Siltronic Ag Ord

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of Siltronic's Q1 2026 results conference call. Please note that this call is being recorded and streamed on Siltronic's 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 like to turn the conference over to Stephanie Malgara, Senior Manager, Investor Relations at Siltronic. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Cynthia. Welcome, everybody, to our Q1 2026 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 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 Q1 2026 reporting are available on our website. I now turn the call over to Michael for his remarks.

Thank you, Stephanie, and a warm welcome also from my side. Given that we released our 25 financials only six weeks ago, today's call will be relatively compact while, of course, covering all material developments since then. Let's start with a broad overview of our development in the first three months of the year. Claudia will provide a more detailed breakdown in just a moment. As expected, Q1 was a soft start into the year. Sales came in at €307 million, significantly below Q4-25, which had benefited from delivery shifts. In line with the lower sales level, profitability decreased sequentially. The ABTA margin was 21.2% compared to 23.3% in Q4. EBIT also decreased to minus 52 million euro compared to minus 34 million euro in the previous quarter. CapEx totals 48 million euro in the quarter with a continued focus on our 300 million net of business. At the same time, cash payments for CapEx significantly exceeded this level. Complicately, the net cash flow remained negative at minus 89 million euro and net debt increased to 936 million euro compared to 837 million euro at year end 2025. Claudia will now provide a more detailed overview of the financials.

Thank you, Michael. A warm welcome from my side as well. Let's get straight into the details of our Q126 results. As Michael pointed out, Q1 marked a soft start to the year, and sales came in as expected at 307 million euros. The strong quarter-on-quarter decline is less a reflection of a sudden change in underlying demand and more a matter of comparability. Q4 was not a clean baseline, as it was notably listed by delivery pull-ins from Q3 25 and early 26. This pacing also influenced the quarter's product mix, which rate on the sequential comparison. Or an exchange by contrast was not a meaningful factor, with the Euro-US dollar exchange rate largely stable at 1.17 versus 1.16 in Q4. Turning to the cost side, I would like to highlight the particularly strong contribution from hedging activities in the first quarter. In total, the net FX results and gains from hedging an oil price component in electricity supply contracts amounted to 11.4 million euro compared with 2.7 million euro in the prior quarter. These effects were a key factor in largely offsetting costs that are typically recorded only in the first quarter. In line with the lower sales level, EBITDA decreased to 65 million Euro, translating into an EBITDA margin of 21.2%, compared with 23.3% in Q4. Correspondingly, EBIT declined to minus 52 million Euro in Q1. Net income amounted to minus 67 million Euro, following minus 53 million Euro in Q4 2025, which had included a write-down of deferred tax assets. Let's turn to the key developments on our balance sheet, which continues to show a solid and healthy structure. By the end of March, total assets amounted to 4.7 billion Euro, slightly below the 4.8 billion Euro reported at year-end 2025. Property planned and equipment remained largely stable, as depreciation exceeding additions was largely upset by the depreciation of the Singapore dollar against the euro. Working capital developed as expected. Inventories and trade receivables increased by roughly 50 million euro in total. By contrast, cash and securities declined to 448 million euro from 534 million euro at year end, Also reflecting planned elevated cash outflows related to previously incurred capital expenditures. As a consequence of these capex-related payments, trade tables decreased by 43 million euro. Free payments remained almost unchanged, as did the equity ratio, which stood at a solid 42%. CapEx in Q126 totaled 48 million Euro. The previously mentioned payments for investments amounted to 110 million Euro year to date, exceeding the reported CapEx level by more than 60 million Euro. For the full year, we continue to guide for CapEx in a range between 180 and 220 million Euro. As previously communicated, Cash outflows for CapEx are expected to significantly exceed asset additions also for the full year. Let's take a closer look at our debt situation. As illustrated in the bridge, net financial debt stood at 837 million Euro at year end 2025. In Q1, operating cash flow was under pressure, reflecting the expected buildup in inventories and trade receivables, and amounted to €21 million. This was not sufficient to cover the planned capex-related cash payments. As a result, net financial debt increased noticeably to €936 million, driven by temporary finding effects. We therefore expect net financial debt to improve over the course of the second half of the year. Let me briefly conclude with a comment on the composition of our financial debt. Unchanged compared with our full-year presentation, total debt stood at just under 1.5 billion euro at the end of the first quarter, with roughly 130 million euro remaining undrawn. The maturity profile illustrates that repayments are well spread over the coming years. For 2026, anticipate repayments of around 100 million euro. As already mentioned, we closed Q1 with approximately 450 million euro in cash and securities. Together with our undrawn revolving credit facility, this provides a solid level of financial flexibility. In addition, our balance sheet includes short-term prepayments of around 33 million euro with around 15 million euros scheduled for repayment within this year. With this, I will hand back to Michael.

