Hello and welcome to the X-FAB first quarter results conference call. My name is Laura, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this call is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only mode. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing *1 on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero, and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Rudi De Winter, CEO, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Thank you, Laura. Welcome to the conference call to comment on the X-FAB first quarter results. In the conference room today with me is Alba Morganti, CFO. Let me start. In the first quarter, X-FAB recorded revenues of $204 million, down 6% year on year and up 8% quarter on quarter, which is well within the guidance. First quarter revenue in core markets, automotive, industrial, medical, was at $188.6 million, up 4% quarter on quarter, and now represents 93% of our total revenue. The quarterly bookings were $175 million, a 26% increase quarter on quarter. This growth is primarily related to strong bookings in automotive and industrial end markets. In general, customers are still placing orders later than usual in reaction to the currently shortened lead times. The backlog for the first quarter amounts at $387 million compared to $414 million at the end of the previous quarter.
The backlog is still high compared to the situation pre-COVID. The average backlog used to be around three months' revenue or less, and I expect the backlog to further come down a bit gradually to stabilize maybe around four and a half times monthly revenue due to the improved cycle times from our operations. The automotive revenue was $ 135 million, up 5% sequentially.
Main drivers for the automotive growth in the first quarter were EV-related applications. Industrial revenue in the first quarter came in at $ 39 million, up 9% quarter on quarter, and the industrial business is benefiting from increased demand following the announcements on our 150 mm CMOS. The revenue in the medical end markets amounted to $ 14 million. X-FAB recorded a sequential revenue increase across all technologies. The CMOS revenue went up 2% quarter on quarter, the silicon carbide 5%, and the microsystems business 14%.
The silicon carbide order intake increased 17% sequentially compared to the previous quarter, and it is the second consecutive quarter in a row that we see a significant increase in the bookings, signaling that the markets gradually recovered on the silicon carbide. The main growth driver for the silicon carbide bookings was data center applications. The megatrends electrification of everything and sensing everywhere will drive sustainable demand for the comprehensive set of specialty technologies that we offer, enabling solutions that contribute to the mitigation of climate change and more efficient digital healthcare for the aging population. With the phase-out of inventory corrections and the expected gradual recovery of demand in the course of 2025, we reiterate full-year guidance with a revenue range of $820 million-$870 million and an EBITDA margin in the range of 24%-27%.
The geopolitical tensions and the related customs regulations do not currently impact X-FAB business directly, as X-FAB is selling its goods at X or X-Works. The indirect effect of these tensions can be either positive or negative, and it's hard to estimate right now. The guidance accounts for all identified effects as we know right now. On the operations side, we progressed well with the expansion of the 180-nanometer CMOS capacity, which is crucial for supporting our CMOS and microsystems business. During the first quarter, all tools for the newly constructed clean room in Malaysia were delivered, installed, and they are now being qualified. This marks the approaching completion of our global EUR 1 billion expansion program. The associated capital expenditures are anticipated to be finalized within the first half of 2025. In the first quarter, capital expenditures totaled EUR 102 million.
As previously announced, the total CapEx for the full year will be just below EUR 250 million, of which 75% will fall in the first half year. I would like to pass the word to Alba now for the financials.
Thank you, Rudi. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Now we will go through the financial update. I would like to start this financial section by highlighting that the first quarter, we succeeded to increase quarter on quarter our gross profit by more than 22%, and we almost doubled our operating profit. Our EBITDA grew by more than 23%, while our revenue increased by 8%, totalizing $204.1 million, as Rudi said, which was in the upper part of our guidance of $195-$205 million. More specifically, our EBITDA was $49.1 million with an EBITDA margin of 24%. If we exclude the impact from revenues recognized over time, the EBITDA margin for the first quarter would have been 23.8%, also within the guided range of 22-25%.
For the net financial result in the first quarter, we recorded a loss of $7.2 million, which includes unrealized foreign exchange effects totalizing $3.4 million negative. Our profitability remained unaffected by exchange rate fluctuations, as our business remains naturally hedged. The aforementioned unrealized foreign exchange losses are mainly coming from the reevaluation of our euro-denominated loans. At a constant US dollar-euro exchange rate of 1.08, sorry, of 1.09 as experienced in the previous year's quarter, the EBITDA margin would have been 0.1 percentage points higher. Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the first quarter amounted to $157.2 million, which represents a decrease of 27% compared to the previous quarter. This is well in line with the capex expenditure plan, which we kept under control.
