The conference is now being recorded.
Good morning, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to AIXTRON's full year 2017 and Q4 2017 results conference call. Please note that today's call is being recorded. Let me now hand you over to Mr. Guido Pickert, VP of IR and Corporate Communications at AIXTRON, for opening remarks and introductions.
Thank you, operator. Let me start by welcoming you all to our results conference call. I'd also like to welcome our Executive Board, represented by Dr. Felix Grawert and Dr. Bernd Schulte, as well as our VP of Finance and Administration, Charles Russell. As the operator indicated, this call is being recorded by AIXTRON and is considered copyright material. As such, it cannot be re-recorded or rebroadcast without express permission. Your participation in this call implies your consent to this recording. As with previous results conference calls, I trust that all participants have our results presentation slides, page two of which contains the usual safe harbor statement. I will not read it out loud, but would like to point out that it applies throughout this call.
You may also wish to have a look at our latest IR Master presentation, which includes additional information on AIXTRON's markets and its technologies, and is available on our website as well. This call is not being immediately presented via webcast or any other medium. We will place an audio file of the recording or transcript on our website at some point after the call. I would now like to hand you over to Dr. Bernd Schulte for opening remarks. Bernd?
Thanks, Guido. Let me welcome you all to the presentation of AIXTRON's Q4 and full year 2017 results. I will start with an overview of the major developments in 2017 before handing over to Charles Russell, our Vice President Finance & Administration, who will guide you through the financials. This will be followed by Felix Grawert, who will talk about the current market environment. Finally, I will close our presentation with our views on our business prospects in 2018. After that, we are happy to get your questions. 2017 has been an important year of change for AIXTRON. We did manage to refocus the business on long-term profitable opportunities for growth. We could also manage to bring AIXTRON back to profitability. This was, on one hand, due to the positive effect from the sale of our memory business late last year.
On the other hand, it results from the solid work the AIXTRON team has done to return our operative business to sustainable profitability. Let me quickly summarize the measures we have taken to achieve a more focused technology and product portfolio. We have sold our ALD/CVD product line for memory applications to Eugene Technology. There, we competed with much larger manufacturers from the silicon industry with increasingly limited opportunities to grow our market share. Hence, the chance for us to bring this product line to sustainable profitability has been increasingly limited, too. We have frozen our development activities in the area of MOCVD for compound semiconductors in logic processes on 300 millimeter wafers. After discussions with our key customer, the originally expected market opportunities for this innovative technology were not predictable in the near to medium term.
Therefore, no further development efforts are being invested in this field for the time being. In the area of OLEDs, we have discontinued our development activities for thin film encapsulation of OLED devices. The OLED activities are now focused on the OVPD technology for depositing different layers of the OLED stack, which have been transferred to the AIXTRON subsidiary, APEVA. After these steps, we are focused on our core technology, MOCVD, for opto and power electronics applications, plasma enhanced CVD for nanostructures, and organic vapor phase deposition for OLEDs. Felix will give you details on the current market opportunities of our MOCVD business. In addition to our MOCVD product line, we are currently developing a second product line for thin film deposition of organic materials, primarily for OLED displays.
Our OLED activities have been transferred to our daughter company, APEVA. The discussions with the potential joint venture partners are ongoing. A Gen 1 OVPD system is in operation at an Asian display manufacturer's R&D line. A Gen 2 system will be soon installed at the customer's facility in order to qualify the technology for mass production. If successful in qualification and adopted by our customer, the OVPD technology offers a very high revenue and profit potential in the years to come. However, if the qualification is not successful, then this potential might not materialize at all, and we would need to adjust our R&D spending accordingly. As a result, based on our strong position in these markets, as well as more efficient production processes, we managed to improve our gross margins last year.
This was particularly the case in the second half of the year, when gross margin reached 39%-40%, which also reflects the increasing sale of better margin products based on the growing value of high-performance solutions to our customers. Finally, with total revenues of EUR 230 million in 2017, we reached the upper range of our target for the year, while order intake also developed better than originally expected at EUR 263 million. We are also better than break even, with an EBIT reaching EUR 5 million and a net income of EUR 6.5 million. At this point, let me now hand you over to Charles for a more detailed overview of the Q4 and the full year 2017 numbers.
