Waters Executives Discuss Growth, Goals for 2025

On Wednesday, March 5, Waters Corporation held its 2025 Investor Day in New York, New York. The event featured presentations by members of the Waters’ senior management team, who discussed the company’s growth, new strategic priorities, and its focus moving into 2025 (1).

In the fiscal year of 2024, Waters brought in approximately $3.0 billion in revenue, having a gross margin of 59.4%. Further, Waters stock (WAT) was shown to have historical long-term growth, an average of 6% from 2009 to 2019. The company made $873 million in sales in the fourth quarter of 2024, exceeding the high-end of guidance ranges, growing 6% as reported and 8% in constant currency (2). The company saw growth in the third and fourth quarter of 2024 across all regions, a total increase of 8% year over year sales growth, and new expectations for further development.

The company expects its market in China to decrease due to challenges in both the supply chain and biotechnology space (3). However, it plans to invest more into India and focus on biologics, glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) testing, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) testing.

Rob Carpio, senior vice president of Waters, described the company’s objectives with three tenets of growth: embed execution excellence, deliver pioneering innovation, and scale position in high-growth areas. The company still has room for growth in areas including e-commerce adoption, contract organization, and growing the sections of their chemistry portfolio dedicated to large molecule applications from 40% to 50% by 2030 (2). Artificial intelligence (AI) is also being tested in various ways, such as assisting with quality control screening, troubleshooting guidance, or through providing customer support to guide them to the columns and chemistry they need.

Udi Batra, president and CEO of Waters, the company’s growth stems from a four-part plan: converting complex instruments into more simple and accessible ones, send data from these instruments into software that measures success by data integrity, tracing molecule complexity, and dedicated staff consisting of approximately 2000 staff members across the world.

“Our margins are high not because we have the best operational excellence systems in the world. They’re high because our business model is simple and it requires low SG&A (selling, general, and administrative expenses)9,” Batra said.

The company serves approximately 5700 customers, mainly in specialty clinical liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) laboratories. According to Jianqing Bennett, Waters’ senior vice president of clinical business and thermal analysis (TA) instruments, the company works to use liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) technology as a gold standard for diagnostic and testing performances in four major areas: toxicology, endocrinology, therapeutic drug monitoring, and newborn screening for treatable disorders. TA instruments are also important to them for their broad material science portfolio and application potential. This has proven profitable, as it opens further what sorts of work clients can use Waters technology in.

Amol Chaubal, senior vice president and chief financial officer (CFO) at Waters, said the company will capitalize on its current growth that comes from GLP-1 testing, PFAS detection, and its growth in the Indian market.

“We have the M&A (mergers and acquisitions) muscle, and we want to remain disciplined and create value. When you add all that up, that meaningfully elevates what our EPS (earnings per share) growth would look like in the years to come,” Chaubal said.

References

(1) Waters Corporation to Host Investor Day on March 5, 2025. Waters IR 2025. https://ir.waters.com/News--Events/newsroom/news-details/2025/Waters-Corporation-to-Host-Investor-Day-on-March-5-2025/default.aspx (accessed 2025-3-5)

(2) Waters Corporation (NYSE: WAT) Reports Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2024 Financial Results. Waters IR 2025. https://ir.waters.com/News--Events/newsroom/news-details/2025/Waters-Corporation-NYSE-WAT-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2024-Financial-Results/default.aspx (accessed 2025-3-7)

(3) Waters 2025 Analyst & Investor Day. Waters 2025. https://waters-investor-day-2025.open-exchange.net/webcast (accessed 2025-3-5)