As stated previously, by the end of the second quarter, we should finalize our major capex plan, and we'll come back to a more normalized level of cash and related to the investments, so the cash out will be normalized as from Q3 onwards. To conclude this financial section, I would like to share our next quarter's guidance. In Q2 2025, we expect to reach revenues in a range of $200-$210 million and an EBITDA margin in the range of 22.5%-25.5%. This guidance is based on an average exchange rate of 1.08 US dollar to euro and does not take into account the impact of IFRS 15. We also keep our full-year 2025 guidance unchanged, with annual revenue expected in the range of $820-$870 million and an EBITDA margin in the range of 24%-27%.
I would like to give the word back to Rudi.
Thank you, Alba. I'm pleased to present the first quarter results reflecting X-FAB's resilient business with an 8% sequential increase in revenue and a robust EBITDA margin of 24%. X-FAB is a lot more resilient than in the previous down cycle in 2019. Although geopolitical tensions pose challenges for the semiconductor industry, they are also offering new opportunities for us due to our global presence across all major continents. I'm confident in the capacity to navigate these challenges as our specialty technologies address societal megatrends, and they will continue to be in demand. With this, I would like to close the introduction, and Laura, I'm open now for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press *1 on your telephone keypad. We will pause for a brief moment to allow everyone to signal for questions. Thank you. We will take our first question from Guy Sips of KBC Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, my question is related to the press release of Melexis, one of your biggest clients of this week, or end of last week, related to their, let's say, new China fab. Yeah, what would be the impact for you? I saw in your 2024 annual report that your shipments to China are EUR 102.5 million. What portion of that is coming from Melexis, and how do you see that evolving related to their recent press release? Thank you.
Thank you, Guy. First of all, the EUR 102 million China revenue is not from Melexis, so these are all other customers. Typically, this China business is with Chinese-headquartered companies. With respect to this press release of Melexis, you need to know we're maybe producing now around 500 different products for Melexis. I think on the one end, we encourage or we want to not further increase our dependence on Melexis. We see this maybe more as a positive that Melexis also uses commodity technologies from other foundries if they can. As X-FAB, our mission is to focus more on specialties where we have unique features and so forth. This is not coming as a surprise. This was well known to us, and this is all also factored into our long-term plans.
Coming back to this EUR 102 million, it was not growing year over year, although we can assume that China business in automotive and medical semiconductors should have grown. How do you see that evolving over time? Your X-FAB China exposure, excluding, yeah, and not having this impact of Melexis, how do you see that evolving?
It's a good.
105 million in the end of 2023, I presume.
Yeah, that's possible. Now, the evolution is also driven by the fact. The underlying business in this 100 million now is a lot more automotive than it was the year before. If we go back three, four years, X-FAB revenue in China for automotive was zero. We expect this to grow to about up to 60% of our revenue in the next couple of years will be automotive revenue in China with Chinese companies. What fell away is, you know, the silicon carbide last year did not drop a lot. In 2023, there was quite some silicon carbide also for Chinese customers. There was an effect, and there was also an effect on the RF SOI.
We used to do quite a bit of legacy RF SOI that was sold globally, but in particular also to Chinese customers. That also dropped a lot in 2024. It was all replaced by more and more automotive business.
A last question before I leave the floor to my colleagues is on silicon carbide. How do you see that evolving? Do you expect that we could expect some recovery by the end of this year also in silicon carbide, or is it one of the most difficult markets to predict?
Yeah, as I told you, the bookings are developing very well. Although maybe in dollar value, they have not reached the levels where we were historically. The quantity of wafers, we are at a very decent level again, not yet exceeding the peak in the past, but very close. The model has changed, so now we're doing a lot more, or almost all the revenues with consigned wafers. The revenue per wafer that is generated is less because the substrates are not charged to the customers, but the value add per wafer is still in the same range than previously. The main applications that drove recently the business is for data center power management.
