Elmos Semiconductor Ag

Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Dr. Arne Schneider, CEO.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to welcome all of you to our conference call for the second quarter 2024. Thank you very much for your participation and your interest in our company. All relevant figures can be found in our investor presentation, which is available on the Elmos website. And of course, you have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of my presentations. Ladies and gentlemen, Elmos was able to continue its positive financial performance in the second quarter despite ongoing challenging market conditions, and we are on track for another successful year. Let me start with a short update about the current market environment. The effects of the normalization phase in the automotive semiconductor markets are ongoing, and inventory corrections by some of our direct customers are still visible. The destocking period will most likely extend into the second half, but the level of inventory reductions has decelerated in the last three months. Some of our customers have already achieved their desired inventory target, and we are shipping to them based on their real demands. Other customers are continuing to adjust their orders temporarily and still focus on working capital optimizations. So we have overall a quite diverse picture here, which differs from a regional and a customer perspective. This is a typical phenomenon after the end of a high-growth allocation period. As you know, it's also a short-term temporary supply chain effect, and order levels will return more and more to real production demand. The new forecast for the global automotive market has been adjusted slightly, and 2024 production volumes are now expected at around 89 million units compared to 19 million units last year. More important, the structural growth trend for automotive semiconductors remains intact. More intelligent electronics in modern cars combined with our innovative product portfolio offer for us an excellent basis for future growth. Beyond that, we received great news from the German Stock Exchange in June. Elmofed's advanced to the TechDux Index, making our company one of the 30 largest listed technology companies in Germany based on free-slope market capitalization. Of course, you all know that. What you may not know, we are also very proud that Elmhoff's investor relations activities are highly recognized by investors and analysts, and our head of IR, Ralf Hoppe, was the third place out of 70 companies in the category Best IR Work of an IR Professional in the S-Dux. at the German Investor Relations Award 2024. So I would like to congratulate Ralf and his team for their outstanding work. The promotion to the TechDocs and the IR Award confirmed the successful development of Elmos on the capital market and at the same time are for us a motivation to continue to improve the high standard of our IR communication and to further increase the enterprise value of our company. Let me now present the financial highlights of the second quarter. Hermos continued its positive business performance in the second quarter of 2024, generating group sales of €142 million. This is a solid growth of 4.4% year-over-year, despite ongoing inventory adjustments by our customers. The Q2 gross margin was 45.2%, also in line with our expectations. Please remember that the gross margin in Q2 2023, which was actually 48.9%, was positively impacted by one-time effects such as the energy price compensations by the German government. EBIT further increased to €35 million in Q2 2024 compared to €33.1 million last year. Despite the lower gross margin, the EBIT margin increased slightly year-over-year to 25.3% due to lower R&D and SG&A expenses. After the high investments in the course of 2023, the CapEx ratio in Q2-24 was further reduced to 10.1% of sales, in line with our guided CapEx levels. We have initiated various projects to reduce our CapEx, and as the optimization of testing, machine utilization, and machine uptimes increased, as well as improved testing times. Although the cash flow from operations improved year-over-year as well as sequentially, it is still influenced by higher working capital. Including investments, we achieved a positive adjusted free cash flow of €1.7 million in the second quarter of 2024. Ladies and gentlemen, let me finish my presentation with the outlook for the running year. The latest global light vehicle production forecast by S&P shows a total number of 88.7 million new cars, slightly lower compared to the previous forecast and also down by minus 2% versus 2023 volumes. The adjusted forecast reflects the longer than originally expected the stocking and business cycle effects. Based on the solid financial performance in the first six months, we are confirming our guidance for fiscal year 2024, published in February. We expect full-year sales in 2024 of €605 million plus or minus €25 million. We want to maintain our strong profitability and expect an operating EBIT margin of 25% plus or minus 2 percentage points for the full year 2024. Just as a reminder, the expected operating EBIT margin does not include any effect from the closing of the sale of the Elmos wafer FAB to LittleFuse, which, as you know, will be very positive. We also continue to expect lower CapEx in 2024 compared to the previous year. We are forecasting capital expenditures of around 12% plus or minus 2 percentage points of sales compared to the 20% CapEx ratio in 2023. And we also expect a better cash generation and projected positive operating adjusted free cash flow in fiscal year 24 without effects from the closing of the sale of the wafer fab, which will, of course, add to cash flow. Ladies and gentlemen, the positive performance in the second quarter and the first six months of 2024 is reflecting our commitment to operational excellence and profitable growth. The temporary inventory reduction by our customers will most likely take a little bit longer than expected. but we are more and more shifting towards the real demand. The solid growth rate, despite these challenging market and also geopolitical conditions, underlines the high potential of our innovative product portfolio. Thank you very much. I'm now opening the floor for questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press 9 star on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to withdraw your question, press 9 and star a second time. And the first question comes from Florian Saga. Please go ahead with your question.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for letting me on. I got two questions. The first one would be, I mean, you talked about the inventory correction. Do you have an idea how long exactly this is going to last? And I'll ask the second one afterwards.

