Hello, and welcome to Soitec Fiscal Year 2024 Q3 Sales Call. Please note this conference is being recorded and for the duration of the call, your lines will be in a listen-only mode. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. 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 turn the call over to Pierre Barnabé, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Hello, hello everyone, and welcome to Soitec's Conference Call, dedicated to the publication of our third quarter revenue. This is the third quarter of our fiscal year 2024, covering the period from October to December 2023. I'm Pierre Barnabé, Soitec's CEO. Together with me on this call are Léa Alzingre, our CFO, and Steve Babureck, our SVP Strategy. As usual, we will start with a few comments on our figures, and after that, we'll open the floor to questions. After the very strong rebound we achieved in Q2 2024, we've maintained our Q3 2024 revenue at a similar level as expected. Revenue in Q3 2024 reached EUR 240 million.
This is in line with the EUR 245 million achieved in Q2 2024, as we announced during our H1 2024 results disclosure. Compared to Q3 2023, it represents a 12% decline on an organic basis. As stated, when we published our H1 results, the correction of RF-SOI inventories by our customers continues to impact our mobile communication revenue, offsetting a continuous strong performance in FD-SOI and POI in this division. Regarding POI, another two new customers entered into production in this quarter. With now seven customers and 10 prospects in qualification, our POI roadmap is stronger quarter after quarter. Meanwhile, we continue to benefit from sustained growth in automotive and industrial, including an increasing contribution from SmartSiC revenue. On SmartSiC, we are on track on all aspects of our roadmap: technology, industry, supply chain, and commercial.
Talking about the commercial side, we are pleased to announce that we have engaged with the second customers for our SmartSiC product. With this second customer, production is expected in H2 2024. This agreement with a second customer, an SiC device maker with high growth ambition, validates the disruptive potential of our SmartSiC product and our roadmap. Looking now in more detail at our Q3 revenue by end market. Let me start with the mobile communications, our largest division, which accounted for 54% of our revenue in Q3 2024. Revenue in mobile communication reached EUR 130 million. This represent a 23% decrease against Q3 2023, essentially reflecting lower volumes and mix compared to Q3 2023. We have different dynamics in our mobile communication division.
While our RF-SOI product continues to be impacted by some inventory corrections by our customers, our strong momentum in FD-SOI and POI confirms our healthy expansion beyond RF-SOI. We recorded significantly higher sales in FD-SOI, which target front-end modules integrated in both sub-6 GHz and in 5G mmWave smartphones. FD-SOI penetration progresses well with the latest flagship smartphones embedding increasing content. We also recorded strong growth in POI, which address RF filters for 5G smartphones. POI growth was supported by higher volumes from both existing and new customers. We continue to convert the strong activity in qualifications into new customers with two new logos in production. We continue to make significant progress on the adoption of new products in 5G smartphone, Wi-Fi 6, 6E, 7, and infrastructure.
Going forward, the growing deployment of 5G smartphones and increasing penetration of Wi-Fi 7 will drive further content growth for RF-SOI, FD-SOI, and POI. Automotive and industrial revenue reached EUR 44 million. This is a solid 21% revenue growth year-on-year, excluding currency impact compared to Q3 2023. Automotive and industrial represent 18% of our total revenue in Q3 2024. We continue to leverage the increase in semiconductor content, supported by two strategic trends: digitalization and electrification. Our products enable in-vehicle connectivity as cars become increasingly more digital, with more demand for functional safety, edge computing for zonal architecture, with a higher need for autonomous driving and more robust artificial intelligence. Electrification of the powertrain as the industry is rapidly transitioning to electric vehicles. Growth in automotive and industrial was supported by continuous growth in Power-SOI, which was essentially driven by higher volumes.
Power-SOI addresses growing demand for infotainment, functional safety, and battery management system. FD-SOI also recorded high sales as they continue to benefit from increased adoption from automotive microcontrollers. Finally, the contribution from revenue generated by our SmartSiC technology for electric vehicles has also increased. We continue to benefit from our cooperation agreement with STMicroelectronics, and we are delivering SmartSiC product to multiple players from our Bernin 4 fab, inaugurated in September 2023. More importantly, as I said at the beginning of the call, we have just signed with the second SmartSiC customers, with production expected before the end of 2024. So we are definitely on track with our SmartSiC roadmap, which, as you know, is bound to be a significant drivers for the years to come.
