Okay. Hello, everyone. Hi, I'm Steve Babureck, SVP Strategy and Investor Relations for Soitec. Welcome to all of you, and thank you for being with us in Paris. It's been a long time, too much time since we could all be together in the same room. Great to have you also online. Thank you for connecting to this event. Before we begin, please take a moment to read our disclaimer. A very short moment. Thank you. In the next two hours, we have an interesting schedule. We will be discussing for the first hour our strategic vision with Paul, our business outlook with Bernard, and of course, our fiscal year 2022 results with Léa.
That will take us about an hour, and then in the second hour, we will run a Q&A session. Thank you, and now let's get started. I have the pleasure to give the floor to Paul Boudre, Chief Executive Officer of Soitec.
Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, on the behalf of the entire management team, I would like to welcome you in Paris in person, but also to welcome you online to the presentations of Soitec's fiscal year 2022 results. I'm also delighted to be speaking with you in person. I mean, it has been too long since we were able to have this face-to-face discussion, so that will be the case today. Let me open with a brief recap of the year that summarized Soitec's current positions. Fiscal year 2022 was a record. It was a record breaking year for Soitec.
I mean, if you look at what we have done, we have surpassed the $1 billion marks in terms of revenues. We have achieved the company's highest ever EBITDA at 35.8%, and we delivered a very strong operating cash flow. In terms of performance, I think that our financials, and Léa will talk about it, are just superb. Despite the current challenging macro environment, we have a very positive outlook for fiscal year 2023. We, as you know, I mean, we have upgraded our fiscal year 2026 model to give you, in fact, even more visibility. Thanks to our fundamentals, I mean, and our operating model, we will continue to grow much faster than the semiconductor industry.
More importantly, I mean, what Soitec does, Soitec does it with purpose. This is important today. Sustainability is at the heart of our value creation strategy. The world will continue to be largely driven by very powerful mega trends. The adoptions of new technologies will accelerate our transitions in our society. Let me give you an at least three very specific example. 5G. 5G will be an important driver and will foster new services beyond mobile. You can name it all. I mean, I'm talking about health, I'm talking about security, I'm talking about autonomous vehicles, I'm talking about agriculture, education, security. There is a myriads of applications that 5G is going to bring and to boost in terms of opportunities.
5G will also support a more inclusive society by connecting what I call the unconnected. Energy efficiency is becoming also another big factor for growth and for what we need as a society. Energy efficiency is becoming increasingly indispensable. If you think about a couple of examples, I mean, I will at least name one. This is the electric vehicles. This is just, you know, the tip of the iceberg, but this is also one of the main driver for our technologies. This is critical for the next five years, specifically with the announcement of this morning, by the way. Advanced electronics will be also a tool to really fight for climate change.
As we grow, as we continue to accelerate, I mean, advanced electronics will be one of the solutions that we will have to implement. As a result of our semiconductor industry, we'll more than double over the next 10 years, and we will deliver an annual growth of around 10% as a semiconductor industry until 2030. Soitec. Soitec, what do we do? We design engineer substrates to make the world basically and more connected, to make the world more energy efficient, to make the world more intelligent. This is clearly the focus that we have as a company. Around Soitec, we have built a unique ecosystem with our strategic partners.
I would like to spend a few minutes here to explain this because it is where we stand today and probably a unique differentiation compared to what other material company can do in the world. Around Soitec, we have built this unique ecosystem, and I'm talking about our suppliers, I'm talking about the foundries, the design house, the fabless, and the OEMs. Our mindset in this ecosystem, our mindset is really very simple. It's to focus on two questions. Where to play? How to win? That's always the two questions that we ask ourselves. First, let's start with where to play. At the OEM, obviously, and the end market level, we have increased our ability to anticipate demand and market trends and identify key applications with an attractive growth for the future.
A lot of effort has been done in the organizations to really get connected to this part of the industry. The second is how to win. We engage with fabless at the technology level to basically better anticipate semiconductor needs and semiconductor architectures. It is very important for us at the fabless level to connect the dots and to understand the problem they are trying to fix, in order for us to, with the small signals that we are getting there, to understand how we can provide the solutions based on our materials. We collaborate to better design and offer the type of engineered substrates that they will require to deliver the best performance at the device level.
To support our fabless customer, basically, we have also invested in design and design capabilities to accelerate the development of our engineered substrate. Now, with our direct customers, the foundries and integrated device manufacturers, we work together, I mean, to reach basically the best industry-low, I mean, cost of ownership and capabilities, working on their yields and continuous improvement to make sure that our product in their manufacturing not only outperform, but deliver the right performance. What is maybe one of the most important things into this and specifically driven by the situations today, everybody think about shortage, right? We are on allocations at Soitec.
When you think about shortage, and when you think about what is happening now, which means that we have to continue to accelerate the growth and to build the capacity and the capability for the growth, it is true that basically we need to rethink the supply model. This is a good time now. This is what will probably keep us out of the problems we are in today as an industry. What is happening? I mean, we are getting much more visibility. We have now from our customers and customers' customers long-term commitment. We had an average of two years visibility at best. We are now on a four years type of average visibility, meaning that we have long-term visibility for some customer three to five years. This is also linked to real commitment, okay?
With financial commitments. This gives us also the opportunity to build our own capacity, but also to make long-term commitments with our suppliers. There is a big change in our industry. If you think about that for this industry that is going to double over the next eight years, this is one of the major change that we are going to see and that we are going to continue to focus on. You know also that innovation is in our DNA, so we have a critical mass in Europe at Soitec and with important collaborations with CEA-Leti, with imec, the Fraunhofer Institute, but also several universities. We are building a global network for international alliances for innovations.
I mean, clearly, what Christophe Maleville and his team are doing is really to take the talents where they are, but to create this network that give us the agility and the performance that we need when we start thinking about a new product development. How do we convert these strong megatrends and fundamentals in numbers? In fact, we position ourselves on markets that will grow at 20% annually in the next four years, and our markets will grow basically 2x-3 x faster than the global semiconductor industry. Soitec will grow even faster at 20%-25% annually. I mean, a clear sign of the value for our product, and recognized by our clients.
Start of a record fiscal year 2022, which saw Soitec revenue grow 50% to $1 billion. We now manage our business towards a revenue of around $2.3 billion by fiscal year 2026. This number compared to the number that we shared with you last year, and we were managing basically our model towards the $2 billion, now we are seeing basically a kind of acceleration. It’s not a kind, it’s an acceleration in the businesses we are in. We expect our three divisions really to grow significantly, I mean, and we have built low and high case scenarios that you will be able to hear later. Fiscal year 2022 was also a record year in terms of profitability.
This clearly we have delivered, and you know that, an EBITDA at 35.8%, which is the record ever for the company. We are now driving the company also towards 40% on the fiscal year 2026 horizon. Léa will comment on this, and she will give you much more details. This record performance basically illustrates a couple of things. Exceptional execution, obviously, but based on our operational excellence, our product mix, our customer recognizing the product of the value that we are offering them, but also our internal cost management system. We all know that, I mean, it's simple to understand. I mean, to grow fast, we need to invest.
