Teledyne delivered record third-quarter sales (up 6.7%), non-GAAP EPS (up 9.2%), and free cash flow ($314 million), prompting a raise to full-year 2025 guidance toward roughly $6.06 billion in sales and $21.45-$21.60 non-GAAP EPS. Growth was led by defense electronics, unmanned systems, and a stabilizing DALSA/e2v machine-vision business, supported by record orders and the strongest balance sheet since before the FLIR acquisition. Key risks are the ongoing U.S. government shutdown (potentially affecting ~25% of sales if prolonged) and continued commercial aerospace OEM destocking into 2026.

What went well
  • Teledyne reported all-time record quarterly sales, non-GAAP EPS, and free cash flow, with sales up 6.7% year-over-year, non-GAAP earnings up 9.2%, and record free cash flow of $314 million.
  • Total company new orders were a quarterly record, helped by continued backlog growth at Teledyne FLIR, with an overall book-to-bill of about 1.09x.
  • Defense-related businesses and recent acquisitions performed strongly, and the legacy DALSA and e2v digital imaging businesses collectively grew modestly for the first time in two years as machine vision recovered.
  • Management raised full-year 2025 guidance at both ends, lifting expected sales to about $6.06 billion (from $6.03 billion) and non-GAAP EPS to $21.45-$21.60.
  • Despite spending $770 million year-to-date on acquisitions, the balance sheet is the strongest since before the 2021 FLIR acquisition, ending the quarter with $2.0 billion net debt.
What went wrong
  • Digital Imaging non-GAAP operating margin fell 92 basis points due to greater cost-reduction (severance) expenses not excluded from non-GAAP and 90 basis points of higher R&D.
  • Aerospace & Defense Electronics segment margins decreased slightly year-over-year because recently acquired businesses carry lower margins, and commercial aerospace OEM shipments declined on customer destocking expected to continue through most of 2026.
  • Engineered Systems revenue fell 8.1% on a tough comparison, and within Instrumentation there was softness in offshore energy exploration, hydrography/oceanographic research, X-ray detectors (dental), and water/drug-development products.
  • The ongoing U.S.
  • government shutdown (then in its 22nd-23rd day) could delay new contract awards, export-license shipments, and government cash collections, with potential to affect about 25% of sales if it stretched to year-end.

Management Commentary

Read the Q3 2025 summary ↗
Jason VanWees
Vice Chairman, Teledyne

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. This is Jason VanWees, Vice Chairman, and I'd like to welcome everyone to Teledyne's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Release conference call. We released our earnings earlier this morning before the market opened. Joining me today are Teledyne's Executive Chairman, Robert Mehrabian; President and CEO, George Bobb; EVP and CFO, Steve Blackwood; and Melanie Cibik, EVP, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer, and Secretary. After remarks by Robert, George, and Steve, we'll ask your questions. Of course, before we get started, attorneys have reminded me to tell you that all forward-looking statements made this morning are subject to various assumptions, risks, and caveats as noted in the earnings release and our periodic SEC filings, and actual results may differ materially.

In order to avoid potential selective disclosures, this call is simultaneously being webcast, and a replay via webcast and dial-in will be available for approximately one month. Here is Robert.

Robert Mehrabian
Executive Chairman, Teledyne

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our conference call. First, I must say I'm very pleased to announce that we had record, all-time record quarterly sales, non-GAAP earnings per share, and free cash flow. Sales increased 6.7% from last year, non-GAAP earnings increased 9.2%, and free cash flow was a record $314 million. Furthermore, total company new orders were also a quarterly record, due in part to continued backlog growth at Teledyne FLIR. Given our strong third-quarter performance, recovering commercial short-cycle businesses, and also robust backlog growth, we're raising our full-year earnings outlook at both the bottom and the top of the forecasted range. Likewise, last quarter, we expected 2025 full-year sales to be about $6.03 billion, but now we believe we may achieve sales of $6.06 billion.

