7/25/2024

speaker
Moritz Moditz
Conference Operator

Hello everyone and welcome to the presentation of the Ziltronics Q2 2024 results. Please note that this call is being recorded and streamed on Ziltronics website. The call will also be available as an on-demand version later today. Your participation in this call implies your consent with this. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference over to Verena Stütze, Head of Investor Relations and Communications of Ziltronic AG.

speaker
Verena Stütze
Head of Investor Relations and Communications, Ziltronic AG

Thank you, Moditz. Welcome, everybody, to our Q2 2024 results presentation. This call will also be webcast live on filtronic.com. A replay of the call will be available on our website shortly after the end of the call. Our CEO, Michael Heckmeyer, and our CFO, Claudia Schmidt, will give you an overview of our financials, the current market developments, and our guidance. After the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions. Please note that management comments during this call will include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of risk factors, I encourage you to review the Safe Harbor Statement contained in today's press release and presentation. All documents relating to our Q224 reporting are available on our website. I now turn the call over to Michael for his remarks.

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Thank you, Verena, and a warm welcome also from my side. As usual, let's start with the key messages of today's call. There were no major surprises in the second quarter of 2024, which continued to reflect a challenging demand environment for waivers due to elevated inventory levels in the chip industry. Therefore, end market growth is not translating into our order intake yet this year. Despite these challenges, we are on track to meet our full year guidance for 2024 and can even slightly upgrade it today towards the upper ranges. To bridge the period of weak demand in the wafer industry until growth resumes, We already transitioned our production from max output to high productivity and efficiency when the demand weakness started last year. Accordingly, our labor costs were adjusted to the lower output, for example, by using working time accounts, reducing the number of temporary employees, and implementing a qualified hiring freeze. Additionally, we are continuously working on strict and effective working capital management. Our capex has been further reduced compared to the previous guidance. As previously communicated, the dividend for 2023 was halved, and we have an even more intensified cost management in place. Now let's take a high-level look at our Q2 developments. and Claudia will present a detailed overview in a minute. The operating figures are in line with expectations, and we managed to slightly increase our sales quarter on quarter. Our profitability remains solid with an APTA margin of 25.8%. Although we have passed the peak of our investments, the capex primarily required for the ramp of our new prep in Singapore has, as expected, led to a continued negative cash flow. On the positive side, prices were almost stable quarter on quarter. Claudia will now give you a deep dive into our financial performance before I report back with updates on the market development and the guidance. Claudia, please.

