Thank you, Greg. Yeah. In the conference room here today, we have Alba Morganti, CFO, and myself, Rudi De Winter. Welcome to the third quarter results 2022. X-FAB business continued to develop strongly, and our customer demand remains at high levels despite current political and economic volatility. The third quarter revenues amounted $188 million within our guidance, so it is up 11% year-on-year and flat quarter-on-quarter. The current euro weakness created a headwind for our top line. At constant exchange rate, the revenue would have been up 19% year-on-year and 2% quarter-on-quarter. Revenues in our core market, Automotive, Industrial, Medical, came in at $157 million. This is an all-time high and is up 17% year-on-year and 2% quarter-on-quarter.
They represent now 83%, reflecting the continued very strong end market. Our Automotive revenues in the third quarter were 19% up year-on-year and are expected to develop strongly going forward due to the rising trend of vehicle electrification. The high-voltage CMOS as well as the silicon carbide, the revenues continue to develop well. In the third quarter, silicon carbide revenues reached a record level of EUR 17.4 million, up 76% year-on-year, clearly outperforming the overall silicon carbide market. In the third quarter, X-FAB also recorded all-time high Industrial revenues of EUR 46 million, up 22% year-on-year. The strong and consistent growth in this market is mainly driven by the industry's transition to electrification and more and more renewable and environmentally friendly energy sources.
Third quarter revenues in the Medical market were down 6% year-on-year due to the normal fluctuation of the Medical prototyping revenues, which were down 32%, while the Medical production revenues were up 5%. Our combined CMOS and MEMS capabilities fit very well for the need of lab-on-a-chip end market. This will drive the growth of X-FAB Medical business in the long term. In the third quarter, the growth in the Medical volume production revenues was mainly driven by lab-on-a-chip applications for DNA sequencing, temperature sensor for complex diagnosis, temperature monitoring, as well as chips for ultrasound equipment. X-FAB's CCC business recorded revenues of EUR 30 million, down 11% year-on-year and 9% quarter-on-quarter.
The decrease relates to the legacy business still being produced at X-FAB France, which has recently been decreasing at a faster pace and is expected to be fully replaced in the first quarter of 2023. The portion of the French site revenues based on X-FAB technologies went up to 56% in the third quarter. The quarterly bookings came in at EUR 270 million, with particularly strong order intake from Automotive. Third quarter bookings already reflect the increased price levels effective in 2023. The prototyping revenues remained strong at EUR 22.8 million, down 11% year-on-year and up 11% quarter-on-quarter. On the operation side, the factories continue to run at full load, and we are gradually progressing with the expansions.
In times of universally limited resources, we are managing the supply chain well, and it did not lead to interruptions. The silicon carbide business gained further traction, driven by X-FAB's streamlined onboarding process. The number of new customers has been increasing further, and X-FAB keeps attracting new customers. In response to the strong demand, X-FAB accelerated its activities to expand silicon carbide processing capacity and plans to more than double the current run rate by end of 2023. The delivery of additional tools to increase silicon carbide epitaxy capacity is still expected this year. We are clearly the number one in the silicon carbide foundry space and based on on Yole's global market assessment, X-FAB should now have 6.5% market share on silicon carbide wafer processing, including all IDMs and foundry together.
On October second, 2022, unfortunately in our Malaysian site experienced a facility incident and related power outage of eight hours. Thanks to the high level of commitment of the team on site, the damage was contained and comprehensive repair and requalifications of production started immediately. The incident is expected to impact the fourth quarter revenues by approximately EUR 50 million, which is considered in the respective guidance. Quarterly capital expenditure came in at EUR 40.9 million, up 87% against the same quarter last year. The full year capital expenditures are expected to come in at about EUR 200 million, but could eventually be lower due to prolonged and uncertain lead times for delivery of new equipment. Now I'd like to pass the word to Alba.
Thanks, Rudi. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Now let's walk over the financial update. Let me start this section with the final outcome of the arbitration proceedings related to a supplier, which we already fully disclosed in our press release dated sixth October this year, which had a one-off negative impact of about $37 million on our third quarter earnings. As a direct consequence, our EBITDA was $9.2 million with a margin of 4.5%-9% versus the guided 20%-24%. If we exclude this non-recurring item, which was recorded under other income and expenses, the EBITDA margin would have been 24.4%. Of course, our third quarter operating profit, EBIT, was also negatively impacted by this one-off effect and came in at -$9.9 million.
