Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Elmos Semiconductor SE Analyst Conference call and webcast regarding the preliminary results of the fiscal year 2023. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Dr. Arne Schneider, CEO. Please go ahead.
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to our virtual analyst conference and earnings webcast for fiscal year 2023. I would particularly like to welcome our two new analysts from Stifel and Piguet Galland, who have recently started to cover Elmos. Together with our longstanding analysts from Warburg Research, ODDO BHF, Hauck Aufhäuser, and Deutsche Bank, they provide a broad coverage for investors. Today, I'm very happy to present to you the highlights and preliminary financial results of another eventful and successful year, with record financials and important structural milestones. As usual, you have the opportunity to ask questions via telephone at the end of my presentation, which is also available in the IR section on our website. Before I will explain the major developments of the year 2023, let me give you a very brief overview of Elmos. This year, we're actually celebrating our 40th anniversary.
Elmos was founded in 1984 and has developed over four decades into a leading specialist for analog mixed-signal semiconductors in the automotive industry. ICs measure, control, communicate in many different functions in the car, and enable electronic intelligence at the edge of the vehicle. Our innovative solutions address several key automotive megatrends, such as autonomous driving and ADAS, safety, interior comfort, digitization, and electrification. Or to put it simply, Elmos innovations make mobility safer, more comfortable, and more energy efficient. We have six main application fields. In each of our attractive niches, we have established a leading position in the global market and continuously develop the next IC generations that provide added value for our customers and end users. We estimate that on average, eight Elmos ICs are installed in every newly produced car worldwide in 2023. However, as you know, this is a very broad spectrum.
You can easily imagine that the content of Elmos ICs in a fully equipped premium model or a modern EV is significantly higher. Over the years, we have continuously expanded our international presence. With more than 1,300 employees in our 15 main locations worldwide, we serve all relevant regions, always close to our customers. Almost 450 experienced hardware and software engineers, chip designers, and semiconductor specialists located in our R&D centers turn our deep understanding of our customers' needs and future trends into innovative microelectronics, helping to shape the mobility of the future. Many of the global leading tier ones are our direct customers. More than 50% of our sales are generated in Asia, where our ICs are assembled into specific systems and then shipped to car factories around the world.
Elmos products are installed in many different brands and models, from traditional European OEMs to car manufacturers on the east or the west coast of the U.S., and local OEMs in Asia, including many new brands in China. Elmos is a pioneer for innovative IC solutions. With 40 years of experience, we have established world-market-leading positions in various automotive applications. Together with our global leading tier one and OEM partners, Elmos is one driving force of the mobility of the future as IC solutions enable intelligent electronics in modern cars. Let me give you just a few examples. For maximum comfort and safety, Elmos ICs for ultrasonic sensors are crucial because they enable the very precise detection of the vehicle's environment. As a global market leader, Elmos has already delivered more than one billion ultrasonic ICs worldwide.
The next generation of Elmos ultrasonic ICs presented at this year's CES in Las Vegas comes with AI-based data evaluation. This pioneering sensor technology can monitor the vehicle's surroundings even better, enabling a stress-free and safe assisted autonomous driving experience at slower speeds, e.g., when parking or in urban traffic. Ambient interior lighting is a fantastic success story, increasingly popular and already today an integral part in modern vehicles of all classes. Dynamic ambient lighting concepts, with the help of Elmos ICs, are energy and cost-efficient and develop the interior lighting experience further. They create emotions, increase the comfort and well-being of the occupants, and they increasingly also warn in dangerous situations. Elmos semiconductors are also setting new standards in automotive rear lights with a very low energy consumption solution. Elmos LED rear light drivers offer OEMs attractive options for striking and dynamic rear designs.
Our product portfolio for specific applications for electric vehicles is also growing steadily. Elmos motor control and sensor ICs ensure an optimal operating temperature for all components, which increase efficiency and reduces energy consumption. In addition, Elmos motor control ICs help to optimize thermal efficiency when heating the interior, for example, through intelligent climate flap control, and thus also increase the range of electric vehicles. We are also working on new and promising applications. Modern vehicle architectures require high and reliable availability and protection of the energy supply. With the new eFuse product family from Elmos, classic melting fuses can already be replaced today. The electronic fuse systems enable the development of modern system architectures essential for the software-defined car. As you can see, Elmos will benefit from a significant higher number of ICs in modern cars, which are increasingly loaded with intelligent electronics for all functions and systems.