speaker
Claudia Schmidt
CFO, Ziltronic AG

Thank you, Michael. A warm welcome also from my side. Let's jump directly into the analysis of our results. Q2 developed largely as expected, affected by a soft demand, but with resilience. Our sales came in at 351 million euros, marking a 2.3% increase quarter on quarter, mainly driven by a higher wafer area sold. Prices and FX remained almost stable. Our Q2 EBITDA reached the same solid level as Q1, 91 million euros. the EBITDA margin of 25.8% was marginally down compared to the previous quarter. The effect of the small sales increase was offset by a negative FX result of minus 1 million euros in Q2, meaning a sequential decline of 6 million euros. As expected, the beneficial FX hedges that were concluded in 2022 have mostly expired by the end of Q1. Our EBIT came in at 33 million euros, affected by an increase in plant depreciation in Q2. The financial result in Q2 is clearly reflecting the high investments, with lower interest income from our cash and securities and higher interest expenses for our debt financing. Taking all these factors into account, we concluded Q2 with a net income of 22 million euros. Let us now turn to the most important developments on our balance sheet. At the end of June, total assets summed up to roughly 4.6 billion euros, after 4.5 billion euros by the end of 2023. This change is mainly driven by our ongoing investments, which increased fixed assets by 242 million euros. Consequently, our cash and securities have decreased to less than 350 million euros by the end of June. The equity ratio remained resilient at a very healthy level of 47%. Financial liabilities in H1 increased as we've drawn the first 50 million euros of our syndicated loan in Q1, and another 100 million euros in Q2, bringing our total loans to 960 million euros by the end of June. You may recall that our working capital ratio at the end of 23 was at an all-time low, mainly due to a CapEx-related surge in trade tables. In the first half of 24, we saw the reversal of this. The spillover from Q4 was significantly reduced. Trade tables decreased as trend to 317 million euros at the end of June. Customer prepayments summed up to 600 million euros, with 28 million euros received and 15 million euros refunded. In H1, our capex amounted to 314 million euros. While our investment level is still elevated, it has significantly declined compared to the two halves of 23, during which we invested between 600 and 700 million euros each. Reflecting our intensified focus on capex management, we have revised our full-year capex guidance downwards for the second time this year, now targeting a range between 500 and 530 million euros. The majority of this capex is allocated to our new FAB in Singapore. Speaking about our new FAB, the official grand opening ceremony took place on June 12, with the Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, Heng, as a guest of honor. This event was a significant milestone for us that we will remember for a long time to come. While renting the new capacities, our major focus this year is on customer qualifications. This is crucial to ensure that we are fully prepared when the labor demand returns to growth. Depreciation for the new FAB will start in Q4. This path is expected to boost our sales and EVTA margin in the medium term. The high degree of automation and a favorable product mix combined with the scale effects of both the existing site in Singapore and the 300-millimeter ecosystem at Siltronic will significantly increase the future profitability of the Siltronic Group. Let's take a closer look at our debt situation. As illustrated in the bridge on the left-hand side, Siltronic had a net financial debt of 356 million euros at the end of 23. High capex payments exceeded our operating cash flow in the first half of the year, partly due to the previously mentioned capex liabilities overhang from 23. In H1, we've recorded an investment grant of 32 million euros, which positively impacted our cash flow. On the other hand, we had a cash outflow of 36 million euros for the dividend payment. In total, our net financial debt amounted to 639 million euros. You're already familiar with this financing picture, so I just provide a brief update. As mentioned before, we've drawn 150 million euros of the syndicated loan in H1. A total of 230 million euros have not yet been called up. As previously announced, we will undertake refinancing this year and are currently preparing for it. Please understand that we cannot precise this at the moment. More details will follow later this year. However, I would like to reiterate that we currently have no plans for a capital increase. With this, I hand back to Michael.

