Hello, good afternoon. We're now at the eighth presentation at our German Select Conference, which will be Elmos Semiconductor. The company will be presented by Mr. Ralf Hoppe, who is Head of IR, PR, and ESG. Usual format, 20 minutes presentation, 10 minutes Q&A. Questions you may have, you can please enter into the chat box, and we will address them during the Q&A. We do cover Elmos Semiconductor, and I will provide you with a link shortly in the chat box that will lead you directly to the research on Research Hub. As you might see, you cannot see Ralf because we have some technical difficulties. However, you can hear him, so he will be giving the presentation orally only. However, that won't change the setup as such, and we will still be able to entertain your questions. Thank you. Ralf, floor is all yours.
Yeah. Thank you, Holger. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Elmos presentation at the German Select Conference. Thank you very much for your participation and the interest in our company. Of course, a big thanks to mwb, the team, for hosting this conference. Sorry for the technical issues. I'm presenting here from our office in Leverkusen. Obviously, we have a low tax rate here in Leverkusen, but maybe also a lower internet connection. I don't know. Sorry about that. You only will hear me, but no picture. I guess it's fine. Hopefully, you can see the presentation slides. Let me start with a brief overview of the company. Since the foundation in 1984 in Dortmund, Elmos has evolved from a small startup to a really global high-tech leader in Automotive mixed-signal semiconductors.
Our ICs measure, control, enable electronic intelligence at the edge of the vehicle, anywhere where real-time data is generated, processed, and of course, then translated into safe, reliable, and high-performance functionality. Our ICs power key megatrends, Electrification, of course, ADAS, autonomous driving, safety, comfort, and also software-defined vehicles. Put it in short, Elmos makes mobility safer, smarter, greener, and of course, also more comfortable. More than 90% of our revenues are generated in the Automotive market. This is our core DNA. We have secured many attractive design wins that will drive future demand of our innovative IC solutions. At the same time, our technologies more and more goes beyond Automotive. Many of our proven Automotive applications can be redesigned and adapted for other high-growth markets, such as maybe Smart Home, Smart Factories, or, of course, Robotics.
Automotive is our core growth platform, but with new semiconductor intelligence in a new technology as an additional growth opportunity. With more than 1,100 employees across 20 locations worldwide, including more than almost 500 R&D engineers, we can combine deep customer relationship at a global scale. Our chips are designed basically in all vehicles and platforms across all major OEMs in Europe and America, Japan, Korea, China, of course, and also some emerging markets like India. Basically, in fact, our OEM footprint really closely monitors the global Automotive market itself. Elmos is part of the German TecDAX, and therefore one of the largest German-listed technology companies. As you might realize, driven by our outstanding share price performance in the last couple of months, even the entry into the MDAX segment is within striking distance. Let me continue with basically the basis of our success, our product portfolio.
Elmos semiconductors are not just components. They are basically the intelligence layer of a modern vehicle. This is where Elmos operates, at the intelligent edge of the vehicle architecture, like I said, the points where real data is generated, processed, and translated into high-performance functionality. Ultrasonic, for example, our ultrasonic ICs enable very precise 360 degrees environmental mapping around the vehicle, a very important building block of the sensor fusion for assisted driving or autonomous driving. Our next ultrasonic ICs have integrated AI capabilities. They can detect objects as close as seven centimeters. They can differentiate different heights and, of course, significantly enhance the quality and performance of modern ADAS system. You know our lighting products. Lighting is another example of how ICs, how semiconductors really define the vehicle experience. Ambient light and also exterior light has evolved from premium feature into a really brand-defining design element across all segments.
Electrification, of course, very important, as you know, Electrification is far more than just replacing the combustion engine with a battery. Electrification multiplies control, power, thermal management complexity across the entire vehicle. Modern EVs or hybrids rely on dozens, many dozens of intelligent actuators, pumps, valves, and thermal management systems, all powered by small electrical motors, which are controlled by ICs. Efficient battery conditioning, optimized range, advanced control features are impossible without semiconductor intelligence from Elmos. Of course, in many of these applications, motor control or thermal management, we are holding leading positions globally. Besides Electrification, we are also driving the next generation of board net architectures with our smart electronic fuses for 48 V zonal power networks or new gateway IC drivers. These applications are very important for so-called software-defined vehicles. Another segment is our sensor signal IC portfolio.