Our defense-related businesses, including our new acquisitions, are performing extremely well, and we continue to pursue a number of significant contract opportunities not yet formally awarded or reflected in our backlog. However, given the current U.S. government shutdown, we're a bit measured on expectations for new contract awards or acceptance of allowance of shipments that we need export licenses for, and of course, cash collections from the government will be somewhat delayed. The prior shutdown in December 2018 and early 2019 lasted about 35 days. I believe today we're in the 22nd or 23rd day. At that time, between 2018 and 2019, we didn't really experience any significant impact from the shutdown, and we similarly don't expect to have much impact except if the shutdown were to stretch for months and, God forbid, to the end of the year.

It may affect about, if it goes that long, it may affect about 25% of our sales somewhat, which are related to the government, but any temporary impact to commercial sales for which we may be dependent on U.S. government exports may be somewhat affected. Overall, I do not think this is going to affect Teledyne significantly. Also, you may have noted that China has designated Teledyne FLIR LLC as an unreliable entity. While customers in China represent only 4% of our sales in 2024-2025, such sales by Teledyne FLIR LLC were less than 0.4%. We don't expect much effect from there. Actually, Teledyne Brown Engineering was added to the same list in December 2024, but its sales to customers in China are zero.

Finally, I must note, despite spending $770 million in cash year-to-date on acquisitions, our current balance sheet is the strongest since prior to the FLIR acquisition in 2021. We also expect to close a small TransponderTech acquisition bought from Saab very soon, having recently received approval from the government of Sweden. Furthermore, we continue to pursue a number of other acquisition activities. George will now briefly comment on the performance of our business segments.

George Bobb
President and CEO, Teledyne

Thank you, Robert. In the Digital Imaging segment, third-quarter sales increased 2.2%. Teledyne FLIR sales continued to grow, but this was also the first quarter in 2 years in which sales from our legacy DALSA and e2v businesses collectively increased modestly. For example, sales of our sensors and cameras for industrial and scientific vision systems increased year-over-year and accelerated for the second quarter in a row. However, this was partially offset by ongoing weakness in sales of X-ray detectors, especially for the more consumer discretionary dental market. Both the overall Teledyne FLIR defense and industrial businesses increased, with sales of unmanned systems, counter-unmanned air systems, and infrared components and subsystems being the strongest performers. Third-quarter Digital Imaging book-to-bill was 1.12x, and as Robert mentioned, we continue to pursue a number of opportunities not yet awarded.

These include, for example, unmanned aerial systems opportunities, such as a full-rate production order for our Rogue 1 loitering munition under the Marine Corps Organic Precision Fires-Light, or OPFL, program, as well as a potential new award under the U.S. Army's Low Altitude Stocking and Strike Ordnance, or LASSO, program for which we are competing. There also remain several unawarded contracts, both domestic and international, for FLIR's airborne, land, and maritime surveillance systems. Non-GAAP operating margin decreased 92 basis points, primarily due to greater cost reduction expenses, which we did not exclude from non-GAAP margins, as well as 90 basis points of increased R&D expense. In the Instrumentation segment, which consists of our marine, environmental, and test and measurement businesses, third-quarter total sales increased 3.9% versus last year. Overall sales of marine instruments increased 3.2% due to strong sales of interconnects used in offshore energy production and for U.S.

Virginia and Columbia-class submarines. However, these were partially offset by difficult comparisons in offshore energy exploration and some reduced sales of products for hydrography and oceanographic research. Sales of environmental instruments increased nicely at 7.5%. This primarily resulted from higher sales for process gas safety and ambient air and emissions monitoring instrumentation, due in part to demand for new natural gas-fired power plants and other energy infrastructure. Sales of electronic test and measurement systems, which include oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers, and Ethernet traffic generators, increased modestly both sequentially and year-over-year. In particular, sales of high-bandwidth oscilloscopes used by customers developing or testing high-speed networking devices increased nicely, but were partially offset by sales to customers in the automotive and consumer electronics markets. Instrumentation operating margin in the third quarter decreased slightly on a tough comparison. However, we continue to expect a slight increase for full-year 2025.