Our duty is to commit capacity to support basically our customer growth, and this is where this long-term commitment are playing a major role. Our ABT expansion will fund our CapEx to support both our customers and markets growth. Our capacity will significantly increase between fiscal year 2022 and fiscal year 2026 to a total capacity well above 4 million wafers. To achieve this, we have been very pleased to announce basically two extensions and two new manufacturing. One in France, we call it Bernin 4, and this is for SmartSiC product, and it will also include some refresh activity on-site. The second one is Pasir Ris in Singapore, so where we extend our 300 mm SOI capacity and facilities.
Again, I mean, Bernard and Léa will talk in more details about it, but as you can see, I mean, there is an acceleration in the business that we are driving that we need to take care of. Now let's take a moment to talk about sustainability. As I said at the beginning, I mean, sustainability is at the heart of our value creation strategy. We don't just talk about it. I mean, we just don't put words around it. We really, I mean, work for it and think about it and develop a lot of our activity with sustainability in mind. Last year, at our shareholders meeting, we adopted our corporate purpose.
I hope you all know it by now, but I'm going to say it again because we spent a lot of times together with my team to come up with this. We are the innovative soul from which smart and energy-efficient electronics grow into amazing and sustainable life experiences. Our corporate purpose motivate us. Our corporate purpose differentiate us. Our corporate purpose is true today and is going to be true tomorrow. Our corporate purpose reflects our ambitions to commit to sustainability in the interest of all our stakeholders. We have built basically our strategy on three pillars that really highlight our commitments: sustainable innovation, people, and society. Now let's dive into each of these engagements, starting with sustainable operations and product innovation.
Regarding our operations, we are committed to reduce our carbon footprint and align with the 1.5 degree pathway by 2026. This is a very ambitious objectives, and these ambitions have been approved by the Science-Based Targets initiative . That means that we are putting real numbers, we are measuring ourselves against these numbers, and we are basically challenging ourselves from this set of numbers. Regarding our products, our climate change roadmap is driven by our innovations. We design semiconductor materials enabling energy efficiency product. This is part of the DNA of the company, and low power capabilities, overall, energy efficiency is already embedded in, as part of our product. Let me give you an example.
I mean, it's our SmartSiC product portfolio for electric vehicles is clearly one of the latest example that we have on how our engineered substrates allow efficient carbon emission saving at the system level. If we move on to our second pillar, which is also very important, it's about people. You heard me, I mean, many times saying everything start with people and everything ends with people. I mean, this is. People are so strategic all along the value chain. We are focused on how to attract new talent, how do we grow our talent? How do we keep our talent? Our industry is growing fast and competition for our talent is fierce. This is a challenge for this industry. This is a challenge for all of us, and this is a challenge for us as well.
Our corporate culture is centered on attractivity and talent development. It's centered on diversity and inclusion and guaranteeing that a safe and healthy workplace. Finally, I will talk about accountability. Our commitment is to reach the highest standard of governance and ethics. We now have a set of new recommendations that we have built at the governance level that we'll deploy through our governance bodies to reach the highest standards of governance. We deploy our highest standards also throughout our supply chain. Today 100% of our strategic suppliers have signed our supplier quality policy requiring compliance with our own standard. This is the first big achievement also in this sense. Now let's talk about just the executive team. How do we deliver this exciting plan?
Earlier this year, calendar year, we have slightly reshuffled our organizations to do a couple of things, accelerate the development of our three divisions, better serve our customers, optimize the management of our global supply chain. As we continue to grow and accelerate, I mean, the company is alive animal in a way, right? I mean, you have to adjust, adapt, and anticipate with organizations. As you know, I mean, at the end of July, I will take a different personal journey, and Pierre Barnabé will replace me. For weeks, Pierre, the management team, and I have started to work on seamless transition. It is our ambition and organizations are clearly in the right hands with Pierre, who will become CEO on July 26th.
I would like really, I mean, today for you to meet with Pierre, and, as our future CEO, he will write this, next chapters for the group and all its, stakeholders. Please, Pierre, join me on stage.
This one is working very well.
Take one.
Thank you very much, Paul. Thank you for the warm welcome of the team. Thank you very much. For me, I'm very happy and very proud to be there and to take the relay of you, Paul. Of course, a lot of responsibility because what you have done, Paul, is totally amazing with the team. You laid the foundation for world leader with an incredible history, an incredible turnaround with, of course, a foundation that will be extremely solid and strong to make the step up and to scale up even further.
I would like to pay you a tribute to what you have to have made over these years in a difficult time and what you have demonstrated again today is totally incredible. For me, it's of course a lot of excitement, a lot of responsibilities, as I said. I'm coming from a, let's say, close environment. I've spent 20 years of my careers in telecommunication industry, defense, civil product mainly, then 10 years in electronics, where we moved from number nine to number one in the world of cybersecurity and number five to number two in cyber in supercomputers, even working at the computing unit level. Of course, the proximity to Soitec was quite obvious.
Now I'm working with the team on making the materials more intelligent with a lot of features and functionalities embedded to make the semiconductors industry stronger again. Of course, I've also seen after really a warm welcome by all the team and all the Soitec employees over the last weeks, if not months, that we are sharing some passions all together. First of all, the passions of product and industry. That is really extremely important for me. I'm coming from the industry. I used to work in product for all my career. R&D and innovation, that is also key for me, and it's really the future of our world. The third element, and Paul underlined it a lot, is people, passion and value creation.
I believe that ultimately this is what makes company successful or not. It's really the passion of the people to create value in the company. Again, a pleasure to be there, a pleasure to be with you, Paul, on stage now. I will have the occasion to talk with you afterwards and of course, in the coming months, with the team and, again, big pride for me, to take the relay. A lot of sensitivity and again, big congratulations for what you have done over the years. It's totally amazing and it's unique. Thank you, Paul.
Thank you, Pierre. I mean, thank you for these nice words. As I said, I mean, I truly believe that under your leadership with Bernard and Léa and the executive teams, this company is in good hands, okay? We have a fantastic challenge in front of us, but you guys and again, Pierre, thank you for taking you know, the challenge to lead this team. This is a beautiful company, and we will have great things coming. With that, I mean, I am going to leave the floor to Bernard Aspar, our COO. Bernard is going to talk to you in more details about our markets, our products, and give you an overview on where we are and where we are going.
Bernard?
Thank you, Paul. Hello, everyone, and it's a real pleasure for me to be here with you in person to discuss these fiscal year 2022 results. Paul gave you an overview of our ambitious growth reinforced by our record fiscal year 2022 performance. I will now update you on how we will execute this vision and achieving our upgraded growth ambition. You know about our ambitious growth, and you see that our fiscal year 2022 record revenue of $1 billion, we are on track with this journey. Strong megatrends are supporting our double-digit growth in our three strategic end markets. The continued increase of semiconductor content in end products is driving around 20% growth of our addressable market for fiscal year 2026.
Based on this demand and improved visibility on our customers and prospects, we are managing now our business to grow toward $2.3 billion in fiscal year 2026, a 20%-25% growth rate, annual growth rate. To deliver this, we are expanding our product portfolio to enable customer differentiation and increase value creation for Soitec and for our customers. We have built a collaborative innovation model, and this innovation model is based on our own R&D and partnership with key research players and universities across the world. We are constantly improving customer intimacy to understand the customers' critical needs and ensure adoption of our products in their technology roadmaps. We also integrate sustainability from the substrate design level at the very beginning down to end product application.