These sensor signal ICs are basically the bridge between the real world and the digital brain of the car, meaning that fast, robust, and safe sensor data from the edge, from our applications, is crucial for modern vehicles. Because without real intelligence at the edge, there's definitely no need for central compute, autonomous driving wouldn't be possible, and also a very efficient electrical drivetrain would also not be possible without intelligent edge applications. As we continue. For more over a year now, Elmos is a fabless player without its own front-end fab. Our fabless model is basically powered by partnerships across wafer processing, wafer test, assembly, final test, and tape-and-reel. We are in advanced discussions for additional external partners to strengthen our scalability regarding tape-and-reel, because the tape-and-reel area, the majority of the process is still in-house at Elmos.
You can see that in the chart. In all other steps of the value chain, most of the operations are fully outsourced, or the majority of these operations are outsourced. I already mentioned it. To be a successful and, of course, a relevant player for Automotive chips, we must be among the top market leader in all of our high-volume focused applications. It's very important. It's crucial to understand market trends very early on and to invest in innovations that will shape tomorrow's platforms that are very important for OEMs, that bring additional value to the OEMs. Elmos, as a focused fabless analog mixed-signal specialist, as you can see here, we hold leading positions in all of our application fields.
Like I said in the beginning, this is our core DNA, delivering outstanding products to customers worldwide, which are unlocking significant growth potential through our Automotive mixed-signal leadership. Our products do not only support the transformation of the Automotive mobility, they also make a major contribution to greater environmental protection, efficiency, safety, health, as well as comfort and well-being. Most of our products can contribute to these important features simultaneously. Also besides the, let's say, positive environmental contribution of our product portfolio, we are also reducing our own carbon footprint. We have set ambitious targets to cut our greenhouse gas emissions for our own activities, Scope 1 and 2, by 40% until 2026, compared to our base year 2022, meaning an annual reduction of around 10%. We also aim to be completely climate neutral for our own activities by 2035.
Also, our ESG performance continues to gain recognition. We achieved prime status of ISS ESG with a C+ rating and also management level B rating from CDP, which I think is a clear confirmation that at Elmos, sustainability and governance are really embedded in our business model. As you can see here, for our products, we really see an increasing electrification of car platforms, higher ADAS and autonomous levels, new board net architectures, and the trend towards software-defined vehicles as continuous growth drivers. Many of tomorrow's vehicles will contain even more mixed-signal ICs from Elmos. Electrification, of course, remains a strong and continuous growth driver. Many of tomorrow's battery-powered or hybrid vehicles integrate significantly more mixed-signal ICs from Elmos.
But at the same time, many of our applications are completely independent or agnostic of the drivetrain, whether it's an internal combustion engine, plug-in hybrid, or a fully electric vehicle. You need airbags, you need ambient light, you need park assist, ADAS functionality, regardless what propels that car. You can see here on the left side of that chart, on the bottom left chart, that in a premium ICE vehicle, we can see up to 70 [audio distortion] Elmos ICs per car, and this number goes up to as many as 200 Elmos ICs per car, nearly tripling that potential content in a new, modern, premium electric vehicle or hybrid vehicle based on new SoL architectures. And by the way, these numbers are not just theoretical. These applications are already designed into many OEM platforms, and we are successfully winning the corresponding design wins to capture this growth. Yeah.
Short-term, medium-term, but of course, also long-term. Yeah. Robotics chart. Everybody has to talk about Robotics these days. As you can imagine, all of our engineers love robots because they are super cool. From a technology perspective, cars and robots are very similar. Cars are autonomous vehicles on four wheels. Humanoid robots are autonomous machines on two or four legs. The logic is essentially the same. A central computing unit, which is an Elmos, but combined with a wide range of intelligence applications and sensors at the system's edge, Elmos expertise. Many of our Automotive products can be easily transferred to Robotics application, power management, battery management, highly sensitive sensors, and actuators at every joint or a limb of a robot. Robots require a large number of motor drivers across the joints like shoulder, elbows, hips, knees, and even fingers.