Well, what we already see that we are more and more shipping towards real demand, but there are also some customers who are still in the process of digesting their inventory. Finding a complete endpoint is a hard thing, as kind of this will, I think, have more of an S shape with a long, long tail that will be barely recognizable. So I guess, I mean, most should be through their inventory by more than half, or substantially more than half, having digested now. So the peak is over, now it's gonna get better and better probably through the rest of the season.

Okay, understood, thank you. And the second one would be on Q4, how is, I mean, confirmed your guidance so i'm assuming q4 is looking quite positive for you um and then i know you won't give me guidance for next year but still what do you see after after q4 any any hints you could you could give us or what do you see there ah this is this is two tough questions uh kind of in a row i mean let's first start with with q3 uh where we know a little better because i mean currently customers order most often

Weeks, something like six, eight, ten weeks in advance. Some notable exceptions, say from Japan or so, but the Q4 visibility is still very, very limited actually. In Q3, we again see growth, both sequentially and year over year. How much, I can't tell you yet because, I mean, there's still some way to go. but Q3 looks like a reasonable quarter. And then Q4 is of course a lot more difficult to predict because there are orders missing, but we also have that in Q1, Q2, and so it's kind of the normal course of business now that you do not have all orders half a year in advance. Given the design wins we had in the last years, We're not structurally negative on next year, but it's too early to give a concrete guidance how growth will develop.

Okay. Very clear.

Thank you. And the next question comes from Foon Camper, AJIB. Please start with your question.

Hey, guys. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Thank you for asking. Yeah, sure. First of all, congratulations to the great results. I also have two questions. One, is it possible for you to give me some flavor on what share of growth comes from design wins compared to overall volume? And then could you also say a few words on pricing also into 2025? Because in case this normalization period is taking now longer than expected, could there be a risk that the oversupply could lead to pricing pressure? Thank you.

Yeah, so firstly, I mean, there is little these days that comes out of car volume. So with the 90 million cars we had last year with a little less, but honestly, I don't even really see whether we noticed the 1 million cars kind of immediately, I mean theoretically, and for sure we will, but it's not that we can track every single car there. There's basically a flat line in terms of what is driven out of car volume, so the rest comes out of design wins. To actually attribute that towards what is new applications, what is share gain, what is generally increasing growth in an application, this is a very hard thing to do, actually. But we see this structural growth, even in this very difficult year with a lot of headwind, despite the fact that the car volume is flat. So I think generally this should put us in a really positive mood. Then you ask about pricing. I mean we haven't negotiated pricing and I think for next year pricing will be a very kind of individual discussion because I don't see that there will be huge developments in pricing. Maybe we can offer a little bit and share a little bit of efficiency gain but we still have to prove that in a lot of cases. So it will be a very kind of a discussion customer by customer where volume and new business will play an essential role for the pricing discussion I would foresee.

Okay, very clear. Thank you.

And the next question comes from Johannes Ries, Apos Capital. Please go ahead with your question.