To achieve our ambition, we have deployed a new organizational structure that will help us to execute on our vision and deliver solid commercial, operational, industrial, and financial performance. Our customers request faster product development, so we are accelerating our go-to-market strategy through faster alignment between our customer group, division, and global supply. We are prioritizing performance in every aspect across the company from product design to operational excellence, and we are becoming more and more agile. We are improving our ability to anticipate market trends and better adjust demand and supply dynamics. You are familiar with our three strategic end-markets. To better understand them is key for us to better understand the customer needs to propose a comprehensive product portfolio bringing value to them. For that, we have shaped our new organization around these three markets with three divisions.
The three divisions are mobile communications, automotive and industrial, and smart devices. Now let's analyze this driver market by market, please. On mobile communications, we grow around 50% in fiscal year 2022 comparing to fiscal year 2021. This business is expected to double by fiscal year 2026, with a revenue of around $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2026. What are the driver behind this growth? 5G. When we talk about 5G, first we talk about 5G sub-six gigahertz, the first generation of 5G. You need to keep in mind that 5G sub-six drive large increase in RF content 2 x versus 4G. 5G mm wave, second wave of 5G, is now becoming a reality as penetration is accelerating and 20% of the 5G smartphone are expected to support millimeter wave in calendar year 2022, 2023.
Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 7 ultra-wideband for both connected object in smartphone and mobile is also a key driver for us. The value that we bring to our customer. The industry standard that we are defining and the increased visibility on our business will support our growth of around 18% per year until fiscal year 2026. When you look at the smartphone, we have addressed the customer need for front-end module with a comprehensive product portfolio. For sub-six gigahertz, 100% of smartphone embark RF-SOI. Today, this product is a standard for antenna tuner, switch, low-noise amplifier, and we are proposing for filters and GaN for power amplifiers. For 5G mm wave, we have developed different solution from RF-SOI to FD-SOI, depending on the level of integration.
Specifically, on FD-SOI, after this Pixel 6 phone using Samsung FD-SOI product, we are very happy now to see MediaTek announcing publicly that they are adopting the generic platform FD-SOI for millimeter wave solution. With this à la carte menu of products that we have, we address all of our customer need for front-end module, and we are continuing to increase the penetration of Soitec product into the smartphone. Our mobile story is a content story. Most of you will recognize this chart. It represents the aggregate die-size RF content opportunity of our product in high-end smartphone. The order of magnitude of the total opportunity remains the same as we introduced to you last year.
The total opportunity was in the range of 60 sq mm per smartphone and is expected to more than triple in the next four years to over 200 sq mm for RF-SOI, FD-SOI, POI, and GaN. Now, let's have a look at our automotive and industrial division, which also deliver around 50% growth in fiscal year 2022 and is expected to be multiplied by five by fiscal year 2026. We have been develop product like Power-SOI solution for automotive segment for around 25 years, starting for infotainment application. More recently, we are penetrating new markets, including ADAS and functional safety. Today, we are expecting electric solution to become a significant growth driver for us as they require new technological solution and new materials for powertrain, traction inverter, and onboard charger.
For this division, we are developing a comprehensive product portfolio to address the customer need in automotive with specific product for the following application. For infotainment and ADAS, we have developed different flavor of SOI, just such as Power-SOI for class D amplifier in-vehicle networking and FD-SOI for application and vision processor radar and data fusion. To address the powertrain, on top of our Power-SOI products, we are developing new materials such as Power-GaN and SmartSiC to support the development of new power MOSFET. All of our products are encouraging the adoption of the car that are safer, more connected, more autonomous, and more energy efficient. This product portfolio that we develop to address the growth driver that I mentioned is translating into an increase in content of Soitec product in high-end cars. This content is expected to be multiplied by six in the next four years.
Here again, the order of magnitude is on track with what we communicate last year. We are seeing more opportunities materializing for SOI and silicon carbide in applications such as ADAS for SOI, functional safety, and electrification. We are progressing on our SmartSiC roadmap and are getting a better understanding of the SmartSiC value creation that we are proposing to our customer. We have upgrade our vision on this footprint. Let me explain now to you SmartSiC value proposition. Our engineered substrate called SmartSiC is a new generation of silicon carbide, which benefits from the combination of prime mono silicon carbide layer bonded onto ultra-high conductivity polysilicon carbide wafer, which enable high conductivity substrate. SmartSiC brings many advantages over bulk silicon carbide. It is greener, faster, and better. Better, we can get an improvement of device resistivity of up to 30%.
This benefit to current devices, but more important, it enables new generation of silicon carbide devices. Greener. SmartSiC saves 20,000 tons of CO2 for each 500,000 wafer produced. Faster. Thanks to our Smart Cut technology, we can accelerate silicon carbide adoption with around 10 x wafer reusability with our Smart Cut process and 200 mm scalability. To summarize, SmartSiC brings significant value to device maker and silicon carbide ecosystem by answering to the need to improve die yield, increase device performance, and enable larger dies. Where we are on our SmartSiC roadmap. We started to talk about that in 2019. 2020, we built our pilot line at CEA-Leti, and we are now continuously delivering wafer to many customers.
In 2021, we acquired NOVASiC to complement our technology portfolio with polishing capability and sign a strategic partnership with Mersen to secure polysilicon carbide supply. A few months ago, thanks to our strong confidence level, we launched the construction of Bernin 4, where we will produce SmartSiC wafers. Next year, the fab will be ready, and end of 2023, beginning of 2024, Bernin 4 will be qualified and will begin ramp-up for this product. On top of that, we have developed several product families, such as SmartSiC-Performance or another family, SmartSiC Advanced product, where this different flavor provide different advantage to the customer, like SmartSiC Advanced is providing both ultra-low defectivity on top of ultra-low resistivity. We are working on this product both on 6 in and 8 in.
We have a very clear product and industrial roadmap to bring SmartSiC to the market and address the new silicon carbide device generation. Let's move now to Smart Device Division. For this business, our revenue grow significantly in fiscal year 2022, and it represent the greatest upside for our high case revenue scenario. Smart Devices is a rich market segment that cover a lot of different application. Edge computing, which require low power consumption to bring artificial intelligence on the device. Sensing to collect information. Data center to support cloud infrastructure. New trends such as metaverse, which requirement for augmented reality and virtual reality. Here again, we have developed a comprehensive SOI product portfolio to address critical needs in the smart device environment and address different markets to sense, connect, compute, and display.
In all these cases, ultra-low power consumption and performance computing are required, and our FD-SOI product is a great platform to offer system-on-chip technology solution. Photonics-SOI capture several application, such as optical transceiver for data center, critical to supporting cloud infrastructure. This Photonics-SOI is also suitable for new application such as biosensor, essential for a smart device to capture information it requires. We are seeing today a proliferation of application in health and safety. Now that we are review the key driver of our business, how do this translate into numbers? You see that we are upgrading our financial model, and now we are driving the company toward $2.3 billion revenue for the base case. You understand the growth drivers. 5G, where RF-SOI remains a strong driver today and tomorrow.