Thanks, Bernd, and hello to everyone. Turning to the key financial slide, 2017 was a good year for AIXTRON, with revenues and orders at the best level since 2011. Orders received were EUR 263 million and revenues, EUR 230 million, each a 17% increase on 2016. The strong orders reflect improved conditions, particularly in our two core markets, MOCVD for LED and for optoelectronics. In addition, order intake in Q4 of EUR 66 million means that we begin the year with a backlog based on a budget rate of $1.20 of EUR 102 million, which gives us a good start for 2018. Gross margin was much improved in 2017 at 32%, compared with 29% in 2016. This was mainly due to a better product mix, particularly in the second half.
The first half suffered from low margin sales of AIX R6 tools and was also affected by the writedowns from freezing the III-V silicon and TFE activities. Overall, as expected, both EBIT and net profit were positive, a black zero, as a consequence of the sale of the ALD/CVD product line and the other structural actions which we took during the year. We haven't separated out the one-off effects in the slides, but you can find them in the notes five and 15 to the financial statements. Cash flow in 2017 was EUR 91 million, mainly as a result of the sale of the ALD/CVD product line and collections from the high level of receivables at the end of 2016. Moving to the next slide, let me go into more depth on the income statement.
As a general picture, the activities which we sold or froze during 2017 had revenues of EUR 39 million and, even taking into account the profit on disposal of ALD/CVD, still made a small EBIT loss. The remaining activities made a small EBIT profit in spite of the low margin AIX R6 sales in the first half. Gross margin in Q4 was 39%. This is free from the effects of the low margin sales from the old or sold product lines and is therefore indicative of what we should expect in the coming periods. For the year, the gross margin improved to 32%, as previously mentioned. Selling expenses for 2017 were EUR 10 million, compared with EUR 14 million in the previous year. The 2016 costs included the closure of a demonstration facility in China. G&A expenses were EUR 17 million, the same as 2016.
The quarterly expense for G&A is unusually low because on completion of the ALD/CVD transaction in Q4, transaction expenses have to be reassigned and included within net other operating income. R&D costs increased by 28% year-on-year from EUR 54 million in 2016 to EUR 69 million in 2017. This includes the writedowns in [TFOS] and TFE which took place in the first half, and also the increased spending on R&D, particularly in the OLED area. Our OLED Gen 2 development expense should be relatively high over the coming months during the period of evaluation. Other operating income includes the EUR 24 million profit on the sale of the ALD/CVD product line. EBIT for 2017 was EUR 5 million compared with minus EUR 21 million in 2016. We recorded a tax credit in 2017 from deferred tax in the U.S.A.
We still have substantial amounts of unrecognized tax losses both in the U.S. and Germany, and if things go to plan, we anticipate further recognition of these assets in 2018. The net results for 2017 were EUR 6 million profit. Moving to the cash flow slide, our cash improved from EUR 160 million last year to EUR 246 million at the end of 2017. The most significant factors in this were the EUR 61 million we received from the sale of ALD/CVD and EUR 39 million from collections from receivables. EUR 12 million of the cash flow received as a result of the sale of ALD/CVD, we have to pay out to third parties in 2018, and that will reduce this year's cash flow. CapEx for 2017 totaled EUR 10 million compared with EUR 9 million in 2016. Turning to the next slide, our balance sheet.
AIXTRON's balance sheet is in good shape at the end of 2017, with improvements in metrics for cash, receivables, inventories, and customer advance payments. The ALD/CVD liabilities are included in others, and the equity ratio was 81% at the end of 2017. With that, let me hand you over to Felix.
Thank you, Charles. Hello to everyone. Let me take you through recent developments in the markets we address, turning to slide number eight. First, to the laser-based 3D sensing market. Lasers are increasingly used for 3D sensor application in consumer electronics, industry, and also the automotive sector. We have seen the introduction of 3D sensing features in high-end smartphone, and now demand is expected from the Android camp as well. We serve customers from Europe, the U.S., and Asia, and it is expected that the strong market conditions in this segment will last beyond 2018, as 3D sensing is proliferating across the portfolios of smartphone vendors, requiring an ever-growing number of laser units per year. AIXTRON is well-positioned in the segment of MOCVD tools for lasers because this application requires high uniformity and precision in the deposited layers.