This second customer will contribute to the ramp-up in production of our new dedicated plant in Bernin, in Bernin, still expected throughout our fiscal year 2025. Moving now to smart devices, which accounted for 27% of our total revenue in Q3 2024. Revenue from smart devices reached EUR 65 million, much higher than Q2 2024, and down 3% year-on-year, excluding currency impacts and mixed performance among our products. Sales of FD-SOI were stronger in Q3 2024 than in the first two quarters of the year, but slightly lower than in Q3 last year. They continue to be supported by edge computing devices, both in consumer and industrial sectors, and in particular by the need for ultra, ultra-low power edge AI applications. Sales of Imager-SOI also had a strong rebound in Q3 2024, after two low quarters in Q1 and Q2.
On the other hand, sales of Photonics- SOI were lower than in Q3 2023, reflecting a more challenging environment for CapEx data centers in 2023. The mid to long-term trajectory of silicon photonics remains very strong to support next-generation data architectures. In this context, we continue to engage with leading fabless, and we'll be co-chairing an industry workshop on OFC San Diego on March. That summarizes our Q3 2023 performance. On a nine-month basis, our revenue came at EUR 641 million, down 14% year-on-year. Let's move, let's move on to our outlook. After the very strong sequential rebound achieved in the second quarter, we will maintain our third quarter revenue at a similar level, in line with our expectations.
Going forward, we continue to see significant growth across our three end markets, where we are strengthening our leadership in SOI and successfully executing on our expansion into new products, including POI, SmartSiC, and GaN. However, in the short term, our activity will continue to be impacted by the correction of FD-SOI inventories by our customers in the mobile ecosystems. This correction will be partially compensated by a continuous strong performance in FDSOI, POI, power- SOI. What does it mean in terms of numbers? We confirm a strong Q4 2024, but we slightly adjust our fiscal year 2024 revenue down around 10% year-on-year, compared to mid-single digit previously anticipated. Regarding the EBITDA margin, we now target around 34% versus 35% initially. In the midterm, you remember our ambition to reach around $2.1 billion in fiscal year 2026.
Given the RF-SOI inventory correction that is lasting a bit longer than expected, we now see that this target should be delayed by around one year, which might be dependent on market conditions. Our trajectory towards $2.1 billion represents an astounding organic growth performance compared to semiconductor peers. This trajectory is sustained by our continuous innovation, expanding product portfolio, and the market diversification and strategic partnerships with our key customers and new customers. This ends my opening remarks. Thank you for your attention. We are now ready to take your questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask questions onto this call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We will take our first questions from Alexander Peterc from Societe Generale . Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you, and good morning. Now, my first question would be, just a clarification, what kind of visibility you have into your end markets? As I understand it, your RF-SOI business lags the industry by around six months, and so this makes me think you should have better visibility than most. So how can you explain, in this context, that your guidance, that was already cut two months ago, was not enough, and what has changed to push you into this, another guidance cut right now? Shouldn't this have been apparent already at the time of the first half report? And what kind of assurance you can give us that this is the last major reset of expectations in this cycle?
Okay. Hello, hello, Alexander. Of course, as we say, the impact of RF-SOI inventories on our figures is one we need to monitor. And as you remember, a couple of years ago, a lot of inventories have been constituted and built up by our customers on RF-SOI, expecting smartphone to continue to grow steadily. It was not the case, 2022, then 2023. These inventories are quite high. This is what we told you several times, and we are monitoring the consumption rates of this inventory on RF-SOI. Then, we—Sorry. We still see around six months and of additional correction and adjustments to come, looking at the consumption rates.
What is happening today, inventories are quite high by our direct customers, meaning the foundries. We see clearly that at the smartphone vendors, situation is way better. We see good signals at fabless level, not all the fabless, but many fabless level. For the moment, it is not fully reflected in the foundries. And then when we're gonna see an acceleration of the consumption rate, and we believe it will last six months, we're gonna come back to a growing, let's say, ratio regarding RF-SOI. What is, at the end, very important to keep in mind in this transition period is that in terms of customer relationships, we have excellent customer relationships. We are talking about RF-SOI.
We are discussing really features, roadmaps. We are expanding our footprint for the next-generation smartphones, first point. Second point, we are not losing market shares in RF-SOI, and we are still extremely present for the new models to come. We are still having a good footprint from the group and from our technologies. And the third point is that our innovation, we're gonna continue to really grow this footprint for the next years. Then the fundamentals we have are intact. What is today this transition phase, that is not at all structuring, as I said, will take two quarters more to be sure that we're gonna come back to a growing rate, thanks to, let's say, digestion and corrections of the inventories by our foundries.
