Straumann, the Swiss implant maker, grew North American revenue 8.4% on an organic basis in the second quarter of 2026. Dentsply Sirona reported a constant-currency sales decline of 11.6% in the Americas over the same three months. Both companies sell implants, clear aligners, intraoral scanners and digital workflow software to North American dentists. Dentsply’s results for the quarter ended June 30 showed declines across most of its product lines in that region, with a few exceptions in Europe and Asia.
Dentsply still turned a profit. Net income was $37 million, or 18 cents a diluted share, after a $45 million loss a year earlier. Total net sales were $898 million, down 4.1% as reported and 6.3% in constant currency, Dentsply said Aug. 6. Constant-currency sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa fell 3.6%, and Asia-Pacific sales fell 1.2%.
Index managers and active funds both hold the stock. BlackRock reported 26,711,079 Dentsply shares as of June 30, valued at $283.4 million, InsiderSet’s tally of 13F filings shows. Vanguard Portfolio Management held 11,779,851 shares, Vanguard Capital Management 9,047,628 and Vanguard Fiduciary Trust 1,329,265. State Street reported 9,285,298 shares, valued at $98.5 million. John W. Rogers Jr.’s Ariel Appreciation Fund reported 8,026,107 shares. Armistice Capital reported 3,672,000 shares, and Dimensional Fund Advisors 3,460,636. Brandes Investment Partners and First Eagle’s U.S. Value fund held smaller stakes.
The Americas
Dentsply’s executives have put the U.S. first. On the second-quarter call, they described a reorganized commercial structure, a bigger dealer network and retrained implant sales representatives, and said they expect U.S. sales to be growing again by the end of 2026, according to a Yahoo Finance summary of the call.
Several product lines fell in the region during the quarter. Management attributed part of a mid-single-digit decline in CAD/CAM sales to lower volumes in the Americas. Premium implant volumes dropped there. SureSmile, Dentsply’s clear aligner brand for dentists, generated $40 million in revenue, down by double digits, with most of the decline in the Americas.
Most of Dentsply’s changes this year have been in distribution. The company has signed or expanded seven North American dealer agreements in 2026, covering Benco Dental Supply, Burkhart Dental Supply, Nashville Dental, Atlanta Dental Supply, Medline Sinclair in Canada and Midwest Dental Equipment & Supply, along with a renewed partnership with Patterson Dental, Dentsply said Oct. 6. The Midwest Dental agreement takes effect Nov. 1 and brings Dentsply’s technology portfolio into what had been mostly a consumables arrangement. The Wichita Falls, Texas, distributor covers Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arkansas with its own sales, service and technical support teams.
New equipment dealers take time to produce sales. Management said on the call that the new partners need training, a pipeline of prospective buyers and time to close orders, and that it expects their contribution to grow in the fourth quarter, Yahoo Finance reported.
Dentists have been slow to buy big-ticket equipment this year. An ADA Health Policy Institute survey of 750 dentists found that 16.1% had made a major equipment purchase in 2026 by the third quarter, short of the 24.4% who had planned one at the end of 2025, Becker’s Dental Review reported. Software purchases went the other way, with 19.1% buying against 16.9% who had planned to.
The institute’s earlier surveys recorded tight practice finances. An institute panel on the final three months of 2025 found that about one-third of dentists said they had confidence in the national economy, about one-third reported too few patients, and equipment and supply costs had risen 5% since the start of 2025, ADA News reported. Consumers spent 4% more on dental care in January 2026 than a year earlier, the institute’s first-quarter report found.
Henry Schein, the dental distributor, reported a similar split in the U.S. Its dental business grew 8.1% to $1.854 billion in the second quarter. U.S. dental equipment sales fell 1.1%, while U.S. dental merchandise rose 8.3%, or 6.5% on an internal basis. Align Technology, whose total revenue rose 4.3% and whose iTero scanners compete with Dentsply’s Primescan line, said revenue from its scanner and CAD/CAM services segment declined 10.8%, and it attributed the drop to soft demand for capital equipment. Align also said customers were moving to cheaper scanners and to leases and rentals, which bring in less revenue at the point of sale. It still projects double-digit growth in iTero scanner shipments this year.
Envista, which sells Nobel Biocare implants and Spark aligners as well as equipment and consumables, grew in the quarter. Envista’s revenue for the April-to-June period reached $730.5 million, 7.1% above a year earlier, on 5% core growth. Equipment & Consumables, with $259.5 million in sales, grew 8.5% on a core basis, and Specialty Products & Technologies, home to implants and aligners, grew 3.1% on $471 million in sales. Envista raised its full-year forecast for core sales growth to 3.5% to 4.5% and its adjusted earnings forecast to $1.50 to $1.55 a share.