Our products do not only support the transformation of automotive mobility. They also make a major contribution to greater environmental protection and efficiency, safety and health, as well as comfort and well-being. Our innovative ICs make a significant contribution to improving human lives and protecting our environment, therefore supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals and also the European Green Deal. Most of the Elmos products can be attributed to multiple purposes simultaneously. Based on the 2023 ESG product matrix, around 72% of group sales make a substantial contribution to increased environmental protection and higher efficiency. Typical applications here would be our motor control ICs or thermal management, especially for EVs, but also sensor signal ICs for battery management or ICs for LED lights, safe energy, and reduced emissions in a vehicle. More than 70% safety and health.
Many of our key applications are crucial for higher road safety, for example, through ultrasonic sensors in ADAS systems or through our airbags. Last but not least, around 56% of group sales increase the comfort and well-being of end consumers, for example, by dynamic ambient lighting concepts. So Elmos Semiconductor solutions do make the world greener, safer, and more comfortable. Besides the positive environmental contribution of our product portfolio, we are also reducing our own carbon footprint. As you might know, we have set ambitious targets to cut our greenhouse gas emissions for our own activities by 40% until 2026 compared to the base year 2022, with an annual reduction of 10% over the next four years. Elmos aims for its own activities to be completely climate neutral by 2035. Here, I can give you a short update already today. For the year 2023, we have achieved our reduction target.
All of our 2023 ESG KPIs and policies will be available on our website as of March 14, together with the publication of the Elmos annual report. Let me now move to page five of the presentation. In an eventful and challenging year, Elmos once again performed extremely well. 2023 was characterized by an ongoing challenging environment with geopolitical crisis and economic uncertainties, as well as high inflation, higher costs combined with higher interest rates. In our core market, the allocation and the supply and demand situation for automotive semiconductors has started to normalize in the later part of 2023. It is not a surprise that after three years of very dynamic growth, the automotive semiconductor market has now entered into a normalization phase, resulting in adjusted order and inventory levels.
Despite lower growth rates in 2024, also caused by a destocking effect, the structural demand for automotive semiconductors remains high due to the increasing IC content in modern cars. As one of the leading suppliers of analog mixed-signal semiconductors, we will participate in this structural growth of the automotive IC market. Besides new record financials, we have also successfully achieved important strategic milestones in the past year, setting the stage for a very promising future. I would like to begin with one of the more important projects in the history of the company, the transformation of Elmos into a fabless company.
The contracts with the U.S. company Littelfuse were signed in June of last year, and in August, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and the German Federal Cartel Office granted the approvals for the sale of the wafer fab to Littelfuse without any conditions. After the regulatory approvals, Elmos received a payment of EUR 37 million from Littelfuse in Q3. The closing of the transaction, with a transfer of the remaining purchase price of EUR 56 million, is expected to be effective at the end of December 2024. As a fabless company, we will become more innovative, faster, and more efficient than ever before. One important element of our growth strategy is the expansion of testing capacities together with our manufacturing partners in East Asia.
In order to have sufficient testing capacities available for our growth and new product ramps, we have invested record levels in 2023. These investments were necessary to successfully ramp up new products in the second half of the year and to secure our excellent delivery performance to our customers. As a result, we were able to realize significantly higher sales in Q3 and Q4, with each quarter well above EUR 150 million. In addition, we have built a solid basis for the expected future volumes resulting from our new design work. Besides the development of innovative hardware solutions, we are also strengthening Elmos Software expertise, as advancing digitization and software-defined vehicles require a stronger link between hardware and high-performance software. We established a new software unit in 2022, opened the Elmos Software House, and almost doubled our software resources in 2023.
Last but not least, we have further improved our ESG activities. Based on our first corporate carbon footprint, we have defined ambitious climate targets and are committed to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions as a fabless company by 40% until 2026, as mentioned, and become carbon neutral by 2035. Let me now comment on the key financial highlights of 2023 shown on pages six to nine of the presentation. As I said in the beginning, it was another record year for Elmos. 2023 marks the third consecutive year with a new sales record. Despite a noticeable improvement in global supply chains, demand for Elmos semiconductors remained at a high level in all product segments. In addition, we benefited from new product launches in the second half of the year. Overall, group sales increased by 28.6% YoY to EUR 575 million.