This is, this is exactly what we see, and this is the name of the game.
Okay, so just to clarify, it's the bottom of this cycle will actually be the second calendar quarter of the current year, so that's first fiscal quarter of 2025. So we still have the current and the next quarter of digestion, and only then you will return to growth. Is that correct?
Yeah, within the first fiscal half, yeah, it's correct.
First fiscal half, okay. Just a quick follow-up, when do you expect your partner, STMicro, to fully qualify your SmartSiC process for high-volume manufacturing? At what point in time should this happen?
Yeah, on the SmartSiC, let's say situation discussion with STMicro, we are really on track, and as I said, there is no changes on the discussions and the program, with the program now we have with STMicro. We are in permanent, let's say, coordination and cooperation with them. Then for the moment, we are really on track. We go through all the gateways. We are entering into a full production phase for 150 mm. We are close to be at this stage for the 200 mm.
That means that we're gonna be one of the first, let's say, vendors, in the world, being able to produce massively 150 mm and 200 mm, SmartSiC product by end of this year, which is quite, quite amazing. And with STMicroelectronics, and of course, with the second customers we just announced, we are really on track for, for delivering the SmartSiC, as, as scheduled.
But the actual qualification, is that happening this calendar year?
It is following the flow, then the qualification is forecasted by end of this calendar year. This is something we, there is no reason why that should be postponed.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome, Alexander.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from François Bouvignies from UBS. Your line is opened. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. I have a question on the RF-SOI. So given the push out and the ramp up that you see in POI, can you maybe tell us how much is POI now in terms of revenues? Or maybe another way, how much is RF-SOI as percentage of revenues today, and how much it will be with the new guidance, you know, the split of the products, given this change, that would be great. And then on the SmartSiC side, so this new customer, can you tell us, you know, how big this customer might be? And maybe, you know, where this, where is he coming from, which region this customer is coming from? If you could share, would be very helpful.
Okay, François. Then on the first question for RF-SOI. Of course, the fact that RF-SOI is lagging and is decreasing, while all the other products are growing very fast. The portions, the proportions, and the weight of RF-SOI in our figures is declining. From something like 70%, two years ago, we expect this weight to be around 50%, today. And of course, this is part of the diversification. We are pushing very hard over the last two years, and the success of POI, the success of POI SOI that is growing very fast, the success of FD-SOI. Now, the first very good step on SmartSiC will make the RF-SOI dependency lower and lower, step by step.
Then we are on the first step, 70% a few years ago, a couple of years ago, 50% this year. It might continue because the other products gonna accelerate, and this is part of the transformation we continue to carry out, as well as the number of new customers we are winning years after years. We are doubling, tripling the number of customers. If we look at what happened over the last couple of years, and we're gonna continue to get new logos. And back to your second question, the new SmartSiC customer is a new logo. I will not tell you in which geographies they are.
What I can just tell you is that this customer is a second-tier customer with great ambition, who believes in SmartSiC as a revolution from the right beginning in the design of what they are doing, and they are not in Europe. This is the only information I can disclose to you for the moment, so you understand, for confidential but also strategic reasons.
Thank you very much. And maybe if I may, just to follow up on the SmartSiC, I mean, your guidance was for 10% of revenues in 2026. So if I'm, you know, believe that the RF-SOI will be pushed out to 2027, it means that SmartSiC, if nothing changes, is gonna be higher in terms of, of revenues, if I follow your logic. Can you maybe remind us, you know, the SmartSiC, you have two customers now. Do you expect a meaningful more number of customers to reach these targets of, of you originally gave for 2026? Or with what you have right now, you will have the majority of this?
Okay. Then on the first question, the magnitude of SmartSiC is gonna remain. Then, of course, if we have changes at the top line, it's too early to answer precisely, but the magnitude of SmartSiC revenue growth and so on, of course, remain. And this second customer is encouraging us more. So back to your second part or your second question, or second part of your question. We have now two legs to run, okay? Then we will not give you names or whatever number of customers to come. What is clear is that with these two customers, we are covering way more than 50% of the Bernin four capacities. Then, of course, we are working on getting other customers, and we're gonna announce it when it will come, okay?
But we have, of course, a quite long list of under qualification customers, that is, of course, making us optimistic on really fulfilling Bernin four in a short period of time.
Great. Thank you very much.
... You're welcome.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Sebastien Sztabowicz from Kepler Cheuvreux. Your line is open, please go ahead.