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Thank you, Claudia. When looking at this slide, let's start with some encouraging news. The end markets are mostly growing. Our end market growth forecasts have been slightly raised to around 6% in 24. This is driven by a better than expected smartphone recovery, although I would still call it modest, and AI is starting to slightly improve net content in PCs on top of a stable PC unit recovery. As you see, the main contributor for 2024 is the server growth driven by artificial intelligence. However, the still elevated inventories need to be reduced, and this takes time. This inventory situation overshadows the positive trend from the end markets and results in an overall negative paper demand in the mid-single digit percentage range. Overall, this is a slightly more positive picture compared to our April communication. At this point, I'd like to emphasize that we have some encouraging results from chip manufacturers and designers in recent months. This is very pleasing. However, please keep an eye on what is actually driven by volume versus price. In many cases, it's predominantly price driven, which is not related to wafer demand. Now let's take a closer look at the key drive for 2024. artificial intelligence. An AI server can contain up to eight times more silicon content than a conventional server. The most significant content growth in an AI server is driven by DRAM, including high bandwidth memory. As AI drives as well DRAM in PCs and smartphones, the demand for DRAM chips have increased overall. NAND is considered a smaller component in AI servers and also in PCs and smartphones. This explains the modest recovery in NAND chip demand. We will need both continuous growth in DRAM and a strong NAND recovery to reduce waiver inventory significantly. The processing power in an AI server comes from GPUs as they provide the performance for the AI tasks such as deep learning. Furthermore, two CPUs are included in an AI server. About one fifth of the silicon area in an AI server is dedicated to logic. In general, we continue to see elevated inventory levels for logic, but this varies significantly from customer to customer. In addition, power chips are essentially in AI servers and in electricity management for the complete data center. Across all end markets, power inventories have not yet improved. Let's now turn to the guidance for the financial year 2024, which was slightly upgraded. We now expect 2024 sales to be in the high single digit percentage range below 2023 levels. This is primarily volume driven, but we also expect small effects from FX at the US a U.S. rate of 1.10 as well as product mix and pricing. We have clearly improved our APTA margin guidance to the upper end and now expect it to be in the range of 23 to 25 percent. Given that our H1 2024 APTA margin was 26.1 percent, it's evident that we expect a lower margin for the second half of this year. This is due to several factors. On the one hand, we expect slightly negative price, product mix, and FX impacts, especially weighing on H2. Additionally, in Q4, the rent costs of our new FAB will be visible for the first time in our profitability. On the other hand, there will be a planned maintenance in one of our production lines. To avoid a sales impact, we will see an inventory impact, which will negatively affect our margin. There's no change in depreciation, which is projected to be below 300 million euros. This is a significant increase from the prior years, 203 million euros. As previously communicated, we have a stringent capex management in place. Therefore, we expect to further reduce capex this year from the April guidance of slightly below 550 million euros to range between 500 and 530 million euros. Due to the steep decline in CAPEX, we anticipate a pronounced improvement in net cash flow, although it will still remain significantly negative. As demonstrated this year, even starting from a modest base, our industry's future growth will be driven by significant trends such as AI, digitalization, and electromobility. Therefore, we would like to conclude this presentation, confirming our midterm ambition for 2028. We expect a substantial sales growth to more than 2.2 billion euros and an improvement of the APTA margin to the high 30s by 2028. Thank you very much for your attention. And with this, we close our presentation. And Claudia and I are happy to take your questions. Moritz, please open the Q&A session.

speaker
Moritz Moditz
Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by 1 at this time. One moment for the first question, please. And the first question comes from Harry Bleiklock from UBS. Please go ahead.

speaker
Harry Bleiklock
Analyst, UBS

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I'm wondering whether you could give a bit more color around what you're seeing this quarter that's driven you to lift a four-year guide versus what you previously expected, both from the top-line level and EBITDA margin as well. sorry acoustically this was very difficult to understand may we ask you to repeat the question a bit slower please of course i'll try and be a bit clearer um i'm just wondering whether you could give some more color around what you're seeing that's driven you to lift the full year guide versus what you've previously expected both on the top line and margin as well

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Harry, to be honest, we're not sure whether we understood you correctly, but I assume your question was how we look at revenue and EBITDA going forward into this year, and what were the reasons for the guidance upgrade?

speaker
Harry Bleiklock
Analyst, UBS

Yes, that's right.

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Okay. Yeah, so actually, I mean, we are now seven months in the year, and we have, I think, much better visibility. So therefore, after the, let's say, very sluggish beginning of the year, and we had the two ad hoc communications, as you know, we did set the margins and the ranges in a way that we were almost certain to achieve them, and this has now being more precise as we are deeper into the year. Seven months are almost gone. And that was the main reason why we, on the one side, upgraded the sales guidance a bit to the higher range, mid-single-digit degrees compared to last year, and high single-digit compared to last year. And on the EVTA side, we also could drive the guidance to the upper range that has been communicated in April.

speaker
Harry Bleiklock
Analyst, UBS

Got it. Thank you. And I'll try and ask another question. Hopefully it's clear. But you mentioned the stronger demand isn't yet reflected in your order situation due to the elevated inventories. So when do you expect those orders to start coming through? Are customers saying that they're going to start ordering in H2 and that's what gives you confidence?