Straumann’s North American revenue of 177.5 million Swiss francs grew mainly on premium implants, and its digital solutions grew by double digits in the region. Across the group, strong sales of its SIRIOS X3 intraoral scanner supported digital growth. Straumann described North American consumer sentiment as cautious and patient flow as broadly stable. “We delivered a strong second quarter and first half, with growth across all regions, especially from mature markets,” Chief Executive Guillaume Daniellot said.
Europe, the Middle East and Africa
Dentsply’s European results were mixed. Implant sales in the region grew at a mid-single-digit rate, led by MIS, the company’s value implant brand. Orthophos extraoral imaging units also grew in EMEA and partly offset declines in treatment centers.
Some dentists in the region put off capital equipment purchases, management said on the call. Chief Executive Dan Scavilla attributed some of those delays to uncertainty tied to the conflict in the Middle East. Disruption in the region also raised freight costs, which Dentsply said it had absorbed so far without cutting planned spending. CAD/CAM sales in Europe were hurt by unfavorable price and mix.
Management described the weakness in European consumables as an inventory issue. Some European distributors reduced the stock they hold, which lowered Dentsply’s shipments to them. Distributors’ own sales to dentists in the region grew at a low-single-digit rate, and management said it did not view the inventory cuts as a sign of weaker demand.
Straumann’s group revenue reached 707 million Swiss francs in the second quarter, up 8.5% organically. Its EMEA revenue rose 8.6% on an organic basis in the second quarter, to 285.1 million Swiss francs, and the group’s first-half organic growth was 7.8%. Henry Schein’s international dental equipment sales grew 8.7%, or 5.4% on an internal basis, while its U.S. equipment sales declined.
Asia-Pacific
Asia-Pacific had Dentsply’s smallest regional decline, at 1.2% in constant currency. CAD/CAM sales in the region grew by double digits. Premium implant volumes fell there, as in the Americas.
Straumann grew Asia-Pacific revenue 7.4% organically in the quarter, led by markets outside China. In China, Straumann said patient flow was recovering gradually, distributor inventories had stabilized and the next round of the government’s volume-based procurement tender for implants could begin in the second half of 2026. Latin America was Straumann’s fastest-growing region, at 11.8% organic growth. The company expects high-single-digit organic growth for 2026 and a core EBIT margin increase of about 140 to 170 basis points at constant 2025 exchange rates.
How the Year Started
Dentsply came into 2026 after a weak year. Sales for 2025 totaled $3.68 billion, down 4.3% in constant currency, and the Byte wind-down accounted for 1.9 points of that decline. The company reported a 2025 net loss of $598 million, or $3 a share, after $650 million in goodwill and intangible asset impairments, according to its Feb. 26 release.
Losses continued into the first quarter on a smaller scale. Dentsply posted a $10 million deficit, equal to 5 cents a share, where the year-earlier quarter had a $20 million profit. Reported net sales held at $880 million, a 6.7% decline once currency is stripped out. Essential Dental Solutions fell 0.9% as reported and 7.2% in constant currency, and Orthodontic and Implant Solutions fell 8.1% and 13.5%. Connected Technology Solutions grew 4.4% as reported in that quarter and Wellspect grew 15%, while the consumables and orthodontic units declined. Adjusted EBITDA margin fell to 14.7% from 19%, and operating cash flow improved to $40 million from $7 million on collections of receivables, the May 5 release showed. “We are executing our Return-to-Growth Action Plan as expected,” Scavilla said then.
Several of those measures improved in the second quarter. The constant-currency decline narrowed to 6.3%, adjusted EBITDA margin rose to 21.3% and the company returned to profit, with tariff refunds supplying most of the earnings.
The Four Business Units
Dentsply’s second-quarter results by business unit, as reported and in constant currency:
- Connected Technology Solutions: $239 million, down 1.5% and 3.8%
- Essential Dental Solutions: $376 million, down 2.7% and 5%, on lower volumes in the Americas and EMEA
- Orthodontic and Implant Solutions: $197 million, down 13.2% and 14.9%
- Wellspect Healthcare: $86 million, up 7.1% and 3.8%
Orthodontic and Implant Solutions fell 5.7% excluding Byte, and implants declined by a mid-single-digit percentage overall. Wellspect, which sells continence-care products such as catheters, grew on new products and geographic expansion, partly offset by lower U.S. inventory, according to the call summary.
Company-wide, Dentsply also had planned an approximately $8 million reduction in dealer inventory for the quarter. Excluding that reduction and Byte, total company sales fell 3.6% in constant currency.
How the Holders Line Up
Dentsply’s shareholder list includes index managers and active investors. BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street together held more than 58 million shares at June 30, InsiderSet data show. Ariel’s 8 million shares, valued at $85.2 million, made it the largest holder on that list outside those three firms.