Yeah, hello, everyone, Sebastien Sztabowicz , Kepler. One question on the smartphone market, and how do you see the volume developing in 2024, and also for 5G delivery specifically? We have seen more constructive message from Qualcomm and Qualcomm last week. Just curious of your view on the smartphone market. And second question is, broadly speaking, on a SmartSiC, are you happy with the current manufacturing environment at Bernin, and also the yield and the quality of the SmartSiC wafer you are delivering from the fab so far? Thank you.
Then, on your first question, Sebastien, we will give more details, figures, during the Mobile World Congress and what we see on the smartphone market. But it appears that this market, after two years in a row declining, seems to be slightly positive this year. We don't know the magnitude, but it will be a single digit, low single digit. And we see a rebound, but it's not spectacular. That is giving, of course, us, of course, what we say, now, we do believe that, on the mid long term, RFSOI will grow again for us, for sure.
Because of what you said also, 5G should continue to expand, and the shares of 5G should continue to expand, maybe in the range of 70%, okay? After 63%-62% last year, which is, of course, a very good news. Second, the content footprint gonna continue to expand. Of course, we have the millimeter wave at 10%-15% market share, but also, we have the Wi-Fi 6, 6E-7. What we see is a Wi-Fi 6 and 7 to be in shares of 14%-15% of the smartphone market overall today. Majority of premium smartphone are equipped or will be equipped with Wi-Fi 6 and 7.
That is fueling, of course, the RF and FDSOI development, which is a very good news. Plus other, let's say, applications like satellite comm or envelope trackers. As a good, also, let's say, source of hub for this footprint expansion, is if you look at the Galaxy 24 U.S. version, we are in the range of 100 mm² of Soitec substrates. Half RF, half FD. To sustain mmWave, to sustain Wi-Fi 6 and 7, to sustain envelope trackers, exactly the application I just mentioned. Then, once we're gonna go through out of this correction digestion phase, we see the engine of growth for RFSOI. In fact, again, the fundamentals are there.
Market share are kept, very high level and strong relationships with our customers, very good technical discussions with our customers, with shared roadmaps. Then this is something we are really, we just need to correct this, inventories built up a couple of years ago. Then, if we look to the SmartSiC quality and ramp up of the industry, I can tell you that we are satisfied. It's not very satisfied, but let's say satisfied, you know, to keep the challenge to do even better. But really, in terms of satisfaction, we are at the top of the list in terms of quality of what we are delivering today in SmartSiC. 150, for sure, and 200 now.
In terms of, let's say, qualification levels, quality, defectivity, uniformity, and so on, we are really in line with what we were expecting step by step. If we look at the ability to produce massively, we are ready. We are ready. You were a few times ago in visiting us, and you have seen the progresses. You should come back, next week, you will see a better progresses. Then today, we are ready to produce and to deliver massively 150, then 200 SmartSiC substrates to our customers. And this is really an incredible and outstanding performance because we passed, and we are passing, milestone from a technology and from a manufacturing and supply chain point of view.
That is really making us, let's say, comfortable on delivering what is needed for the SmartSiC markets, who are SmartSiC revolutionary product.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We will take our next questions from Ben Harwood, from New Street Research. Your line is opened. Please go ahead.
Many thanks for the question, and congratulations on the second customer on SmartSiC. I just have a question really on the broader adoption of the technology. So when you speak to customers or potential customers, what do they say is, say, the-
... the main hurdle to faster and broader adoption of SmartSiC. Of course, you've now signed STMicroelectronics, the largest device manufacturer, over a year ago now. So what are these other customers really waiting to hear before they get on board? Do they need to see devices operating in the field, or is there anything else really holding them back? Thank you.
Okay. Hello, Ben, and thank you. For the SmartSiC market share, we still do confirm, and regarding what I just said, we seem better and better. But we still do confirm 30% market share by 2030. This is what we said for SmartSiC within the SiC market, okay? Then we do believe that SmartSiC is gonna weigh one third, a bit less, of the SiC market overall by 2030. And looking at really the trajectory and all the hurdles and gateways we passed, we see this line of sight clearly. Now, looking at more customers to come. There are three types of customers. You have customers who already have chosen a classical mono SiC solution, okay?
For this one, it's quite a big change in their strategy, in their CapEx investment, in their, let's say, even discussion to their shareholders and to the market. To say, "Well, okay, I'm gonna take another technology that is revolutionary, that is make less CapEx, less services, also less CO2 consumption," then there are extremely good arguments to shift into SmartSiC. But it's quite difficult, you know, to change the streams that was engaged years ago, for another technology. Doesn't mean it's impossible. But this conversation is taking time, and I totally respect that these type of customers are asking us for more time to get the qualification, to get proof points, for having their files strong enough to open these new lines or these new streams.