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

So this is a very difficult question and thank you, Harry. The question we understand is how long will it take until the end market growth will make its way through the inventories of our customers and the supply chain? The honest answer is we don't know. Yeah, this is a bit of the crystal ball theme we started to talk about already mid of last year. But it will come. Every day will help. But today we are not in a situation to give you a clear timeline when we see a clear recovery coming through to our order books and then eventually to our sales.

speaker
Harry Bleiklock
Analyst, UBS

Got it. Thank you very much, Michael.

speaker
Moritz Moditz
Conference Operator

And the next question comes from Constantine Hesse from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

speaker
Constantine Hesse
Analyst, Jefferies

Hi there. Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. So quickly, just a very quick question just on the mix of growth. What drove this volume increase quarter over quarter? Was it 300? Was it mainly 200? Just maybe some color there. And a second question, then if we can talk a little bit about the pricing dynamics. So when you say that price, you know, if you expect a slightly negative price, and the second half is that mostly on the spot size, maybe you can comment a little bit as well on customer behavior around long term agreements. Are you seeing any pressure there? Or are we, you know, are you very confident that the long term agreements are currently, you know, being set at this price, at the higher price level that you had expected.

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Yeah, thank you, Konstantin. First question was whether we have any specific comments on quarterly volume dynamics. I think we cannot comment here in great detail, but I would call it pretty unspectacular. So there's nothing particular to mention on the volume side, on the quarter-to-quarter situation. Pricing wise, we said overall we have a small pricing effect this year. So what we can say is LTAs are coming in as contracted. There's no change in that one. And as we already communicated, we see some price dynamics on the non-LTA. And we can also say it's more pronounced in smaller diameters, yeah. So, but this is, you know, overall a small effect, as we said. And what I just said is, you know, partly explaining a small effect. So, it's really small effects here and there.

speaker
Constantine Hesse
Analyst, Jefferies

Okay.

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

But . LTAs, as we said, as contracted. We also don't see, you know, major LTAs expiring this year or next year, so also we manage it as we always do as a portfolio. I wouldn't say there's anything spectacular we can report today on the LTA space.

speaker
Constantine Hesse
Analyst, Jefferies

That's good. And then last question, I need to follow Henry on the, momentum around inventories and orders um i mean if you look at the inventory decline momentum that you have visibility on and you look at the current utilization that you're running on um you must have some kind of a view in terms of when you believe the destocking should be done if you look at the current level of inventories coming down every month even though if even though it's not a pronounced decline I mean, that should give you some visibility in terms of how many months you still expect this destocking cycle to continue, given the current demand, I would assume. And then around that, I'd also like to understand a little bit what's happening to power inventories. Do you see the risk of another potential downgrade to volumes? So in terms of utilization for you, if you can comment a little bit on that, that'd be great.

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Yeah, thank you, Konstantin. As I said already, we really reluctant to give an overall timeline of recovery here. The situation is that it's really a mixed picture and it depends also strongly on the different customers. If we went into any more details, it would be really also competitive information, which of course are not able to discuss in such a circle. So therefore, inventory decreasing in memory and logic. But still, it will take some time. That's what we can say. The good news is really that end market demand did slightly increase. I think that's on the positive side. The power, we don't have a Q2 data yet. But you saw, of course, the report from some of the customers. So there is an inventory increase to be assumed. There are more than a decrease currently.

speaker
Constantine Hesse
Analyst, Jefferies

Okay, understood. But when you talk to your customers, are they comfortable with the current amount of wafers that you're supplying, or do you see any kind of pushback currently from your customers on the power side in terms of supply levels?

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

We had, and I think we communicated it, we had volume shifts already in this year, and it's continuing here and there. That's maybe as much as I can say.

speaker
Constantine Hesse
Analyst, Jefferies

Okay. Thank you.

speaker
Moritz Moditz
Conference Operator

And the next question comes from Daniel Shafai from Citi. Please go ahead.

speaker
Daniel Shafai
Analyst, Citi

Hi, morning. Yes, maybe just to add on to the last comment you just mentioned on volume shifts. Given that we've seen this in the second half of this year, Do you expect any more to come, given that, especially in power, inventories are continuing to rise?

