8/1/2025

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to EXTRAN's analyst conference call regarding the half-year results 2025. Please note that today's call is being recorded. Let me now hand you over to Mr. Christian Ludwig, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at EXTRAN, for opening remarks and introductions.

speaker
Christian Ludwig
Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications, Extron

Thank you very much, operator. A warm welcome to EXTRAN's Q2 2025 results call. My name is Christian Ludwig. I am the head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at Extron. With me in the room today are our CEO, Dr. Felix Darvat, and our CFO, Dr. Christian Danninger, who will guide you through today's presentation and then take your questions. This call is being recorded by Extron and is considered copyright material. As such, it cannot be recorded or rebroadcast without permission. The participation in this call implies consent to this recording. Please take note of the disclaimer that you find on page one of the presentation document as it applies throughout the conference call. This call is not being immediately presented by a webcast or any other medium. However, we will place the transcript on our website at some point after the call. I would now like to hand you over to our CEO for his opening remarks. Felix, the floor is yours. Thank you, Christian.

speaker
Dr. Felix Darvat
CEO, Extron

Let me also welcome you all to our Q2 2025 Revolt Call. I will start with an overview of the highlights of the quarter and half year and then hand over to our CFO Christian for more details on our financial figures. Finally, I will give you an update on the development of our business and our guidance. Let me start by giving you an update on the key business developments of the second quarter on slide two. The important messages for Q2 are, we have delivered a robust Q2 25 in a soft market environment and recognize solid new orders of 119 million which lead to an equipment order backlog of $285 million. We concluded the quarter with revenues of $137 million. With that, we came in at the upper end of our guided range of $120 to $140 million. The gross margin reached 41% in Q2 and averaged 36% in H1. This figure includes a one-off expense related to our implemented personnel reductions. Adjusted for this effect, the gross margin in H1 came out at 38%, slightly above previous year's 37, mainly due to a better product mix. With these results, we confirm our 25th full-year guidance published in February 25. A key contributor to our success remains the G10 product series. The G10 ASP has firmly established itself as the tool of record in the laser market, while the G10 Zig has been instrumental in winning and fulfilling a major silicon carbide volume order from China. The optoelectronics market shows very strong momentum, while the power electronics market stays soft, with orders coming mostly from Asia, namely China. Christian will now provide a detailed look into our financials on the following pages. Before I take over with an update on our market, Christian. Thanks, Felix, and hello to everyone. Let me start with the highlights of our revenue development on slide three. We had a good quarter in the soft market environment with revenues at 137 million euros, slightly up compared to the 132 million last year, and at the upper end of our guided range, 120 to 140 million euros. For the first half, revenues came in at 250 million euros, virtually flat year over year. A breakdown per application shows that 71% of equipment revenues in H1 come from GAN and SIGPOWER, 16% from LED, 9% from optoelectronics, and 4% contribution from R&D tools. The aftersales business well contributed to total revenues with 52 million euros. The aftersales share of revenues in H1 was stable year-over-year at 21%. Now let's take a closer look at the financial KPIs of the income statement on slide four. I already talked about the revenue line. Gross profit increased year-over-year into two 2025 to 56 million euros. Gross margin came in at 41%, up four percentage points versus the prior year. For the first half, gross profit was 90 million euros, slightly below last year's figure. At 36%, Our gross margin in H1 was one percentage point lower than in H1 2024. But please recall, as stated in our Q1 release, this includes a one-off expense of a million euro amount in connection with the implemented personnel reduction in the operations area. Adjusted for this effect, the gross margin in H1 would be above the previous year at around 38%. The one percentage point increase year-over-year is mainly due to better product The personnel reduction measure has been completed in Q2 and will result in an annualized improvement of a mid-single-digit-million-euro figure. This cost reduction was partially effective in Q2 and will be fully effective from Q3 2025 onwards on a pro-rater basis. Please note that we will see the effects in the headcount figures slightly later than the cost effects due to the notice period of the affected employees. OPEX in the quarter was reduced to 32 million euros, primarily driven by lower R&D spending compared to the previous year. For the first six months, OPEX came in at 63 million euros, a reduction of 10%, driven primarily by around 24% lower R&D expenses. The R&D expenses were down mainly due to reduced external contract work and consumables. This will revert to some extent in H2, so please do not take the Q1, Q2 numbers as a run rate for the next quarters. For the full year, we expect R&D costs still to be slightly lower than in 2024. OPEX was also impacted by strong FX rate changes, which have led to expenses from FX rate valuations in the amount of 3.9 million euros in Q2 2025, in 4.6 million euros in H1 2025, compared to 1.9 million in H1 2024. As the fixed rates are currently very volatile, we've decided not to adjust our budget rate this time. To give you some color on potential impacts, we see the following. An average USD-Euro exchange rate of 1.2 in the second half of fiscal year 2025 would reduce could reduce the full year gross EBIT margin by around one percentage point. EBIT for the quarter is 24 million euros, a significant improvement versus Q2 2024. The main drivers, in addition to the operating leverage effect resulting from higher revenues, were a more favorable product mix, which led to improved gross profit, and the above-mentioned lower R&D expenses. The strong performance in Q2 led to an EBIT of €27 million for the first half, an