what we do is exact manufactured yet.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#31

Because it's manufactured outside.

Glenn Coleman

executive
#32

Yes.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#33

Okay. Got it. I just want to clear that up. And let's pivot maybe from Russia to China. Some numbers in the first quarter, China was down, I think you guys said 30%. Your guidance reflects flattish growth for the year, but you also talked about the possibility for growth year-over-year based on what you were seeing in April. And so the question that I'm about to ask all of our companies, all of our dental companies who are getting here because it's funny, coming out of 1Q, people were talking about China sort of picking up, everyone had a different take on the slope. And then we had these news reports saying, "Hey, peak infection rates aren't going to occur until June." And we saw a lot of air momentum come out of these stories. On the ground, what are you guys seeing in China? That strength you called out in April, Glenn or Simon, can we extrapolate that? Or did you see that sort of pull back of late?

Glenn Coleman

executive
#34

Yes. I think first and foremost, we're getting real-time updates from our China team, so almost daily updates on what's happening there. I don't think we've seen the headwinds that are in the headlines of the news so far. So we had made comments on our earnings call that April was a very strong month from a volume perspective. Nothing changed in the month of May. That doesn't mean it won't change. But the trends were still very positive for us in the month of May. And even when we look at some of the mix in China, we're actually seeing heavier volumes coming through our value-based implants business versus premium. And that was discounted less relative to some of the pricing headwinds from VBP. So we actually may get a bit of a tailwind even on the pricing side. It may not be as bad as we had initially indicated.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#35

With the mixed tailwind that was going.

Glenn Coleman

executive
#36

With the mixed tailwind. But I still want to have some more data points to see how the rest of the year plays out before saying the impact is not as great as we initially thought. But it's a positive sign. And we continue to monitor what's happening in China. China continues to be an important market for us. And as you know, you mentioned 30% down in the first quarter last year, we're down close to 50%, but we do expect to return to growth this year, probably starting in possibly the second quarter, but certainly the third and fourth quarter. And I made comments on the earnings call that, initially, we were thinking flat for the full year, recovering that 30% drop in Q1. I actually think we can grow out this year.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#37

And so that's unchanged even with the headlines and what you saw in May, the fact that we might be able to grow in 2023 in China is intact.

Glenn Coleman

executive
#38

Nothing has changed from my perspective at this point.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#39

And if you were to grow and you had upside -- modest upside to guidance potentially because I think you have embedded in your guide flat.

Glenn Coleman

executive
#40

Yes. That's a fair assessment.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#41

Okay. I want to touch on those topics. I do want to go into your various divisions and some of your tech, there's a lot to talk about. And Simon, you laid out when you took over, we want to win in aligners and implants. So I figure that's a pretty good place to start. With aligners or ortho, your 1Q '23 reported ortho numbers were up over 20%, and that was actually the third consecutive quarter where you saw 20% plus growth. I would say some of that benefited maybe from some easy comps to an extent. But it seems like you're executing on both businesses. You called out strength for both SureSmile and Byte. What about a more normalized rate of growth going forward? The comps do get more difficult. You came in, you cleaned some stuff up. But when we think about ortho going forward, is this 20% the right number? Or do we see more of a normalization?

Simon Campion

executive
#42

Well, we would certainly think the market is in the mid-teens and maybe up to and slightly above 20%.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#43

Even currently?

Simon Campion

executive
#44

Even currently, it's probably mid-teens even currently. Now there is sensitivity. We maybe have more sensitivity than some others to the macroeconomic environment with our Byte business. The median income of those patients is $63,000. So if we get a downturn, then they may consider not doing the cosmetic aligner treatment that they desire. But for sure, we had a really solid Q1. I think what you should expect to see from us more forward is more in general, at Dentsply Sirona, more aggression with respect to how we go after certain markets and how we push forward some of the clinical data that we have with respect to some of our products. And SureSmile is one of those products where 75% of patients don't require a revision with the SureSmile portfolio. And we have begun to push that claim aggressively. We have a dedicated orthodontic sales force. Obviously, inside sales for Byte. So we're in control of our own destiny in that space. And the second question -- the first question I was asked when I joined this company, was why? And then the second question was, what are you going to do with Byte? We can tell you we're very pleased with Byte. It was profitable in the first quarter, so unlike some of our competition where they are not profitable, we were profitable in the first quarter. We've streamlined how we run that business in the sense that we have a more focused funnel. We validate customers as they enter the funnel, so we don't spend money sending an impression kit to a customer who is not likely to actually purchase. We've changed incentive plans. So we're putting the building blocks in place for sustained growth in both SureSmile and Byte.