Thank you, Claudia. Let me summarize our current expectations across end markets looking into 2026. Compared to the estimates we presented in mid-March, the overall outlook remains positive, with some shifts between different application segments. First, we now expect an even higher growth rate for servers, namely 44% year-on-year. This growth is clearly driven by the strong AI momentum and continued investments in data center infrastructure. Propelled by this AI-driven demand, we see initial indications that some customers are revisiting their mid-term volume commitments to enhance supply security. At this stage, these are early signals rather than a confirmed trend, but they may have implications for inventory levels. Conversely, the outlook for smartphones and PCs has further weakened. The key reason is the ongoing tight supply of memory chips. With memory availability being prioritized for AI-related server applications, unit volumes in other end markets are constrained, which is particularly weighing on smartphones and PCs. We continue to expect growth in the automotive industry, but at a reduced rate compared to last year. Industries assumed to improve from a low base. Overall, this results in an estimated pre-inventory growth of around 7% of total welfare area consumption in 2026. Let's conclude today's presentation confirming our guidance for the full year 2026. As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we expect the business environment to remain challenging. Advances from FX, price pressure outside LTAs, and the ongoing weak point of business weigh on our performance. Additionally, the closure of the SD line will impact the full financial year for the first time. Geopolitical uncertainties related to developments in the Middle East currently have no direct impact on our business, and end markets remain robust. That said, we continue to monitor the situation very closely. as it could affect the broader cost environment, which includes energy prices. We've taken measures to mitigate parts of these risks, including hedging, where applicable, but we still anticipate potential uncertainty. In addition, we assume higher freight and logistics costs. 2026 sales are guided in a mid-single-digit percentage range below the prior year level, based on a EURUSD exchange rate of 1.18. In comparison, without FX effects and without the impact from the SD closure, we expect sales to be around prior year level. Our everyday margin guidance is between 20 and 24%. Depreciation is expected to increase significantly in 2026 due to our investments in the 300mm business. We guide it between 490 and 520 million euro and therefore EBIT is expected to be significantly below the previous year. We think CapEx to be between 180 and 220 million euro. As cash payments for CapEx are expected to exceed this level, we expect net cash flow to be in the range of the previous year. With this, we conclude our View 126 results presentation, and Claudia and I are happy to take your questions. Thank you very much for your attention. Cynthia, please open the Q&A session.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speaker phone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow the signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star 1 to ask a question. We'll pause for a moment to allow everyone the opportunity to signal for questions. The first question comes from Daniel Shafai with Citi. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question. So I just wanted to come back to your end market expectations. And it's great to see that you've adjusted them, especially for smartphones and PCs. I'm just trying to understand what drove the kind of basically the server demand increase from the 28 in the sense that If I still see that there's some downside to smartphone projections from the kind of decreasing 10% growth, is there still some upside to the server projections in your opinion? So basically on what grounds have you increased this from 28 to 44? What was driving this? Is there room given that it's a very dynamic target and in general the end market is increasing? quite rapidly, can we expect some further improvement there?

So, thank you, Daniel. I understand your question, why is AI even, and server demand even stronger than, and such stronger than initially anticipated, and could there be even more further upside? So, what we see is, of course, that particularly in the memory segment, the memory chip manufacturers prioritize and they feed more supply into the server, into the server area. And that's driven by their continued strong build of hyperscalers and by their CapEx roadmaps being confirmed or even being upgraded further. So this looks very robust and very strong now. Is there a further upside? Maybe there could be a small further upside, however. Some of those particularly memory chips are limited by capacity constraints at the chip makers. It means even though there could be an underlying stronger end market demand from the AI drive, it might be difficult to fulfill this. So, therefore, we would say, yes, there could be further smaller upsides this year, but due to capacity constraints, it could be limited. It could be dampened on the chip level side. As a general remark, we also have to have in mind when we talk about smartphones that the minus 10% is a composition. a melange of unit and content. And we see maybe on the unit side even a bit of further dampening, which is compensated by the mix effect as those smartphones that are still being built tend to be more higher level, more advanced smartphones, which also have more silicon content in there. So we always have to in mind. I have to have in mind this mixture between unit number effect and the silicon content effect. So what we show with those minus 10 is a composition of both.