In the Aerospace & Defense Electronics segment, third-quarter sales increased 37.6%, primarily driven by acquisitions and organic growth of defense electronics products. Commercial aerospace aftermarket sales increased, and OEM orders for 2026 deliveries were strong in the quarter, but OEM-related shipments declined from last year, given some continuing customer destocking. Overall segment operating profit increased year-over-year, but GAAP and non-GAAP segment margins decreased slightly year-over-year due to comparatively lower current margins at recently acquired businesses. Nevertheless, overall margin increased sequentially for the second consecutive quarter since closing the acquisitions. For the Engineered Systems segment, third-quarter revenue decreased 8.1%, given an especially tough comparison with last year. However, despite the lower revenue and also a tough comparison, operating margin increased 30 basis points from last year. I will now pass the call back to Robert.

Robert Mehrabian
Executive Chairman, Teledyne

Thank you, George. Let me just conclude by saying there are always going to be near-term challenges to overcome, and we have a strong history of doing that. We have a portfolio that varies from market to market, and no one market in our portfolio goes down at once. At the same time, no one market goes up all at once. Nevertheless, our strong portfolio always protects us from market turbulence. The government shutdown, of course, is a problem for everybody, and there is some market volatility that we're dealing with, but we're resilient, we're well-positioned, and we have a number of very strong growing markets with tangible critical products and solutions, as George mentioned. For example, in our unmanned air and subsea system, as well as our space-based electronics and imaging sensors for both the U.S. government and our NATO allies, we're very strongly positioned.

The ongoing need for new energy sources and new or renewed power generation are positively impacting our instrumentation businesses. The development and inspection of advanced semiconductors utilize our electronic test and measurement instrumentation and our digital imaging solution. Finally, regarding M&A activities, while we have a very strong balance sheet and we have, as I mentioned before, about $1 billion in free cash flow, we're going to be aggressive, but we're also going to be prudent not to overpay for things that are trading much higher than our own multiple. Let me just conclude with one remark. First, I want to congratulate George Bobb for being added to our board last night, but I also want to note that I plan to be the Executive Chairman of the company for at least another three years. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Steve.

Steve Blackwood
EVP and CFO, Teledyne

Thank you, Robert, and good morning. I will first discuss some additional financials for the quarter not covered by Robert, and then I will discuss our fourth quarter and full-year 2025 outlook. In the third quarter, cash flow from operating activities was $343.1 million compared with $249.8 million in 2024. Free cash flow, that is, cash flow from operating activities less capital expenditures, was $313.9 million in the third quarter of 2025, a record for Teledyne, compared with $228.7 million in 2024. Cash flow increased year-over-year in the third quarter, primarily due to favorable accounts receivable collections in the third quarter of 2025 compared with 2024. Capital expenditures were $29.2 million in the third quarter of 2025 compared with $21.1 million in 2024. Depreciation and amortization expense was $84.5 million in the third quarter of 2025 compared with $76.9 million in 2024.

We ended the quarter with $2.0 billion of net debt. That is approximately $2.53 billion of debt less cash of $528.6 million. Now turning to our outlook, management currently believes that GAAP earnings per share in the fourth quarter of 2025 will be in the range of $4.76-$4.98 per share, with non-GAAP earnings per share in the range of $5.73-$5.88. For the full year 2025, we believe that GAAP earnings per share will be in the range of $17.83-$18.05, and non-GAAP earnings per share in the range of $21.45-$21.60. I'll now pass the call back to Robert.

