I will now hand you over to Pierre Barnabé, Chief Executive Officer, to begin today's conference. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Soitec H1 2023 Results Conference. I'm Pierre Barnabé, Soitec's CEO. I'm very pleased to be with you today along with Bernard Aspar, our COO, Léa Alzingre, our CFO , and Steve Babureck, our SVP Strategy. Next page, please. This presentation contains a disclaimer. Please read it carefully. Next page. We have a lot to cover today. First of all, our strong performance in H1 2023 in terms of revenue, profitability, and cash generation as we continue to grow on our trajectory. We will focus on how we keep expanding across our three end markets. On mobile communication, we continue to be supported by the ongoing adoption of 5G smartphones and Wi-Fi 6, as well as the deployment of 5G infrastructure.
On automotive and industrial, we continue to leverage demand for more infotainment, autonomous driving, and functional safety, as well as by the shift to electric and hybrid engines. On smart devices, our growth is driven by demand for more complex sensors, higher connectivity functionalities, and embedded intelligence, leading to more powerful, efficient edge artificial intelligence chips. We confirm our guidance for the ongoing fiscal year 2023. We expect our revenue to grow around 20% year-over-year at constant exchange rate and perimeter. EBITDA margin around 36%, adjusted net cash out related to CapEx at around EUR 260 million. Next page, please. Let's start with the highlights of our first semester. Next page, please. In H1 2023, we sustained our growth trajectory and delivered growth on our key financial performances indicators.
Revenue reached EUR 471 million at 18% year-on-year at constant exchange rate and perimeter, and 26% on a reported basis. EBITDA grew to EUR 167 million at 36.5% margin, which reflects a higher operating leverage control over our operating expenses and some headwinds coming from inflationary cost increase and a negative currency impact. Our operating cash flow more than doubled to EUR 126 million, driven by a better operating performance and management of our working capital. Next page, please. As you can see, we continue to grow on our three dynamics end markets. Bernard will give you more details on the performance of each of our divisions later on. Next page, please. Just a few words on capacity expansion, which is key for us to grow our business.
We continue to invest in capacity to sustain our growth and secure our supply of wafers, equipments, and utilities through the signature of long-term agreement with our strategic suppliers. In Bernin 1, we delivered a higher operating leverage driven by Q2 2022 capacity as announced in June. In Bernin 2, continuous improvement methods are driving significant yield improvement. On our Bernin 3 fab dedicated to POI wafers, continues to serve our customers and have a strong activity on delivering new products. We'll tune our capacity addition to reflect further customer adoption. The constructions of Bernin 4 is on time, and the clean room will be ready to move in early April 2023. In Singapore, we continue to deliver on our ramp-up with tools delivery secured for the next 18 months, and we expect the groundbreaking of our Pasir Ris extension in December.
In Hasselt, our fab dedicated to gallium nitride, we qualified large automated productions tools for both 150 mm and 200 mm GaN MOCVD epitaxy. Our partner, Simgui, has reached around 450,000 wafers per year as planned. Next page, please. You start to know me. Sustainability is a key dimension for me. It is also a fundamental pillar of Soitec's value creation model. We take into account all of our stakeholders to ensure our growth in sustainable and benefits all partners around us. Accountability is key to us. In September, our board of directors decided to create a sustainability committee to monitor our progress on this front. We became the fourth semiconductor company worldwide to have its greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets aligned with the 1.5 degrees ambitions validated by the SBTi.
We also have very strict commitments on water as we keep innovating to reduce our water consumption and increase water reuse and recycling. Last week, we won the 2021 SEMI Industry Leader in Diversity and Inclusion Award in recognition of our innovative and pioneering policies and achievements. We have also launched a company-wide initiative to implement eco-design at Soitec in order to embed sustainability from the very beginning of our design and production process. Next page, please. Finally, a few words on the governance and management side. On July 26th, I was appointed CEO of Soitec, I'm proud to be working with the team to continue our ambitious, profitable, and sustainable growth story. We have further structured the executive committee with the arrival of Caroline Sasia as Head of Communications & Chief of Staff.
Our board of director has also strengthened, improving in terms of both independence and diversity through the appointment of new directors. Now, that we have reviewed the highlights of our first semester, Bernard will give you more details on the performance of our three divisions. Bernard, over to you. Next page, please.