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Yeah, I think we have volume shifts. It's part of the current situation. And today, we cannot declare victory or the end of this. There will be some here and some there. And you highlight the power segment, so that could one where we also will face, like the industry, some further discussions.

speaker
Daniel Shafai
Analyst, Citi

Okay, and then on LTA agreements, given that you said they're coming in line with what you had specified before, given during the last call you've mentioned that you have usually a corridor in which kind of this LTA pricing falls, do you see customers putting pressure and kind of going towards the lower end of the corridor, or how do you see the environment there?

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Let's phrase this clearly. We have overall for the whole year a small price effect. The whole portfolio sees a small price effect, and the major sub-effect here we would call the non-LTA space, where we see particularly on the smaller diameter the pricing situation coming in. I don't think we should discuss more tiny sub-effects of this overall small price effect. Okay, thank you.

speaker
Moritz Moditz
Conference Operator

And the next question comes from Gustav from . Please go ahead.

speaker
Gustav
Analyst

Good morning. Thank you for taking mine as well. First one is around the topic of volume shifts within the LTAs, et cetera. Did you see any pull-in of wafer orders in Q2, i.e., for example, orders that were pushed out that were brought forward again, or were there any other temporary or kind of one of reasons that draw volumes in Q2? That's my first question.

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

I think the short answer is no. There are no particular volume effects between quarters we want to mention here. What I could say is it's a bit different dynamics in memory logic and power, but no particular quarterly volume shifts at this point in time.

speaker
Gustav
Analyst

Okay. And then given a large portion of your sales are based on these long-term agreements, gives you pretty good visibility, are there any other moving parts in the second half that might drive variance towards your now new full-year sales guidance?

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

It's mainly, maybe I start with a high-level statement. Claudia can add to maybe a few comments on the cost side. But the main driver for the change of the guidance is really the top line, where we could slightly go to the upper range of our earlier guidance, i.e., single-digit decline versus last year compared to around 10% was the previous guidance. And, of course, this is better than expected top-line development. is driving some further implications into the PML on the cost side.

speaker
Claudia Schmidt
CFO, Ziltronic AG

Gustav, I think there's nothing more to add. I think we disclosed all the influencing factors on our H2 profitability in the speech, so nothing more to add from my side.

speaker
Gustav
Analyst

Okay, all clear. Last one from me. Just on, I guess, product exposure, if you will. Could you help update us on how you see Siltronic exposed to memory, logic, power, et cetera, maybe relative to the overall market?

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Yeah, I think there is no change. These fundamentals don't change on a quarterly or monthly basis. So we are almost equally represented in these three segments. And it's unchangeably true that we maybe have a slight overexposure in memory.

speaker
Gustav
Analyst

I'm sorry, I didn't catch the last one. Slight overexposure. Was that to memory? In memory, yeah. Yeah. OK, super. Thank you very much. That's all from me.

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Thank you, Gustav.

speaker
Moritz Moditz
Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by 1. And the next question comes from Jürgen Wagner from Steve Stiepel. Please go ahead.

speaker
Jürgen Wagner
Analyst, Stifel

Yeah, good morning. Thank you. I have a question on cash flow. How should we model it in the second half? And then in your handout, you talk a bit about AI server driving waiver demand. Where would you benefit first or more than your peers looking at the five products you have shown us? Thank you.

speaker
Claudia Schmidt
CFO, Ziltronic AG

Good morning, Juergen. I take your question regarding cash flow. Coming from the top line, or let's say EBITDA, you see that EBITDA profitability is declining in the second half of the year, so there will be a pressure on our cash flow. But when you have a look at our CapEx guidance, between 500 and 530 million euros, and you deduct our H1 investment, which is slightly above 300 million euros, so you see that our investment level is declining in the second half of the year. But nevertheless, we are going to reduce our trade tables, which are mainly still CapEx related, a bit further in the second half of the year. And our, let's say, ESO are expected roughly the same as as in the first half of the year.