Analyst Q&A

Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Thank you, Steve. We'd like now to take your questions. Operator, if you're ready to proceed with the question-and-answers, please go ahead.
Andrew Buscaglia — Analyst, BNP Paribas
Hey, good morning, everyone.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Good morning, Andrew.
Andrew Buscaglia — Analyst, BNP Paribas
Last quarter there was some uncertainty around some of the strong growth you saw and whether that was pulled forward or not. Can you maybe run through the several segments and talk about how that shook out? In some areas, it seems like it didn't. In some areas, it didn't seem like growth really resumed that strong. In your mind, how did things progress?
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
I think overall, you know, with acquisitions, we had 6.7% growth across our portfolio. I think what we're looking at is various businesses did differently, as you mentioned. For example, our marine businesses continue to grow very strongly, and we're winning contracts both in the defense domain, which is our underwater vehicles as an example, as well as in energy development. In some of our instruments, there's a variation between various instrument businesses. In our gas and flame businesses for safety, we're doing very well, while we see a little softness, for example, in our water and products that are used in drug development. Overall, I'd say we also did have some pullings into Q2, maybe a little more in test and measurement than other areas. Going back to some of the other things that were mentioned before, FLIR's growth was 3% organic.
We also had stronger growth in some of our commercial FLIR businesses. Our unmanned systems, which are both air, ground, and systems, grew 10%. There's variation in our portfolio. Going back, Andrew, to what I said before, we have a fairly diverse portfolio. Some things go up, some things go down, but overall, the truck is moving forward, and it's moving forward handsomely based on what I see.
Andrew Buscaglia — Analyst, BNP Paribas
Okay. What about, specifically in digital imaging? You made the comment, industrial automation or imaging equipment for that market. Presumably, that's machine vision starting to pick up. Is that one area that grew last quarter nicely, but seems to sustain growth from here?
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
I'll answer part of it, and maybe George would want to add something to that. I think overall, the industrial and scientific vision systems grew about 3.4%, which to us is very attractive. Overall, DALSA, e2v, which is the rest of the digital imaging rather than FLIR, was relatively flat, both quarter-over-quarter, and we expect year-over-year. George has really taken some very strong action to take cost out of the part of that business that has slowed down over the last 2 years. As a consequence, he and I believe that what will happen is that the margins now will start improving going forward, and that business will pick up because we've skinnied it down to where it should be much more healthy. George, you want to add anything?
George Bobb — President and CEO, Teledyne
I think the only thing I would add is in the industrial side, we saw sales increases year-over-year in both the machine vision cameras business, where we're doing applications like semiconductor mask and wafer inspection, inspection of electronic components. We also saw an increase year-over-year in our machine vision sensors business where we make sensors for other OEMs.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Great.
Andrew Buscaglia — Analyst, BNP Paribas
Got it. Thank you, guys.
Greg Konrad — Analyst, Jefferies
good morning.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Morning, Greg.
Greg Konrad — Analyst, Jefferies
Maybe just putting a finer point on digital imaging margins. I mean, you called out some of the headwinds in the quarter between R&D and the restructuring, but I think in the past, you had talked about a 24% target. How do you think about the margin recovery into Q4 and maybe into next year for digital imaging?
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
I think the margins between 2023 and 2024 are, at least in Q4, obtainable, achievable. I think what will happen is that for the year, when you add the first two, three quarters and then Q4, for the year, we should be flat with last year, even though we took a significant amount of cost out in the first three quarters, including Q3 that we just concluded. With all of that said, if we can maintain the same margins as last year with all the cost out, then going ahead, I think 2024 is achievable.
Greg Konrad — Analyst, Jefferies
To put a finer point on the revenues, you raised the full-year outlook by 0.5% to $6.06 billion. Is that all organic? It looks like maybe there's a $20 million step-up sequentially in Q4. Can you talk about seasonality into the final quarter of the year and which segments you expect to see a step-up versus where there's a step-down tied to just typical seasonality?