Thank you, Pierre, and hi, everyone. Let's go into more detail about the strong performance across our divisions. Next page, please. Our mobile communication division grew 14% year-on-year organically and 23% on a reported basis. The activity continued to be supported by the ongoing adoption of 5G smartphones and Wi-Fi 6, as well as the deployment of 5G infrastructure. We are leveraging strong growth on our product family portfolio of RF-SOI for 4G and 5G smartphone. We are also progressing on the development and the adoption of new products for 5G. FD-SOI adoption for millimeter wave is progressing as major players have endorsed the technology, and you can now find on the market millimeter wave antenna modules built on our Connect FD-SOI product. POI adoption phase is ongoing.
As we told you last month, we have a high level of prototyping activity as we are expanding our spectrum to cover more bands with many key players. Several customers have confirmed the value of our POI wafer, but the adoption might be a bit bumpy as we are addressing the diverse range of module architectures. We are also making progress on the development of the new products for application beyond handset, such as 5G infrastructure or satellite communications. On the end market side, we anticipate to end the year around 650 5G smartphone units, lower than initially anticipated, but confirming the 15% 5G penetration. Next page, please. Let's move on to our automotive and industrial division, which deliver a 59% revenue growth year-on-year organically and 72% on a reported basis.
Our activity continues to be driven by the increase in semiconductor content in automotive, around 10%-15% this year. Going forward, the steady increase in the electrical vehicle penetration will be a significant growth driver. Demand from the automotive industry is increasingly supported by infotainment, autonomous driving, and functional safety, as well as by the shift to electronic and hybrid engines. We deliver a strong growth from FD-SOI and Power-SOI wafers. We continue to progress well on our SmartSiC roadmap, and we are on track with our plan on technology, industrial, and business. Engagement with several leading industry player is progressing well, and we still expect to disclose our first customer before the end of the year. Next page, please. Let's now have a look on our first division, smart devices. Our revenue was up 10% year-over-year organically and 70% on a reported basis.
We are leveraging the growing demand for more complex sensor, higher connectivity functionalities-embedded intelligence, leading to more powerful and efficient edge artificial intelligence chips. Growth in FD-SOI wafer was very strong, confirming structural demand for Internet of Things, IoT, and edge computing device across consumer and industrial sectors. We are seeing a strong momentum in FD-SOI adoption across our three divisions. The manufacturing collaboration between ST and GlobalFoundries announced in July is one of the numerous recent endorsements as the vast majority of the output will be dedicated to FD-SOI. We also leverage sustained growth in Photonic-SOI wafers for data transceiver and in image sensor wafers for 3D imaging application. As a conclusion, each of our three divisions deliver a strong performance over the last semester, and we have confidence in our ability to achieve our fiscal year 2023 guidance.
Now over to Léa to comment on the financial performance of the semester. Next please.
Thank you, Bernard. Hello everyone. Next page, please. In line with what Pierre has disclosed in his introduction, we are happy to report that we achieved a robust performance during this first semester in terms of revenue, EBITDA, and cash flows. We delivered a revenue of EUR 471 million, up by 18% compared to last year at constant FX rate. Our EBITDA margin reached 35.5%, very close to the 35.8% achieved for the full year 2022 in a challenging macro environment, which demonstrates the resilience of our business model. The main highlights are our H1 FY 2023 net profit increased by 28% compared to last year, close to EUR 100 million. We invested EUR 126 million in CapEx, mainly for capacity investments in Singapore.
At the same time, we achieved a positive free cash flow of EUR 7 million. We maintain a strong net cash position at the end of September 2022, thanks to the cash generated by our activity. Next page, please. We publish our H1 revenue in October, no surprise there. We deliver a 26% growth for this first semester. It breaks down between a 18% organic growth and a positive currency impact of 8%. Performance was driven by system growth across our three divisions. Let's talk about profitability. Next page, please. Our gross profit reached EUR 168 million, a 35.6% margin. It's a 0.4 point improvement compared with H1 2022 despite some headwinds.
The bulk price increase as expected and a margin dilutive impact of foreign exchange due to the difference between the spot rate and the hedging rate. We benefited from a strong operating leverage due to the increase in activity as well as from a good industrial performance with highly efficient cost control despite the production shutdowns that occurred in Bernin. Next page, please. From this EUR 168 million of gross profit I just commented, the group generated EUR 110 million of current operating income, which represents more than 23% of revenue. Our net R&D expenses remain stable in value. Our gross R&D costs before R&D capitalization increased by EUR 7 million, representing a 14% increase as compared with H1 FY 2022 as we continue to invest to strengthen our position in each of our three end markets.