Glenn Coleman

executive
#45

And I think, Simon, you brought up an interesting point and a good point, which is the top line performance, obviously, we're getting some leverage across the P&L. But when you think about our ability to get margin expansion, our ortho business is one area we think we can get more margin expansion that will impact the total company. And as we see better performance in Byte with these higher conversion rates, lower customer acquisition costs, we're also bringing down our financing costs associated with this business, which has been a big headwind for us. We could see this business approaching our overall corporate average, which is not where it is today and helping to bring up our overall margins as part of our 3-year plan. So little teaser relative to the Investor Day coming up in November, but that's just something I wanted to mention as well. It's not just about top line growth, it's about margin expansion with this business as well.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#46

Okay. That's very helpful. And maybe just while we're talking about sort of the aligners or the ortho business, I asked about the growth rates. You mentioned mid-teens market, you were growing over 20%. I mean, should we still think even coming up on tougher comps, mid-teens is fair, maybe don't run with the 20% plus, but...

Simon Campion

executive
#47

We think mid-teens is probably fair as we look throughout the year. I mean, obviously, there's some variability quarter-to-quarter, but as we think about where we're going to -- what we are projecting for the year, I think that's probably reasonable.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#48

Okay.

Glenn Coleman

executive
#49

It could be choppy between quarters. I think I'd be comfortable saying on a full year basis, mid-teens kind of feels good to me. But, to your point, some of these quarters may be a bit up and down. So high single-digit second quarter, 20% in other quarters. But on the whole, I think mid-teens feels right for us for this year.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#50

And the business seems to have good momentum, right? We've got a lot to get to maybe in the last 5 minutes, but I want to make sure I ask for you guys, and you have so many different businesses. Is there anything to really call out on what you're seeing in the marketplace between, call it, the bread-and-butter dentistry versus the more discretionary implant and Clear Aligner procedures? Maybe Clear Aligner is tougher for you guys because you're taking share. You have so much share to capture. So you might not feel the consumer weakening there, you can still capture. But anything to call out what you're seeing on the discretionary versus more of the blocking and tackling the hygiene, et cetera?

Glenn Coleman

executive
#51

No, I don't think so. I think on the whole...

Jonathan Block

analyst
#52

Consumer is still hanging there?

Glenn Coleman

executive
#53

Consumer so far has been spending money and continuing to get procedures done. I mentioned the strength of the consumables business. But aligners to your point, it's hard to tell because of market share gains that we've got on the same side, implants, we've actually lost market share, working to get that back. So it's hard for us to really gauge some of the end user dynamics on implants. I still think it's pretty healthy, but you don't see that in our numbers right now because we have lost share. And obviously, we've taken steps to address that both in the U.S. and China, but it's a little bit more difficult for us to answer, I think, on the implant side.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#54

So that's a really good segue. It was actually my next topic, as you said, that you wanted to win in aligners and implants. Implants were down high single digits in the quarter. It was closer to down low single digits if you normalize for China. But one thing that stood out to me, I was at IDS in Germany. So you guys -- and when I visited with a bunch of dental companies, everyone said, we're going to take share in aligners. And you walk out from every single company, every single company is going to take share. So maybe talk to us on what is -- what enables you to capture share? Is it a product? Is it some of the commercial investments that you alluded to earlier? When we think about the road map that allows Dentsply Sirona to go from a share donor to capturing, what should we be focused on?

Simon Campion

executive
#55

You're talking about implants or aligners or both?

Jonathan Block

analyst
#56

I'm sorry, implants, specifically implants.