We see also with our new technology that we brought to the market in December 2024, we see very good results with our customers having top-notch performance with respect to our own resistance. That is an important measure of merit. We are on the leading edge with our newest technology, and that will put us also again on a good track for growth. The prototypings with customers are also going well. Many customers are preparing for new device launches, and we expect that it gradually will recover.
Perhaps the last final question is on the recent contract you signed with IQE on gallium nitride. Yeah, how important could it be? As from when could this generate revenues for X-FAB?
The main purpose of this was to establish a European supply chain all the way from substrates to finished products. That is with respect to revenue. I believe that maybe it generates revenue on developed. Today, we mainly have development programs with customers and production. I expect that it starts in 2026.
It would be for power devices?
It is for we have various developments ongoing. The first to go in production is more consumer type of power management. We also have developments for automotive and what they call digital energy and things like that. It is about the first thing I expect in 2026 to go to the market is AC/DC type of power management.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. We will now move on to our next question from Robert Sanders of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I guess the first one would be around IDMs that are closing 200 millimeter. It seems like companies like STMicro are expediting the process of migrating customers away from 200 to 300. Are there customers that you could potentially win that may not be as interested in moving up to larger diameters? Is there an opportunity here from IDM outsourcing if this is a wider trend? I have a couple of follow-ups. Thanks.
This is maybe a possibility. However, for X-FAB, we are not so interested in this outsourcing business. We have done that for the RF SOI in the past. We prefer to have customers designing products on our technologies and that we produce. If there is an end of life of products and then they want to continue on 200 mm, that could be the case. Outsourcing definitely is not the business model for X-FAB to produce for other companies on their technology.
Got it. On 300, I know you've had a vague plan to do 300. Is there a scenario where you would co-invest with another player maybe to take a corridor of capacity? Because obviously, when you look at the landscape, NXP have got a partnership with Vanguard. ST is building a fab, and onsemi tried to buy Allegro, presumably to bring them to 300. There seems to be a general trend to do 300. Is there not a danger of you not being able to compete without 300?
For the type of business we are in, for many products, it's not needed because the volumes are not justifying 300 millimeter. Another important reason not to go to 300 millimeters is our integrated microsystems where the microsystems itself is on 200 millimeters. So it's important to have 200 millimeter base wafers on CMOS wafers. Yeah, I do not exclude that over the long term. Maybe we have a plan where such a relationship could develop, but that is not on the agenda today.
Got it. Last couple of questions would just be the capital markets that you talked about, more than $1 billion of revenue in 2026. It looks a bit of a stretch now. Is that still in place as a target, or is that now off the table?
That's still a target. This is based on two things. First, new products that are adding to the top line as well as a recovery of the base business, in particular the automotive, the 350-nanometer technologies where today we're definitely not fully loaded, where we think that we'll recover in 2026, as well as the silicon carbide that we expect also to further develop in 2026.
Just last question, just on the end markets. TI talked about industrial picking up. STM talked about it picking up in Asia. That is after sort of 10 quarters of downturn. Is industrial picking up a little bit while auto is still under a lot of pressure, or is that not what you see?
What we see is that gradually things are picking up also in, I'm not saying in a great way in automotive yet, but we see here and there pockets where things are recovering. We see in the first quarter gradually more and more positive news than negative news. I think that looks promising. All this is, yeah, before tariffs. It's hard to predict what the tariffs are that will impact us. There will definitely be things that move around to maybe people trying to avoid tariffs. That could as well be positive for us with our supply chain in Asia and Malaysia, very close to China, and the possibility also to deliver to the US. I think it does not necessarily need to be negative.
There could be also a lot of positive, maybe also for our silicon carbide because there's not so much silicon carbide processing in the U.S. We are one of the few next to Wolfspeed. Yeah, it's hard to tell how that will turn out.
Okay, thanks a lot.
Thank you. We currently have no questions coming through. Once again, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press *1 on your telephone keypad. We will pause for a further moment. Thank you. There are no further questions coming through. I will now hand it back to Rudi for closing remarks. Thank you.
Thank you, Laura. Thank you everyone for your questions. I think we can close the call now, and I hope to hear you all together again on July 31 for the first half-year results. Thank you, and have a great evening.
Thank you. Goodbye.
Thank you. This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.