Every movement of a robot depends on a highly precise motor and sensor control, including very accurate position and force measurement. Both Automotive vehicles and also robots require, of course, functional safety, fail-safe systems. They rely on optical and ultrasonic sensors to interact with the environment. When you add it all up, a single humanoid robot, as you can see here, can easily integrate more than 120 potential Elmos ICs across all of our applications. We are not newcomers. We are already collaborating with several Robotics manufacturers and aligning their product requirements to integrate our applications into their platforms. Some of our products are already deployed in delivery robots and also humanoid robot platforms. We are generating serial revenues already. Still small to be precise, but still, we are generating some revenues, and we think that it could be a great potential going forward.
We are still at a very early stage of that market. We have not included anything in our sales target for 2030. Everything, additional revenue coming out of that Robotics segment is purely an upside for us. Even if you look at all these, let's say, market forecasts, even if the most pessimistic scenarios materialize, Robotics would evolve into a major growth driver for Elmos over the next decade, even, I would say, beyond 2030, and that this is opening up additional opportunities beyond our core business, Automotives. Automotive Semiconductor business is entering into a very new phase of growth, structural growth. Yeah, steadily rising IC content in modern cars.
The global light vehicle market, the production volumes will only grow slightly, but at the same time, the content per vehicle, the IC content per vehicle will almost double, basically from around $720 today to $1,400-$1,500 by 2030. Roughly an 11% CAGR. You can see that our midterm growth targets, we have CAGR of 12% is this market aligned, and we have even chosen a conservative approach. It is secured by serial business, of course, by running business, but also based on our design wins. Again, we see upside potential as with our non-core business like Robotics. I hurry up here a little bit. Product portfolio, you can see here we have a well-balanced product portfolio. In 2025, the ranging business, our ultrasonic business, has enjoyed a very strong growth, specifically in China.
When you look at the distribution by 2030, you see a well-balanced portfolio with the higher growth in the sensing business and also in the SDV, software-defined vehicle business with our new electronic fuses, smart fuses, and our gateway ICs. Yeah. Let's talk about the next five years. We are targeting sales of around EUR 1 billion by 2030, a CAGR of around 12%, supported by many design wins in our core application fields. At the same time, we are expecting a gross margin, a solid gross margin of around 45%, OpEx level of around 20% below gross profit covering R&D as well as SG&A. This provides us with sufficient resources to drive growth while still maintaining a high level of profitability. EBIT margin target of around 25%. This is supported by the stable gross margin and a strict cost discipline.
Of course, as a fabless company, we definitely will benefit from a flexible cost structure and a good scalability. Yeah, 25%, maybe there's also a little bit room depending on the sales development. We now target CapEx ratio of around 6%, so very significantly lower compared to our five-year average. Our investments in the latest generation of testing machines, combined with all of our efforts to optimize uptime, to reduce test times, is extremely successful or was extremely successful. Overall, we could more than triple the testing capacity per machine, and therefore, we anticipate lower investment requirements to support our future growth. Finally, free cash flow target of around 17%, very important, very positive development, driven by a combination of higher profitability, lower CapEx, further optimized working capital, and of course, a lower tax burden. Highlights, I think we can more or less skip that.
In a nutshell, I guess it was a very successful year within an ongoing challenging environment. We made great progress in our strategic agenda, many projects. You can read it here. But also from a financial perspective, it was also a positive year, slight growth, despite all the de-stocking, specifically in the first half of 2025. When you look at that number or when you compare that number to our competitors, they declined on average 8% in 2025. And when you look over the last two years, so the de-stocking or normalization phase, we showed a small growth. Our direct peers together or on average, reduced top line or had to reduce top line by more than 20 percentage points. So very strong development, clear signal of our innovative product portfolio and resilience of our operating model. Let's skip that. We talked about CapEx, R&D.
Cash flow, we talked about that as well. Very strong development. As promised, basically, we've started to build a track record in stronger cash generation. Free cash flow in 2025 totaled EUR 66 million, almost EUR 120 million higher versus the operating adjusted free cash flow the previous year, the cash flow without the proceeds from the sales of our wafer fab. Yeah, we are targeting even more for this year and also going forward. Based on that, we've increased dividend by 50%. The proposal to the AGM increased to EUR 1.50. In addition, we have successfully executed a share buyback program via the stock exchange with a volume of EUR 10 million in March. Overall, basically total payout has more than doubled compared to last year. Yeah. The Automotive market, nothing specific to report here.