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Let me start with digital imaging. $10 million of the $30 million comes from FLIR. We expect higher revenue in that area. $10 million of it comes from aerospace and defense, organic. Another $10 million comes from our acquisition from Q-Optics. It's a $30 million increase. It's not a big number, but there's also a little conservatism built into that, of course.
Greg Konrad — Analyst, Jefferies
Okay, thank you.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Thank you, Greg.
James Ricchiuti — Analyst, Needham & Company
Thank you. Good morning. George, I think you gave a book-to-bill number, and I wasn't sure if that was a book-to-bill in the digital imaging business, but maybe if you could, are you able to give, can you give us, provide a book-to-bill for the various, the three major segments?
George Bobb — President and CEO, Teledyne
Sure. Happy to do that. Yes. The book-to-bill ratio I gave you was for Digital Imaging, 1.12x. In the Instrumentation segment, we had a book-to-bill overall of 0.9x, a little higher in T&M, for example, 0.98x. Environmental, closer to 0.95x. Marine, closer to 0.8x, about 0.8x. Keep in mind that's a longer cycle business, a little lumpiness in orders there. We have a lot of backlog in the energy business, so not concerned about that, short-term, lower book-to-bill ratio. In Aerospace and Defense Electronics, again, longer cycle business, lumpiness in some larger orders, book-to-bill ratio was 0.84x. Engineered Systems was over 2x in the quarter, but again, that's a long cycle business. We tend to look at the longer-term view there, not one quarter at a time.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Overall.
James Ricchiuti — Analyst, Needham & Company
Got it.
George Bobb — President and CEO, Teledyne
Yep. The overall book-to-bill ratio is [1.09]
James Ricchiuti — Analyst, Needham & Company
Terrific. Thank you. You alluded to, in the earnings announcement, the potential for significant contract opportunities. I'm just wondering if you can give us some color on which areas of the defense business there are some potential large contracts, and any idea about the timeline just given the government shutdown?
George Bobb — President and CEO, Teledyne
Yeah. I wouldn't want to opine too much on the timeline of the government shutdown. What I would say is,
James Ricchiuti — Analyst, Needham & Company
Not about the shutdown. Just as it relates to the timeline for these contracts. Sorry.
George Bobb — President and CEO, Teledyne
Sure. No problem. I would say we have some near-term opportunities, particularly in the unmanned space. I mentioned a couple of them in the opening, for our loitering munition program, both with the U.S. Marine Corps. That's the Organic Precision Fire-Light program. We're looking for a full-rate production order there. I would think that would be relatively near-term, hopefully in Q4, depending on the timing of the government operations. That would be in the range of tens of millions of dollars. The LASSO program that I mentioned, the U.S. Army program, that initial order, hopefully near-term, would be initially more kind of millions of dollars and grow from there. Overall, what I would say is unmanned systems, things like our Black Hornet drone, our sales into counter-unmanned air systems, both of ourselves and where we're selling to other OEMs, integrated surveillance solutions for both border protection and defense, etc.
I think those are the strongest areas. Also, we continue to see a lot of strength in our submarine business where we provide interconnects on the Virginia and Columbia-class submarines.
James Ricchiuti — Analyst, Needham & Company
Okay, thank you.
Jordan Lyonnais — Analyst, Bank of America
Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. On the 737 rate increase step-up, how are you guys thinking about that into [fourth] year and next year, given the comments on some destocking?
George Bobb — President and CEO, Teledyne
Yeah. This is George. What I would say there is, yeah, we expect that destocking really to continue through most of next year. We won't see much of a benefit from the OEM, Boeing 737 MAX rate increase next year, although the demand there continues to be strong and we received a large order for 737 MAX 2026 delivery. Backlogs there. Just from a year-over-year comparison standpoint, we won't see much benefit from that slight increase in 2026 to the production rate.
Jordan Lyonnais — Analyst, Bank of America
Okay. Got it. Do you guys have any concerns about critical minerals availability, specifically for the sensor products for FLIR?
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
We have a little exposure there. On the other hand, we've been very diligent to cover that exposure. Overall, I don't think that's going to affect us in the short term.
Jordan Lyonnais — Analyst, Bank of America
Awesome. Thank you guys so much.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Thank you.
Damian Karas — Analyst, UBS
