Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking the time to come see us this morning or to watch us online. This is our half-year result for 2022. I would like to take you through where we are as a business. Before we get into the numbers with Tim, I would like to share with you our progress towards our strategic priorities year to date as well. As you know, I joined early in the year, so it has been an interesting six to nine months working in IQE but also living in the UK. I'm still in a ramp-up phase in some part of the country to adapt to where I came from, which is California. As you know, our industry continues to play a vital role in the world economy.
We continue to see tremendous focus around the world on semiconductor and especially on semiconductor manufacturing. Most recently, the US has passed the CHIPS Act, which is a fantastic milestone to continue to fuel domestic supply chain in the United States. We hope to see the same here in the UK with the new prime minister that has come on board. We'll talk about it as well. I would like to share with you some of our strategic priorities. Back in March, when I introduced myself, we put forward five key strategic priorities for IQE, and in addition to our performance of this half year, I would like to give you an update on where we are in each of those.
Overall, we have delivered a good performance in line with our guidance for the H1, from the financial perspective, but we also have made great progress. Let me start. The first one that I laid out before you is to place the customers at the center of everything we do. Why? Because this is how we're gonna grow our business. From the time I started to now, we have increased our customer engagement by 3x. This is extremely important because when I came in, we said we're gonna put IQE in the path for growth. Growth start with customer engagement. We have spent tremendous amount of time looking into our existing customer base, our existing businesses, to define our path forward. We have taken steps to diversify our customer base from two vectors, really.
From the product mix and also from the market mix. This is a fantastic accomplishment. 3x allow us to increase the customer pipeline, and we are working really hard to convert this engagement into concrete business throughout the course of the year and into next year. This is a fantastic achievement by the teams, and we will update you as we go forward. We said we would take a market view and also a product view to our business in addition to the technology based. Since I joined, we have announced two major breakthrough. One is the microLED business, where we have announced our engagement with Porotech to deliver world-class technology into that market. Also the LiDAR product for automotive. These are growth market, as you know, high value market, and we intend to play a major role in those markets. Technology leadership.
We are a technology company, and maintaining our technology leadership is key to our future success and growth. We have announced a few months ago the first 200-millimeter VCSEL product. Why this is important, as I said back when I joined, it is critical for the compound semiconductors to get to where the silicon industry is in terms of geometry. It will allow us to access new capacity in terms of manufacturing and partnership. It would allow us to grow our market size and allow us to proliferate our product into new markets. This is a very, very strong accomplishment from the teams. As we create value to our technologies, as we engage new customers, we need to build a business framework that allow us to capture that value.
We are migrating from transactional business model to more strategic with our customers, and you have seen our announcement with Lumentum on the long-term strategic partnership, and this is the trend we are going to adopt in our business model moving forward, not only with existing customers, but with also new ones. It is very, very important for IQE to build those long-term partnership to allow us to do two things: align our roadmap to key customers and growth market, as we said, and also build a funding model that is economically the best because we seek partnership with our customers to go increase our capacity to manufacture product that they need. Okay? Fifth priority is our footprint optimization and scale. We had announced that we would optimize our footprint by closing down our Singapore site, which we have done end of June.
We are also accelerating the convergence of our MBE platform from Pennsylvania into North Carolina. That would allow us to build an optimum footprint where we would have a site in Asia, U.K., and then two sites in the US, one MOCVD and one MBE platforms. This is important as a global player to manage our business better in terms of scaling. We can scale in all three sites. We can also manage cost a little bit better by leveraging our global footprint. As we scale our business, as I said, we will be looking for partnership from the funding perspective with the government and also with our customers. These five priorities are extremely important for us to continue to deliver on our business performance moving forward. Let me call Timothy Pullen to take you through the H1 of our financials.