Production volumes in 2026 are expected to stay at a level of around 92 million or a little bit more than 92 million, more or less stable versus 2025. Globally, there is definitely no crisis in the Automotive market. Volumes have increased by around 4%, 2025 to 2024, and are expected to stay on that solid level. Our own guidance, we are optimistic for the new year. We expect return to structural growth after two years of de-stocking. Of course, in addition, we expect a higher profitability and a further increase in our free cash flow. This year, full year, we are expecting sales growth of 11% ±3 percentage points. You can read it here. EBIT margin will be higher than last year. We are targeting 24 percentage points, 24% margin in the midpoint of our guidance.
CapEx will remain on a low level despite the growth, approximately 5% of sales. Like I said before, we expect the positive cash development to continue and we're forecasting adjusted free cash flow of more than 17% of sales. The first three months of 2026, I would say clearly support our positive outlook for the full year. I cannot go into detail. We will publish our Q1 numbers on May 5th. What I can say is that our Q1 performance, basically in all KPIs, top line, EBIT, but especially free cash flow, is not only fully in line with expectations, but already showing potential upside in some areas. We are very happy with the first three months, and I think we're in a good path. Our products enjoy a good demand from our customers.
The programs to optimize costs and to lower CapEx, improve cash flow are also very successful. Yeah, basically let me summarize. Like I said, 2026 is really a turning point for Elmos. We are returning to growth, after two years of headwinds from de-stocking. Yeah, this is a very good sign that the structural growth trend is very stable, and we are returning to a growth of, yeah, more than 10% per year. Our ambitious target of around EUR 1 billion sales by 2030 is anchored in design wins. This is not fantasy. The opposite, we even have additional upside beyond Automotive, for example, in the Robotics area. China, very important. China remains a very complex topic of course, but also creates opportunity. We now have a fully local function entity. We're further expanding our capabilities in China.
I think we are very well positioned to capture structural growth while maintaining strategic flexibility and also, of course, prudent risk management. We operate with a scalable established model with high margin.
Ralf?
Yeah.
Ralf, I'm sorry if I butt in, but we have one more minute.
Okay, sorry.
I quickly want a chance to ask one quick question, if I may, because we had a few.
Sure. No problem.
One question, and I'm sure that you're not really able to answer it, but I think it is in a lot of people's head. To what extent do you think the recent share price rally that we've seen is also driven by takeover speculation around Infineon or Qualcomm, and is that something that you can comment on? If so, if you please would.
Of course, like we said, we do not comment on the market rumors. What I can say is that if we were in concrete negotiations with any of these companies mentioned in these rumors, we definitely would have been subject to an ad hoc notification long ago. We have not published an ad hoc notification, so you can make up your own mind. Yeah. That's all I can say. How much speculation is included in the increased share price? I don't know. Overall, the fundamentals are great. Our Capital Markets Day were great. Many of our analysts increased the target prices after our Capital Markets Day, end of February. Q1 was good. Our outlook was positive. From a fundamental standpoint, I think we are well on track.
Yeah, our very strong development in the last couple of years and the very positive outlook, not only for 2026 but also for 2030, the ambitious midterm target, I think these are definitely the main reason for the very positive share price development in the last couple of months.
Great. Last but not least, regarding the Robotics, you said in the 2030 guidance there is no contribution included. Because of course you have Tesla with Optimus and they're going into production now, when do you expect that to become a part of your revenue base, or when do you expect humanoid robots to really go into mass production? Your opinion.
When you listen to our customers, one of our customers they said they want to build 30,000 units, or they have built 30,000 units in 2025. They planning 10x to 300,000 in 2026 and another 10x to 3 million in 2027. Can we believe that? I don't know. It's too early to really put a figure to that number. That's why we haven't include anything. It's pure upside, but I would say, really mass production of humanoid robots at an attractive price point in 2030 and beyond. Of course, it can be very significant additional upside to our revenue.
Great. Thank you so much. We're one minute over, but we started a minute late, so I guess that's just fair. Thank you everybody for participating and your interest in Elmos. I'm sure if you have any additional questions, you can reach out to Ralf directly or, of course, also to our analyst, [Albert], who stands ready to take your questions. Thanks a lot, and we'll continue with Verbio. I put the link for the next event in the chat in case you want to just jump into the next virtual room. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.