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Okay. Yeah, and answering your second question is very difficult. Where would we benefit more than peers? Of course, our peers also would like to know this. What I can say is, of course, the high-level considerations here would be that we have a bit of overexposure in memory, and what we already said, but that would hold true for everybody and that the power situation is inflating slightly on the inventory side. I think these are the comments you can maybe build into any assumption of this AI demand on the silicon space, but I would be reluctant to go into more, let's say, competitive intelligence here.

speaker
Jürgen Wagner
Analyst, Stifel

Okay, thank you.

speaker
Moritz Moditz
Conference Operator

And the next question comes from Robert Sanders from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

speaker
Robert Sanders
Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Yeah, good morning. Hi, thanks for taking my question. I guess the first question just on the balance sheet, you say you're refinancing at the second half of this year. Just what portion of your outstanding debt is being refinanced? I see you have an undrawn syndicated loan of 230 million as well, but I'm also interested in What is the maximum level of leverage based on net debt that you're willing to go to? Thanks.

speaker
Claudia Schmidt
CFO, Ziltronic AG

Hi, Robert. Good morning. This is Claudia. I take your questions. Yeah, you're right. We still have 230 million Euro which have not been drawn out of the syndicated loan in addition to our slightly below 350 million Euro existing cash and securities. you can assume that we are still cash rich and we can take a calm approach to refinance. And we are now preparing for it. And as I mentioned before, at that point in time, we cannot comment further on this. Not the amount, not the instrument, except for it's not a capital increase.

speaker
Robert Sanders
Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Got it. And can you remind me how much... to go till full build out in Singapore because it does worry me the amount of capital that you still need to spend to fit out that line. And you don't really have enough operational cash flow to pay for it. So I'm still struggling to really understand how you're going to avoid doing a capital raise next year, to be honest.

speaker
Claudia Schmidt
CFO, Ziltronic AG

Yeah. We didn't disclose the Total project amount is €2 billion until end of this year, and this still holds true. And then we are going to ramp the FEPP over several years, as we mentioned during our Capital Markets Day. We don't expect the FEPP to be fully ramped in 2028. So we see there are years to come during which we will ramp the FEPP and during which we will spend CapEx on this. So it's a stretched approach of CapEx. So we feel very comfortable with our financing for FabNext.

speaker
Robert Sanders
Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Last question then, just on FabNext. Why not just delay the Fab another year? I understand you've made the commitment, you've opened it, you know, you want to get on with it, but it is going to dilute your financials. It's going to take a while to be justified by the environment. You know, your loading is probably only 75% at the moment on your existing footprint in 300. So why not just do another delay?

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Thanks. Hi, Robert. This is Michael. I take this question, it's maybe not only on the finance side of things, Our new FAP, of course, the key target for this year and part of next year is qualifying products at customers. And that takes time. So therefore, just pausing or stopping it for a while wouldn't make sense at all because we have to make this FAP ready when the demand is picking up. So therefore, the current operations is running. We have some first qualified products, major qualifications to come the next couple of months. And this is something that is ongoing at multiple customers and particularly with the big customers. So we need to go through this with the customers together to be ready that they can be shipped out of this FED once demand is picking up. And maybe to finalize and relate back to the CAPEX spending, the speed we're doing this, we can adjust, as we did already in 24 and in 25. And that, of course, is then also related to the needed CAPEX. If market is lower, we can also further pull the brake here and there. And then, of course, if market is speeding up, we want to be ready, and then we would be also happy to spend the money on the CapEx side to fuel the demand that is coming. Got it.

speaker
Moritz Moditz
Conference Operator

Thanks a lot. And the next question comes from Martin Jungfleisch from BNB Paribas. Please go ahead.

speaker
Martin Jungfleisch
Analyst, BNP Paribas

Yes. Good morning, everyone. um just two questions please so first one is just on the phasing of um of the revenues in q3 and q4 so the guidance um i think now suggests flattish sales in the second half of the first half i think you're not guiding quarterly but it's the assumption that q3 should be up versus q2 and then q4 down or vice versa or should both be flattish quarter-on-quarter in terms of revenues um And then the second question is on LTAs again. I'm not sure if you have commented already, but is there any larger LTA expiring this year? Thank you.