To maintain our leadership in SOI business, especially for RF-SOI and FD-SOI new products, to continue POI development for the next generation of products and to accelerate on silicon carbide. We invested both in hiring new talents and in collaboration with innovation platforms. Given an increase of EUR 7 million in R&D capitalization due to the silicon carbide development cost and a decrease of EUR 2 million of the grants, net R&D expenses remained stable as compared to H1 FY 2022.
SG&A expenses were stable compared to last year at EUR 28 million. They went down as a percentage of revenue from 7.2% in H1 FY 2022 to 6% in H1 FY 2023. The increase in the number of staff and in salaries was offset by a decline in share-based compensation, in line with the lower share price, as well as by non-recurring item in H1 2023. We are still focused on talent acquisition and retention, and making our group an attractive place to work in. This is key to secure our growth. Next page, please. At the net income level, we also improved profitability. We reached EUR 95 million at the end of H1 2023, representing a 20% net margin. We didn't book any other parenting income in H1 FY 2023, while we recorded the reversal of the Singapore plant impairment last year.
Our financial result is a loss of EUR 2 million, as compared with a loss of EUR 5 million last year. Financial expenses decreased by EUR 1 million following the OCEANE 2023 conversion in October 2021. We recorded a net FX effect for EUR 4 million. Finally, our income tax continues to benefit from tax laws carryforwards. Next page, please. Let's conclude the P&L chapter with the EBITDA margin, the main profitability indicator of our guidance. EBITDA amounted to EUR 167 million in H1 2023, representing 35.5% of our revenue. That is a very close to the EBITDA margin we recorded for the full year FY 2022. EBITDA margin benefited from a strong operating leverage and a strong industrial performance, was affected by the rising inflation and a dilutive effect due to the hedging.
This strong level of profitability, despite the macroeconomic situation and especially the inflation, is reflecting the resilience of our business model. Moving on, let's take a look at cash flows. Next page, please. We were able to generate a EUR 7 million positive free cash flow in H1 2023, while continuing to invest in capital expenditure to support our group expansion and managing the working capital needs. This compare to a EUR 43 million negative free cash flows in FY 2022. Overall, net operating cash generating by continuing operations increased from EUR 59 million in FY 2023 to EUR 126 million in FY 2023. We drive our group to monitor strongly the working capital, and we contained the increase of the working cap at EUR 26 million. We drove very good cash collection for customers, including down payments.
This favorable effect was offset by the seasonality effect for the inventories that increased by EUR 39 million in order to prepare for ICE2, and the increase of EUR 15 million of other receivables. We pay more taxes than last year. Cash out from investing activities reached EUR 120 million compared to EUR 101 million last year. This EUR 120 million do not include tools financed through leasing contracts, and if we include them, total CapEx cash out would amount to EUR 126 million. Capital expenditure was mainly related to capacity investments carried out in Singapore for 300 mm SOI wafer production, plus additional capacity for epitaxy and refresh, and to a lesser extent, in Bernin for PY wafer production and renewal investments. They also include investments in R&D, including capitalized R&D.
Overall, H1 FY 2023 was really good in terms of the cash generation, as we managed to generate positive free cash flow at EUR 7 million while also investing to fulfill our ambitious growth plans. Next page, please. We had a slight increase in our cash position, which went from EUR 728 million in March 2022 to EUR 733 million at the end of September 2022. Financing flows were negative at EUR 37 million because of reimbursements during the period. We did not book any new loan. Next page, please. Let's move directly to our financial structure. Next page, please. A few KPIs to underline the solidity of our balance sheet.
Equity is close to EUR 1.2 billion, up EUR 138 million as compared to March 2022, thanks to the results from the period and the positive currency effect related to the conversion of our foreign subsidiaries. We move from a net cash position of EUR 132 million at the end of March 2022 to a positive net cash position of EUR 113 million at the end of September 2022.
The positive free cash flows generating during the period has been compensated by the increase in the financial debt related to the mark-to-market increase of financial derivatives related to hedging. Without these financial derivatives, net cash position would have improved by EUR 19 million. Our high level of liquidity is well adapted to our growth strategy. To conclude, you can see that our H1 performance gives us confidence to achieve our FY 2023 GAAP targets. I will now hand over to Pierre to conclude on our guidance. Thank you for your attention. Next page, please.