Perfect. That's very clear. Thank you very much. And just to also follow up, I mean, it's great to see that server and market demand is doing so well. Just historically, I remember that usually the Japanese peers were claiming quite strong market share within that segment, especially on this kind of more advanced wafer capabilities. In your opinion, do you see this gap narrowing from here on? Yeah, do you see kind of further share gains from your side in this segment?

I would say there are no tremendous changes. I mean, you're referencing a bit to the market share question. We see pretty stable market share development. So that means there is no lens light shift in either direction. But I can reconfirm what we discussed a couple of weeks ago, that we are well positioned, that we have a clear strategic focus on leading edge. So that means on advanced logic and on the high bandwidth memory segments. So here we are pretty well represented. And then some tiny details here and there could depend, of course, on more customer mix rather than on application mix in the sense of server versus other. It would be more the customer mix and the customer exposure that could create here and there some, let's say, particular differences on a quarterly basis.

Perfect. Thank you very much.

The next question comes from Constantine Hessel with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Ms. Hessel, please check your mute button. She does have an additional connection. One moment, please. Ms. Hessel, please proceed with your questions.

Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Oh, perfect. Good morning. Thanks very much for taking my questions. So, the first one is just quickly on pricing, because the overall comment is that there's still pricing pressure, but on the previous call, we had already heard that pricing in 300 millimeter legacy had stabilized. So, I just wanted to confirm that that's still the case and that pricing pressure is coming primarily from 200 millimeter. That's the first question.

So, thank you, Konstantin. We didn't say that the pricing is stabilized. We said we have a few examples of reasonable spot prices in 300 millimeter outside LTAs. So that's a statement I could reiterate. So in terms of pricing, overall, pretty unchanged. We see a stable situation in the LTA framework, which covers around two-thirds of our business. We see those some spots getting more reasonable in 300 millimeter outside LTAs, but we also see an ongoing pressure on 200 millimeter. And that's, of course, the area we also have far less LTAs. So, in general, unchanged to what we said six weeks ago.

Great. Thank you. Then, Michael, if I may ask. I mean, looking at the demand and the inventory situation as of today, how likely would you expect another shipment postponement, meaning another capacity utilization cut or production cut, if you will, given the current situation? Is that something that, you know, because what I'm trying to figure out here is, look, I think it was, you know, the bottom had been reached at some point last year. The bottom continues to drag. But, you know, as data center demand continues to be strong, leading edge demand continues to be strong, I'm just wondering, you know, if there's still a likelihood that we could see another production cut during 2026 from an overall perspective.

Yeah, thanks, Konstantin. I think in general that the short answer would be maybe we don't expect any further cuts or major kind of changes. But let me differentiate a bit by the application segments, also particularly relating to inventory. I think both in memory and logic, in the meantime, we can say we are back to very normal means inventory levels, and we indicated in the course that some customers even start taking off on discussions to secure even more, let's say, mid-term demand. So that's, I think, the good sign, and it's a good part of the coin. On the other side, there is still the power segment. We have to reconfirm that inventory levels are still pretty elevated, so that's a bit more difficult segment still. And as you know, that is particularly heavy weighing on . So overall, I think back to normal, we wouldn't expect, you know, further disruptive cuts or changes this year with a little maybe caveat around power, which is still, let's say, are behind inventory depletion compared to the other two segments.

That's great. Thank you. Then the next question would be, look, given the stronger than anticipated demand for leading edge, right, which was clearly outlined here by the server demand in your presentation, could we potentially see an anticipated or like an earlier than expected requirement for further capex in Singapore because of that additional demand that is coming through? Or is everything going according to plan? Thanks.

I mean, we're not only providing leading edge out of Singapore. We provide leading edge also out of both our German factories. So that means in terms of overall footprint, we feel pretty well And then, of course, as we always said, we took down the ramp speed of Singapore last year and the year before compared to initial plans. We did speed that up a little bit in the meantime. And then we would consider further ramping Singapore, and that's what we always said, according to market demand. So if this is continuing, of course, we would still continue ramping what we have, and in parallel, then prepare for more capacity as required. Currently, we feel pretty well set. The UTs have been low for quite some time in our German footprint. and with the capacity we generated already in Singapore. And in that spirit, we will ramp what we have and prepare them for the next one as required.