Okay. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for watching this if you're catching up online. I'm going to take you through the numbers now. Here are the financial highlights. A really solid set of financials for the H1 of the year ended 30th of June. GBP 86 million of revenue for the H1. A strong reported increase in revenue year-on-year and about 1.5% up on a constant currency, remembering that the majority of our revenues are earned in US dollars. In the context of what has been a turbulent technology and semiconductor market, we're really pleased with that performance. At a profitability level, our margins are pretty consistent year-on-year, so about 14% EBITDA and constant currency EBITDA level year-on-year.
There is a loss before interest and tax, really as the result of certain one-offs that we've disclosed previously in terms of the closure of Singapore that Americo's just talked about, and also an intangibles write-down we talked about at the full year results earlier in the year. Strong operating cash flow. We're consistently producing operating cash off the back of our EBITDA performance. As I say, really a solid set of financials overall. This really gives us a platform to grow. Americo talked about the strategic focus of the group. This year was always going to be a year where we laid the foundations, the building blocks for future growth, and we really see that solid foundation that we're putting in place this year to enable growth in future periods.
As we do so, we've always talked about our operational gearing as a group, and that will see the volume really flow through to the bottom line with an increase in profitability as we get that growth. Let's dig into the results a little bit more. In terms of the revenue evolution of the group, you can see there the growth both on a reported and a constant currency basis. Strong sequential growth from the H2 of last year. Breaking that down a bit into our different segments, you can see our two key business units of wireless and photonics. There's a few different things going on in here. First of all, GaN. Gallium Nitride is the material that goes into the communications network.
Think about the base stations for 5G as a core destination for that product. As we've seen in previous periods, the infrastructure rollout of 5G has stuttered a bit. We've had some strong growth and then some decline last year. In the H1 of this year, what we've really seen is a resurgence in material for aerospace and security applications in which IQE has a strong market share. Strong growth there, but a solid performance as well in gallium arsenide. This is the material that you will find in your handset for your smartphone or in your Wi-Fi six router. Here the market's been actually pretty tough. Here we've fared significantly better than some of our peers, particularly in Asia, really due to our strong exposure to the premium end of the market.
That's the 5G and the Wi-Fi six end of the market there. While that is down slightly, we're really pleased with that performance. Overall, on a constant currency basis, wireless is about 4% growth year-over-year. In the photonic sector, we've had strong maintenance of market share in the 3D Sensing market for VCSELs. This is the vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers that are found in a certain brand of smartphone. These are, you know, pretty constant year-over-year. As I'll talk about when we come to the outlook, there are some strong indicators for the H2 as well. Indium phosphide is the material that you will find either end of the fiber optic communications network, so datacomms, data center, and so on.
Here we've seen a really resurgent performance in the H1 of the year for a business that did have some declines back in 2019. Two customers in particular really performing well, and we're the key supplier for them. That's obviously offset a bit of a reduction in our infrared business. Here we've maintained really strong market share, over 80% of these markets in terms of sensing. The phasing of this market can move around from period to period, and we've seen a bit of a drop there that the indium phosphide has picked up on. Broadly about flat for that business year-on-year. How does that flow through in terms of profitability? You can see the adjusted EBITDA of GBP 12.3 million. As I said before, that's about 14% margin.
We know that will grow as the business scales based on the operating leverage, but a decent performance based on these volumes. Key to that increasing profitability will be the site optimization program that Americo talked about, which the Singapore closure is part of. Also, the closure of the Pennsylvania site and consolidation into North Carolina. Those are two of the exceptional cost items that we've experienced in the H1 of the year, as expected, and also the impairment of the distributed feedback laser intangible. That was something we talked about at the full year results, but is contained within 2022 numbers. Along with share-based payments and so on, those do give us a number of exceptional items, which creates the loss at the EBIT level.