The strength of our tools matches well with the customer requirements in this segment. In order to keep our strong market position, we make dedicated investments in further improving the capabilities of our tools, and we expect a strong return on this investment. For lasers, we currently experience strong and growing demand from customers that serve applications in telecommunications as well. Global data traffic is exponentially growing, driven by the increasing use of internet services, especially video on demand, cloud services, and by the Internet of Things. This translates into demand for lasers as optical signal transmitters, photodiodes as receivers, as well as optical amplifiers and switches. They are used on the one hand within data centers, enabling fast interconnect between servers, and on the other hand, in the field across the optical datacom networks. The strength of our technology mentioned before also applies to this segment.
Another market with strong orders in 2018 is the area of specialty LEDs. AIXTRON has a strong position in the area of red, orange, yellow LEDs, we call it ROY, that are used for large area displays, such as in airports or shopping malls, and gradually also in automotive backlighting. This brings me to the display segment on slide nine. For displays of small to medium size, the AIXTRON group has two fundamentally different next-generation technologies in the pipeline. On the one hand, our subsidiary company, APEVA, is working on OLED technology. On the other hand, customers use our tools to develop Micro LED technology. The market for OLED displays has been mostly driven by the use in mobile phones in recent years. For the coming years, a further increase in the use of OLED displays in mobile and increasingly by use in TV sets is expected.
An additional driver could be the emergence of foldable displays. Market researchers expect the OLED industry's revenue to more than triple in the timeframe from 2016 to 2021 to approximately $50 billion. As mentioned by Bernd earlier in this call, a generation 2 OLED system of our subsidiary, APEVA, will soon be installed at a customer's facility in order to qualify the technology for mass production. In parallel, we see several customers use our MOCVD tools for development of Micro LED technology. Some TV makers have made announcements of first products at consumer electronics shows this year. For Micro LED, it is expected that a very high uniformity across the wafer and precise layer control is needed. Again, a feature offered in the required precision by AIXTRON MOCVD tools.
While older technology is mature and in volume production already today, the Micro LED market is still in an early phase. We get different feedback from customers on the timing of volume ramp. Some claim start of mass production as early as in two to three years. Others expect up to 10 years until true volume. I will only briefly touch the area of power semiconductors, as we discussed this in quite some detail in the last earnings call. We see gradual pickup in the demand for tools in the areas of gallium nitride-based power semiconductors as first customers ramp production after a successful R&D and qualification phase at their customers. The market for silicon carbide-based power semiconductors is moving towards volume ramp, with silicon carbide MOSFETs being used in a number of first high-volume applications, such as EV charging stations and first EV models.
AIXTRON comes from a rather low market share, as mentioned in the last call in this segment, we get positive customer feedback on the new silicon carbide tools we are currently developing. In addition to the MOCVD and OVPD product line, we are developing technologies for the production of graphene, carbon nanotubes, and carbon nanowires as part of innovation project. These materials promising interesting future potential in a variety of applications, be it in battery or in display application. In summary, we see multiple and tangible growth opportunities in the markets we are addressing.
Reason for that is that our equipment enables the development and manufacture of key components for optical data communication for cloud computing or the Internet of Things, next generation fast mobile networks such as 5G data communication, next generation OLED or Micro LED displays, highly efficient energy conversion and electromobility, as well as for 3D sensing in smartphones, cars, and other areas. Due to our proven ability to develop and market innovative enabling deposition equipment, we continue to believe in the positive outlook for AIXTRON and its targeted market. With that, let me hand you back to Bernd for our guidance and wrap up.
Thank you, Felix. Before we open the Q&A session, let me give you an overview on what we expect for 2018 on slide 10. Based on our current corporate structure, an estimate of the order situation and our budget rate of $1.20 to the EUR, we expect to achieve both revenues and total orders in the range between EUR 230 million and EUR 260 million in 2018. Please note that this represents a growth between 20% and 35% based on the EUR 191 million revenue of the continued business in 2017, excluding the revenues of the ALD/CVD product line, which was sold. On the profitability side, mainly due to the larger share of higher margin products, as mentioned before, we expect to achieve a gross margin between 35% and 40% and an EBIT of 5% to 10% of the revenues in 2018.
We expect to achieve a positive operational cash flow in 2018. We expect the cash flow to be lower compared to 2017 due to the positive effects from the sale of the ALD/CVD product line in the amount of EUR 61 million, which were included in the cash flow of the previous year. Cash flow in 2018 will be affected by liabilities towards the parties of the ALD/CVD business in the amount of EUR 12 million, which we received in 2017 and which will be paid in full during 2018. These expectations for 2018 are based on full consideration of the results of the AIXTRON subsidiary, APEVA, with all necessary investments to further develop the OLED activity.