Thank you, Michael. And the last question, maybe over to Claudio, just on the debt situation. Look, and this is a question that's really based on from today's point of view, right? If what we see today continues to be the case, it feels to me that the net debt level is basically peaking as we speak. I just want to make sure that the – because I think you only have 127 million euros left or dollars left in that revolving credit facility in Singapore, and I just want to make sure that that level is enough for any potential disruptions or any potential working capital moves during the different quarters that are still upcoming. Thank you.

Yeah, good morning, Constantine. Yeah, we are pretty convinced that our liquidity reserve, which includes $450 million in cash that we have right now, plus $130 million out of that revolving credit facility, gives us enough flexibility for any unforeseeable in the future. But as we mentioned, we are convinced that the net debt level will decrease over the second half of the year. There's no, and from our point of view, there's no concern.

Thank you very much.

The next question comes from Robert Sanders with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I have three questions if it's possible. First question would just be on FabNext. Is it fair to say it's roughly 10% of revenue this year, or could it be much higher? That would be my first question. Second question would be, when can we expect FabNext to become accretive to our margin, given the sort of relatively limited scale today, but ramping? And the third question would just be, I noted, obviously in the past you've explored specialty wafers, such as silicon carbide, then you pulled out of that. I think in the past you've worked on SOI. Given this photonics boom and this data center boom seems to be passing you by to some degree, is there a scenario where you could make SOI wafers without a Soitec IP? I think in the past you've looked at it. Global Wafers claims they can do that without Soitec IP. So just interested if you're exploring more specialty ways of playing into this data center. Thank you.

Thank you, Rob. We are, of course, reluctant to comment about details, what is the revenue contribution out of FedNext and whether it's already a margin accretive. What I can say is, of course, we have a very smooth ramp in the meantime. We had around mid of last year all major customers being qualified. So, you know, we have the freedom to get volumes in there and kind of preferentially load it. That's always what we said. You also hear us talking less about ramp costs. So, that's a clear indication that we see volumes going up, fixed costs being more reasonably diluted. So, that's really what I can say. say around FedNext without giving out any, let's say, competitive, relevant information right now. With regards to your second question, you're absolutely right. We decided quite some time ago not to venture into silicon carbide, so no change on that one. We also have currently no considerations or even plans to go into any SOI activities. And in terms of those new technology, we still have a small-scale team working on gallium nitride, where we feel there could be a potential opportunity for us, but currently we don't see the demand and the market model. But in terms of those three, gallium nitride is the only one which we're covering right now with a small R&D effort.

Got it. Just one quick follow-up. The Fabnex is predominantly polished rapers and a minority epi. Can you confirm that?

No, it's actually both. We brought the 300-millimeter epi technology for the first time to Singapore, and the ramp of Fabnex comprises both polished and epi.

All right.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Florian Trice with Kepler. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my question. I have a question on let's call it the quarter or sequential improvement coming over the year. The first question would be are you or can you quantify the impact or pull in impact on the Q1 numbers into Q4 last year? And is it fair to assume that we should see sequential improvements here every coming quarter from here? or is it really a step up in demand potentially at the end of the year to meet the mid-single-digit decline? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Florian. We do not, and I think we must not quantify the details of those revenues that have been moved from Q4 last year, from Q1, sorry, this year into Q4 last year. I think I can just reiterate that we currently communicated our Q1 numbers. We have a very clear, full year guidance in place. And if you do some math, of course, you can estimate about a potential increase of revenue in the consecutive quarter. You will easily come to the conclusion that we do not see explosive growth from that calculation. a smooth further growth over the year. Great. Thank you very much.

The next question comes from Gustav Froberg with Barenberg. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions as well. You talked a little bit about the indirect impact from the conflict in the Middle East, rising energy costs, et cetera. Could you maybe give us a bit more color on the evolution of costs on that side or coming from anything that may be an exogenous shock? I know as well your margin guide is obviously kept flat despite sort of you alluding to some potential cost increases. So are you able to save any costs anywhere else? That's my first question. Thank you.