If we deduct this one-off effect, our Q3 EBIT would have been almost $27 million. The impact of the arbitration has now been completely and fully recorded in our books. Let's now walk over our cash and cash equivalents, which at the end of the third quarter amounted to $327.5 million, which means an increase of 30.6% compared to the previous quarter end. While the current euro weaknesses created a headwind for the top line, the natural hedging of the business keeps our profitability largely independent from the fluctuation of the U.S. dollar/euro exchange rate. We can clearly see this independency in the EBITDA results because as a constant U.S . dollar/euro exchange rate of $1.18 as experienced in Q3 2021, the EBITDA margin would have been 0.3 percentage points higher.
Our guidance for Q4 2022 revenue is expected to be in the range of $180 million-$190 million with an EBITDA margin in the range of 20%-24%, reflecting the temporary impact of the incident occurred earlier October in our fab in Malaysia, which caused a power outage at our site. The aforementioned guidance is based on an average exchange rate of $0.98 . Our full year revenues are expected to come in a range of $735 million-$745 million. Now to conclude, I would like to highlight that for next year, our Q1 2023 revenue is expected to come in at a range of $205 million-$220 million following full operational recovery of our Malaysian site in Sarawak.
We also reflect a price increase, which will be effective from January 2023 onwards. Now I would like to give the word back to Rudi.
Thank you, Alba. I'm very excited how well we as X-FAB are positioned, and I could not be more convinced of our long-term growth strategy. With the technologies and the expertise we offer, we address exactly those segments of the semiconductor industry that are forecasted to show the strongest growth over the next decade, in particular the Automotive part of our business, and we see this reflected in the consistent strong customer interest with bookings beyond our capabilities to produce. The urgent need for green mobility and sustainable energy keeps driving demand for X-FAB silicon carbide and high-voltage CMOS technologies, while X-FAB also benefits from the rising demand for novel medical applications that increasingly rely on semiconductor technologies as we provide them. Therefore, we have the extensive expansion programs running in all factories.
I see X-FAB well on track for reaching EUR 1 billion in 2024 with an EBITDA margin of 30% despite the currently challenging macroeconomic environment. With this, I would like to open for questions, Greg.
Great. Everyone, your question and answer session will now begin. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your phone. If you decide to withdraw your question, simply press star two. The first question is coming from the line of Michael Roeg. Please go ahead. The word is yours.
Yes, good evening. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Perfect. I have a couple of smaller questions. The first one is on the price hikes that will start contributing in the first quarter. Will your sales in the first quarter be fully impacted by the price hikes, or is a tail of those price hikes only starting in Q2 or later?
There is a first substantial step in Q1, and there is further increase as the year progresses. The biggest step is in Q1.
Okay. Because in Q1 you still have some of that older backlog with the older prices.
Yes, there is that, and there is also contracts where we have price increases that phase in at other points in time.
Good. The second question, if you look at your backlog, and especially in the mix within your backlog, with more silicon carbide and other products, and price hikes, what do you expect the trajectory to be of your gross margin next year? Do you expect it to go up?
We expect it to go up. However, details on that we'd like to give when we have the full budget done and then with the Q4 reporting.
Okay. Is the main driver going to be the improved mix going forward with more silicon carbide, less of the legacy consumer, or is price hikes more of a contributor?
Well, it will be a combination. It is the product mix that's clearly an important item. I expect that our CCC business or consumer communication business next year to drop into the range of 10%, and so our core business to become like 90% of the revenues. We'll have more silicon carbide. I expect further growth in the Medical, and the price increases they will also further contribute. On the downside you will have of course inflation that will play. We see it now that these other elements should be more important than the cost increases.
Okay.
Of course also new components.
Yeah. You're signing some new longer term contracts. Is inflation a component of those contracts that as soon as it happens you can immediately pass it on?
Well, the mechanism is as follows. It is typically a three-year contract with a flat price, where the first year, so 2023, the price is fixed. Then in 2024
Mm-hmm.
There is price increase possible based on the consumer inflation.
Ooh. Uh-
That will then tie in until 2021. The respective inflation-
Okay. Well, consumer inflation can be very different, both positive and negative, eh? Versus your cost drivers.
Yes.
Okay.
That's right. Well, I don't think that the consumer index will be negative.
Okay, good. Well, yeah. Okay, good.
The reference-
Uh, the fi-
The reference for this consumer index is July 2022.
Okay. Good to know. The final question I have is about that hiccup in the Malaysia fab. Were there any wafers damaged during the hiccup and maybe have to be destroyed?
Yes, there is.
inventories written down?
Yeah. Typically if there is a blackout, when the electricity goes out, then the wafers that are in critical processing steps cannot be reworked and they are then lost. That is included in this, the forecast of course.
Okay. That's gonna be sort of like a small inventory write down in Q4, through the gross profit I assume?
Yes. That will be. Those will be written off, yeah.
Okay. Is that something you can quantify?