Automotive with ADAS and electrification, and smart devices. All of that, thanks to our current product portfolio and the introduction of new products. We have also a low case, which is $2 billion, mainly linked to macroeconomy and slower adoption of our new products. In parallel, we have identified a lot of new opportunities to build a high case. It is driven mainly by FD-SOI adoption, acceleration of SmartSiC, and more RF. To achieve our growth ambition, we are adapting our industrial footprint and capacity to meet customer demand. In France, Paul already highlighted, we have announced a few months ago the extension of our building with Bernin 4 for 150- and 200-mm SmartSiC, as well as 300-mm SOI refresh. Yesterday, we announced another significant milestone, the extension of our Pasir Ris 300-mm SOI fab.
This will bring Soitec a total 300 mm SOI capacity to 2.7 million wafers per year. With this fab extension model to increase capacity in order to be able to optimize our industrial footprint, to optimize our operation, and to accelerate the qualification process of our product. On this slide, you'll see also that we are growing our industrial footprint, and this with a diversified product portfolio beyond SOI. To conclude, after a record fiscal year 2022 performance and a solid positioning across our three strategic end market, we are driving our business toward $2.3 billion revenue by fiscal year 2026, thanks to our ability to understand the challenge of the customer, innovate to reinforce our product portfolio, and adjust our global capacity to demand scenarios. We are prepared for all the next challenges.
Thank you very much. I am pleased now to leave the floor to Léa, that will present our financial performance.
Thank you, Bernard, and hello everyone. I, as promised, in FY 2022, we resume our growth trajectory, and we achieved a record level of revenue and EBITDA. This FY 2022 performance and the increased visibility for the coming years give us the confidence to upgrade our financial model for FY 2026. I will come back to it at the end of my presentation. First, let's take a look at the FY 2022 financials. In line with what Paul has disclosed in his introductions, we are happy to report that we overachieve on our initial commitment for FY 2022, both in terms of revenue and EBITDA margin. We delivered a record revenue of EUR 863 million, up by 50% year-on-year at constant FX rates.
Our EBITDA margin reached 35.8%, up by 5.1 points year-on-year, the highest level in our history. The main highlights are all profit indicators from the revenue to the net profit improved. Our FY 202 2 net results more than doubled and reached more than EUR 200 million. We invested EUR 229 million in CapEx, mainly for capacity investments, and at the same time, we achieved to reach a positive free cash flow at EUR 42 million. Finally, we reached a very strong net cash position at the end of March 2022. Beside achieving a very strong financial performance and delivering on our objective, what has been key for us and for me has been to prepare for the future. There are four key items.
One, make capacity investments at the right time in order to have the production on time while optimizing cash flows and business visibility. Two, ensure we have the appropriate level of R&D in order to prepare the next generation of products for the midterm but also beyond FY 2026. Three, be confident we'll be able to finance our growth thanks to our available cash. The cash will generate with the operation and also with all the financing tools we have access. Four, of course, make sure we have a sufficient number of staff and the right talents to support this growth. Let's move to the revenue. We published our revenue last April, so no surprise there. We delivered over 50% growth this year, driven by the increased success of 300 mm SOI wafer sales products.
This 300 mm wafer sales grew by 79% at current FX rates, thanks to a sharp increase in volume, driven by all our product lines, RF-SOI, FD-SOI, images, photonics. As presented by Bernard a few minutes ago, we are now organizing our business across three end markets, mobile communication, automotive and industrial, and smart devices. We now plan to change the way we will report our revenue from this fiscal year, moving from wafer size to end market to better reflect the way we are driving our business. If we look at the FY 2022 performance, you can see that all our three end market recorded significant growth. Let's talk now about profitability. Our gross profit reached EUR 316 million, a 36.6-point margin. It's a 5.2-point improvement year-over-year, despite an unfavorable currency effect.
Our strong growth improved the loading of our fab and our operating leverage, and on top of that, we enjoy a very strong operational performance with better yield and highly efficient cost control. Finally, as anticipated, we benefited from a favorable timing effect of our long-term agreement with our key bulk suppliers. From this EUR 360 million I just commented, we generated EUR 195 million of current operating income. This represents more than 22% of our revenue. We increased our investment in R&D by 28% to EUR 57 million in FY 2022. This was done to strengthen our position in each of our three end markets.
To maintain leadership in the SOI business, especially for RF-SOI and FD-SOI new products, to go deeper in POI development for the next generation of products, to accelerate on silicon carbide, and to continue to develop Dolphin Design portfolio. We invested both in hiring new talents and in our collaborations with innovation platforms. Regarding SG&A, we have continued to structure our multi-regional footprint to prepare for the growth beyond FY 2022. In a high growth context, we increased our SG&A expenses, but we managed to reduce them as a percentage of the revenue. Employee expenses increased due to new hiring this year and the effect of the last year new hirings and higher employee compensation items. We are focused on talent acquisition, retention, and making our group an attractive place to work in.
This is key to secure our growth. At the net income level, we also improved our profitability. We reached EUR 202 million at the end of March 2022, representing 23% of revenue. In addition to the current operating income I commented just earlier, we booked a non-recurring income of EUR 9 million that is mainly related to the reversal of the impairment loss related to our Singapore plant, initially booked in FY16. Our financial result, which was a loss of EUR 15 million last year, is close to zero this year. Financial expenses increased by EUR 2 million. This was mostly related to the non-cash interest of following the issuance of our new convertible bond in October 2020, partially offset by the conversion of our convertible bond 2023 in October 2021.
In FY 2022, financial expenses have been fully offset by a net gain of EUR 13 million thanks to a positive foreign exchange rate effect. Finally, our income tax continued to benefit from tax loss carryforward, and we recorded an additional EUR 12 million of deferred tax assets. Let's conclude the P&L chapter with the EBITDA margin, the main profitability indicator of our guidance. EBITDA amounted to EUR 309 million in FY 2022, up 73% year-on-year. While we continue to invest in R&D and in SG&A, and despite unfavorable currency effects, EBITDA margin reached the record level of 35.8%, benefiting from a strong operating leverage and a very strong industrial performance. Moving on, let's take a look at the cash flows. Overall, net operating cash flows increased by 46% to EUR 255 million in FY 2022.
Of course, we had higher working capital needs over FY 2022 due to the growth, while last year revenue was flat. Nevertheless, we drove our group to monitor strongly this working capital and to contain the increase at EUR 52 million. To add to this, we paid less tax than last year due to tax reimbursement and lower bond payments. Cash out from investing activities reached EUR 213 million compared to EUR 133 million last year. This EUR 213 million do not include tools financed through leasing contracts. If we include them, cash out for CapEx would amount to EUR 229 million, in line with our expectations.
Capital expenditures mainly related to capacity investment, both in Singapore, in our current fab, for 300 mm SOI product, but also additional capacities for epitaxy and refresh, and in our Bernin 3 facility for POI product production. They also include investments for innovation, including capitalized R&D, as well as NOVASiC acquisition. Overall, FY 2022 was really good on the cash generation side, as we managed to generate positive free cash flows at EUR 42 million while also investing in order to fulfill our growth plans. We had a strong increase in our cash position, moving from EUR 644 million to EUR 728 million at the end of March 2022. Investing flows are positive at EUR 37 million thanks to two new loans.
The EUR 31 million drawn on the EUR 200 million long-term loan granted by the Banque des Territoires as part of the Nano 2022 plan and a second loan in Singapore to finance tools for EUR 31 million. Let's move to the financial structure. Two KPIs to underline the solidity of our balance sheet. Equity is above EUR 1 billion, up EUR 367 million year-on-year, thanks to the result from the period, but also the conversion of our OCEANE 2023 for EUR 139 million. We moved from a net debt position of EUR 4 million last year to a net cash position of EUR 142 million this year. Thanks to the positive free cash flows over the period and the conversions of our OCEANE. Overall, our liquidity remains very high.