Hey, good morning, everyone.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Morning, Damian.
Damian Karas — Analyst, UBS
You had mentioned.
Yeah. I was hoping to dig in the weeds a little bit more on your comments about cameras and sensors being up year-over-year. Could you just perhaps elaborate on that? What do you think is driving the improvement, and have you been seeing those trends continue into the fourth quarter?
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Yeah. I can tell you, first of all, the comps are a little easier, with respect to last year. The, our cameras are up about 11%, and our sensors are up about 5%. Some of our scientific cameras that are very specific applications are down a little bit, about. All in all, and that's probably because I export. All in all, when you add it all up, we're up about 3.4%. I think what has happened, as I mentioned before, with taking the cost out of the DALSA, e2v businesses aggressively this year, that business has stabilized. It's going to grow, and the margins are going to improve as time goes on. We are positive about that. It's just that, when you look at the total imaging businesses, initially, right after we acquired FLIR, everybody was worried about FLIR, FLIR, FLIR. We solved that problem. FLIR's doing great.
FLIR defense is just hitting every milestone we expect. Now DALSA, e2v is stabilized, so we're very positive about our digital imaging segment altogether.
Damian Karas — Analyst, UBS
That's really helpful. Robert, I just was wondering if you could maybe give us your perspective on the macro outlook. Are there any changes to your view since your last update? I know it's early to be giving guidance for 2026, but just seeing where our trends are, if you were to ballpark today, where do you suspect growth could line up in 2026 if the current conditions remain?
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Let me just kind of answer it first broadly. We are very positive about our defense businesses with all the geopolitical problems you see. If you, for example, look at Europe, they are going to increase their defense spending. We, Teledyne, have 5,100 employees in Europe, distributed among many countries. We make drones in Sweden. We make other products. We make stuff in Norway. We have people that go in and out of Ukraine. They're in Denmark. Those guys are under a lot of pressure when we talk to our folks. They have to increase their defense spending. At a macro level, if I look at that, with all of our people there and all the need for in-country production, I see very positive trends for us in Europe.
Today, we probably produce something close $500 million in revenue in European defense, and I expect that to increase as we go forward. Coming back to the bigger picture of defense, George talked about our loitering munitions. As you well know, what they mean by loitering munitions, you got something that's flying around and can essentially attack a target, totally. Most of our competition has fixed-wing aircraft. We have rotating-wing aircraft or quad aircraft. Interestingly enough, that also can fit in a tube and be fired out of a tube, and it can go vertical takeoff and landing. We're very positive about that. The reason I'm talking about this stuff is because defense is going to be a pretty active area, both in Europe and, of course, in the Far East.
I have to say our small drones, what we call our nano drones, by the end of next year, we would have $500 million of these nano drones that you can hold in your hand. We probably have the strongest position there. Between all of the above, I think we're going to do fine in defense. In the commercial domain, we see machine vision recovering, as I said earlier, with a reduced cost structure. We see our test and measurement recovering. We do have long-term opportunities in power generation. All in all, 2026 should be a good year for us, barring any unforeseen catastrophes across the world, which I don't expect. We're just doing our plans for 2026, and we're very positively inclined.
Damian Karas — Analyst, UBS
That's really helpful. Appreciate all the color. Good luck.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Thank you.
Kristine Liwag — Analyst, Morgan Stanley
Hey, good morning, everyone. Robert, that was really helpful color on what you provided with European defense. I just wanted to clarify a few things. When $500 million, is that encompassing all of your defense exposure to Europe, or is that specifically only on the drone exposure that you were discussing? Also, more broadly speaking, I guess my question is really trying to understand more your go-to-market for these things. When you're looking at the drone and counter-unmanned air systems market, how are you thinking about being a prime and selling your nano drones versus your core competencies historically on sensors and those kinds of things? How do you look at the opportunity set for those kind of different go-to-market?