Thank you, Léa. I'm pleased to conclude by reiterating that our very strong H1 2023 performance allows us to confirm our FY 2023 guidance. We expect our revenue to grow around 20% year-on-year at constant exchange rate and perimeter. EBITDA margin around 36%. Adjusted net cash out related to CapEx at around EUR 260 million. This concludes our remarks. Now, let's please open the Q&A session.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question today, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. That is star one for questions today. Our first question today comes from Aleksander Peterc of Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, thank you for letting me on. I just have two questions, please. The first one is related to what's going on in the smartphone market, particularly in the RF front-end space. You obviously have seen a number of warnings and guidance downgrades among your clients, such as Skyworks, Qorvo, Qualcomm. We've got revenue outlook being reduced by about 15%-20% across the board in this space. You also highlight a softer smartphone market and lower 5G units as well. What I'd like to understand is, obviously things are softer than you thought at the beginning of the year. You do maintain your guidance at 20% like for like, which is solid.
Does that mean that you actually are managing to compensate for some of the weakness in the smartphone space by stronger auto industry in particular? Or is there a delayed effect due to the impact of inventory and so on, and that means that you will see this slow down a little bit later on than your client base? I'd just like to understand what's going on here in terms of timing and the amplitude of the downgrade in the expectations. The second question, just on SmartSiC. You do confirm to be able to announce an anchor customer before the calendar year end, or is it the fiscal year end?
Also if you could maybe tell us if you're looking at a licensing model or a direct supply or a mix of both with your clients there. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Alek, for this two important questions. I will take the overall answers for the two elements, and then I will ask Bernard to complement if you don't mind. First of all, on the smartphone market, as you know, we have observed a decrease in a shrink in this market. We are betting on a volume of 650 million units in 5G for this year. That is a decrease related to what we were expecting early this year. As we said, repeatedly, we are well positioned on premium market that is still active.
We are expanding our footprint, and we are delivering more and more millimeter square thanks to our advanced technologies in phones that are also looking for more and more functionalities, analog and digital. In this areas, in this vein, we are very active, as you know. I will let Bernard to complement for the inventories and what we are observing on the market today. Regarding the SmartSiC, it's a very important pillar, as you know. We are on time from technology and industrial point of view. We are very active with many customers in these domains, and we expect to make announcements in the coming months and weeks. We still believe that by end of this calendar year, we'll be in this position.
I will leave the floor to Bernard for the complementary answers on phones and SmartSiC.
Yes. Thank you, Alex, for the question. You need to have in mind also that on the communication part, we have a strong penetration of our product for Wi-Fi 6, which is helping also in this segment. On the smartphone, the 5G is still in the range of 50% penetration. True that the number comparing to the number that we announced and that all think at the beginning of the year is a bit lower, the penetration of 5G is still here. We see that when we start the year, the level of inventory was very low everywhere. Now during this year, there is also a replenishment of FD-SOI inventory across the board. For sure, the level is different depending of the customer, depending of the product. The overall, the level of inventory are at a reasonable level.
Thank you very much.
Yes, on the SmartSiC is, as you say, we are on track. We are on track, delivering, several other products on a regular base to different customer, making, getting more and more feedback, around the value of our product, and also on the mini discussion on the business side.
Very clear. Thank you.
Welcome.
Thank you. We now move on to our next questioner, which is Sébastien Sztabowicz of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. Coming back to the smartphone outlook, I just, I'm just curious, what do you have in your budget for next year, the calendar year of 2023, in terms of smartphone volumes or 5G units, given that there are some risks to see another decline in the smartphone market moving into next year because of the weaker macroeconomic environment. Secondly, more generally speaking, regarding your outlook for fiscal year 2024, what kind of visibility do you have on your revenue for next fiscal year? Thank you.
Thank you, Sébastien. As you know, we have a very robust process in Soitec, where we are observing the market through several sources. First of all, sources being also what we see with our customers, the customers of our customers and so on, and of course, all the different publication analysis and so on. This is giving us a certain level of confidence and different scenarios in the drivers that are making the business of Soitec for the years to come, okay?
For the moment, we are in this process to look at the different scenarios on because there are different scenarios today in the smartphone industry next year and next years, in the 5G penetration, in the number of high-end products in this penetration, in also the footprints we have within each of these machines that are more and more complex machines. Today we are contemplating observing that, and we will be in a position, as usual, by spring, to give you our visibility and guidances for fiscal year 2024, taking into account what we are seeing and observing. What is very clear is that 5G adoptions is rising up. The penetrations especially in some countries is tremendous.