How does that flow through in terms of cash flow? Well, you can see that overall we continue to invest, but we've been using our funds very wisely, so about GBP 3.8 million in property, plant, and equipment CapEx. That's actually been offset by the sale of some tools for Singapore. These are the tools that are not needed, not strategic within the group, and so that pretty much funds the property, plant, and equipment CapEx we've had in the H1. We continue to then invest on two other fronts, one being the systems and process transformation of the group. This is really about leveraging the breadth and the scale of the business to get consistency, repeatability, ultimately scalability, so that as we grow, we'll do so at peer group margins. Also research and development.
As Americo said, we're a technology company, and remaining at the forefront at the leading edge of our technologies is really important, and so you'll see us continue to invest in intangibles for development. That then means that at the net debt level, we have a net debt of just under GBP 7 million, and that's comfortably within the headroom of the group. We have the facilities with our trusted partner, HSBC Bank, which means that we can invest on a tactical basis as we need to for tools here and there. As Americo described, if we do something more strategic with a new customer, then that will, you know, that will come with its own set of strategic options. We have the sufficient balance sheet strength in order to invest tactically in the short term.
The balance sheet, you can see, remaining strong. Here we're leveraging our banking facilities in order to fund that near-term investment, and pretty much stable year-on-year. Moving on to the outlook. A solid set of financials for the H1, but of course we're very interested in how things are panning out for the H2. Things remain difficult in the global environment when we look at the geopolitical picture, when we look at the energy crisis, inflation around the world, and so on. What you can see in IQE's financials in the H1, we expect to continue in the H2. Resilient to what's going on around us, and we're expecting that to continue.
The portfolio, which has played a key role in achieving the hitting of expectations for us in the H1, will play its part in the H2 as well. While we see some market weakness and softness in the wireless market, and there you can see that there is a significant build in the supply chain, particularly if you look at the handset market. We're expecting to see some softness off the back of that in the H2. Offsetting that, we see real strength in the photonic side of our business with both 3D sensing, where you can expect some customer diversification from IQE in the H2, and also beginning to get some revenues for microLED, another one of those key future technologies that Americo referred to just now.
That photonic strength will offset any softness that we see in the wireless market. Overall, we're in a position to reiterate the guidance that we set earlier in the year, which is constant currency revenue growth of low single-digit %, and at that level, a similar EBITDA margin % to the prior year. Reiterating as well our investments, so around GBP 10 million-GBP 15 million of PP&E CapEx, and around GBP 8 million of capitalized intangibles as we continue to invest as described. That's the look forward. Looking forward strategically as well as financially is really key to us, and so I'll hand back now to Americo to finish up.
Thank you, Tim. Looking forward, as we said, is what we do in our business and in the industry. It is a very, very exciting industry. We look at the growth rate forecasted in the semi business, and most importantly in the compound, is really interesting. That's what we're gonna position the company to go capture. As I said back when I joined, 2022 is the year of transformation. We need to deliver good financials, but as we do that, we need to build the strategies to be able to capture the growth moving forward. How are we gonna do that? We are going to focus on key market where growth is, where value is, and capture that value, right? Smart connected devices, not only smartphones.
We expect the IoT market to become an addressable market to us because they're all gonna become intelligent connected devices. That open up a whole new set of markets for our product that we serve today in the smartphones, and we expect to capture that market. The second that's very, very important for us is, as those IoT devices generate a lot of data, that data has to go into the cloud. The cloud growth rate, as you guys know, is 30%+ for the foreseeable future, and the data center architecture is going optical. We expect to benefit from that architecture transformation in the data centers, as well as the infrastructure that goes around 5G, et cetera, that are deployed in the world. The transportation world is going through revolution. We are talking about intelligent transportation, not just EV.
When we look at the energy crisis as we talked about, it won't be fixed without compound semiconductors. Let's be honest, right? There isn't any net zero requirement without compound semiconductors being massively deployed. EV market is one where we intend to play. As we build intelligent transportation where every device is connected, every car is connected, every pedestrian is connected, that is the sensing market where we are going into with our LiDAR product. The market is big, it's growing. We are structuring IQE to be able to capture that demand. How are we gonna do this? We have really three key assets in the company that are fundamental to who we are. We have the most complete technology roadmap. We need to capture value for it, okay? We continue to expand.