Simon Campion

executive
#57

So on implants, we have underinvested in implants in the United States over the last number of years from a commercial perspective. And I would group commercially in 2 ways. Number one, feet on the street; and number two, with respect to clinical education. The implantologists view themselves as a family, and we have neglected that family over the past number of years. And so now, we're reinvesting in that space right now. And in fact, this month in about 2 weeks' time, we will have 400 implantologists attending a Dentsply Sirona clinical education event in Greece. And so they have appreciated the fact that we're reengaging them in that manner. And then on the sales side of that equation, we have changed the incentive plan for our reps, we had all the U.S. reps in Charlotte 2 weeks ago to get trained up. Again, it's the most clinically intense part of the dental world. And so it takes a period of time for the reps to get the trust of the implantologist and to get the trust of the referring offices to that implantologist. So there's a long tail before we begin to get traction. We do expect to get traction by the end of the year, but clearly, Glenn and I think currently, we're losing -- we're declining and losing share. First step is stop declining and start growing.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#58

Stop declining, exiting '23 is the plan?

Simon Campion

executive
#59

Stop declining, exiting '23 will be the plan and then begin to see growth and then get to market. And then as we assess our portfolio that I mentioned in response to your first question, other gaps in our implant portfolio. Our internal assessment would be, not really. Let's see what the external assessment says and then the combination of the businesses that we have are going to allow us to invest R&D dollars in the faster-growing, higher-profitable segments. And if we have a gap in implants, we'll invest behind it.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#60

Okay. Very helpful. I want to say what I can get in the last, I'll round up, 2 minutes. CAD/CAM, and I'll break this down, starting with iOS, the Primescan scan. You came out with Primescan Connect. Are you where you need to be with Connect? And I bring that up because walking the floor at IDS, but even before that, at Greater New York back in November, you saw these prices really stepping down to $11,000, $12,000, $14,000 price point. So do you need a -- is Connect your mid, Primescan your high, do you still need a low to sort of build out the overall portfolio?

Simon Campion

executive
#61

We may well do, but I can tell you that we have been testing price sensitivity in Europe on Primescan Connect. And we ran some pilots and we've seen 4 sequential months of improved unit sales in Europe. And so now we've rolled that out across Europe. So Primescan Connect has absolutely got traction in that mid part of the market. I think one of the benefits for us being a full line supplier is we can bundle stuff. We haven't done a good job at it historically, but now we're actively looking at how can we get our scanners into the market by leveraging the power of the rest of our portfolio. So that includes consumables, implants, aligners, for example, but also the interoperability of all our systems, we think, afford us leverage. And we just need to educate ourselves first and then our customers on the value of converting to Dentsply Sirona and leveraging the power of everything we can bring to dental practices.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#62

And 1 last question, sticking within CAD/CAM. We had a big report out the other day just on 3D printing, it came back very bullish on the adoption rates. Ortho high, going higher, GP, a really steep slope, which I thought was certainly a positive for you guys. You guys have talked about the 3D printer in the milling can coexist. But how bold up should we be on 3D printing for you guys within CAD/CAM? In other words, if you have iOS stabilization, can this really act as a true growth driver to that segment? I know lower ASP, but I'd argue there might be a recurring opportunity somewhere in there as well. So maybe talk to us on if this Connect as sort of a driver for that segment?

Simon Campion

executive
#63

We read your report with interest. I will tell you, our position on 3D printing is a can coexist with milling. And again, we can leverage the power of our brand. We don't think 3D printing, neither ours nor any of our competitors, are in a position to enable dentists to place a permanent crown right now. It has -- it's perfect for splints, temporary crowns, night guards, et cetera, et cetera. So we think they can exist. We've had 4 solid quarters of performance in that space. It's something that we're driving. And the evolution of a customer is scanner, aligners, milling, 3D printing, that's kind of the evolution. So we think it's going to get traction as we continue to drive to chairside. But it is -- it won't replace milling yet, but we do have -- I'm sure like everyone else has R&D programs to evaluate can it eventually replace milling for permanent crown. So we're confident in our offering and we're bullish about the market, but it's not -- we're not just focusing on 3D printing.

Jonathan Block

analyst
#64

Okay. Fair enough. Guys, we're going to conclude there. Simon, Glenn, thanks very much for your time. I appreciate it.

Simon Campion

executive
#65

Thank you.

Glenn Coleman

executive
#66

Thank you.

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