I would like to say that when you buy today a high-end smartphone, it is a 5G smartphone by essence and by structure. It is, of course, sustaining a lot the market. As you know, in these domains, looking at Wi-Fi 6, millimeter waves penetration and so on, it is very profitable to Soitec's technologies and footprints. This is what we can tell you so far.
Okay. One follow-up, if I may, on GlobalFoundries, because they just announced the qualification of a large automotive MCU manufacturer for embedded non-volatile memory. It seems that they are accelerating the ramp on the automotive market. Do you see any acceleration in the adoption of your technology, SOI, for micro controller today, or there is nothing special at this stage? Thank you.
No, we see, we see clearly, an adoption of our product in this automotive. I remind you that, on the automotive industry.
Yes
O n the infotainment, autonomous driving, smart devices, we see a lot of adoption. This automotive industry is one of the, of our big pillar for the growth of the next year. Thank you, Sébastien.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We now move on to our next question, which is Didier Scemama of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks very much, good morning, everyone. Two questions. First one, given your outperformance versus the smartphone semiconductor market, I just wondered if you can give us an update, you know, end of fiscal year 2023, where you think you would be in terms of market share in Wi-Fi 6 and in terms of RF filters. Also related to smartphones, on the Android smartphone market in China, the various players in the baseband and RF front-end market have, you know, indicated that December quarter would be the bottom for them. As inventory replenishment would kick off, the March quarter would go up sequentially from a very low base. Is that something you're seeing? Does that matter to Soitec given your, let's say, greater exposure to the premium segment of the market?
Then the last question is on SmartSiC. Appreciate you haven't had a, you know, the name to be announced today, but can you give us a sense of the timing of the ramp of your silicon carbide solution at your customer? Is that a 2023 event? Is that a 2024 event? Thanks very much.
Okay. On the smartphone, this is what already I said regarding the complexity and the more and more functionalities that are serving our RF and of course FD-SOI technologies, plus also technologies we are targeting with the POI again and so on, further on. It's clear that we see in some regions a kind of bottom in terms of market shrinking, but it's something we are observing. As we said, we are in this mode today to gather information and then to look at what the impact in positively or negatively for our future. It's clear that we see in some areas this bottom coming up, and then we can expect a rebound on the market.
It won't be a homogeneous everywhere, but it's something we see and we can clearly observe. Regarding the SmartSiC, I will leave the floor to Bernard because it's very important. We say that also during the presentation, we are on times from a technology industry point of view, and it's really, I believe, what is key for us. Bernard will tell you more on the roadmaps today.
Yes, on the SmartSiC, you see that today our product are going out of the pilot line that we have built at CEA-Leti. We are totally on track for our industrial plan, where the goal is to have the fab ready at the H2 of 2023 with plant qualify and ramping at the beginning of 2024 for our SmartSiC product. Here we are delivering on a continuous on a regular basis wafer to different customer for evaluation, qualification and so on.
Excellent. Just on coming back, can you Do you want to comment on market share in Wi-Fi 6 or filters or both?
On the market share, we will not disclose any number. What we see is really a strong ad-adoption on the Wi-Fi 6 of RF-SOI technology. This is strong. On the POI for the filter, we are still on the adoption phase. Here the market share is totally different because we are penetrating a new market for different bands. It would be step by step.
Many thanks.
Thank you, Didier.
Thank you. As a brief reminder to ask a question today, please signal by pressing star one. We now have a question from Aditya Mytuku of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Two questions please. Firstly, just on the silicon carbide side, there's been more supply coming on board from new players entering this market. I just wondered how you're calibrating your supply and demand side of the equation and share assumptions, and also on the pricing side, if in light of all these new players coming to market, any commentary around that would be helpful. Secondly, just a question for Léa. In terms of the P&L, there were some subsidies in there. They haven't changed much, given all the discussions around the European Chips Act, I just wondered if you could give us some color on how we should think about that line going forward.
What sort of grants, et cetera, can we expect, especially given the focus on FD-SOI? Thank you.
Okay. Before giving the floor to Léa on the question you have asked for. On silicon carbide, keep in mind that with the SmartSiC technologies, we are indeed at the middle of this market that is ramping up quite rapidly by using mono-SiC, poly-SiC, let's say bulks that bringing really some added value within this type of new smart wafers that will be more efficient in terms of production point of view, from a features point of view, from an energy consumptions point of view. We are really at the center of these ecosystems.