I think the bigger portion of the impact is. That's maybe something in the range of EUR 1.5 million. The bigger portion is the revenue or loss, the time to recover the factory.
Okay. Yeah. The utilization is. It has a bigger impact on than the write-down.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Next question is coming from the line of David O'Connor. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hello, David.
Great. Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe firstly just on the CapEx. Rudi, the EUR 200 million that you expensed this year on CapEx, how much of that is revenue capacity that's coming online in 2023?
Good question. There is also prepayments for deliveries that are coming later. I would think that something like 70% of that is capacity that comes online in 2023.
Okay, understood. Thank you for that. Maybe kind of longer term on CapEx again. You know, you talked previously about the EUR 1 billion CapEx plan over 2023 - 2025. Can you talk a bit more around how you plan to fund that in terms of prepayments versus from cash balance or operating cash flow? Maybe also, you know, you indicated half of that is kind of from Malaysia. Can you give us a bit more detail about where the rest of that is going? I have a follow-up. Thanks.
Yeah. First of all, there is the cash that's on the account, so we have around $300 million cash on the account. The operational cash flow will also become bigger and bigger. There is prepayments from the customers that, well, what I think we previously estimated something like $250 million or so prepayments that should come in, and that all together should work out. If needed, we can take an additional loans, credit line that to give a bit more yeah leeway.
Okay. Understood. That's helpful. Maybe just a question on the LTAs. I think previously you mentioned you're up to maybe 50% of the business on that, and we're targeting upwards of 70% longer term. Can you update us on where you are in working through those contracts and towards that 70% sold? Thank you.
We are focusing with our LTAs primarily on the 200mm CMOS capacity, where also the investments are significant and the capacity very tight. There we have signed up around 70% of the capacity of the 200mm CMOS production. That is for the period 2023, 2024, 2025. Also 70% of our anticipated capacity in 2025. With these expansions that come in is already also sold under these LTA contracts.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you.
Next question is coming from the line of Guy Sips. Please go ahead. You're unmuted.
Yes. The first one is on the Malaysian outage. The revenue lost is that lost or do you expect some spillover in your guidance in the first quarter of 2023? Is the $205-$220 not including any of that? The second question is on your 2024 guidance in your management comments. The $1 billion, what percentage of LTAs in this $1 billion? What kind of numbers do you give or are you aiming for? Thank you.
First, on the revenue loss. The EUR 15 million is a revenue loss in Q4. We anticipate that we can recover a bit gradually over the year next year, but maybe something like a EUR 10 million is really lost. That actually we cannot make up anymore because we're running at maximum capacity. The other question was, of this EUR 1 billion in 2024, how much is covered by LTAs already? The I would say it's about 55%, because it's from the EUR 1 billion. We have less LTAs on.
As I explained, we have focused with our LTAs on the 200mm CMOS capacity that represents roughly 75% of the total revenue by then or maybe 70% of the total, closer to 70%. Of that 70% is covered by LTAs, so it's roughly half of the revenue. We are also continue to work on LTA contracts, but they are not yet concluded for our silicon carbide. I expect that will be topped up by more long-term agreements, but they're not. We're still working on that.
Thank you.
The next question is coming from the line of Robert Sanders. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. I just had a question about the French fab, which is 200mm CMOS. I understand that your Malaysian fab is almost, you know, completely dominated by Melexis. You know, those, that's obviously covered by these long-term agreements. What about the implied margin of what you're getting in the French fab? The French fab is obviously more expensive to run, probably a bit more, you know, inefficient, and it's certainly been loss-making over the years. What is the margin that you're now capturing within these long-term agreements, relative to the historic margin of that fab? Thanks.
Well, the pricing, we do not distinguish between the fab because the technologies, the products, the services that we deliver are equivalent and there are customers who are buying identical products from the fab in Malaysia and the fab in France. They're at the same selling price. Now, if you look at the fab in France, if the fab has the same, because in Malaysia we're now running close to $300 million revenue. If we have the same revenues, which we anticipate roughly in three years in the fab in France, the cost structure is very similar except the salaries. The labor cost is the only differentiating element.
As I understand it, the capacities of both fabs is relatively similar. But historically, your ASP was way lower in France. If you're gonna be ending up producing roughly the same mix, whether it's you know 0.13 or whatever, and your ASP goes up, surely the French fab can go from like EUR 150 million-EUR 300 million of revenue potential very quickly.
That's correct. Over that timeframe, the goal is to bring the X-FAB France into a revenue close to EUR 300 million in three years.
Got it. Those agreements that you've signed, if a competitor, you know, like one of the Chinese players knocks on the door of that company, your customer that has signed up to that agreement, you know, what rights do you have to recover value from that customer? Because, you know, there would be cynical people on this call might just say, "Look, a long-term agreement at some point will not be worth the paper it's printed on." How are you gonna defend, you know?