I will now move to the outlook for FY 2023. In FY 2022, we resumed our growth trajectory, and we plan to continue this trajectory in the following years, including for FY 2023. We anticipate FY 2023 revenue to increase by around 20% at constant exchange rates. However, this growth will not be linear over the year with a lower half year. This growth will be driven by all our three end markets. Mobile communication with ongoing deployment for 5G. Automotive and industrial with further expansion in the automotive markets, and solid market trends for smart devices. Of course, our confidence in our ability to achieve our ambitious goals does not prevent us watching closely the international situation.
The consequences of geopolitical conflict, such as the rising inflation, are embedded in our budget, but may have a greater impact than currently anticipate depending on the evolution of the situation. We anticipate EBITDA margin to be around 36%, slightly above FY 2022 EBITDA margin. We'll continue to benefit from a strong operational performance and from the operating leverage due to the higher level of activity. We'll have some headwinds, such as raw material costs due to the timing of our long-term bulk agreements, energy costs, and more generally, the effects of the inflation. On the FX side, FY 2023 is fully hedged at a euro-dollar rate of around 1.18.
Cash outs from CapEx is expected to be around EUR 260 million, and it will be mainly explained by our first investment for the first tools for silicon carbide for our Bernin 4 facility, equipment for 300-mm SOI refresh capacity, again in Bernin 4. Further ramp up in our current Singapore facilities for 300-mm SOI products and investments for innovation, including capitalized R&D. Let's now move to the midterm outlook. As we disclosed, we are now managing our business to reach a revenue of around $2.3 billion in FY 2026. To support this growth, we will need to continue to invest both in investment capacities and in R&D. We presented our CapEx plan last year during the CMD at EUR 1.1 billion for the FY 2022-FY 2026 period, excluding new building costs.
We confirm today this estimate, and moving to the right of this slide, you can see that we are now including two new buildings, leading to a total investment of EUR 1.4 billion. We will need to invest in two new building extensions before FY 2026. First one, as presented by Bernard earlier in Bernin 4, dedicated to SiC products, but also refresh capacity for 300 mm SOI product. The cost of this building is estimated at around EUR 80 million. A building extension for our current Singapore factory, as we announced yesterday, for 300 mm SOI products, that will ultimately reach 1 million SOI wafer capacity. Construction will start this year in FY 2023 to be ready end of FY 2025, and the estimated cost for this building is around EUR 200 million.
As Bernard explained a few minutes ago, we have several very solid growth drivers which focus on value-added products. We are now driving our business to reach a revenue of around $2.3 billion in FY 2026 compared to $2 billion announced last year during the CMD, thanks to higher average selling prices, better product mix with the introduction of new generation of products, and strong visibility for the business, leading to additional volumes. Our profitability will benefit from this upside, and we are now driving our business to reach an EBITDA margin of around 40% in FY 2026, compared to around 35% communicated last year. Our profitability will benefit not only from a full loading of our current factories, but also from more value-added products.
The upside with last year estimate is explained by the anticipated increase in the average selling prices and the better product mix, but also the very strong operational performance we achieved in FY 2022 with yield improvement and cost control, which we expect to maintain in the future despite the effects of the inflation. This 40% EBITDA margin is based on a 1.20 EUR/USD rate. Remember that a change of $0.05 , for instance, if we are at 1.15 instead of 1.20, has a positive effect of 1 point of EBITDA margin. On the financing side, thanks to our current cash balance, thanks to the cash we will generate through the operation, we will be able to finance our CapEx level. In addition, our balance sheet is really solid.
We have liquidity tools such as credit lines and further drawdown on our loans if necessary. To conclude, you can see we have multiple growth drivers that will allow us to more than double our revenue between FY 2022 and FY 2026 and boost our profitability. FY 2022 was the first step of the journey. I will now hand over to Steve to open the Q&A question session. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Léa. Yes, indeed, we're going to start the Q&A session. On stage, I will ask Paul and Bernard to come back. For your information, first row here we have other members of the executive team with Pascal Aubry, Thomas Piliszczuk, Cyril Menon, and Christophe Maleville, in case we have additional details to be provided. Maybe for the Q&A, of course, online, you can ask questions either through the platform or on the phone. Maybe I'll try to take some questions from the audience. I try to refrain to two questions max for now, and we'll turn around. First question from Emmanuel Matot, ODDO.
Hello, Emmanuel Matot from ODDO. Two questions, that's great. First, Soitec is very exposed to MobileCom. How do you explain that you seem to be immune to the slowdown of the smartphone market? Some institute of research are now clearly speaking about a decline in volumes this year after around -10% in Q1. That would be interesting to hear why you are so resilient and you are still speaking about 20% organic sales growth for this year. Second, why Singapore for the new fab? I was thinking about another location such as the U.S., why such a decision and maybe what about incentive in Singapore? Thank you.
Thank you, Emmanuel. I will start, and maybe Bernard, you can complete on the RF. That is for sure that RF is very strong and continue to be a very strong business for us. We are not immune, but because we see that there is a shift in the demand, and especially in the low-end phone, the phones that are below $400. On the other hand, I mean, we continue to see an acceleration on the higher-end phone, which, you know, for us it's a content story. You have seen on the graph that we are moving even higher right now on the 5G, but also starting to see more applications to come into the smartphone. We talked about Wi-Fi, we talked about millimeter waves. Even if it's the beginning, it's still coming.
We continue to see that the mix of this low-end phone obviously going slower and the still very, very well sustained growth on the or stable growth on the high-end phones continue to fuel our internal growth because of the content. Another indicators for us is the entire supply chain and the level of the level of inventory that we have throughout the supply chain. Clearly we were in a desperate mode, and we are still in some places in a very complicated mode. We are still under allocation. I mean, we are under allocation on RF. We continue to fuel the pipeline and making sure that we can deliver as much as we can. I covered it?
Yes.
That's one of my problem, I need to stop.
The second question, why Singapore?
Maybe why Singapore, Bernard, maybe we should give it to-
Yes. To Cyril.
Yeah. Cyril.
Thank you. Thank you, Bernard. Thank you, Paul. Why Singapore? Thank you for the question, Emmanuel. Obviously, I mean, three major points. The first one is definitely the speed. As you know, erecting a building, a plant in the silicon environment takes a bit of time, 18 months. Qualifying a new site takes time as well. You've seen the amazing growth in front of us, and obviously, having this opportunity to have a short qualification time is playing a major role in the decision. Second are the synergies. Obviously you know that, when we start up our Pasir Ris plant four years ago. We announced that this creates a significant amount of fixed cost.
At that time it was EUR 20 million. We believe that this additional fixed cost will be very limited in the fact that we extend a building already existing and having already the knowhow, the fixed cost including the facilities there. Very limited, the fixed cost to take into account in our perspective. The third point is the ecosystem. Talent is critical in this ecosystem. The ability in France and in Singapore demonstrated to be able to acquire talent at the proper speed is critical for such a growth journey. This is the third reason. Thank you, Cyril. Maybe Sébastien.
