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10/24/2024
Hello and welcome to XFAB Quarter 3, 2024 results conference call. My name is Alicia and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this call is being recorded and for the duration of the call, your lives will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to Rudy De Winter, CEO, and Alva Morgantini, CFO. Thank you.
Thank you for the introduction, Alicia. In the third quarter, we recorded revenues of $206 million, down 12% year-on-year, and 1% up quarter-on-quarter. This compares to a guidance of $205 to $250. Revenues in our core markets, automotive, industrial and medical, accounted for 190 million, flat compared to previous quarter and down 8% year-on-year. The bookings were up 4% year-on-year, with a book-to-bill of 1.05 in the third quarter. The backlog came in at 481 million compared to 517 million end of the previous quarter. The decrease in backlog is related to long-term orders worth under $14 million, for which delivery dates are not yet confirmed at the end of the quarter. These longer-term orders for deliveries in the year 2025-2026 will be added to the backlog in the next months. In the third quarter, our automotive business grew 8% year-on-year. While automotive bookings weakened due to year-end inventory adjustments and general destocking, the picture is mixed on the automotive side. Our China automotive business has grown with 55% year-on-year and 38% quarter-on-quarter, while EU and US investments automotive bookings weakened. Our industrial and medical business decreased 41% and 29% respectively. And the current market trends and uncertainties have led to destocking activities and delays across the entire supply chain. However, order intake in the industrial and medical end markets picked up strongly in the third quarter. The consumer communication and computer business bottomed out, and it grew 13% compared to previous quarter, with a strong booking of book-to-bill just above 2. The CMOS business declined slightly year-on-year. Demand for XFAB Popular's 180 nanometer CMOS platform remained healthy. On the new 110 BCD SOI platform technology, several new prototypes were started for future high-volume applications. The bookings for 350 nanometer CMOS technology dropped due to inventory corrections. The older 0.6 micron CMOS technologies on 150 millimeter revived after we announced a discontinuation for these technologies as per end of 2026. This decision was taken to support the ongoing transition to the micro-systems business in our factory in Erfurt. Customers responded with high-order volumes while initiating design activities to work on successor products. The upturn in 0.6 micron business is expected to contribute positively to the revenue from the fourth quarter onwards. The third quarter silicon carbide sales continue to decline in a weak market environment and decreased 60% year-on-year. The visibility remains low. However, the silicon carbide development activities have been encouraging, especially for the next generation technology that comes with improved design performance, and a 30% increase in dyes per wafer. Combined with the recent reduction in silicon carbide substrate prices, this presents a potential of 40% cost improvement for the final silicon carbide devices, enabling new demand. As such, as soon as the silicon carbide market picks up, these new high-performance designs will increase contribute to the future growth of the silicon car business. In the third quarter, the microsystems business recorded a decline of 11% year-on-year, reflecting current market weakness. Inventory adjustments in the automotive industry and delays in new model launches have particularly impacted the microsystems business in the third quarter. The medical and end market, typically a strong driver of microsystem sales, has also been affected by destocking, but is expected to contribute positively in the future due to healthy bookings. Quarterly prototyping revenues totaled $23 million, down 14% year-on-year, and up 12% against the previous quarter. The fundamental drivers for expert business remain intact. These include the growth of semiconductor content in cars and the electrification of everything to drive the decarbonization of our world and the digitalization of the medical sector to make healthcare more efficient. Our comprehensive set of technologies and expertise enable customers to develop world-leading solutions for most important challenges. facing our world. Our business is expected to return to robust growth once the current destocking cycle is completed. Let's move now to the operations update. In the third quarter, we continue our capacity expansion programs with a focus on our popular 180 nanometer and 110 nanometer CMOS technologies. at the factories in France and Malaysia. The newly constructed cleanroom at our Malaysian site is ready and the first equipments are moved in. The expansion of the CMOS capacity is also critical to support the microsystems business. Microsystems are based on CMOS wafers to which specialized MEMS layers are added. With the planned discontinuation of the 0.6 micron CMOS business in Erfurt, the site is well on track to entirely focus on the manufacturing of complex microsystems in the future as of 2027. The silicon carbide capacity expansions at our Texas FAP, which has been slowed in line with current market demands, will be resumed as soon as the silicon market recovers and long-term customer commitments require additional capacity. In addition, we aim to further increase the portion of customers who source their own silicon carbide raw wafers and consign them to XFAP, resulting in a lower total billing as this is less pass-through for substrates sourced by us. Due to Due to both the lower installed capacity and the decision to optimize the portion of customer-consigned silicon carbide wafers, the overall silicon carbide revenue targeting for $300 to $350 million in 2026 is no longer achievable. This will result in changes in the timing and the product mix of our XFAP growth path going forward. Total capital expenditure in the third quarter came in at $150 million, thereof about two-thirds related to the expansion in our factory in Malaysia. We reiterate the CAPEX projections for the full year of 2024 in the amount of about $550 million. Most of the Malaysian capex expansion will be delivered by end of first quarter 2025, and from there onwards, there will be a significant drop in the capex spending. An operational incident in our factory in Malaysia caused a three-day production slowdown in the third quarter. This has been fully resolved, and rework of the affected material is underway. It will, however, shift revenue also from the fourth quarter into the first quarter 25 in the range of 15 to 20 million. Let me now pass the word to Alba for the financials.
Thank you, Rudy. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We will now move to the financial update. I would like to start this financial section by highlighting that the third quarter we succeeded to increase quarter on quarter growth margin by 14% and a BDA by 5%. EBIT by 9% while the revenue increased by 1% totalizing $206.4 million. These were within the guide at 205 to $215 million. Our quarterly EBDA was of $50.3 million with an EBDA margin of 24.4%. If we exclude the positive impact from revenues recognized over time, the EBDA margin of the third quarter would have been 23.5%. As usual, our profitability was not affected by any exchange rate fluctuation. as our business is naturally hedged. At a constant US dollar-euro exchange rate of 1.09, as experienced in the previous year's quarter, the EBITDA margin would have been 0.1 percentage points lower. Cash and cash equivalent at the end of the third quarter remain very healthy and amounted to about $316 million. And to conclude this financial section, I would like to share our guidance for the last quarter of 2024 and give you an update on full year's perspective. Fourth quarter revenue is expected to come in within a range of $195 to $205 million with an EBITDA margin in the range of 22 to 25%. The guidance is based on an average exchange rate of 1.1 US dollar to Euro and does not take into account the impact related to IFRS 15. As you can see, we have adjusted our full year revenue guidance from 860, 880 million down to 822 to 832 million dollar. In the full year, ABDA margin guidance has also been adjusted to 23.4% to 24%. And now I would like to give the word back to Rudy.
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