Our gross margin is more or less stable compared to the long-term average. This is the result of our conservative pricing strategy during the allocation, as we are looking for a trusting and long-term relationship with our customers. We were able to close the year with a strong final quarter. Sales in Q4 came to EUR 156.6 million, the 12th quarterly sales record in a row. Gross margin in Q4 was higher due to the typical one-time effects at year end, such as NRE reimbursement and the adjustment of provisions. Group EBIT also achieved a new record level in 2023, climbing to EUR 150.7 million compared to EUR 110.1 million in the previous year, an increase of 37%. As a result of this strong growth, the full-year EBIT margin rose to 26.2% and came in at the upper half of our full-year guidance.
As commented throughout the year, we invested heavily in the expansion of our testing capacities. For the full year, we spent EUR 115.1 million, or 20% of sales. We now have a solid basis for future volumes and therefore expect less CapEx in the coming years. R&D activities were further intensified, and expenses increased by EUR 13.3 million to EUR 68.8 million. However, due to the strong sales increase, the R&D ratio actually decreased to 12%. Our OpEx ratios have benefited from a strong top-line growth, and we now have to control our expenses to avoid an opposite effect. We're in a good place, and we want to stay there. In the past year, we were once again able to significantly exceed our ambitious targets for the acquisition of new business.
After the absolute record in the previous year, 2023 was the second strongest year in the company's history as far as the design wins are concerned. We acquired a large number of attractive new projects in all segments and regions. The cash flow from operations in financial year 2023 increased slightly to EUR 102.6 million, mainly due to higher earnings net of higher working capital. The adjusted free cash flow of EUR 12.9 million was impacted by the high investments and the prepayment of EUR 37 million by Littelfuse for the sale of the wafer fab. Without the effect of the sale of the wafer fab, the operational adjusted free cash flow stood at -24.3 million euros and was lower than in the previous year as expected.
With a global production volume of just over 90 million vehicles, according to S&P Mobility, the automotive market has reached pre-COVID levels in 2023 and performed better at the end of the year than forecasted. Vehicle output was healthy in most regions, exceeding expectations. However, after this solid recovery, the industry experts expect that the auto market in 2023 will decline 0.5% YoY, according to the initial forecasts. Based on these lower automotive market projections and the ongoing destocking activities, we assume that the upcoming forecasts for the automotive semiconductor market will reflect a more muted development. This assumption is also supported by the forecast of our most important peers, who on average expect a small growth of around 2% in 2024.
After three years of exceptionally high growth, the industry is currently returning to a more normal order situation, working its way through destocking, and then to a more normal growth profile. However, despite temporary inventory adjustment, the structural trend based on more intelligent electronics in modern cars, independent of the drivetrain concept, remains very valid. The higher IC content combined with our very successful design wins over the last years is a very promising basis for ongoing growth in the future. At the end of my presentation on page 11, I would like to give you our outlook for 2024. The current year will continue to be characterized by challenging economic and geopolitical conditions, as well as effects from destocking, especially in the first half. We expect full-year sales in 2024 of EUR 605 million ± 25 million EUR.
With a growth rate of +5% at the midpoint of our guidance, we expect a slightly better performance than the average of our peers and also a higher growth rate than the expected market growth. We want to keep our strong profitability and expect an operating EBIT margin of 25% ±2 percentage points for the full year of 2024. The expected operating EBIT margin does not include any effects from the closing of the sale of the Elmos wafer fab to Littelfuse. After the significant expansion of test capacities, Elmos now expects lower CapEx in 2024 compared to the previous year. We are forecasting capital expenditures of around 12% ±2 percentage points of sales.
We also expect better cash generation and project a positive operating adjusted free cash flow in fiscal year 2024, without effects from the closing of the sale of the wafer fab, to be significantly higher than in the prior year. Ladies and gentlemen, the fiscal year 2023 marked another record year for our company, and we showed an exceptional performance with strong financial results and the successful execution of important strategic projects. We have shown a strong track record in growth, profitability, and new design wins in the last years. We have a strong international setup, an outstanding team, and we will continue to benefit from the higher IC content in modern vehicles. We will continue to successfully execute our growth strategy, and we will focus much more on a better cash generation and a higher free cash flow than in the past. For now, thank you very much.