Hi, Joseph. Good morning. This is Claudia. Yeah, regarding the cost, we see two corners right now where we see some cost pressure, I would say, that's in electricity costs, especially in Singapore, where we have an oil price component in our contracts, and we see some increases in freight costs. Regarding the electricity cost, as you know, we have hatching in place in Singapore. We do some hatching using derivatives, and in Germany, a certain share of power procurement is secured up to two years in the plant. So, regarding electricity, we feel quite comfortable with our hatching that is in place. We see some cost increases in price cost. But on the other side, we also see that the dollar is a bit stronger right now than we anticipated. Right now it's 1.17 versus 1.18 that we assume in our forecast. So this should, let's say, offset the assumed price increases, which are not too big for this year.

Okay, super. Thank you.

And then a question on cash flow as well, and your sort of balance sheet side of things, essentially. Do you feel comfortable with the current rate of cash burn, assuming nothing changes in your operating environment versus sort of Q4 last year, Q1 this year? Or Does your plan for the balance sheet and the cash flow side of your financial envelope need to change unless there's a material pickup in H2?

Yeah, please keep in mind that Q4 was impacted by a lot of special effects also regarding the cash flow, and all the developments we saw in Q1 in cash flow were So the increase in inventories and trade receivables was expected and also the cash outflow for the CapEx related trade tables. So this is all included in our guidance for this year and the net cash flow guidance is that we expect a net cash flow in the range of the previous year. you can assume that there are shifts between quarters and they are planned and they are expected because we do some, let's say, financial management. That's very obvious in every company. We do some financial management, but we expect the cash burn situation to improve, especially in the second half of the year. So we feel very comfortable with our guidance and with the development we saw in Q1.

Great. And that assumes no pickup in the underlying business. You still expect better cash flow.

Yeah, of course we assume pickup in the underlying business because our sales guidance says that we expect not Q1 times four, but a bit higher. So the rest of the year should improve in coming from sales. So with that also, we will also see an improvement in our operating cash flow.

Okay, super. Thank you very much.

The next question comes from Martin Youngfleisch with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi, good morning. I just have two quick follow-ups. The first one is really on pricing, right? Can you just talk about what part of your 300-millimeter contracts would potentially be eligible for price hikes for the next 12 months when the situation would allow for that? So is that kind of all contracts out of the long-term agreements, which has been, I guess, like 20% or something like that? And then when these contracts, so 300-millimeter contracts expire today, Are these renewed at flat pricing, or is there already some leverage on your end to lift prices in these kind of contracts?

So, I mean, as we, and thank you, Martin, for the question. As we said, no major LTAs are expiring in the course of this year. Whenever something expires, of course, it's our freedom to conclude a new one. We would only do so if, of course, pricing and other conditions are favorable for us. Currently, a very small portion is eligible for renewables. From that perspective, it's not a huge topic. And what we indicated in the speech today is that we see now customers talking about maybe more midterm volume demands. So I think we could come to a situation where this overall LTA framework can continue to be very robust and be very beneficial for us. And I think I can say that's a statement for the overall waiver space. We feel this symbiosis between customer and waiver manufacturers is working pretty well and robustly.

Okay. So when you would sign new LTAs, you would only do so at a higher pricing than previous contracts? Is that the right assumption?

It depends on the segment. In some areas, there are new LTAs for potential discussions. So we currently don't see, you know, any major price discussions in new LTAs.

Okay. Thank you. And then the other question is also follow-up mainly on capacities, right? So just Is it possible for you to grow 300 millimeter wafer volumes, so output, by like mid to high single digits this and next year, which is kind of like a market demand, without you adding any capacity? So can you basically cater to market demands this and next year without adding any capacity?

I mean, we continuously add still CapEx to Singapore. We said it very clearly. And that means also still some machines coming in, which, of course, will have incremental benefits for capacity. Overall, we don't feel capacity is a constraint for us as we're coming from on the one side low UTs in the German footprints, as you know. And as we did build the building and the infrastructure and the gas supply and everything in Singapore already, and have a first wave of clean room and machines installed there, which gives us room to further ramp according to market demand. So for the time being, we feel pretty well set. And then, of course, we will, as always stated, continue the ramp according to the real market demand.

Okay, great. And then just one final question really on this cost. In the release, you noted these hedging gains of around $11 million. Were they already offsetting cost incurred in the quarter, or are these, I guess, higher costs coming now in the coming quarter to near the gain up front?

Yeah, regarding the hedging gains, I tried to convey that in the speech. Q1 is always burdened by expenses that are more pronounced in that quarter or that only occur at the beginning of the year. So, they are only recorded at the beginning of the year. For example, let's say labor accruals or expenses related to property. And those hedging gains and the fixed result we recorded in Q1. more or less offset those expenses. Can we expect further hedging gains in the upcoming quarters? I don't know, but what I know is that those extraordinary Q1 exchanges, they won't occur in the upcoming quarters.