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Hi, Martin. Thanks for your questions. As you know, we don't give any quarterly phasing. So therefore, if you do your simple math model, you will be fine. And we will not give any. quarterly guidance, Q3, Q4. On the LTA side, you're absolutely right. No major LTA is expiring neither this year nor next year.

speaker
Martin Jungfleisch
Analyst, BNP Paribas

Cool. Thank you.

speaker
Moritz Moditz
Conference Operator

And we do have a follow-up question from Daniel Shafai from Citi. Please go ahead.

speaker
Daniel Shafai
Analyst, Citi

Yes, I just wanted to ask, out of prudency, in terms of market share, given that we've now seen a slight more positive tone from peers, especially in Japan, how do you see market share evolving for you going forward now this year and maybe also onwards?

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

Yeah, when you look, I mean, we don't have a lot of Q2 news from the industry, from our peers, but when we are analyzing carefully the statements occurring around Q1 and what is out already for the rest of the year, we don't think it's a lot more positive than we are. In terms of market share, we don't see any significant changes for the time being, also not for this year. And We always have to have in mind some customer-facing, customer-mixed topics. But this is more a general remark than anything that is really applying to the current discussion.

speaker
Daniel Shafai
Analyst, Citi

Okay, I understand. And just maybe on wafer inventories, if we look now at Simcoe's presentation and in general, would you say you echo this, that we see a decreasing dynamic in memory and logic on wafer inventories?

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

As usual, we don't comment on particular peers' statements. But yes, we see an overall decreasing trend It's particularly pronounced at different customers. There is a different picture at different customers. That's the thing I would like to emphasize. And then it will depend on further end market dynamics, how long it will take until the end market then is working its way to the overall situation. And I gave some hints about DRAM and NAND in the speech, right, that will take some more demand on both ends, too. eventually come then on the memory side to more normal levels again.

speaker
Daniel Shafai
Analyst, Citi

Perfect. Thank you.

speaker
Moritz Moditz
Conference Operator

And we have another follow-up question from Konstantin Hesse from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

speaker
Constantine Hesse
Analyst, Jefferies

Thank you. Just very quickly a maintenance question. Anything out of China or competition from

speaker
Michael Heckmeyer
CEO, Ziltronic AG

alternative products such as sic or again anything that you like to comment there or nothing nothing major still so thanks constantine we don't see you know there are no unusual china dynamics or anything compared to what we commented earlier. They're working their way up into the wafer space. Still, much technical differences in the higher end, 300 millimeter, particularly in leading edge. Geopolitics is helping there, as they, in the, let's say, local China ecosystem, have more access to leading edge technology, to the respective machines, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that's unchanged. as a general situation. We see in the current more soft demand that also new technologies are, you know, the enthusiasm went down a bit when you read the SICK news, the silicon carbide news. GAN also became a bit more and more quiet, so we don't think there's, you know, a particular dynamic situation with new ones right now. From a strategic perspective, There is no change. For us, SICK is not a topic and will not be a topic anymore. GAN, we're still evaluating on the R&D scale. We do some customer sampling, and we're looking into the business development, into a business model. But both are not a threat to the silicon world. The key statement is still it's below 5%. compared to the silicon area overall. So my summary would be sick is gone. Gun is a potential opportunity for us. And for sure, both are not a threat for the silicon space.

speaker
Constantine Hesse
Analyst, Jefferies

That's great. Thank you very much.

speaker
Moritz Moditz
Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Verena Stütze for any closing remarks.

speaker
Verena Stütze
Head of Investor Relations and Communications, Ziltronic AG

Thank you, Moritz. This concludes our Q&A session. Thank you for joining us today. Our Q3 figures will be released on October 24. Stay healthy and let's talk again soon.

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