Well, we can defend it in court if we want.
Mm.
Well, it's clear that if a customer says, "Well, I do not honor the contract, and I go somewhere else," then for sure we will meet in court.
Got it. Could you just, my only other question, can you comment a bit on the situation in Texas now, so in terms of how much capacity you have in silicon carbide? I think in the past you talked about having a capacity of 5,000 per month. I mean, the fab itself, I think it's more like a 15,000 facility. Where are you with the transition of that facility to presumably eventually being fully silicon carbide? Thanks.
Yeah. The run rate today as we is something like 3,000 wafers that we ship per month. The capacity that we have in place is now approaching 5,000. Beginning next year we'll probably. We are starting more wafers than what come out because we are ramping up. There's a gradual slope. By end of next year, we'll be more than double. We probably then should run something like 7,000 wafers a month on silicon carbide. We towards end of 2024, we might again be roughly doubling that. Maybe end 2024, beginning 2025.
It's a matter of building the capacity up because of the lead times of the equipment and some facility work that needs to be done. The factory has a capacity of 26,000 wafer CMOS. However, we need to add additional equipment to do the silicon carbide. Those equipments are being ordered, so we're ramping up, and that's so we will see a strong progress over the next, that continues over the next year.
Is the right math if by 2025 this market is 2 million wafers a year annually, at 7% share you would be needing to do 12,000 a month. Is that the kind of math that you're thinking about?
Yeah. That's about right. Our ambition is maybe a bit higher even, but that's about right. Yes.
Okay. Thank you.
There are no further questions in the queue. Everyone, just a kind reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your phone. The next question is coming from the line of David O'Connor. Please go ahead. The line is open.
Great. Thanks for the follow-up. Just following on from Rob's question earlier. I remember previously you guys talked about an EBITDA breakeven for the French fab in Q4. Maybe just checking, are we still on track for that? Can you just level set us as well on you're expecting this year, the revenue from the French fab and that kind of how you progress to that EUR 300 million. What are the major kind of milestones in that progression? Also on the kind of EBITDA margin from this breakeven to the kind of group average. Thanks.
As I explained, it is towards 2025 that we expect to be in this EUR 300 million range for the French fab. The trajectory though, we have an investment program that is running there, that in total to roughly EUR 170 million. That is to convert the existing capacities for mainly RF- SOI to produce the high voltage processes of X-FAB and the high- voltage SOI process. That is gradually being rolled out, and these expansions should be fully in place in 2025.
Okay. Understood. In terms of the run rate exiting this year, the run rate of the French fab, I think you mentioned that the GF business is going away. How should we read into that in terms of the run rate from the French fab just exiting this year?
The run rate right now is roughly on schedule for the X-FAB core technologies. However, the GlobalFoundries business is dropping faster than expected. This is driven by the overall weakness in the mobile phone market and so forth. On the one hand, well, it's okay, a bit of lost revenue. But we know it would go away anyhow, so we don't regret it too much, and we are focusing now even more of our people onto the ramp-up of the X-FAB own technologies. That's what's happening there. The run rate for Q3 on a yearly level was something like EUR 100 million. Or EUR 25 million.
Okay. Understood. Thanks. In terms of the EBITDA breakeven for Q4, is that still on track?
I said they were somewhat behind there because the GlobalFoundries business is disappearing faster than expected. If you look at how we saw this year at the beginning of the year and how the year actually turned out is that the mobile, well, Automotive and our core business is very strong and is all at maximum capacity. However, the consumer business, consumer and mobile business, that turned out lower than we anticipated at the beginning of the year. We are there a bit, that gives it a headwind, particularly in the factory in Corbeil. Actually that's the only factory where we had such a mobile exposure. All this risk is, yeah, disappearing, and the business next year should become more and more predictable.
Okay. Understood. Your expectation for that RF business for GF next year?
It's virtually zero.
Virtually zero. Okay. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Actually, if I could just squeeze in one more just separately on the bookings. You know, some of your larger peers here in the U.S. reported some weakness on the Industrial side of things. Can you just talk to your bookings? Are you seeing any kind of push-outs at all from any customer or changes in kind of the linearity of orders? Anything that you would see that kind of warrant more caution from customers? Thank you.
No. We don't see any weakness in our core markets. The build push-outs and reductions, they're limited to just mobile ICs and market. Hello, operator.
Yeah. Oh, I'm so sorry. We have no further questions in the queue.
Okay. Thank you. If there are no further questions, then I thank everyone for attending today. We'll meet again for the conference call on the ninth of February for the full year results. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Goodbye.