Armistice increased its position by 22% during the second quarter, from about 3 million shares, according to StockZoa. The $39 million stake made up roughly 0.5% of the fund’s reported portfolio, which totaled $8.17 billion across 333 holdings, 13f.info data show. Dimensional’s 3,460,636 shares, valued at $36.7 million, placed it just below Armistice on the list, followed by Brandes at 1,127,712 and First Eagle’s U.S. Value fund at 851,347.
Armistice holds a second dental company as well. It owned 180,000 Align Technology shares worth $30 million at June 30, after adding 14% during the quarter, StockZoa reported. Align’s clear aligner revenue grew 8.2% in the second quarter to $870.9 million, and case volume hit a record 691,800. Total revenue was $1.056 billion.
Most of Armistice’s portfolio is in other sectors. Its five largest reported positions at June 30 were put options on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust and the iShares Russell 2000 ETF, Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, call options on Cytokinetics and Supernus Pharmaceuticals. Thermo Fisher Scientific, at $61 million, led its medical device and tools holdings. Armistice opened new positions in Waters, Integer Holdings, Illumina and Boston Scientific during the quarter.
What Made Up the Profit
Tariff refunds supplied most of Dentsply’s second-quarter earnings. The company received about $44 million in refunds, which added 17 cents to earnings per share. GAAP earnings were 18 cents. Adjusted earnings were 52 cents a share, essentially unchanged from a year earlier, and included the 17-cent refund benefit, Yahoo Finance reported.
Gross margin rose to 54.9% from 52.4% on a GAAP basis and reached 56.4% on an adjusted basis. Adjusted EBITDA was $190 million, a 21.3% margin.
Cash flow also improved. Operating cash flow reached $99 million, compared with $48 million, mainly because of the refunds and changes in working capital. Free cash flow came to $55 million, against $16 million.
Dentsply spent part of that cash on its own stock. Buybacks retired 1.3 million shares for roughly $12 million, at an average price under $10, its first buyback since the third quarter of 2024. Net debt stood at 3.2 times EBITDA, unchanged from the end of the first quarter. Borrowings stood at $2.224 billion at the end of June, $104 million below the year-end 2025 level, with $239 million in cash.
The buybacks and debt reduction follow a February decision to stop paying a quarterly dividend. Dentsply had paid $128 million in dividends in 2025. Scavilla called the restructuring and dividend changes “important steps in our roadmap to drive sustained, profitable growth.” The restructuring is meant to generate about $120 million in annual savings, part of which Dentsply plans to reinvest in product development and clinical and sales training. It expects one-time restructuring costs of $55 million to $65 million, mostly in 2026 and 2027.
Lender Amendments
Dentsply amended its loan terms at the end of the third quarter. A Form 8-K filed Oct. 8 described amendments dated Sept. 30 to its JPMorgan-led revolving credit facility and three note purchase agreements. The changes raise the maximum total and senior leverage ratios for the third and fourth quarters of 2026 and let the company add back certain cash charges to EBITDA in those quarters. In return, Dentsply accepted limits on new liens, subsidiary debt and restricted payments until it delivers its fiscal 2026 compliance certificate. It also agreed to report quarterly on certain initiatives, to a new pricing level on the credit facility and to higher interest on the notes if leverage passes specified thresholds. The filing did not disclose the new ratio limits.
Guidance and the Next Two Quarters
Dentsply kept its 2026 forecast of $3.5 billion to $3.6 billion in net sales and $1.40 to $1.50 in adjusted earnings a share. The earnings range excludes tariff refunds and any additional tariffs. First-half sales totaled $1.778 billion, so the full-year range implies second-half sales of roughly $1.72 billion to $1.82 billion. At the midpoint, the forecast implies a full-year decline of about 3.5% from 2025.
Executives gave more detail on timing during the call. Third-quarter revenue should fall from the second quarter on normal seasonality, and third-quarter earnings should be below second-quarter levels even after removing the 17-cent tariff benefit, they said. Gains from higher sales, clinical education and research spending should start to show in the fourth quarter, and the company described broader participation in market growth as more of a 2027 development. Some new digital workflows on its DS Core platform, including implant and orthodontic applications, could reach the market in late 2027, subject to regulatory approval.
“As our work gains traction, we remain focused on executing our strategy with discipline,” Scavilla said in the August release.
Dentsply reports third-quarter results on Thursday, Nov. 5, with a conference call at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. Its fourth-quarter report, expected early next year, will be the first to include sales through Midwest Dental, which begins carrying Dentsply equipment Nov. 1, and will cover the last quarter under the raised leverage limits.
