xaar plc said tuesday that firsthalf pretax loss narrowed as strong revenue growth led to a 40 rise in overall gross margins and that its performance in china in the period had been hurt by continued covid19 restrictions the uk inkjetprinting technology company said that customer orders in china had been delayed as they had been affected by supply chain issues the company said that although it saw this continuing through 2022 underlying market demand remains and that it is confident of returning to the previous growth levels in the medium term xaar said its pretax loss was 301000 pounds 344194 compared with a pretax loss of gbp14 million for the first half of 2021 adjusted pretax profita metric which strips out exceptional and other oneoff itemswas gbp14 million compared with a pretax loss of gbp16 million the year before revenue rose to gbp366 million from gbp263 million in the yearprior period we are conscious of the continuing impact arising from the economic consequences of wider global issues particularly with cost inflation and covid19 particularly in china whilst we expect this to continue in the short to medium term we remain on track to report adjusted profit for the full year and look forward to the future with confidence the company said