increase of 18% year-over-year. This translates into an EBIT margin of 11%. Again, please recall that the one-off expense in connection with the personal reduction in the operations area is included in this figure. Adjusted for this effect, the H1 EBIT margin would be around 13%. Now to our key balance sheet indicators on slide 5. Working capital was down by 65 million euros since end of fiscal year 2024. Several balance sheet items contributed here. We continued to decrease inventories to 328 million euros compared to 369 million euros at the end of 2024. Year over year, inventories have now been reduced by 120 million euros as we continue to optimize our working capital. And as stated before, we expect further inventory reductions to materialize throughout 2025. Trade receivables at the end of June were at 130 million euros compared to 193 million euros at the end of 2024. The reduction versus year-end is mainly the result of the collection of the payments related to the very large shipments end of 2024. Advanced payments received from customers at quarter-end were 52 million euros down about 30 million from end of 2024, primarily driven by some cutoff date effects and some regional shifts in the order book. Advanced payments represent about 18% of our order backlog. And the fourth key element of working capital, trade payables, has now come down to 22 million euros from 34 million at the end of 2024. This well reflects the now fully adjusted supply chain situation with significantly reduced purchasing levels. Adding it all up, our operating cash flow improved in H1 to 85 million euros, a strong improvement of more than 17 million versus last year's 13 million euros. On the back of the improvement in operating cash flow, free cash flow improved even more, came in at 71 million euros compared to negative 56 million euros last year. The improvement was even more pronounced as our capex in H1 at 14 million euros was significantly lower than last year's number of 69 million euros. This is primarily due to the now completed investment in the innovations. Our cash balance, including other financial assets as of June 30th, 2025, improved to 115 million euros. This equals an increase of 50 million euros compared to 65 million euros at the end of fiscal year 24, despite the dividend payment of about 17 million euros in Q2. As stated before, our top priority for the use of cash will continue to be the implementation of our strategy. We will apply our core competencies and abilities to markets of high growth differentiation and margin potential in order to sustainably increase the value of the company. And with that, let me hand you back over to Fik. Thank you, Christian. Let me continue with an update on key trends in our different markets, starting with OptoElectronics, as this is currently our most dynamic market. In OptoElectronics, Exfront continues to lead the market, maintaining a clear leadership position with a strong and sustained market share over many years. Our technological edge and earned customer trust has enabled us to secure additional top-tier engagements or our G10 ASP platform. Recently, a major global customer has expanded its G10 ASP order to also include their operations in the United States. Besides this, as communicated in the PR in April, we have won Nokia as a customer. Beyond this, we are seeing strong traction amongst other top 10 industry players, as well as a growing number of customers across Europe, the U.S., Japan, and Taiwan. The increasing demand in optoelectronics is primarily driven by the rising need for laser technologies in datacom and telecom applications. This momentum is supported by several key industry shifts. The rapid growth in data demand, driven by AI, data center, and 5G, is causing bandwidth needs in transport networks to double rustle every two years. In hyperscale data centers, this trend is accelerating the shift towards co-packaged optics, to support AI workloads. As data links become more parallelized, the demand for Datacom chips and lasers is expected to surge, prompting increased investment in optical infrastructure. At the same time, photonic integrated circuits takes a gaining traction over traditional discrete laser setups. By integrating lasers, modulators, and detectors on a single chip, picks offer better performance, reduced size, and lower energy consumption. This transition is closely tied to the adoption of 150-millimeter indium phosphate substrates, where our G10 ASP system delivers industry-leading yields. The pig market is forecasted to reach 41 billion U.S. dollars by 31, growing at an annual rate of around 16%. As pigs incorporate over 100 components, manufacturing precision becomes now critical. Epitaxial processes must be tight, must meet tight specifications across wafers and production cycles, while back-end manufacturing must adapt to higher volumes and complexity, further reinforcing the move to 150-millimeter helium-phosphate substrates. Overall, we expect lasers to account for approximately one-third of our full-year order intake. This growth is fueled not only by the demand for data center lasers to support AI workloads, both intra-data center and interconnect, but also by the increasing adoption of multi-junction VIXs for LiDAR applications in the automotive sector, mainly in China. Silicon carbide power. The silicon carbide market is currently undergoing a longer digestion period, particularly in Western-oriented regions. As a result, Decisions for new FAB investments are not on the agenda these days. However, the first half of the year, we saw continued momentum in Asia, namely in China, where demand remained robust and investment activity continued at a decent level. In the first half of 2025, silicon carbide shipments totaled up to 45% of our equipment revenues. However, this strong momentum is not expected to continue in the full year. Overall, we expect to be roughly flat year-over-year in silicon carbide revenue. Despite the soft market, Extron's G10 platform benefited significantly from this environment, gaining strong traction due to its outstanding performance and cost efficiency. In H125, Extron has received the order and completed shipment of a major volume order for its G106 system for a China customer. This order supports both 6-inch and 8-inch production capacity, underscoring the flexibility and scalability of the G10 platform. This major deal reflects the continued demand seen in China during H1. For the second half of 25, we expect slower demand also from Chinese SIC customers, while