Okay, cool. Thank you very much.

The next question comes from with Benkos Metzler. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. A few questions. The first one would be around the first Q performance. What was the underlying growth in Q1 when we really take a year-over-year comparison taken into consideration, the FX headwinds, the small diameter shortfall, and then the volumes which were put from Q1 to Q4 last year. Did you see an underlying growth in Q1?

So, thank you. Thank you, Michael. I think both Q1 this year, as Claudia already explained particularly in the cost side. And particularly Q4 last year on the top line side where I think very special quarters. So to compare them on a like-to-like basis is very difficult and would require us to, you know, strip and detail a lot of effects and to become super transparent. So I'm a bit reluctant to comment here. that the underlying volume picture is a healthy one, include one this year. And we see that it's exactly according to plan and guidance.

Clear, thank you. And then the second one on the utilizations, alluding a little bit to the previous question from my colleague. What we see right now is on the industrial level for the 300 millimeter, the utilizations are probably hitting low 90s, high 80s. I was wondering, and that's typically in the industrial area where customers want to discuss long-term or mid-term volumes, want to make sure that they get the volumes, and that's always a good momentum for price increases going forward. I was just wondering if your 300-millimeter utilizations at this stage are different substantially different than the industry utilizations, like the low 90s or around 90%?

We have indeed, in the meantime, decent 300 millimeter loading, but we also have a way to further grow capacity very short term, as I explained. So from that perspective, yes, 300 millimeter loading is becoming and coming to a level where, and that's what I said in the call, where first customers now are looking into mid-term volume demand patterns. And that's, as you say, it's a very good indication. It's a good, let's say, atmospheric change, which we also anticipate. On the pricing side, I wouldn't go beyond the statement which we made six weeks ago. We have those first few examples of more reasonable spot prices again in 300 millimeter. That was very, very different some quarters ago. So we have those sentiments. We have those indications. We don't see a major trend change already, but the atmosphere in those conversations now is a different one. That's definitely what I can say.

Great. And then on the memory market, I mean, I understand that customers are, the memory vendors are prioritizing shipments to the higher ASP area in the AI server market or server market in general. PC and smartphone, taking into account that the second half of the year is the much stronger volume part of the year, and at the end, consumers will ask for those products, a smartphone and PC, and we are seeing higher semiconductor content, etc. And let's say now This demand will be, particularly on the memory side, will be served from Chinese memory vendors for maybe not the very high end, but mid-range and phones and PCs. If the volume comes more from Chinese vendors, does that change your shipments or your volumes? Because now those smartphone and PC vendors are getting their volumes from Chinese vendors?

For us, in the first glance, we are, let's say, to quite some extent agnostic, yeah, because we serve all major customers, and as you know, of course, we also do business in China, yeah. So I think there could be indeed two effects. There could be, if there's really PC and smartphone demand picking up and manifesting from end consumer side, because then the prices will be paid and the memory chips might be more competitive again compared to the server demand, so that could indeed happen. For us, we are, you know, agnostic to details of those, let's say, customer mix effects. As I said, we also, I think, very well positioned in advanced technologies, so every effect that would drive, you know, high-end PC or high-end we would also clearly be a benefiter as we are focusing, of course, on those advanced technologies, mainly leading edge and high bandwidth memory.

Thank you. Can I squeeze one more on the 200 millimeter and particularly on the auto and the power part of the business? I mean, I understand inventories at auto chip vendors are still at high level. They are burning down inventories, but still it's too high. But I was wondering in 200 millimeter, particularly auto, I always historically thought you are strong within the power part of this, and we see a lot of demand also from AI data centers for low-end power products for servers, etc., And I was wondering why are you not seeing this demand in your 200 millimeter market? And related to that, although it gets obvious that the Chinese 200 millimeter wafer producers are in the main market and competitive products, is that also related a little bit to the potential ASP pressure you're feeling? I would not say. but ASP pressure, that the issue in the 200 millimeter is rather from the ASP side?

