We are First Sensor

Our organic growth in recent years bears testament to the increasing importance of sensor technology. Our three technological growth drivers of pressure, LiDAR and camera are mainly responsible for this. Today, we generate half of our sales from pressure sensors. However, the coming years will see us expand our sales in the area of photonics with LiDAR and camera solutions at above-average growth rates. Through the consistent implementation of our strategy for profitable growth, we want to continue the success story of First Sensor.

We generate roughly half of our sales in the Industrial target market, where the digital networking of products and production processes is forging ahead in the context of Industry 4.0. This market is also shaping the association between physical and virtual devices in what is known as the “Internet of Things” as well as the intelligent interaction of urban dwellers and the technology that surrounds them to create highly evolved smart cities. Our sensors are key components in focus applications such as smart building or factory automation. Not only do they enable more efficient configuration of industrial processes, they also improve the interaction between humans and machines. In the medium term, we see additional potential in the areas of aviation, machine vision and predictive maintenance.

Key trends in the Mobility target market are partially and fully automated vehicles that promise increasing levels of convenience and road safety and the implementation of low-consumption and low-emissions green mobility. This growth market accounts for roughly one quarter of sales. The importance of sensor technology for use in passenger, commercial and special-purpose vehicles, including heavy-duty or smart farming machinery, is increasing in structural terms. Thanks to long-standing partnerships and the delivery of several million units, First Sensor is valued as a reliable supplier by leading automotive corporations. We anticipate accelerated growth from the increasing use of driver assistance systems with optical environment detection by LiDAR systems and cameras as well as from the fusion of various sensor technologies. In addition to the expanding application possibilities of optical sensor technology in the mobility of tomorrow, green mobility is becoming a growing focus application. After all, pressure sensors play a key role not only in low-consumption and low-emission combustion engines, but also in the introduction of new drive technologies.

The third pillar in our profitable growth strategy is the forward integration of sensor technology along the value-added chain to meet the growing demand for complex solutions that combine multiple functions in customer applications. Forward integration allows us to increase our share of value-added by offering our customers solutions that increasingly go beyond the delivery of sensor chips and components. In addition to customer-specific sensors, these include sensor systems and, in the future, the fusion of different sensor types. Our customers benefit from the fact that they receive complex components for their products from a single source. To this end, we focus on the continuous evolution of our core design competencies as well as on producing sensor chips and high-precision integration of powerful modules. In addition, we are steadily expanding our expertise in other process technologies as well as in software and sensor communication.

All four pillars of our profitable growth strategy are based on operational excellence. In addition to successfully rolling out SAP and refining our core processes, we have implemented sustainable measures to reduce lead times, for target-cost-oriented development, and to improve delivery reliability. We are continuously working to streamline our business processes with a focus on lean management and are currently switching our photonic and pressure products from four-inch to six-inch production on a phased basis. This will deliver significantly higher productivity and lower manufacturing costs. Furthermore, the integration of external partners is helping to make our production network more agile. We already work with contract manufacturers in Europe and Asia and will identify additional partners through a targeted outsourcing process with the aim of selectively outsourcing the production of commodity technologies or work steps involving a high degree of manual work. This way, we are expanding our capacity to develop and produce new, complex sensors and sensor solutions at our production locations while at the same time further improving profitability. In the medium term, we are targeting an annual growth of 10 percent.