I think we are the only company that has the full roadmap in compound epitaxy. Epitaxy is very, very important in terms of ecosystem supply in the compound. For some of you who know the silicon world, I came from the silicon background. In the silicon world, we talked a lot about lithography being where the value is, right? We talk about transistor node going from one node to another. What the lithography is in the silicon world is what epitaxy is in the compound electronics. That's where the value is, and we're gonna go capture that value. It's fundamental. The second asset we have is our global footprint. Remember, our competitor is a single site, single country. We are the only, and I said that before, global supplier of epitaxy wafers. We have infrastructure in Asia, in the U.S., and here in the U.K.
We can grow on all three markets as we deploy our growth strategy. As I said, we have room to grow by 3x in our existing four walls. Why this is important? When you look at the time it takes to add capacity, when you start from an existing facility versus a greenfield, you are 12-18 months ahead. There isn't any faster way to add capacity to our manufacturing footprint than building on existing facility, which is what we have. Some of you have come to Newport, you have seen our facility there. We can grow by a significant amount of output. We can also grow on our site in the United States and in Taiwan. In addition to our competitive technology roadmap, we have the global footprint and the capacity to scale, right? This is very, very important.
Roadmap, global footprint, and scale are the assets that IQE has to be able to grow our business 2023 and beyond. We will do that with the right investment profile, with the right business model, with our key customers, by building a strategic long-term partnership, starting from R&D phase, where we're gonna jointly invest with our key customers to develop the technology that we are going to be able to scale in our facilities around the world. I'm really, really excited by the future of this company and the future of our industry. We hope to make an impact not only in everyone's life, but also on our planet by delivering really competitive and cutting-edge innovations to help solve some of the global challenges that we face, being energy crisis and the like. Thank you very much.
Okay. Now we'll go to questions from the room, please.
It's Rob Sanders, Deutsche Bank. I have a first question about GaN on silicon. You struck a deal with your former employer, Americo. I was just wondering what sort of opportunity you saw in GaN on silicon. Obviously, there are players doing epi in-house in GaN on silicon, but there could be an opportunity if, presumably, if this market was to get much bigger. I have a follow-up.
Sure. As you said, we have a partnership on GaN on silicon. What we intend to do is to co-invest on R&D with market makers to deploy the technology. You're right, some companies do their epi in-house, but from our perspective, we have to be able to give them optionalities in such a way that they do not have to do their epi in-house. This is where we spend a lot of time, as I said, working with key customers to make sure that we have not only the infrastructure, as I said, to deploy at scale, but we have the roadmap. Most of the company that do it in-house, as I said, are still in the early phase of their R&D. Then when it comes to scale, we're gonna be there.
Got it. On VCSEL, it sounds like you've got this new Asian VCSEL player ramping in the H2 that is part of your diversification strategy. On the under-display opportunity using your MBE toolsets, which I think are very idle right now, are you still confident of a sort of market introduction by, let's say, 2024 in terms of under-display, 3D Sensing using this MBE dilute nitride technology? Thanks.
Yeah. Our MBEs are running, they are not idling. They are doing a lot of R&D activities. By the way, we are the only player in the industry that have both platforms in epitaxy world, which is MBE plus MOCVD, and that really allow us to do some extraordinary advanced R&D, I would call it that way, that no other company in the business can really do by construction. Our MBE is actively running many, many R&D programs with many customers, as I said earlier. We will deploy those to markets as we align with our customers on their go-to-market strategies. Yeah. We will announce those as we go throughout the year. It is a very important asset that we intend to leverage. Yes. Thank you, Rob.
Thank you. You're sounding more bullish on 3D Sensing related VCSELs for H2. We know Lumentum is your main customer, and they're not having the best of times. What's bringing you comfort in that sector?
Tim.