The fact that more and more players are addressing this market because of course the market, the final market is raising up with you have seen a lot of announcements preparing the even of electric cars a bit more than expected in some areas with accelerations. We have an incredible positions in such domains because we are inserting value, and we are inserting specific technologies to make this market even leveraging and accelerating. This is where we are. Being on time, as Bernard said, from a business manufacturing technological point of view, will make us in a really ideal position. The more we observe silicon carbide bubble blossoming, expanding, serving a final market that is also sustainable is of course pleasing us. This is where we are.
In the next quarters, you will see the concrete progresses coming up. As Bernard said already, Bernin 4 will be one of these milestones, clear milestones. For Léa.
Yes. On the grants side, yes, of course, we are working in order to fund as much as possible both our innovation, but also the launch in production for new products, especially the SiC.
We are working on a European program, and we are currently finalizing our discussion with France and DGA on this topic. Yes, we expect a level of grants in line with what we had in the past for the innovation and a little bit higher for the first industrialization grant side.
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Thank you, Adit.
Thank you. Once again, as a final reminder, that is star one, if you would like to ask a question today. We will pause for a brief moment. We take our next question now, which comes from Robert Sanders of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi there. I just wanted to check in on the raw substrate pricing. I think companies like Siltronic, Shin-Etsu, they're raising prices annually by 10% over the next three years. I was just wondering if you were gonna pass on, you know, that sort of pricing increase in a similar fashion to the raw silicon substrate suppliers. The other question I had was just around when should we expect a fiscal 2024 guidance? You know, in the past, you've kind of given us soft guidance in December or November. Obviously, you know, you're under new leadership now, so you may have a different view on when to give a guidance on fiscal 2024. Thank you.
For the first question regarding the raw bulk, and the kind of, let's say, inflation we could observe in these domains. As you know, a few months ago, we signed long-term agreement with the supplier. First of all, and it's very important to underline that, we secured our deliveries in terms of bulk. I believe it's very important because whatever the situation on the long run, it's very important to be sure that the quality and the quantity of what we need to deliver to our customers is secured.
Afterwards, we will not enter into the secret of the contract, but of course, we are working closely with these strategic partners and suppliers to be sure that we are containing some of the inflation cost that could be reflected. Second, of course, we are working with our customers to reflect in some areas, some parts, inflation we could observe in the whatever the deliveries, the supplies or even the OpEx we are using. This is something that is very important to have a supply chain from the bulk deliveries to the deliveries to our customers that is more and more monitored and mastered on the long run, with a certain level of flexibility to fit with some changes.
We have some changes to face in the coming years for sure. I believe the securitization of supplies is a priority, and it has been very well managed. For the fiscal year 2024 forecast, which I told you already, I understand that you are impatient, but we need first to really analyze and look at the market, contemplating what we observe from our customers, what we monitor from the ecosystems of the semiconductor industry. We will give you our view for fiscal year 2024, but also the trajectory to fiscal year 2026, because we are in a journey to deliver between $2 billion-$2.8 billion revenue by fiscal year 2026.
Thank you.
You're welcome, Robert.
Thank you. We're now moving on to François-Xavier Bouvignies of UBS for our next question. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you very much for taking my question. I have a quick one, if I may. It's on pricing. We saw, like, pricing increasing across the supply chain, and that's also why you increase your pricing as well to pass on to your customers. If we see a normalization on the pricing side, what are you gonna do with the pricing? Are you gonna reflect the pricing down, you know, at your customers? What's gonna be the strategy here as a normalization of supply demand across the supply chain is happening? Thank you.
Thank you very much for your question, François. Perhaps, Bernard, you could answer to this question.
Yeah. Regarding, first of all, it's what we see. Everyone is looking also to long-term contract. It's true that at short-term there is a pressure going on, but nobody want to be trapped in a way of lacking of wafer in the future. Today, there is pressure, but we are in this path to maintain the market dynamic and focusing on the value. Okay, we are focusing on the value that we are bringing with introducing new generation of product. When we talk about price increase is also through the introduction of the new generation of product, which allow us to maintain this the pricing that we have. It's linked to that new generation of product are introduced every time.
Thank you, François.