Obviously the level of subsidies were in line with our expectations.
Yes.
I mean, at least for here.
Yes. Sébastien from Kepler Cheuvreux. One question regarding the visibility. It seems that 2023 you are fairly relaxed with your business. What is about 2024? Do you have any kind of visibility already building up for 2024? What is the sales that is already covered by your contracts for next fiscal year? Coming back to millimeter wave, you have been quite successful with both MediaTek and Samsung. What is happening to Qualcomm? Can you make some update? What are they doing? Are you working with them? Are they preparing anything for millimeter wave? Thank you.
Maybe I start with the first, and you take the second, right? We are never relaxed in this industry. That's the problem. You know, everything keeps us busy and awake every day. You are true. I mean, what is correct is that we have this new level of commitment that is really fueling not only one year, but several years in front of us. For fiscal 2023, we have basically the visibility, the total visibility. I told you we are basically under allocations in all our factories, specifically in 200-mm and in 300-mm.
Yes, we know that fiscal 2023 will be a good year. When it comes to fiscal 2024, we are fueling it. I mean, we have already long-term commitment. As I said, we have commitment from customers three, four, five years. Okay? Obviously, as we go down to fiscal 2026, we are probably in the range of still a low number in terms of %, but fiscal 2024, I will say it's a high double-digit %. I mean, okay, we are not at those three-digit %. It's not 100%, but it's clearly on the high double-digit % that we are fueling. It is part of, you know, the decisions we have made.
We cannot make decisions on a new factory without a strong commitment. You have seen the commitment in terms of dates, so that means that yes, we are going to fill and to fill not only Bernin 2, but also the phase one of Pasir Ris in order to get into in fiscal year 2026, in 2025 already, end of 2025, the need for this new factory.
Yeah. On the millimeter wave, from two to three years, we talk about it. We talk to you about the value of our FD-SOI solution for millimeter wave. It's now with the Pixel 6 using this Samsung technology, Samsung product is a demonstration about the value. MediaTek moving to that is again a new win for FD-SOI. This mean that several players now are adopting. They see the value, and overall, everyone is looking to this value. Let's see. Stay tuned, and we will see what could be the next one coming to that. But the value that FD-SOI is bringing to the ecosystem is clear, is recognized. Millimeter wave require a low power kind of solution, and FD-SOI is very suitable for that.
Okay, thank you. Anything to add, Thomas? No? Okay. Alex?
Yes, thanks. I have two questions as well. The first one would be on your CapEx. I guess you were guiding for EUR 240 million for the year you just reported and that came a little bit lower. What are the reasons? Are there delays in equipment shipments to you or any other reasons for this discrepancy? That was the first question. Secondly, you mentioned some headwinds for margins going into the current year. It's well understood that some of your input costs will increase quite substantially. Do you anticipate more pressure in H1 and then an improvement in the second half? How should we think about the phasing of the gross margin and EBITDA margin over the year? Thank you.
On the first question regarding the CapEx, yeah, we are a little bit lower for EUR 10 million, but it's only related to the cash flow profile. We placed all our purchase order as expected, but we were able to better manage the cash flow related to these investments. We are in line with our capacity expansion plans. You saw it in FY 2022. We were able to do even more than anticipated, and we don't expect any delay for FY 2023 or the following years, with all the information we have as of today. In terms of gross margin profile for next year, in terms of cost, we don't expect significant discrepancies during the year. As usual, the first semester will be lower in revenue than the second one. Yes, we expect a better profitability in terms of margin for the second half of the year.
Hi. Thank you. François-Xavier Bouvignies from UBS. My first question is on your comments, Paul. In the beginning, you said what a major change in the industry is like the commitments, and you talk about commitments already in terms of years, but you mention as well financial commitment from your customers. I would like to understand if you or if you could elaborate on this financial commitment. How is it, you know, the details around it. Are we talking about prepayment, or how many of your contracts are locked in? Are we talking about pricing locked in volume? Just a bit some details around this comment would be helpful. The second question is maybe on the capacity. You have your target of EUR 2.3 billion, and Pascal, you mentioned the high base scenario.
The CapEx you are spending today, is it on your base, or what is the total capacity basically that the CapEx spend you forecast for the next three years is? I just want to understand, you know, the total capacity you have for fiscal year 2026 at the current CapEx level. Thank you.
I can start with the first one a little bit. You can complete and take the second.
Yes.
Yeah, I mean, there is a major change in the semiconductor industry. I mean, as I said, we have to double this industry over the next seven years. Everybody has to double capacity overall, right? It start with a long-term commitment from the end customers, and these commitments translate to us in basically down payment, as you said, take or pays. Clearly it is linked to volumes. It is linked also to pricing. It is linked to going through the entire commitment, meaning that you have down payments that you don't raise, your contract is not really fulfilled, right?
We are all very serious about that from top to bottom because we are also doing the same with our suppliers in order for them to grow their capacity for us, in order for them to give us access to new product and new capability. It is a big change in the entire value chain. I mean, when you talk to other players, you see it. You can basically ask the same questions. They will all tell you the same thing. We are all moving up into this because this is the only way to secure and to grow the entire supply chain. We are exercising this, and this is basically what is happening for us, right?
Yes.
Second question was more about, do you want to add something on the contract itself?
No, I don't think so. Yes, we got significant down payment from customers, and we will continue to do in the future. Sure.
Maybe one more thing to add is that, in our contract we, you know, we have also built into it clauses where you can reopen and rediscuss the contract.
Yeah.
In case of a major change. I'm talking about if there is situations where you have a material or u tilities increase or things that you have not planned, I mean, that is totally outside what we have already agreed with our customers. We basically on all our contract we have now the right to reopen it and to re-discuss this very specific situation. We are obviously taking into account what we see every day and this is also to continue to protect not only the company, but to protect also our suppliers and customers.
The second question was regarding the capacity expansion plan. Our CapEx plan is based on our baseline, so the $2.3 billion. If we are on the high case, we will need to accelerate some investments in terms of tools. Our current factories and the two extensions we are planning will be sufficient in terms of buildings and will not need another factory in order to be able to reach this $2.8 billion.
Maybe one more question here, and then I have some in the queue.
Jerome Ramel , Exane BNP Paribas. On the SmartSiC, could you quantify the RON improvement on the MOSFET transistor you are seeing for your customers? The second question I have, the slide you show on the automotive industrial revenues multiplied by five. Even if I strip out the SmartSiC, it seems there's a strong growth coming in automotive industrial. What is driving this growth? Is it the microcontrollers? Just to get a sense of what is the driver beyond the SmartSiC. Thank you.
I will answer the last question first, and then I will give the floor to Christophe to talk a little bit about the results that we get on the SmartSiC and the property of the product. Regarding what is beyond the growth? We have the FD-SOI with the MCU is a part of it. Power-SOI is also for power management IC and so on, is also a key driver. Beyond this, SmartSiC, we have this SOI product portfolio which can be totally different when you are talking about Power-SOI or FD-SOI, which is supporting also the growth and the penetration. On a lower scale, the gallium nitride is also part of it, but it's the main SmartSiC™ and our SOI flavor, the different product. Christophe, you want to answer too?