I'm opening the floor for questions.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press nine and the star key on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to cancel your question, press nine and the star key again. Please press nine and the star key now to state your question. And the first question comes from Florian Sager from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Can you hear me?
Oh, yes, very well.
Perfect, perfect. Thank you for taking my question. Congrats on those numbers. I have two. The first one would be, you said you do expect slightly better performance than peers for 2024. Maybe you could give us some more color as to why. And then the second question would be how you see pricing developing over the coming quarters, if there are strong headwinds there.
Yeah, thank you for your questions. We looked at the guidances and what generally peers think on the automotive segment, and our guidance comes out a little stronger than what the general expectation on the market is. This may not be kind of dramatically stronger, but still, it's some point stronger. So that's why we think we should do a little better. And of course, at the midpoint, right? We always only take midpoints. Other things are way, way too complicated for us. On your second question, pricing, pricing is roughly flat this year. We see some increase in cost. We see some more moderate cost developments. I mean, generally, labor costs, for instance, they go up. You've seen what were generally the solutions in the union-based companies.
Of course, we do not have a German Tarifvertrag, but they may serve as kind of a benchmark of what is going on in the overall economy. So that means there is higher cost for wages. Other things are a little bit better. You do have some efficiencies. So if you take it all and do the weighted average, you end up in a situation where you say flattish pricing is a very fair offer for our customers, and this is what generally happens.
Okay. Thank you.
And the second question comes from Johannes Ries from Apus Capital. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Although I don't say it to everybody, but congratulations to the great job in the last three years, not only this. And maybe also some short follow-on questions from my side, like always.
Maybe first, is it also like with your competitors or peers that they're seeing a much weaker first half and a stronger second half because the inventory correction maybe mostly happens in the first half?
First, thank you for your congratulations. I'll pass it on to the team because at Elmos, it's all a team effort, of course. And then we are a strong team, and we have fun doing what we do. So we like if something is showing to the outside, of course, also.
On how the structure of the year will look like, well, the profile looks pretty much like last year, a little bit for the same reason, which is trends, but a little bit for different reasons, which is stocking dynamics. Stocks are always a little bit intransparent, but you can make up your mind and guess when people work through some stocks.
The one thing that is sure, you cannot live out of stocks forever. So the expectation, I believe, generally in the automotive segment is that, yes, people want to adjust. People are reacting to the overall muted economic environment. There's interest rates again. Working capital gets more important than it did in some past years. So that all points towards a little stock correction towards a more efficient level. But we currently do not see that lasting for excessive amounts of time. So that's why we think the effects should wear down. And then in the second half of the year, much more of the structural growth should shine through.
Great. So like your peers have told us.
Secondly, on your fab, have you maybe because this overstocking is more affecting older products and newer ramping with new products of your customers, but they are more fabless produced, not in your own fab? Therefore, do you see any maybe underutilization in your fab, or is it despite the destocking effect, you use the capacity for other products? Therefore, it's no impact on the utilization. If I look to your margin guidance, I don't believe, but I want to ask the question because others see some idle cost.
Yeah. I mean, with our fab, we put ourselves in the situation that we have the same technology running in our own facilities or kind of half our own. It's already sold. We still formally own it, but of course, not for long. So I still say our own. I guess I have to change that.
So our own facility in Dortmund, this is one place. We also have two other foundries that provide the same technologies to us. So generally, the idea is the one we always had in the fab light phase of our development, that we need and want and have to load our own fab to full capacity. And then we also have very significant volume at the foundries. So that's why we are not so much afraid of underutilization in our own fab.
Great answer. Thanks. Maybe on the cash flow, you said significant improvement. Does it also maybe—should I sort of expect in working capital, we should not see a further increase? There was partly an effect also of maybe delivery problems, and customers asked for maybe safety inventories and things like this. What should we expect for working capital?
I have a feeling how strong could be this rebound in the cash flow?
Well, I mean, it'll take some time for working capital to normalize and to manage that down. I mean, working capital is something, of course, we generally think should be reduced and should come to a much more healthy quarter, though this is not super urgent. We will gradually wear that down. This is, I believe, a good process there. There is no urge in kind of being a quarter early or two quarters early, and then something is really gained by that. I think, first of all, we will manage working capital as part of the normalization. Of course, this means that we slowly reduce working capital in line with being a good partner to also some of our manufacturing partners, which is also something we want and need to do.