Yes, good morning. Also, like usual, some questions from my side. Maybe first a more general question. Why do you think maybe you develop better and are more optimistic for the second half compared to other bigger players in the market? Is it that you have less legacy, more new products, or is it that you less depend on the engine and therefore less on the weakness of CEV market? What do you think that you're outperforming maybe most of your peers?

If we only know for sure, but some things we do have good indications. I mean, we're a very agile company these days. We took share in the allocation period, and we promised to deliver, and we still do. kind of prioritize growth very much. You can see that we spend a lot in CapEx, that we are willing to go into working capital, not forever, but in this period of change where you get chances, and you got a lot of chances in the last years, if you were really, really prioritizing your customer, we did prioritize the customer. We did prioritize our ability to deliver above everything else, above financial optimizations, or short-run financial optimization. So I believe this does pay off. And we are small enough that we can do such shifts in direction and such investments, such decisions to prioritize growth maybe a lot quicker and a lot more brutal than other big competitors can actually do that with very, very big organizations that if you have to ride a course with a lot of bends in between, it's just more difficult if you're a bigger ship. But it's also true that we do not depend that much on the rise of electromobility as some others, and I believe some others, particularly in power semis, they will inevitably benefit at some point in the future, but that point is more in the future than everyone thought. But this is not of our concern. So we're not that dependent on that shift towards an electrified drivetrain. And that is good.

Great. Great answer. A second question. Can you maybe explain a little bit the different development in different regions? We see that the Chinese and partly the Koreans are developing better than the Europeans, although the mobile producer. Is it also you are facing and because you are also comparably strong in Asia, how much you benefit from your position there?

We are strong in Asia and we want to be strong in Asia and in all key Asian markets, be it China, Japan and Korea. We are very committed to our customers in Japan and have very positive a long-standing relationship with a lot of these customers. And we try to adapt very much to their needs. We had a great time together in the allocation and helped each other out. So this is a very positive thing. And I believe in a good relationship, it usually means good things for both. It means growth for us. It means an excellent... supply for them. So this is a very good relationship and we continue to invest in it. In China, of course, we have a lot more diverse market, a lot more dynamic market, but we actively cater to the needs of the market. We will be a lot more local. We will offer a lot more local content in China, also to our local subsidiary that we founded at the beginning of the year. So localization is a key thing that we will strive for in China to be even better able to cater for the needs of the China market.

Great. Third point, design wins. You mentioned the great design wins of the years before. We are benefiting now and also in the coming years. How have been the design developments this year?

Oh, I mean, we're in the middle of the year now, and we're very confident to reach our targets. We could even say we're very confident to overachieve our targets. I mean, let's not say it's a great day before the evening comes, as we would say in the event. You find us in the best of moods.

Great. Finally, working capital, you said it will not stay forever such high because it's still higher than in the past and comparably high, absolutely. Therefore, could we expect in a foreseeable future that you are able to reduce working capital because there's maybe not the same shortage in the value chain and therefore produce even better free cash flows than you have now in the first half, which was also a clear improvement. But compared to the EBIT, there's still room for improvement.

There's a lot of room for improvement, and we are very aware that there is that room for improvement. I mean, now I believe to capture chances is not as important as it was to deprioritize working capital and prioritize growth. I believe now in an allocation you have to push for the material to be able to deliver, and now things are a lot more So we'll be able to reduce over the next year or two quite substantially our working capital. It's a normal thing after the end of an allocation, but it's also a focus topic of ours. We already went down slightly, so the peak you may have already seen, and now the development is, at least for us internally, it's pretty clear. It's going to go down, more towards normal levels that we see in other places in the industry. All right.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you for your questions, Mr. Rees.

And the next question comes from Michael Schaumann, Robert Research. Please, Mr. Clinton.

Yeah, good morning. Let me just follow up on Johanna's question on working capital for cash flow. I mean, you're guiding for an improvement versus last year. Does that imply... Would you target a positive free cash flow? I mean, even the balance is slightly negative. Free cash flow would be a significant improvement versus last year. So what's your thoughts on that?