Thank you. Thank you for your question on silicon carbide. Give me the opportunity to tell you a bit more and answer your question. We started silicon carbide in 2019 just before COVID winter with a good core. Three years later, we have the pilot line running. Bernard talked about it, and we have frozen the technology, and we are now qualifying this technology, shipping product to the customer every week. We are shipping products with a lower defectivity, looking at improving the yield, shipping product with better geometry, improving the die size and shipping product, most importantly, with lower resistivity overall into the structures, thanks to this substrate that Bernard described. The most important is that we are demonstrating the value working with the customers.
The value is a lower die size, lower die cost through yield and die size, as I said, and improving the overall system cost through energy efficiency. That's what we are working with customers. You asked the very key questions, which is how is the improvement of the RDS(on) onto the product? On the work with the customers, depending on their design, depending on the voltage they are using, we're like 7%-20% improvement into this RDS(on). We are working further with them in looking at designs and improving again our products to seek for even better efficiency.
Okay. Thank you, Christophe. Maybe just to take a question that was sent on the platform. Question from Didier Scemama at Bank of America. I'm reading the question, so don't shoot the messenger, but many. It's on silicon carbide. Many of your potential customers for silicon carbide substrates are complaining that your solution is too expensive. When do you expect to meet the right total cost of ownership required by your customers? I will start with that. First of all, what we are always proposing to our customer is bringing value. With our SmartSiC, we are bringing value to the ecosystem. We are bringing value to the IDMs, but at the system level, we are bringing value.
You saw that we are now in this phase of really defining the value for all the stakeholders in this ecosystem. As we are progressing and with all the results that we have, the value that we are bringing is totally recognized today. Okay, which mean that the story on the price is another story. What is important is that the value is recognized today by the key players. This is the first thing. The second thing, we are always working to have a competitive and to propose competitive solution. It's for that also that when we are planning to have our Bernin 4 building is really to have a fab which is big enough in order to provide a very competitive cost structure to bring value, as I say, to the customer, but also to Soitec by controlling our cost structure.
Okay. Thank you, thank you, Bernard. Maybe just to follow up, online also and on silicon carbide, question from Robert Sanders at Deutsche Bank. How soon would you look to scale up to 500,000 18 in wafers per year in SmartSiC? I think that goes back to the roadmap.
Yeah. In terms of back to the roadmap, as you see, and today what we provide is up to fiscal year 2026 information. In fiscal year 2026, it will not be at the level of 500K wafers. What we see in the two years one two years after, we can reach this full capacity.
One more?
The model will also could be that we don't also manufacture all the wafers ourselves. I mean, clearly, as Christophe said and Bernard said, we are bringing unique values. What we did last year is really to work with customers in Europe, in U.S., in Asia, to make sure that we could really out of all the materials that we are using, meaning polysilicon, where we have now several sources when it comes to silicon carbide, where we have also various sources. We come to basically a point where we wanted to check that all the value that Christophe just mentioned was recognized.
You can start about, you know, how do we share the value with our customers? To come up with a competitive pricing that gives us and gives them, you know, these competitive edge that we are all looking for. It could happen also that from the mother fab in Bernin, we could also leverage some other business model where we could have a license to expand and quickly also expand our footprint in silicon carbide with direct customers. But the mother fab is very key in our model because it will be the place where we can continue to implement new improvement in the technology.
I f there is a specific license with a specific customers also to make sure that we can transfer this to our end customers. It will grow as fast as we can in order to make sure that we can basically fulfill the end customer's commitment.
Yeah. Maybe one last question from on silicon carbide from Adithya Metuku at Credit Suisse. You have previously noted that your silicon carbide products are being trialed by IDMs. Can you please provide an update on qualification?
Yeah. Last year, if you remember in calendar Q4 last year, I told you that we will make decisions on the factory based on business milestones. We have passed all these business milestones. Part of the business milestones is it was also obviously taking into account that we needed to get very advanced devices built on our substrate, that we were able to demonstrate the value on these very advanced, you know, devices in terms of everything Christophe said. We also, you know that there is a long process in automotive is to make sure that all the reliability tests are also well engaged and not showing any significant impact, right, on the quality of the devices.
That's where we are. I mean, we are very comfortable right now with the quality of the wafers that we are shipping. Obviously we are working and talking to customer, looking how we build this together now.
Thank you, Paul. In the room, any follow-up questions? Yeah.
One follow-up, if I may, on the organic growth, evolution quarter- after- quarter. You mentioned that it will not be linear. What should we expect H1, H2? What are the puts and takes on the organic growth?
I will not give a guidance for H1 or Q1. Yes, we expect less growth during the first part of the year.
I will say, okay, I'm going to push it a little bit. It's always the same. We have an H1 slightly below and H2 slightly above, and this is where I mean, look at the pattern every year. Okay? That's the same pattern that you have seen last year, that you have seen the year before. We are going to duplicate this again. Basically, no change.
No, I was talking about the organic growth, the revenue growth, not the revenue in euro terms, so.
Oh, in terms of organic growth?
Yes, the revenue growth. Yeah.
I don't.
Same. It's the same.
Mm-hmm.
It's the same.
Yes, this is the same, yes.
For me, it's the same shade, by the way.
Yes, it's the same. Mm-hmm.
Thank you. Just a clarification on your pricing. You had a target to 2026, and you mentioned pricing positive mix. Can you quantify what the pricing, you know, positive that you know, forecast for the next three years? Is it like low single, mid-single?
No, we don't really share pricing information. Clearly, I mean, we always told you that we have been able, over the years and including today, to pass to our customers the supply increase that we had. We have been able to pass also in our new contracts not only the supply, but also some of the inflation that we have across all our supply chain and but also what we have also to deliver to our people. Basically, we do have the ability to continue to really deliver competitive product and still continue to manage with our customers an acceptable pricing increase to make sure that we protect our gross margin, we protect our EBITDA margin.
Yes. As you said before, we now have better visibility due to a longer-term contract with customers. We have quite a good visibility on the pricing we can have in FY 2025, 2026.
Okay. Maybe back online, some questions on the P&L cash flow side, the financials. From Didier Scemama, Bank of America. Maybe one on clarification because we talked about the booked capacity for fiscal 2023 and the visibility on fiscal 2024. How much of the capacity is booked for fiscal 2023 and 2024? And the second is about free cash flow generation. Do you expect to generate positive free cash flow going forward?
In terms of capacity, I mean, clearly, as I told you, I mean, most of our products are running stretched, and we are for some of them, the allocations. Our Bernin 1 is running full, and the overflow is going to our partner in China, Simgui. Simgui is increasing capacity, and they will be running in the 450,000 wafers per year. That's where we stand. For 200 mm, our Bernin 2 is full. And basically, the overflow is going to Pasir Ris. Pasir Ris, every time there is a tool coming in, we rush for qualifications and we bring this tool back to manufacturing as quickly as possible.
We will continue to do so because this is where the growth in 300 mm is coming from. On 6 in, we have multiplied by four our capacity over the last 24 months. Clearly, we will not increase capacity this year, but we are going to basically run with the installed capacity here. That's the way we manage things. For silicon carbide, I mean, you have heard, I mean, we will use our pilot line for the next 18 months until the capacity is installed in Bernin 4. By then, I mean, I can tell you that we will be in a rush exercise to continue to expand the capacity and fill it.
Okay. On the question regarding the cash flows, we are not providing any guidance for cash flow. Of course, we'll continue our efforts to manage the best as possible our working capital needs.