customer qualifications and strategic planning for future capacity expansions are ongoing around the world. Whenever the SIG market will recover, Extron is well positioned to benefit strongly from new investment activity thanks to its proven technology leadership and strong customer relationships. With that, let me come to GAN power. The GAN market remains soft in the near term in the Western world as far as we can judge. However, the regional dynamics have changed significantly. Western markets remain largely soft, with investment decisions continuing to be postponed. In contrast, China demonstrated strong momentum in the first half of the year, driven by sustained demand and active investment behavior. This regional strength has helped to balance out weaker activity elsewhere, resulting in overall year-on-year Gantt pool shipment performance that is roughly flat. Despite these headwinds, Extron has secured a significant volume order in the GaN power segment from a Tier 1 customer from Asia. The order underscores the continued trust in Extron's technology. The market is currently facing a moderately oversaturated installed base, requiring time to absorb existing capacities. This digestion phase is expected to continue for some quarters, before a broader recovery is expected to settle. Nevertheless, Extron maintains a clear number one position in the GaN power market, supported by its proven performance, strong customer relationships, and readiness to scale one's market momentum return. One of the drivers for the expected market recovery, which will come at some point, is the GaN and AI power supply opportunities. We had already highlighted this as a potential major market driver in our past calls. At the time, this opportunity was not included in market researchers' models. Recently, we have seen quite some news flow on this topic. The expected rapid growth of AI data centers using NVIDIA's new 800-volt high-voltage DC, HVDC architecture, is creating a significant opportunity for gun-powered technologies. Companies like Exinion, Mavitas, and others are leading the charge by integrating GaN and silicon carbide semiconductors to enable high efficiency and high density power supply, reduced copper usage and infrastructure complexity, and finally improved energy efficiency and lower cooling and maintenance costs. The shift to 800-volt HVDC and centralized power architecture demands advanced GaN devices for both primary and secondary power conversion status. We believe that our role in enabling high-performance GaN device manufacturing makes us a key enabler in the AI power revolution in the future. The timing of that wave, nevertheless, is very difficult to predict as of now, as the architecture was just released and now the design in cycle and the device manufacturing has to start. With that, let me finally come to the markets of micro-LEDs and LEDs. As most of you are certainly aware, Exxon continues to hold a clear number one position in the market for red, orange, yellow, Roy LEDs, underpinned by consistently strong market share. However, also in this market segment, demand is currently weak. Last but not least, micro-LEDs. The market has not yet materialized at scale. In 2025, order activity in this segment is limited with no signs of meaningful volume adoption. The few orders Extron has secured this year are all focused on R&D and pilot lines rather than commercial production. While interest in applications such as TVs and augmented reality AR devices persists, the transition to high-volume manufacturing continues to be held back by unresolved cost and process challenges. In summary, taking the sum of all markets, we can say that the soft market period continues in almost all markets apart from the laser market, driven by a hunger for data from AI applications. In all the other market segments, Extron remains very well positioned, and we use this soft market period for very close engagement with customers on preparing the next level of technical innovation and next-generation products. Once the market demand will pick up again in the future, action will benefit from these activities. Timing for the next uptick, nevertheless, cannot be predicted yet. Let me finalize the update with a look at the U.S. tariff situation. The U.S.-EU framework has been signed on July 27th, just shortly, in which semiconductor equipment is being declared as a strategic product with zero tariff percentages imposed. Although the full legal text has not been published yet and details need to be worked out, it appears highly likely that the semi-equipment exemption as of today will stay. With that, let me now move on to our guidance. Based on the current market development, the current tariff situation and the budget rate, Of 110 US dollars per one euro, we confirm our guidance for the full year 25 as published in February. We expect revenues to come in at a range of 530 to 600 million euros. We expect a gross margin of 41 to 42 percent and an EBIT margin between 18 and 22 percent. The guidance for the gross margin and EBIT margin includes a one-off expense of a mid-single-digit Euro amount related in relation to the implemented personnel reduction in the operations area. The measure will lead to annualized savings in the mid-single-digit Euro range in the future, which corresponds to an improvement in the gross margin and EBIT margin of around one percentage point. As Christian explained before, there could be some potential impact from SXSX. In average, USD per euro exchanged for 120 in the second half of the fiscal year 25 could reduce the full year growth and EBIT margin by around one percentage point. As previously stated, we expect our tools to remain exempt from U.S. tariffs. However, we continue to closely monitor the impact of U.S. trade policies on the global economy and stand ready to implement any necessary measures to ensure the best possible outcomes for our customers and stakeholders. For the third quarter in the year, we expect revenues in the range of 110 to 140 million euros. This range is slightly wider this quarter because of an unusually high number of shipments scheduled right at the cutoff stage between Q3 and Q4. They will for sure all ship in 2025, but the exact timing, whether Q3 or whether Q4, of some of these units is not so easy to predict as of today, hence the slightly wider range compared to the normal range that we are giving. And with that, I'll pass it back to Christian before we take questions.

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