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Okay, Christine, let me start from the $500 million applies to two things. First, our total military sales this year in $500 million applies if you add everything that we've sold, all the nano drones that we've sold and would be selling through next year. $500 million. They're kind of, you know, only 60 or 70 of $500 million is the nano drones. Let's put that to one side. What we're doing is we're both prime in defense as well as subprime. For example, in loitering munitions, we're prime. In nano drones, we're prime. In some of our counter-unmanned air systems, we have partners.
It's a mixture, but we also have strong presence in all of these countries, which is very important because everybody, both in Europe and the Middle East, is driving towards in-country production of their defense products. We have presence everywhere. That works for us. It works for us in Europe, of course. Out of 15,600, 15,,700 folks in our company, 5,100 are located in Europe. That's how we go to market, and where necessary, we establish new entities to be able to operate from.
Kristine Liwag — Analyst, Morgan Stanley
Super helpful. Thank you very much.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
For sure, Christine.
Guy Hardwick — Analyst, Barclays
Hi. Good morning.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Morning, Guy.
Guy Hardwick — Analyst, Barclays
I want to ask a little bit more about the digital imaging margins. I think based on your comments that the reason for perhaps the digital imaging margin could be lower than expectations being R&D and also the severance costs. Obviously, you get the benefit of the severance costs, particularly next year. Is R&D a permanent step-up effectively funded by the reduction in the cost base? Kind of looking a bit further forward for 2026, as a follow-up to Damian's question about the top line, what should we be aware of in terms of margin mix for digital imaging in 2026 versus FLIR versus medical versus industrial? What kind of margin dynamics could we potentially expect?
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Let me take a piece of that and then see if George wants to add to it. First, in R&D, there are very, very specific areas that we've decided to invest. For example, in our test and measurement systems, we've decided to invest especially in protocol analyzers and the marriage of our oscilloscopes and protocols, as well as our very high-end oscilloscopes. We've intentionally decided to do that. Switching over to digital imaging, there's an area of digital imaging that we think we can be extremely successful, and that's in our sensor businesses. We've decided to invest a little more in our sensor businesses. Frankly, that's worked for us because some of our sensors, whether they are for visual systems or for infrared systems, are doing very well.
Our infrared sensors, we're also investing in because we are the supplier of infrared sensors to almost everybody that flies a drone in the United States or produces a drone. The investment in R&D is very specific for specific areas. It's not going to cut across all of our products. On the margin improvement for next year, I'll let George talk a little more about that.
George Bobb — President and CEO, Teledyne
Yeah. What I would say is first, as we mentioned before, obviously, we've taken the cost out. We're seeing the recovery in the short-cycle business. It's early, really, to talk about what the mix is going to look like next year, what 2026 numbers are specifically going to look like. In general, as the machine vision margin comes back, that's positive. As we continue to grow in defense, that's a little perhaps negative in certain areas on the overall margin. Overall, I'd say mix is probably neutral headed into next year, but we certainly should benefit from the cost reductions that we took this year.
Guy Hardwick — Analyst, Barclays
Thank you.
Jonathan Siegmann — Analyst, Stifel
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. You've commented already on unmanned. Demand signals globally are very strong, but there also seems to be substantial aspirations by customers of getting these capabilities at much lower costs. You have great market positions in sensors and cameras, and you've already highlighted the prime opportunities that you have. Could you comment on how attractive is the potential to supply some of these components and drones at much lower prices but substantially higher volume? Maybe comment on, is there opportunities to invest more capital in this area? Thank you.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Thank you very much. That's a really good question. I would say much lower, that's in due course. I think people are willing right now to pay for accuracy and for ability to defeat desired targets. We are actually, in a lot of ways, a lot of our drones are low cost compared to others, and also because they're highly capable. For example, George mentioned and I mentioned our, what we call the Rogue 1, which is a quadcopter. It's the lightest weight of the competition. It only weighs about 10 pounds. As you can imagine, as we decrease the size, the cost goes down. We're very cost-competitive there. The nano drones, which I mentioned earlier, again, those are produced in volume, very cost-competitive. What I think will happen is people may go to the low end of the cost structure, but they'll have to give up some capabilities.