The second category of customers are second-tier customers. But second-tier doesn't mean, low-end or whatever. Second-tiers means strong ambitions, because this SiC market is under construction. Then, the first might be the first, but, maybe seconds could become first. And when I look at, our second customer we had, I can tell you that their ambition are very, very big. And, this type of greenfield, to some extent, second-tier customers, is a, is a very good opportunity for the Smart SiC to be a first-off adoption for these guys. Then to leapfrog the SiC development with the Smart SiC solution that is bringing more advantages at, many levels, as you know. In terms of conductivity, in terms of, resistivity, in terms of range, in terms of, let's say, easiness to, to produce, in terms of CO2 consumptions.
You have a third type of customers we are starting to work on, who are the car makers or integrators. These guys also are looking for some SmartSiC solutions, not only for the cars, but also for other applications like, like charging, and also with some industrial makers. Because we are talking about car makers, but you have also many application of SiC and SmartSiC in the industry for electric power, for charging capacities, for energy management. SmartSiC could be also a solution for this type of customer. We are really chasing, hunting these three types of customers with different reasons, with different pros and cons, but it is a way we are addressing this list.
Of course, if we want SmartSiC to become standard, it is a way to do. Then, as you know, we have shipped 1,000 prototypes today that are, of course, under qualification. So tested many, many ways by 30 customers overall, 30 potential customers, sorry. And we are confident that step by step, SmartSiC will be disseminated and issued as a standard.
That's great. Thanks, Pierre.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Marie Genevieve from Bank of America. Your line is open, please go ahead.
Good morning, this is Marie Genevieve from Bank of America. I'm calling on behalf of, Didier Scemama. I just had two questions. The first one, I was just wondering if you'd be able to add a bit of color on who your new RF filter customer is? And if not, is it an existing customer? And my second question is on the CapEx side. So you disclosed last quarter, your CapEx for 2024, which was around EUR 290 million. I was just wondering if this number was still valid. Thank you very much.
Hi, Marie. Sorry, we didn't catch the first question. Can you repeat your first question?
Yeah. So my first question was just if you could add a bit of color on who your new RF filter customer is. So is it-
Right.
an existing customer?
Yeah. Okay, thank you. Okay, yes, I will not give names, but there are one existing customer elsewhere, but not that much, and one new customers. And out of the seven customers we have today in PY, let me do the math. Five are brand new logos for us, and this is, of course, a way to expand more conversations with, of course, new products. Because now we are discussing with this new customer on PY, and I have meeting with many, all of these CEOs, more or less, and we are talking about new products. We could also, let's say, transaction for the future. Then, of course, each new logo we get with the product is also an opportunity to put new products of our portfolio.
Except in some areas where SmartSiC are totally dedicated by customers, we are only used SiC applications. For the CapEx, perhaps, Léa, you can give a precise answer on your-
Yes, yes. Of course, hello, Marie. On the CapEx side, for FY 2024, we still expect around EUR 218 million, as you said in November, maybe slightly lower, but will be in this range. And for the overall picture, until FY 2026, we'll come back with a detailed plan in May, when we will announce our results.
But what is very important also to mention, thank you, Léa, is that we are, of course, monitoring our overall spendings.
Yes.
portfolio CapEx, of course, and we're gonna revisit, of course, CapEx, as you say, for the coming years. We are putting under control our cost spending, looking at the decrease in our revenue this year in terms of SG&A, in terms of overall standard of living. The only areas we continue to invest massively is R&D. R&D, it's a sanctuary for me, because this company is innovation, innovative companies. We are succeeding in RF, in Power-SOI, in FD-SOI, in SmartGaN with first samples, in SmartSiC, because we are innovating. We are passing all the milestones of SmartSiC, because we spend the right level of money to make our engineers, our engineering people, our manufacturing people putting innovative product into a productive, massive solutions.
Then we're gonna continue to spend the money we need on R&D, while we are controlling very, very strictly any other costs. That's something very important to keep in mind.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Robert Sanders from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open, please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. Hi, thanks for taking my question. I, I guess the first question would just be, if you could confirm that the 40% EBITDA margin is still valid for, for fiscal 2027, and I have a follow-up.