This 2018 growth will be fueled by the capacity requirements of our customers to satisfy demand from 3D sensing for mobile and increasingly automotive applications, as well as optical data communication. Beyond 2018, we are looking at the growing usage of wide bandgap materials, silicon carbide, and gallium nitride in power components, particularly in electric vehicles, as a major growth driver. These opportunities require investment in product development now. Finally, let me thank you, the shareholders, for your continuing support, as well as the AIXTRON employees and the supervisory board for their hard work over the last 12 months. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our 2017 annual results presentation, and thank you for your attention. We are now available to answer your questions. Guido?
Thank you, Bernd, Felix, and Charles. Operator will now take the questions, please.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press nine, followed by the star key on your telephone keypad. If you wish to cancel your question, please press nine, followed by the star key again. Please press nine, star now to state your question. The first question comes from Mr. Simpson. Mr. Simpson, you have the word.
Yes. Hello. Thanks for letting me on. Maybe just a couple of clarification questions from me, actually. Just looking at that silicon carbide development that you're doing, is there anything you can give us as far as timeline and design advantages that AIXTRON would have into that space? Whether or not you can say that this is definitively for automotive end markets or if it's got wider appeal?
Yes. Thank you for the question. We expect the first R&D tool by the end of 2018. First volume shipment early or middle 2019. This tool will target the broad silicon carbide market, both for industrial application and also for automotive application.
Okay, you're straddling both autos and industrial.
Yes.
Sorry. Maybe if I step back a little bit and look at the general landscape for III-V compounds. If you look across the semiconductor space, there's a crowding R&D starting to happen. We know Cree is doubling investments. ST are pushing into use of GaN in automotive. Even MACOM look at power amplifiers for GaN on silicon. I wonder if from your perspective, maybe two questions I've got here, what is it that keeps you ahead of others as we move into III-V compounds on silicon? Whether you think there is a process, maybe a silver bullet process in the market that will be a sort of winner takes all? Who do you think, or where do you think that sort of layering on silicon could actually be advantage to your customers?
Yeah. Two questions. What keeps us ahead and what is the silver bullet? Yeah. Let me go to the first question first. What keeps us ahead? Essentially the compound power semiconductor market, both gallium nitride and silicon carbide, has to be looked upon by sub-segment. Yeah. We cannot just look at the overall, but for example, gallium nitride falls into three, four different market segments. We believe that we have very good tools already today in the marketplace for some of these markets. For those markets where we are not ahead, we have an accordance development pipeline. We look at summary segment by segment and make sure we have a winning value proposition for each sub-segment.
Your second question, whether there is the one silver bullet, I would say no, there isn't, because this market falls in so many subsegments that have to be addressed individually and that have to be understood in their specific requirement. This is our approach.
Great. It's different bullets for different subsegments basically.
Correct.
Right. Thank you.
The next question comes from Mr. Schupp. Mr. Schupp, you have the word.
Yes, good afternoon, everyone. Two questions, please. First of all, quite a few of your customers have announced over the last three to six months, quite substantial plans to expand CapEx, particularly for the 3D sensing topic, for potentially both of the major consumer electronics companies, ultimately. Just wondering, it's not really reflected, or in how far is this reflected in your Q4 orders already, and how are you looking at the first half? I guess the precise question would be, are you to some extent building a gray order book? Is there a potential to kind of delay as much as you can orders in order to stretch out the lead times, somewhat? The second question would be just on guidance.
If I take your guidance slide out of your results presentation, you show that the order backlog is already above EUR 100 million as per the end of last year. You have safe service revenue of up to EUR 45 million for the year. In other words, if you back out this safe revenue of EUR 150 million for the year, it implies that assuming you get orders for the first eight months, that you can still invoice this year, implies about EUR 15 million or so of order input for quarter next year.
Mr. Schupp, I think we lost you. Are you hearing us? I think we lost the signal. We may switch, or let me answer the questions as long I have understood them. I think one question was about the CapEx ramp in the 3D sensing space, and what is the pattern between Q4 and the years to come? I think we see both. We have part of the orders in Q4 definitely being for 3D sensing applications, but we also expect a certain capacity ramps to come in the first half of 2018. It's in both. Regarding our guidance, first of all, I think Mr. Schupp mentioned that we may be able to invoice orders we received the first eight months. We have to anticipate that order cycle times are increasing because of the heated semiconductor markets and the supply chain.