The other thing is, if you look at working capital, kind of the 10-year or 5-year average or so, you can ask yourself, "What is the right number?" We are doing that these days. In the end, over a year or two or three, there may be more reduction than we would have thought possible two or three or four years ago. This is something that is kind of going over the years. We do have a very clear direction for that, and we do have a very clear aim as far as our inventories are concerned.
Great. If you see maybe a percentage of your margin guidance, a percentage of your CapEx guidance, that working capital is not maybe growing, we see maybe the impact on the cash flow now. Without maybe depreciation, which come on top, but it's clear.
to the design wins, maybe you have this record years of design wins. Give us, again, a feeling. Is it still the case that these design wins will ramp in two, three, four years? Therefore, what we have seen in last year and maybe even the year before, which was also, I think, the third strongest year in your design wins, we will maybe see in 2025 and 2026. And in what areas you showed where you are number one, where you're very strong, in what areas have been the design wins? And the same areas you showed are even new things, new applications you have won, and maybe that's also very strong going forward.
Yeah, it's actually in all the applications I mentioned, which also includes the newer applications. But it would actually be wrong to think that the majority of design wins is only new applications. No, no.
The existing applications are on a good growth path and underlined by a lot of design wins in existing applications. Even if you look at one application, still, the product develops significantly. The product we had in ultrasonic 15 years ago is somehow comparable, but in a way, it's really not comparable to what we do today. The next generation includes AI features. I mean, no one would have thought of that even five years ago. So it has the same header. It's always the same black beetle. That's what makes it so hard to explain. It looks really alike, but there's a lot more inside, and there are great features inside. So there is also growth.
Super. And so ramp of design wins are strong. You have the record design wins the last three years. It becomes 2025 and later, so real ramp.
That is right.
I mean, we had some design wins over the allocation that were kind of very short-term and that we even saw a little last year and this year. But the general two or three years is still valid. Most things just take some time to feed through into the platforms, the models. And the ramp also takes just some time and qualification and then ramp. So two-three years is a good average. But your testing capacity is already prepared for this, yes? Well, not forever, but partly, yes. I mean, it was Q4 with more than EUR 156. So I mean, we delivered that, and we could not take a lot of stock for that. So kind of that and more we can do with the current setup in terms of revenue equivalent. So that kind of times four would then be a yearly revenue equivalent.
And if we manage in a little bit more efficiency and uptime, gradually, we get even more out of it. You do not get that in the first month of the ramp, of course. This would be unrealistic, but you can later get it. So I believe we have a very good setup now.
Great. Thanks a lot, and good luck for this year.
Mr. Ries, thank you very much. You know we are working hard, and maybe sometimes we do have luck.
Yeah, luck. You need also luck despite all hard work. Thanks, bye-bye.
That is true.
And the next question comes from Malte Schaumann from Warburg Research. Please go ahead.
Yep. Good morning. First question is on the growth early in the year. I mean, obviously, you're starting on a rather low base.
Are you already prepared to maybe indicate if you expect YoY growth in the first quarters of the year? Well, we do see YoY growth. Not excessive, maybe not exactly at the midpoint of the guidance, but yes, YoY growth. Okay. Good. And then last, can you give us a feeling for expected project ramp-ups during the year? I mean, last year, you had been during H1 pretty confident that there will be significant uptake in growth in the second half of the year or revenue level in the second half of the year, which came true. In the end, maybe you can provide an indication how you see or if you see equally strong, more or less equally strong projects in the pipeline that helped to really achieve then a very strong second half.
Yeah, we do see ramps.
I mean, currently, kind of we see the ramps every week in our meetings to make it all happen, to clear away all the technical challenges. And I'm pretty confident that everything will be cleared away, and it will happen. But today, we only have the work, right, because revenue is none or excessively little, only samples. But then the ramp starts. So it will be an H2 thing. Actually, I mean, we are small. We do not ramp that many projects. So sometimes they do overlay not in a perfect kind of law of large numbers a way that everything is smoothed out. It's some project, but they still are focused on the second half. We can change that.
Okay. Good.
Then on the current kind of weakness, demand weakness everyone is expecting, maybe for your products, could you maybe shed some more light on if it's region-specific, maybe distinguish between OEMs and distributors? So can you group that? Is that very broad-based, or is that more pronounced in one area or the other?