So I think you're absolutely right. In couple, in the last two quarters or so, also the power chip manufacturers again, got more positive and were highlighting particularly also their business opportunities in powering data centers. And we also anticipate that. So we have still, between that, those statements and those businesses picking up. And our, I mean, the waiver side of things, there is on the one side the usual six-month delay and, in addition, the elevated inventories So, therefore, we and the wafer industry doesn't see it yet is maybe a good statement. And then, in addition, you're right, we always said that the Chinese wafer manufacturers let's say that the technology capability and so on are stronger, the lower the diameter of the wafers, yeah. And of course, in 200 millimeter, they are more present and more advanced and far more advanced than in 300. And that could be another effect. So what I want to say is it's the normal demand supply cycle here we see, which is still, hanging on in power inventories. And there could be an underlying, let's say, China effect as well, yeah. So, for us, 200 millimeters, of course, already with the 300 millimeter growth already a small segment in the meantime. But we still see that the demand is picking up once the manifestation of the demand from the power and AI side, is driving through the power chip manufacturers to the wafer industry, then we should also see demand pick up again.

Thank you very much.

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1. The next question comes from Harry Blakewalk with UBS. Please go ahead.

Morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. The first is just on one of your peers reported yesterday and were kind of unexpectedly quite positive on their wafer segment. And some of the commentary that they were giving was that customers are kind of rushing for So inventory, wafer inventory, and then there are some customers asking for kind of longer and potentially higher volumes in LTAs. You kind of mentioned about customers trying to secure medium-term demand. So I wonder whether – I know you obviously can't comment on anything to do with your peers, but – those conversations with customers around LPAs, lengthening them, and medium-term demand, wondering whether you are also experiencing something similar or whether you can comment on that at all.

Yeah, thank you, Harry. And we're always a bit reluctant to comment on, as you highlighted already, on individual issues. competitor statements, but I can confirm, and I think I did already, that we also feel this more positive tonality and atmosphere in conversations with customers about volume scenarios and so on. So, we are not so vocal about it as we really would love to see it more in our books. Also, not only in, let's say, atmospheric and tonality indications, But definitely we see a change in atmosphere there. And then maybe a more general remark, if you compare, let's say, Japanese players with us, you have to always have in mind, in terms of operational development, the FX difference. And, of course, we as wafer manufacturers have different customer portfolios and some product portfolio differences as well. So if we take all this together, I think we'll be pretty much in line with the sentiment from other players. We're also anticipating.

Got it. And then I just wanted to clarify on your pricing comment. I know like over the past year you've been saying that, you know, pricing pressure is more severe in ATIN and 12 inches being stable in LTAs and maybe down a little bit in spot market. I know you're saying that it's in 12 inches now more reasonable and I just wanted to know kind of what does that mean in terms of is that just the price declines that have stabilized or are you seeing any price increases coming through outside of LTAs?

I'm a bit reluctant to go into more details here, but your general statement is correct and unchangeably correct. Price pressure is indeed more pronounced in 200 millimeter, as we discussed earlier in the call. That's maybe not a surprise. In 300, we came out of a phase where the non-LTA part was also under certain price pressure, and now we have, in the meantime, some first examples where that is easing and looking more reasonable, yeah. So, again, I wouldn't declare a trend change or a significant uptick yet, but we have those first examples where we can look a bit more positively on outside 300 millimeter LTA pricing.

Okay. Perfect. And maybe one last quick one. I know you say that you don't have any major LTAs. coming up negotiation this year, but next year, are you able to comment on that?

So nothing major is expiring this year. Our big LTAs that have all been concluded in conjunction with the FedNext, they are, let's say, very long-term LTAs. We have some of them running until 2030. We have 80% of our capacity in Singapore covered with these long-term LTAs. And then, of course, we look at LTAs as a sort of portfolio. We always said we want to have around two-thirds of the business in those LTAs. And in that context, of course, there could LTAs be expiring next year while we also even last year concluded new LTAs. So, it's a kind of rolling ongoing thing. And let me reiterate, if conditions are not good, nobody will force us to do new LTAs. So, it's really up to our discretion. And even we experienced in very soft market conditions, There's always a segment or a technology where new LTAs are concluded. So we have to look at this as a kind of portfolio, as a rolling theme. And, again, the big ones are rock solid in 2013 and with historic volume shifts, which reported some of those volumes even have been added to the end of the contract, which, in fact, would prolong some of those initial timeframes.

Thank you, Michael. I appreciate that.

There are no further questions. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Stephanie Malgara.

This concludes our Q&A session. Thank you for joining us today. We'll release our H1 2026 figures on the 30th of July. On this slide, you can also see our next IR events. Thank you, and have a good day.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.