In our guidance, we basically assumed that we take basically the orders we take in the first half, they get recognized as revenue in this full year. This was the assumption basically we took here. I think when we look at the guidance, you see this is we assuming a continued business size, what we experienced in the second half of year 2017.
Okay. Thank you very much.
At the moment, we have no questions. If you have any questions, please press nine, followed by the star key now. Now we have a question from Mr. Holfelder. Mr. Holfelder, you have the word.
Thank you. You mentioned R&D in the coming months. Can you provide an R&D budget, a rough guidance for 2018?
I think we've guided, it's Charles here. I think we've guided for the EBIT and we've guided for the gross margin. The OpEx logically is around 30% in between that, which is around $75 million.
We don't expect much change in the level of SG&A, and therefore, the difference from the similar level of SG&A this year to next year is the R&D spend.
Okay, got it.
The reason for the increase is simply that we've got a machine which will be evaluated over a period of time, and we have to expense it over that period.
As I mentioned, Mr. Holfelder, that we assume for the entire year, the full cost of the OLED development and our daughter, APEVA, to be consolidated in our numbers.
Yep. In terms of the time horizon for the OLED qualification for mass production, when do you expect to have a decision?
We currently have a Gen 2 OLED deposition system, which is being built up at the site in Asia. The system is up and running. We are currently doing some technical fine-tuning in close collaboration with our customer. If that is successful, the tool will be moved into our customer's R&D fab for qualification. This moving into the fab, we expect into Q2.
Okay, got it. One question on silicon carbide. You mentioned the new tool. Can you talk about what will differentiate the tool? Is it a throughput issue that you want to differentiate by throughput and at the end of the day, by cost? What is your strategy here?
Yes. Our tools are already today very strong in terms of uniformity and the layer and the thickness and precision. This box, this requirement of our customers, we already fulfill today. What we are today missing is the throughput topic. With the new development, this gap is being addressed. We expect that the new tool moves in terms of throughput, us in the leadership position in the competitive environment.
Mm-hmm. First sales you expect during 2019, related to the new tool?
Correct.
Okay. Last question, just on your optoelectronics business. You announced during the past two years a very nice orders also related to 3D sensing VCSEL suppliers. On the other hand, your sales have been relatively stable, for example, 2017 compared to 2015. Was some of the, let's say, 3D sensing related VCSEL business offset by the weakness we've seen over the past, let's say, 12 months in the datacom-telecom area? Now you have pretty much a perfect scenario where datacom-telecom is coming back, and at the same time, you're also seeing 3D sensing.
I wouldn't explain it like that. I think the 3D sensing showing some significant volume we only experienced since 2017, really. While the datacom-telecom business is a relatively stable business we had all over the years, and basically you can say on this stable demand we had, let's say for the last one or two years on telecom, this 3D sensing comes on top.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Mr. Taze. Mr. Taze, you have the word.
Yes. Veysel Taze. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one will be around the EBIT guidance. Nevertheless, if I look at your gross margin guidance, it's really very strong. Then the EBIT margin implies at the midpoint, roughly EUR 70 million OpEx, EUR 73 million OpEx. That looks quite high, if I look back at your previous communication where we were talking about EUR 40 million to EUR 50 million. I was wondering if there are new elements in the OpEx.
In the R&D spend in 2018, we will, as I said before, have to expense the Gen 2 demonstrator, which we are in the process of getting qualified, and that we expense in full during 2018. That's the major change in the R&D compared with 2017's continuing R&D. That and the additional spend on power electronics development.
Okay.
May I clarify here in addition, Mr. Taze? The numbers you mentioned is basically excluding the cost for the OLED. As we mentioned, we are in continuous discussion with Samsung Venture. plannings for our APEVA daughter company. As we do not know exactly how the result is going to be, we decided to guide with the full cost for the OLED product line.
Okay.
I think this was the cleanest way we thought to present.
No, well understood. I did not have this expensed on Gen 2 tools, so that's okay. On the OLED part, there were recently a lot of rumors from Samsung, what is going to happen to their OLED business. There are some push-outs in the CapEx plan, I think, particularly for the Fab Five, what they have, which is in this OLED space. How do you read this topic? What's your take on that?
Yeah. Of course, we cannot comment on the decisions by any player in the industry. You just mentioned a big player here. We overall see that there still is a very high demand, very strong demand, and that's the signals we get, regardless of any short-term movement.