Well, I mean, we've seen in the last year that some regions were very accurate in their forecasting, like Japan, for instance. I mean, this is just kind of a very flat line. You start with initial forecast, and then it's only flat. And this is what happens throughout the year. And then some regions are more volatile, more entrepreneurial, you could say. China is one region that, as a tendency, also through distribution structures, adds to volatility. Some others are in between. The Europeans are kind of in between.
The Koreans are kind of in between the Europeans and the Japanese. So yeah, there are actually differences in the different regions. Yep. Okay. Then regarding CapEx, I mean, obviously, you're guiding for this year lower CapEx levels. CapEx had been very high last year. Growth is not that strong this year. So I think that makes sense. Are you already in the position to say, "Okay, well, I mean, we have seen pretty high CapEx levels of 17%-20% in the past three years," already in the position to say, "Okay, well, it's not only about 2024 but also 2025. We will not go back to these high CapEx levels we have seen in the past"? This would be our aim. I mean, the 17% and the 20% we have now seen in last year, we do hope this will be singular points.
And going forward, we should get by with less CapEx. I mean, the 12% from this year is a good first step, I would say, but it's a first step.
Yep. Yep. Okay. Good. Thanks.
And the next question comes from Finn Kemper. Please go ahead.
Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. Great. Yeah, I want to congratulate you on your strong results as well. I have a couple of questions as well. So we've seen the cross-reads from Infineon and Melexis last week, and they said that the development is going to be it's going to look like sequential growth skewed towards H2. You mentioned something similar already. What gives you the visibility for, yeah, rebound in the second half? Have you talked to your customers, and do you have any insights on the inventory levels? That would be my first question.
Yeah.
I mean, over the last three years, we've been in more contact with our customers than ever before because it's not only about innovation and the next big things. It's also about delivery, and this continues to this day. I mean, to be frank, not everyone has been completely transparent or correct in reporting inventories at every given moment in time. I believe now that the fear of undersupply has vanished out of the market, you can expect more accurate numbers, which gives a little better visibility. On the other hand, of course, firm bookings are currently not required for most of the second half. We transitioned back to a lead-time-based system, so you can actually order again, and you do not get an allocation like in 2023.
Okay. Understood. Thank you. Second question would be regarding the margins because I saw that they declined on a YoY basis.
You already mentioned labor cost. Could you shed some more light on why that is? Is it also maybe rising D&A cost?
Oh, I don't know where the margins decline, actually. I mean, we have the same guidance. Last year, we had 25 ± 2. This year, we have 25 ± 2. So you can now, of course, say, "Well, the midpoint is, of course, below 23." So you are correct at the midpoint. Where we do come out is too early to predict.
Okay. Understood. Thank you.
Thank you, Finn.
And the next question comes from Robert Sanders from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to check on the answer to a previous question that Q1 would grow YoY below the midpoint growth of the year. Is that right?
So that would imply down 10%-15% Q2 going forward?
Yeah. I mean, what we see today would be a small YoY growth, single-digit % value, but smallish. So what happened in the last couple of months that you've suddenly had this correction? Is it widespread destocking, or is it concentrated in a few customers? It's actually pretty widespread. It's a little bit more than we initially thought, also more than the market thought. I mean, we looked at the October and November numbers of analysts, both on the equity side as well as kind of market analysts. People were predicting 14% market growth in October still. Also in November, very high numbers. Then we've seen one hint of caution in the November-December timeframe, not too much, actually. And our customers actually only adjusted downwards at the beginning of the year.
Since then, we had very intensive contact and discussion with a lot of our biggest and bigger customers. This leads to our revised estimates.
Got it. Basically, since the Mobileye warning and all that, everyone has just totally changed their behavior. Okay.
Yeah. A little bit. I mean, Mobileye was the first one to warn. Everyone, I believe, was very shocked about it because the magnitude seemed interesting, hard to understand in the first few seconds, then a little bit easier to understand later. I mean, we, I believe, see similar effects, but the magnitude is so totally different. I mean, we already undershipped last year versus what people ordered at the beginning of 2023, which may now help a little bit. Your order trend today is presumably markedly down versus the prior year?
Well, I mean, we actually now compare our booking of the individual quarters not with last year because this was allocation. We handed out what people could get. Then they had to sign that non-cancellable, non-returnable. And that was the year, basically. So it was, I mean, having a book-to-bill and all these traditional filling statistics was a lot less interesting than it is usually. So we compared to the pre-COVID era, where should normal filling of the order book be? And this is also something what we use for our estimates. Rob, are you still there? Can you take the next question, please? Maybe Rob can dial in again if you have more questions. Thanks.