You may, in defeating an armored vehicle, have to have a massive warhead in your drone, whereas in our case, we can do the same thing much more accurately with a smaller vehicle with a smaller warhead. I don't know. It's a give and take. The whole experience in Ukraine, which we've had, has taught us that there is no one solution for what's happening. They obviously are doing very well. On the other hand, they don't have to have that many capable stuff to just fly over the horizon and hit somebody. Cost is important, but I think accuracy and weight are going to be just as important.
Jonathan Siegmann — Analyst, Stifel
Super interesting. Thank you.
Joe Giordano — Analyst, TD Cowen
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Can you hear me?
George Bobb — President and CEO, Teledyne
Yeah. Sure, Joe.
Joe Giordano — Analyst, TD Cowen
Yeah. Okay. Great. Yeah. For unmanned, you know, we've been talking about $450 million across all unmanned for feels like kind of for a while, feels like a little bit of a dated number. Maybe it, how can we frame out that over the next couple of years? I mean, we've talked about potential opportunities here, but if we want to look, you know, three, four years out, like is that, can that, what can that $450 million, if things break correctly for you, really become? How material can that business really get?
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Yeah. I think we're at $500 million now, versus $450 million that we talked about before. We're investing in that area, and we're gaining market share not just on drones that we've talked a lot about, but also underwater. As you may know, we're probably unique as a company where we have products for air unmanned, ground unmanned, and underwater unmanned. I'll let George talk a little bit about the underwater domain because that's our growth domain right now, and we're very excited about that. The $500 million will grow, for sure. How fast? I'll know in about a month or two when we do our plan for the next couple of years. Grow, it will.
George Bobb — President and CEO, Teledyne
Yeah. I would add on the subsea unmanned side, we have both our subsea gliders, which are kind of long duration, long endurance, can stay on station for a long time, useful, as you can imagine, in areas like anti-submarine warfare and other areas. We also have propelled AUVs, particularly out of our Iceland business, Teledyne Gavia. Those vehicles, shorter in time and duration, but bigger, can carry more payloads, again, for things like mine countermeasures, anti-submarine warfare. I think we see growth both in the unmanned aerial side, the ground side, but also we're seeing significant demand with regard to the subsea vehicles, given needs in the Black Sea, Baltic Sea, and Asia Pacific.
Joe Giordano — Analyst, TD Cowen
That makes sense. If you're thinking about your full-year EPS growth year on year, how much would you attribute that to M&A, and how much would you say is organic this year?
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
for this year?
Joe Giordano — Analyst, TD Cowen
Yeah.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
For this year, I would say probably most of it is organic. We have a little bit from M&A, because of our acquisition that we made. I'm going to say maybe $0.20, $0.25 from acquisitions, primarily because, as George mentioned earlier and I have before, when we make acquisitions, initially, it drives our margins down in reality because they don't have the margins that we enjoy. If you look at our products, if you look across all of our acquisitions, after a few years, the margins improve significantly. They kind of become the standards that we have for instruments, defense, otherwise. The margins this year, contribution from acquisitions are relatively light, but they'll improve next year.
Joe Giordano — Analyst, TD Cowen
Yeah, I had similar numbers too. Thanks, guys.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Sure.
Robert Mehrabian — Executive Chairman, Teledyne
Thank you, operator. I'll now ask Jason to conclude our conference call.
Jason VanWees — Vice Chairman, Teledyne
Thanks, Robert. Thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning. If you have follow-up questions, please feel free to call me, and my number is on the earnings release. All our earnings releases and a replay of this call via webcast are available on our website. Operator, if you could please give the replay information, that'd be ideal. Thanks, everyone. Bye-bye.
Source: TELEDYNE TECHNOLOGIES INC earnings call transcript (2025-10-22). Management commentary and analyst Q&A are reproduced as delivered; speaker roles as stated on the call.

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