Yeah. Okay. On the VCSEL part of the business, from your previous call, what I understood is your market share is close to 100% or something. Your competitor, Veeco, I think they introduced a new tool generation for the VCSEL market. How do you see their tool versus yours? It's their part rather for datacom, et cetera, and you're more stronger in the 3D sensing, or any threat to you?
Certainly, we believe that our tool today is the leading tool, and I'm not prepared and not able to say exactly the market share. I think we can say we have the leading tool in both in 3D sensing and in telecom/datacom. There's always competition, and we always welcome competition and there ever been competition, and we take competition always very serious. Today, all we can say is that we believe we have the tool of record in these markets.
Okay. The final one, I don't know if you are willing to share that, but in your total tool shipments, in 2017, how many tools were related to silicon carbide?
Small number, two, three, four, something in that order. Don't have the exact numbers here.
All right.
We mentioned before that silicon carbide, we come from a low market share, and we want to grow based on the new developments, which we discussed earlier.
Okay. Thank you very much. Congratulations to the strong numbers.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Mr. Bernstein. Please state your question.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two. One is just on the datacom market and ramp over the next couple of years. I guess in prior years, the metro and long-haul markets have taken on the order of 300,000 lasers or so, and now that we're talking about replacing essentially Ethernet NIC cards with fiber optics, we're talking about millions. Is that your understanding, and are we expecting a ramp in VCSEL production to meet that?
Well, I must admit that I'm not the expert in the end device. What we've seen definitely is that the mid-haul and short-haul are now getting usage of laser devices, particularly in these big cloud computing cloud centers, and this is the driver of our customers to order more tools.
Okay. Could you just talk about large customers, top 10 customers, et cetera? Any new ones in 2017, how you expect things to maybe change in 2018, what percentage the top 10 customers were for the year?
Well, I believe the top 10 customers have not been changed over the recent years, and honestly, I do not also expect them to change in 2018 and forward. I think in particular in the optoelectronic area, I think the battlefield is quite clear, and I think it's all the known suspects you can think of.
How big as a % were your top 10 customers in 2017?
I would say top 10, it's typically in the 60%-70% range.
Great. Thanks so much.
The next question comes from Mr. Schaumann. Mr. Schauman, please state your question.
Maybe that's me, Malte Schaumann , RBC. First question is on OLEDs. More than one company is putting billions of millions of dollars into inkjet printing and betting on that technology. Maybe you can elaborate on how you see inkjet in comparison to your OVPD technology, maybe for both applications, smartphones and large area TV displays.
We believe that also the OLED market will fall into different sub-segments. The inkjet printing has a benefit when it's not about fine pixels, but very large screens where high resolution is not needed. Yeah. Layers where no pixelation at all is needed. There is likely to be a coexistence of different technologies in the marketplace. Yeah. How exactly that game will play out, the future will show.
Okay, high resolution smartphones would probably rather rely on a vacuum deposition instead of.
Exactly, yes. For high resolutions, the inkjet printing, we would not expect to give the required resolution in terms of pixel density. For very large TV screens, that can be a different topic.
Yeah. Okay. Secondly, maybe you can comment on your working capital and how that might develop going forward. You came from pretty high working capital level, both on inventories and receivables at the end of 2016. Both reduced substantially to a pretty low level in 2017 from a working capital to sales ratio of below 10%. Maybe you can give us some guidance, what should we expect in end model in 2018, 2019?
I think the falling receivables, in particular between 2016 and 2017, was because a lot of the sales in Q4 2016 were bunched in December. That was, I think, around a third of the year's sales were made in one month of December. Don't forget, during the year, we've sold the ALD/CVD activity, which is another reason why inventories and receivables and working capital requirements have fallen during the year. The levels we've got at the moment, where the inventory turns are something just under four, the receivables are quite low in terms of day sales outstanding, I think it's 30-something. They look to me to be fairly normal for the MOCVD business because that business has advanced payments. I don't expect any substantial change there, apart from the volume effects of having a bigger business.
For the OLED activity in the future, if that gets production orders, that's a different question, and we'll have to see that when we get those orders.
Yeah, sure. Okay, thanks.
There are no further questions anymore.
With this, we conclude our results conference call for today. You know where to find us if you have any questions left, and we would welcome you again to our next conference call in Q1 at the end of April. Thank you very much and have a good day.
The conference is no longer being recorded.