Okay. Thank you, Léa. Another question on business question online, regarding POI from Adi at Credit Suisse. Can you please give an update on recent traction with POI? We haven't heard much about other customers after Qualcomm started using POI.
Yes, I can take it. On the POI today, what we see across the ecosystem is that the value of POI is recognized by all the players. This is a key thing. This means that today most of all the players are working on this kind of solution. Depending on the customer today, we work publicly with Qualcomm, but there are several customers beyond that. All of them, we are running a wafer, and there are different levels. Some of them are in qualification, not qualification, evaluation. We are at different steps with different customers. The key thing is that this POI is recognized today as a key solution for this RF filter business. Sorry.
It takes time for our customers, for our qualified customers, and as you said, there is several now that have qualified our technology and product, but it takes time for them to also be qualified at the system level. They have to tune their design to get into the final socket for the phone. Even for us, I mean, we see that as something that it takes more time than expected, okay? The good news is, across the board now, there is a trend moving to POI for the value that Bernard explained.
Thank you, Paul. Any question in the room? No. Okay, so I have a question online regarding governance from Robert Sanders at Deutsche Bank. How is the progress with retaining key top talent in the ExCo after the disagreement around CEO succession in January?
Yeah. In fact, it was not really a disagreement on the CEO because, you know, I personally think there is always a time to make a change, and we all agree that the board has to make a decision. Later or sooner, it was a decision to be made, and everybody accepted it. Not a question about this. Clearly, the situation's probably shown some irritants that have been public, and we all regret that. At the end of the day, that was for the good, right? Because we are scaling up in basically the way we think about governance.
We are scaling up in the way we are looking and facing, you know, how do we grow this company? How do we expand? How do we manage all together? What is the role and responsibility in governance for any stakeholders in the company and outside the company? The outcome is that there is a strong plan basically in place right now with responsibilities at the board level, at the management level, and we are all as a team driving this plan to make this company even stronger and even more ready for the next big things, right? Back to the management team. I think that you have seen the plan.
I think the team has demonstrated, I mean, an incredible strengths in supporting this plan and in building this plan with our customers and with our suppliers. I will let them comment, but and you can talk to them during the drink. Everybody is excited, everybody is clearly on board. I think it will be a beautiful ride. Bernard, do you want to comment?
Yeah.
You should, by the way. That's a good point.
Yeah. I think that you said it. I think that we build all together this growing plan, and is our plan that we all want to execute to achieve is what we are, this very ambitious growth. Here is, as you say, there is many things also on the governance side. There is some, as you highlight, I would say, improvement at the governance level, which are mandatory to go to the next step. It was, I think, at the end, we are all here ready for the next challenges.
Yeah. You know, let me joke a little bit about it. You know, when you have an accident, you could be killed or you could get stronger. In our case, we will get stronger, okay? That's the beauty of what happened. This is great.
On that note, Paul, thank you. Another question online, talking about finance, and more housekeeping question from Russell Champion. Will working capital remain constant as a percentage of sales?
Say again.
Will working capital in percentage of sales remain constant or up or down in the next years?
It decreased.
Okay.
It decreased at the end of March 2022. We were at 26%. At the end of March 2021, around 31%.
Going forward, what should we expect?
Last year, during the CMD, I said around 30%. I believe we have to be between 25% and 13%. At the end of March 2022, our level of inventory is a little bit low due to the shortage, of course. At the same time, we will continue our actions in order to optimize. To be between 25% and 30% is realistic but ambitious goal, I believe.
Thank you, Léa. I have no further question on the line. Anyone here? Okay. No? Okay. If everything is clear, thank you very much. I think Bernard and Léa will go back to their seat, and I will let the floor to Paul for some final remarks. Thank you, Paul.
Yes, thank you. Thank you first for all these questions. Let me share maybe a few words before we conclude this call and the meeting here. We are in 2022, and Soitec is turning 30. This is a beautiful year to celebrate a wonderful events with absolutely great results. You have seen it and a greater outlook. I'm very pleased for that. I think the team is excited about what we have presented today and the outlook. Throughout the years, I mean, our internal process of strategic planning has become stronger and stronger and clearly has helped us to deliver the results that we presented today.
I mean, what is interesting, you know, is that every year for five months, we have about 200 people in the company going deep in our strategic planning and looking at this 10-year horizon and deciding where to play and how to win for five years. We need to do that every year because we have been through the pandemic, we have been through the trade war, we have been through many other changes in technology. We can then plan, anticipate, revisit, and stay agile on all this. Just as a kind of little story here, in FY 2017 we were planning for FY 2022, and the plan was called One Two Three. One for EUR 1 billion. We were planning in FY 2017 to really deliver this EUR 1 billion.
Two was to double the profitability of the company. You will see on the slide we were in the range of 15-something, 16% EBITDA, and now we're at 35.8. Three was to say we need three revenue streams. We had only SOI. Now we have SOI, now we have compound, and now we have designs and royalties that we are going to continue to grow as part of the licensing process. The plan of last year is going to extend into this year. The name is Going Beyond.
I can tell you that the team is really on how do we go beyond what we have shared with you on fiscal year 26, and beyond is clearly how do we continue to grow the company, what are the opportunities that we have in terms of technology inflections, and the trends that are coming to us. This is the value, and this is deep into the company, and this is why we are probably, in terms of materials company, a kind of unique in terms of how do we think about our strategy, how do we deploy our strategy, how do we anticipate with our customers. For that, I would like to really congratulate the teams here because they have done a fantastic job and they will continue.
I can tell you also that we will guarantee strategy continuity during our CEO transitions. Soitec is now ready for the next chapter, and this is going to be a beautiful chapter. I really trust not only Pierre, but the entire team to make it right. This is also a very important time for the company, but the company is prepared for that. There is no things that we have not really anticipate, and this is a good time also to do this. Now this is my emotion time. Now, clearly, it has been a beautiful journey. It has been a great journey. For some of you, I mean, I met in 2015. Wow, that was a tough time, right. In some of your offices, I couldn't stay more than five minutes.
We had to rebuild that credibility together. I told you at that time, I mean, we are going to tell you what we are going to do, and we will come back and, you know, show and demonstrate to you that we are doing what we said we will do. It has been a beautiful journey for me, for the team. You know, I'm going to do something else, and my journey will be more on the beach maybe, for some times. I really would like to thank you all because you have been part of this journey. You have been clearly supporting us. You have been part of the, you know, the excitement that we were building every day.
I would like to thank you, all of you, for these years. Again, maybe to finalize this, I can only reiterate my convictions that Soitec is a great company. You know, we read books in the company, and every year before summer, I try to give my executive team some books. Some are smiling, some are not smiling because they don't want to read. In September, we talked about books. Over the last seven years, we have read 2 x the same book, Good to Great. Okay. If you, I can tell you that Soitec is becoming a great company, and this is a very important book that makes a lot of sense.
Even if it's a 25-year-old book, it gives you a lot of things in terms of how do you differentiate your company? How do you compete? How do you stay strong despite the you know, trends in the economy and situations like that? Soitec is prepared to double the size over the next three to four years. It's an impressive challenge. I trust the team, I trust Pierre, I trust the company to make it right. I would like, again, to thank you all, and maybe we can meet over a glass of water. Thank you.