Perhaps, Léa, for the-
Yes. So, it's too soon to disclose the midterm EBITDA target. We come back in May. But for sure, our operating leverage and the created value is still intact as compared with the previous plan we presented. But, let's come back. Let's meet in May to have this updated picture.
Got it. On the Crolles fab, there's a new Crolles fab, which is supposed to reach full capacity in 2026 from STMicro and GlobalFoundries. Do you foresee new applications being something that could drive that fab or any other FD-SOI fabs, perhaps in China? I'm thinking of things like imaging or perhaps mid and low range microcontroller. It hasn't... It's been a while since you had a breakthrough in a new application, so I was just wondered if there was a new potential application that you're excited about. Thanks.
Yes, then FD-SOI, as you know, are crossing, it's a particularity of this product. It will be the same, of course, for GaN. But FD-SOI is crossing the lines of all the three divisions. Then, FD-SOI is, as I explained already, used for digitalization applications in the smartphones. We are talking about millimeter wave, envelope trackers and so on, and for some application around Wi-Fi. But of course, the large part of the FD-SOI is coming from the two divisions, meaning automotive industry and of course, smart devices. Then if you take automotive industry, FD-SOI, as you just mentioned, is a perfect match for microcontroller units. Microcontroller units for the cars, but also for devices.
Then, FD-SOI is used in the car and is crossing automotive and industry divisions. And of course, the use of more and more autonomy, more and more AI, the fact to lower the efficiency, to lower also defects, to lower power consumptions, is a very important driver. Because we are reducing error and error of computing, thanks to FD-SOI in the cars, and for safety, something everyone is looking for. We are also reducing the need for power, particularly in the AC-DC, DC-AC conversion, to the digitalization of the cockpit. And it is, of course, very well adapted to better battery management systems.
What is at stake for the electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles is to reduce the weight, the dimensions of the battery, and FD-SOI is helping for that. This is clearly an application that is fueling a lot the growth of FD-SOI, and there is more and more needs for this type of application. If we look now through Smart Devices division, FD-SOI is also used for MCU, a microcontroller unit application for devices that are used for security, safety, protection, Industry 4.0, and AI application. This is, of course, three-way drivers of the FD-SOI growth. The growth is coming, and it's fueled by these three elements and three main applications through the three divisions.
Then hall, as you know, has been is under, let's say, expansion by our neighbor in Grenoble areas for producing more and more FDSOI solutions, but not only. Not a secret to say that GF is an important customer in FDSOI. They have been very vocal on 22FDX product range. And they are also gaining more and more market shares on exactly the application we just mentioned. Then this is a good traction we need to monitor, and we need to be ready to also sustain the evolution in terms of roadmaps, in terms of nanometer reductions, and so on.
Thanks for that. Just very one last question. Just in China, I just wanna understand, you know, are you willing to license SmartSiC, your best, most capable SmartSiC solution to the Chinese substrate vendors? I'm, reason I'm asking is because, you know, ST has this JV with Sanan, but I don't think they're gonna be producing the best in class. It'll be probably two generations old technology. So I was just wondering if there's any kind of reason why you would perhaps be a bit reluctant to license SmartSiC to, a Chinese substrate, player? Thank you.
No, Robert, there is no plan to license SmartSiC in China, and it's not embedded in the JV plan between ST Micro and Sanan.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next questions from Sebastien Sztabowicz from Kepler. Your line is open, please go ahead.
Yeah, hi again. Just a follow up. Just to understand a little bit the current price dynamic on your product, and notably with the inventory correction that is quite strong in FDSOI. Do you see any kind of pricing pressure? And attached to that, how do you see your input costs moving right now? Do you see a risk of some squeeze going forward, or margin will be quite resilient? Thank you.
Sebastien, I propose Marie to take over.
Yes. Yes, so hello, Sebastien. So in terms of of prices, even if the market is quite complicated, we do not compromise. We have a healthy relationship with the customers, and we find the good balance between volumes and price. At the same time, we are working on our cost, for sure. We are very, very tight control. Pierre mentioned just before the SG&A, but it's also true at the manufacturing side. We are working on our bulk cost, and we are able to have a very healthy margin.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. It appears there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back to your host for any additional or closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.
And thank you, thank you all for your interest in Soitec and for the depth of your questions. I hope to see some of you during the Mobile World Congress event by the end of this month. It will be a good occasion to enter more into details regarding our, let's say, foreseen forecast on the market and evolution drivers of the smartphone markets. And, of course, some update on our product roadmaps. The next-