Yes. I think he got disconnected. So the next question is from Lukas Spang from Tigris Capital. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Good morning, gentlemen.
I would like to come back to your comments on working capital at the questions from Mr. Ries. Is there any quota for the future you can share with us you want to reach?
There is, but we wouldn't share it right now. We are having internal targets that we kind of now validate and verify, which are more based on what peers do and achieve. But we wouldn't share it right now. There will be times throughout the year where we share it.
Yeah. Okay. And then on your revenue guidance, how good is your visibility at the beginning of the year now? So is it already covered by design wins of the past, or do you still have to go some steps to cover the revenue guidance, or how should we think about that?
Well, I mean, the booking in the first quarter, obviously, is very solid.
The second quarter, most of it is booked. There's still some little things left, of course. Then on the Q3 and Q4, generally, our customers do not need to order that much. There is a gradual filling up of these quarters. It's according to our expectations. But if you want to order today for Q4, you can. You don't even need to order today. You can order later in the year. So this is partly based on fixed orders at the beginning of the year and gradually moving towards our expectation as far as the end of the year is concerned.
Okay. Thank you.
And we have a follow-up question from Mr. Ries. Please go ahead.
Yes. I come back with one follow-on, which sounded like some very interesting remarks on the topic of software. You mentioned you have doubled your capacity in 2023.
Can you give us a feeling what this means, how many developers you have now, and what's your target going forward? You mentioned also for ultrasonics that now AI plays a role there. Therefore, maybe you can give us a feeling how important could get software going forward, also maybe based on use of AI and maybe more Internet of Things, which are in some regard twins because you need the data as input for the AI. And therefore, what could it mean for your business, maybe hazards if your software gets more important and impact on margins going forward?
Yeah. Maybe to give it a little flavor, some years, maybe five, six, seven ago, generally, we were very much constrained in processing power and memory on our chips.
So the embedded software that runs on our chips was kind of squeezed to the maximum smallness that you could somehow achieve and then have relevant software run on it. Some years ago, like 2010, 2015, there were a lot of chips where no software ran on it. There was a digital part that was having kind of a software logic, but there was no flashable software on a lot of chips. So now we see that digital content in a chip gets cheaper per transistor. It gets cheaper to integrate more non-volatile memory. So this enables great functionalities. This enables great functionalities powered by software. We had five, 10, 15 software engineers for a long time in our history. And now it's not a three-digit number, but it's kind of on the verge of being a three-digit number.
So this is a great development because it adds innovation that we can relatively quickly bring to the market via the software route, where with hardware, it would actually take a lot longer. It's great functionalities for our customers. We want to make use of the increased possibilities of semiconductor technologies. I mean, we move towards 130 nanometer. Digital content is a lot more affordable in 130 nanometer. It will even be more affordable when we use a 90 nanometer node or for some specific projects, a 40 nanometer node. So this is a general trend, and we are very aware. We want to lead that trend to some extent, and it's a good trend. We now have, as a chip development team, not only analog design, digital design, test development like it was for ages. We now also have software as an integrated part of every chip development.
Great.
AI is also getting important given that maybe we have such a big move AI everywhere?
AI will gradually gain importance. With some neural networks, you can do great things to sense the signals. So yes, it will gain importance. We are also working with some of the largest how should I put that now? Some of the largest company that, on the chip side, engages in AI because we obviously do the edge of the car. Other people may want to do central compute. So there are very natural things that you can do together without hurting us or hurting the others. So we will move in a world where, yes, software, which is also enabling AI, of course, has significantly higher importance.
Great. Super. Answer. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Mr. Ries. Also, very good question, by the way. Okay.
So at the moment, there seem to be no further questions. I will leave the line open for a couple more seconds. So if you want to ask another question, please press nine in the star key now. Okay. There seem to be no further questions. So let me hand back over to Dr. Schneider for some closing remarks.
So ladies, gentlemen, at the end, I would like to remind you that we will publish our final results and our annual report on March 14, 2024. The conference call for the Q1 results is scheduled for May 7. For today, thank you very much for your participation and your interest in Elmos. Goodbye from Dortmund. Take care and stay confident.