Thank you. We're now moving on to a follow-up question from Aleksander Peterc of Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you for allowing a little follow-up. Just on a small item of detail perhaps, but I'd like to understand what exactly you're supplying in satellite communications. Is it RF or FD? What kind of substrates? Also where it goes exactly. Is it into the customer premises equipment or into the actual satellites?
Okay. Bernard, perhaps on this one.
Yeah. On this we have a different product, but, both RF-SOI and FD-SOI, makes sense for this industry.
Is it a meaningful part of your revenue or is it going to be meaningful?
It's, this market is a small market comparing, It, is increasing, but comparing to the smartphone, is still a small market.
Decent volumes growing but quite limited. Well, the value could be interesting, but the volumes remains quite limited compared to what we expect in the automotives and what we are doing in the smartphone industry of course.
Excellent. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Up next we have David O'Connor of BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Great, thanks for taking my question. Just a quick one. Looking at their consensus for FY 2024, look for over 20% top line growth. Can you talk us through kind of what the drivers are for next year? Maybe if you can rank them in terms of, segments, pricing, market share, you know, some of the benefits, some of the advantages this year will turn into, headwinds next year. Just how we should kind of think about, those growth drivers for next year to kind of hit that consensus number. Thank you.
Thank you, David, for this question. We are, as you, as I told you, we are working on a very robust process. We want to be sure that our guidances are reliable and we see step by step, quarter- after- quarter what we can do. For being reliable, for being robust, we have this process that help us to look at the segments, what we are doing today, what we're gonna do tomorrow, looking at the opportunities, looking at the risk opportunities, having a SWOT approach, per segments, per divisions. Then we can see and we can...
We are as impatient as you to give you what will be our guidance for fiscal year 2024, and also giving you the trajectory beyond. That is something we are in the middle of the process today. This is very, very important to be concentrated in this market that is full of opportunity, full of uncertainties also.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We have a further follow-up from Sébastien Sztabowicz of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the additional question. Regarding the fab loading, what was the fab loading your different fabs in Bernin, so in Singapore at the end of H1? Also, could you quantify the cost of energy for this fiscal year, fiscal year 2023 versus last year, the evolution? Where do you see the cost of energy moving for next year, fiscal year 2024? Thank you.
Thank you. I will open the floor to Bernard for the manufacturing part to give you a description of where we are today. For the energy cost and evolution, I will ask Léa if she don't mind to comment. Bernard.
Yeah. Thank you for the question. The loading is very high, yeah. In 200 mm we are fully loaded. Even if we can produce more, it would be welcome. On 300 mm, our Bernin is full. Our Pasir Ris is ramping strongly also. Every time the tools qualify so on the SOI side, I think that the loading is very high. On the POI, we are still on this adoption, so it is different. It's here overall, our loading essentially on SOI is very high.
Okay. The energy costs. Energy costs are representing one single digit of our costs. For this first semester, we don't see really a big increase in energy cost because our energy contracts are fully aged for calendar 2022 and calendar 2023. We expect an increase from calendar 2022 to calendar 2023. This is fully embedded in our guidance for FY 2023.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. We have another follow-up from Didier Scemama of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much. Two quick ones. One, on the 20% organic growth rate for 2023, could you deconstruct that pricing volume and mix? Second, on the LTAs, you said that customers inventories are now back to a level which is acceptable. Does that make any difference to your LTAs?
Two questions. It's one of the breakdown of the growth between the volumes and price increase.
Acceptable inventory levels we are observing. That's two questions, huh?
Yeah.
Perhaps, Léa, can you comment?
Yes. Yes, yes. On the 20% organic growth, the main effect is coming from the volumes. The increase in ASP would be compensated, offset, if I can say, by the customer mix. The growth is really coming from volumes.
Got it.
On the inventory, maybe Bernard?
Yes, on the inventory. We have this long-term agreement with our customer, and this long term was based on the demand. Again, last year, we were not able to deliver as many wafer the market was expecting. Now is coming to a level of inventory, which is reasonable across the different customer.
Does that mean that your customers are maybe less enthusiastic about renewing LTAs as we move into fiscal 24?
No, our LTA are already covering a longer period that only one year.
Okay, fantastic. Thank you.
Jane?
Thank you. As there are no further questions in the queue, I'd like to hand the call back over to you, Mr. Barnabé, for any additional or closing remarks.
Thank you very much. I would like to thank you very much for your attention. It has been a pleasure for me, Léa, and Bernard to be with you and to answer to your question. We expect to see you very soon and to continue our Soitec growth journey altogether. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. That will conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.