Yeah. The supply chain for, you know, any large product like that will change over time. Our strategy as a business is to play at the materials level as the material specialist. It's really the unique intellectual property that we can bring to that. We have a strong delivery in the existing products, zero field failures since launch of those products, meeting the exacting quality standards of the end customer, and also working at the leading edge in the next generation of technology development. The previous question on the long-wavelength VCSELs is just one example of where we work, both with chip companies who are our direct customers and the end customer to bring the next generation of products to market.
That means that we can position ourselves within the supply chain agnostic of who the chip suppliers are that are selected. I referred in my presentation about customer diversification. We can't say any more than that at this stage, but you can expect from us strong positioning from 3D Sensing in our results come the end of the year.
Let me add one more point that I think is very important. When I said earlier that we have increased our customer engagement by 3x, it's important to understand that we engage with customers at every node of the ecosystem. That's really a very powerful model for IQE. We engage with product companies, platform companies, chipset fabless companies, but also foundries, as Rob was saying with my previous company. That allow us to have two things, a very unique perspective of the market and the innovation trend, and second, to build a better business model, right? Where we can engage with a product company that choose us as a supplier, and then regardless of how they sold their ecosystem, we will be playing in. This is a model we expect to continue to proliferate in our business.
Thank you.
Any final questions?
Sorry. Rob again. Just, can you just update us on potential R&D funding from the UK government? Obviously, there's been a lot of news around the Newport Fab, which I know is disconnected from you guys. You know, I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been a kinda UK CHIPS Act or whatever it is that could lead to funding coming to you guys. Is there any update on that? Thanks.
Sure. Thank you, Rob. I'm also surprised there hasn't been any. I think the U.K. is behind. As we all know, the U.S. has passed the CHIPS Act, EU has been funding the industry, and we really look forward to working with the new leadership in the U.K. We have been engaged with the previous leadership to develop a semiconductor strategy for the country, which we believe is very much needed because as supply chain becomes a geopolitical issue, as we know it, as chip shortage continue to extend into the future, we need to look at what is best for the country. Our view is we should build a domestic supply chain around compound semiconductors, which is where the U.K. has a leadership position.
I'm not sure it's wise to go put a advanced silicon fab in the U.K. where we would be playing really at best second role compared to most advanced places. Instead, we should double down on what we are good at, which is compound semiconductors. Having a world leader like IQE as a U.K.-based company is a fantastic asset to have, and it's a fantastic place to start with. We look forward to be a partner to the administration to have a constructive conversation, but time is of the essence. What we hope is that we're gonna get that done within the next few months, so we can get going on expanding capacity domestically here to serve not only the local market, but frankly, to play at the global stage, which the country in a position of doing.
Go ahead as well, then.
Thank you. You've talked about how the customer engagements are up 3x. I was just wondering. It's a two-part question. The first is whether you feel you've got the right people in place in order to take advantage of that. When it comes to customers and new customers especially, the pricing and costs inflation effects, how do you see yourself and the industry being able to deal with those? Can you pass those on? Is there high elasticity or is it quite low?
Well, we have to be more efficient and effective at what we do. That's why our site rationalization and scale matters, right? Being a global player, we see the impact differently in different stages. The UK energy crisis is not the same as the US and Taiwan. We are able to manage our operation to such a way that we are able to have, to minimize impact. If needs to be, we can have constructive conversation with our customers on that front. From the customer engagement perspective, we are doing very, very well. It is a mix of customers in different geography from Asia to the US to Europe, and also on the product mix, as I said earlier. Those are very constructive in the sense where the industry is in constant change, right? Innovation is there.
People understand the compound semiconductors. As Rob was saying earlier, some are doing their own epitaxy today, should they continue doing it, et cetera. We have diverse type of conversations that I think are very, very interesting for us and would position IQE very strongly moving forward. Now, we need to do it in such a way that we capture the value of what we do, right? Through our global footprint, through our scale, and through our technology roadmap.
Great. Thank you.