Yeah, well, we think it should be positive, so above zero. This is what we strive for this year. And yes, even a little negative would be a significant improvement over last year. As you know, cash... is a priority these days, and we are having various projects to improve cash, not only in the cyclical nature, but also structurally, having to do with uptime of machines, having to do with test times, having to do with working capital of the various sorts, inventory, as well as accounts payable and receivable. So we think that if we look at our peers, if we look at us, that this is actually one of the key items that we can improve upon, and it just needs hard work and focus to get some improvements done. So we think it's a great focus these days.

Okay, good.

By the way, also Texas are an interesting variant. I believe I have forgot it. We're also not really... competitive in terms of our tech position and also something to think about very hard, which we're doing.

Right. So, yeah, somewhat positive this year and then maybe substantially more positive next year with the measures you're focusing on.

Yeah. I know you're trying to adjust the model to, but yes, this is true. And I can't give you a five-year... line, but yes, the general development is exactly that.

Then on the sequential growth into the current fourth quarter, part of that is probably ramp-ups such as we have seen in the last year. Do these come as planned? You should have at least quite some good visibility on the planned ramp-ups in the second half of the year and maybe some insecurity regarding the inventory situation, especially for Q4?

Yeah, well, the ramp-ups are on track. That is clear. So that is also why I'm confident that we will again grow in Q3. The big chunk of running business is, of course, on more short notice than the ramp-ups, because, of course, the ramp-ups, you know a lot. You talk every week about these are a lot more known. We know them well into the next year because we have to prepare, we have to fill the value chain. This is kind of always a special process to get something into running serious. But for the running serious, the visibility is not as great as it was a year or two ago.

Yeah. Regarding the customers, that are still in inventory correction mode. Do you expect that the majority of these will be through by the end of the year, or will that drag on in 25? Do you have any visibility on that?

I mean, if there are kind of one or two that drag on, maybe, but the relevant part that you can also see in numbers in the end should be through by the end of the year, latest.

Okay. Okay, so that even from the cyclical part, so to speak, there should be some sequential growth from Q3 into Q4 as more and more customers are finished with that process.

That is true, and we believe that cyclicality, I mean, this is part of our plan, that we get a little cyclical boost, that we have our ramps, and then everything should be fine. Okay, good, thanks. Thank you, Mr. Schaumann.

And we have another question coming from Florian, so please go ahead with your question.

Hi, yes, I just had a follow-up on one of Mr. Riets's questions. And when you said that you're thinking about moving production to China or having a more localized supply chain, has that already happened? What exactly would your timeline be here to actually take advantage of the foundries that are coming online in China?

Very good question. I believe localization in China is of course going to be a step-by-step localization. We already do a little, very little, but a little assembly there. We may consider doing some testing and more assembly. We have the first product in development with a local Chinese foundry. And market-facing, we have an additional China entity within the group, which is the center of the Local for Local activities. By the way, it's called Ji Wei Cheng, and as all of you probably know that speak fluent Mandarin, this is making something big out of something small, and a joint, a prosperous path. This is kind of the key meaning. And it's our local brands. So we will start delivering ICs out of the local brand this year. Some ICs, not really a lot, but we still think we are progressing in that activity with China Speed. So there's quick progress and that is good.

Okay, that makes sense. But you're not actually using You're still using the foundries in Taiwan, I'm assuming, right?

And Korea and Germany. I mean, to get a new product, it's not just that you can take a product and go to a foundry and tell them, please make this. You have to develop a product in the technology a foundry offers. So you have two, three plus year lead time anyhow before you can actually get wafers and ship them to the market out of a local foundry. But we are in the process, and that is, I believe, the very important thing, that localization is on a very good track.

Okay, understood, and good name for the entity. Thanks. Thank you.

At the moment, there seem to be no further questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press 9-star on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions from the audience.

So just let me remind you, the next regular quarterly reporting is scheduled for November 6, 2024, with the publication of our Q3 results. For today, thank you very much for your participation and your interest in ELMOS. Goodbye from Dortmund. Take care and stay confident.