Hello everybody and Welcome to our earnings call for the first nine months 2025. My name is Bettina Schäfer and I'm Head of Investor Relations at LPKF. Our CEO Klaus Fiedler and CFO Peter Mümmler will now give you an overview of our business development in the first nine months. Afterwards there will be a Q and A session. The conference will be recorded and published for a period of two weeks on our website. Before we start, as always, I would like to point out that any forward looking statements in today's presentation are based on information currently available. These statements are not to be understood as guarantees of future performance and results. Now I hand over to Klaus Fiedler. Please go ahead Klaus.
Thank you very much, Bettina. And Welcome everybody to our earnings call for the third quarter of 2025. As usual, I will present about the main findings of Q3 and our main market, business development, and operations topics. Afterwards, Peter will walk you through the details of our financials. Let's get started. What are the key takeaways from the first nine months of 2025 for LPKF. Despite the difficulties we were facing in Q2 with the uncertainties about the global tariff situation, we were able to increase our revenue slightly for the first nine months of 2025 to roughly EUR 84 million. In the third quarter, we were feeling in revenue, of course, the slump in order intake in Q2 which was tariff related. I will walk you through how we see the order situation in Q3 in a minute.
Looking at order situation, in the total order situation we are significantly behind last year which is mainly driven due to the absence of large solar orders. When I look at our other segments, we had a very nice recovery in electronics in Q3. After a certain transparency and planability about the tariffs was given in the second half of August, our customers were placing the orders and we had a strong year-over-year growth in electronics in order intake in Q3, basically beginning to compensate the slump we had in Q2. We also have a total nine months order intake growth in development, meaning we show resilience despite the tariff situation here and are on the planned organic growth path here. We also have a strong increase in order intake in our welding segment which is to a significant part driven to a large order out of the consumer sector.
I'll walk you through on the next slide how we see the midterm perspective and how we set up the welding business unit accordingly. Looking at our strategic growth area in advanced packaging with LIDE, me and the DUAT are just back from a large Asia tour, we have a significantly increased transparency now of the production chains that have been building up in that sector. We also have a good overview of the customer selections and I can say that over 80% of the customers have now selected for their prototyping lines LPKF equipment, so we see ourselves very well positioned to achieve the market share we target in this market. I'll give you a bit more details in the next slides, and I'm sure the topic will pop up in the Q and A.
Looking at our cost saving measures, as you well know, we implemented cost saving measures to increase our resilience already in the last year. Those measures we now see in our adjusted EBIT, where we have a measurable improvement towards the last year. As Peter will tell you in the coming slides with project North Star, we are now less focusing on, let's say, short term cost saving measures, but more on true and fundamental structural changes at LPKF to make the company more resilient and to ensure that we have profitability already before we kick in with the growth we expect from our strategic growth fields. Clear target here is a double digit EBIT margin. Let's now walk through the business development in Q3 2025. What did we see?
Stable demand for rapid prototyping, and I want to especially point out that we also have a stable demand here out of the U.S., meaning that the current tariffs of 15% are of course not appreciated by our customers, but they are accepted and do not affect our order entry. We had a strong recovery in electronics, both driven out of LIDE, where we have a strong portfolio business already right now, and we see it growing, but also from the SMT sector, where we see that our strategic direction of step by step basically replacing milling with laser technology is on track after the slump in Q2, and we see more and more customers, also key accounts, now switching to laser whenever they install new production facilities. Ramp up preparations are running, and we see that very tangibly for LIDE in advanced packaging.
We have confirmation from our customers that LPKF the LIDE process is high volume ready with yield numbers with quality tests. We still see and learn that in Korea, a following process step is not yet at the yield numbers to allow a high volume ramp up, meaning we have seen first follow up orders in 2025 for LIDE, so customers expanding their capacity but not yet high volume orders. The general consensus in the market and the partners we are working with is that they will roughly in the middle of 2026 have reached the yield numbers in the following process steps that they are ready to place first high volume orders. In the solar segment, we have not seen any high volume production line investments yet in 2025.
This is the reason why we see year over year in order entry a significant delta to last year. What we see as backgrounds is partially also that our customers needed to adapt to the new global tariff situation, which requires changes in their global production footprint. The main reason we are seeing that activities for the switch to perovskite, which would offer a very high market potential for thin film solar, are continuing with high effort. We do not see yet that perovskite are at the level that a high volume ramp up can be started. Therefore, our customers are hesitant to invest in the legacy technology before perovskite are ready. Here we clearly see that we are in order entry significantly behind last year, and we prepare accordingly for that, which for us is also of course adapting the costs accordingly.
Demand for laser welding, as you well know, our planning premise for laser welding is that the automotive market will no longer be the dominant driver of our demand. There will still be automotive demand, but not at the level like we enjoyed it basically in the past 10 years. That's our planning premise, and strategic direction is clearly focus on medical markets as a stable base. There we see now the pipeline we have been preparing over the last 12 months is beginning to convert. We see nice orders coming in. Of course, the consumer market, which supported us strongly in 2025, you will see it in the numbers, but which is more transactional, you cannot plan on it as a solid base. This is basically what we are preparing for.
That also means that we need to set up our welding business unit structurally to be a profitable and growing business unit based on that market premise. Looking at business development, I'm really happy learning that even though the business is driven out of Asia and the U.S. and we are a European company, over 80% of customers have now selected LPKF for the glass structuring of advanced packaging. We went with these customers through all the steps that the process is confirmed. High volume proven, meaning we see that as also a very good foundation to participate with a dominating share in the high volume business. What we do on top of that, right now the door is open in the semiconductor packaging market for us.
You will see still this quarter that we will offer an additional process step in this production chain with a strategic direction of LPKF is active in many markets, but usually with exactly one process in each market. That is not enough to be strategically relevant. We want to become a strategically relevant long-term partner in the packaging industry. We need to and want to offer more. We found a suitable process step. We demonstrated our capabilities, talked to the customers, and will officially release that still this quarter. Looking at our SMT product line with laser depaneling, we continue to stay the course. We offer every year continuous total cost of ownership improvements to our customers. We market the story strongly that already right now in many applications it's more cost efficient to use a laser instead of milling.
We see Q2 was basically a gap, but with Q3 now we see that this traction is converting into order entry, more and more design wins also with large key accounts. We expect that this will continue over the coming years with organic growth. You can expect from us significant improvements in total cost of ownership for our customers also next year, meaning that it will be more and more unattractive not to use a laser. We talked already about solar. Perovskite as a new thin film solar technology is very much in focus globally in the U.S., in Asia, but is not yet in our view ready for high volume ramp ups. In that situation, we are faced with a significantly lower investment and appetite for cadmium telluride. Right now we see that also in our order entry for solar.
We have positioned ourselves to be as competitive as possible in the existing market with basically offering a more cost efficient solution for the China market. We are of course in intensive discussions with our key accounts, but we also focus on what we can control right here and now to manage cost as best as possible to basically bridge this gap until the investment kicks off in our expectation even stronger once perovskites are volume ready. To our welding business unit, market-wise clearly strong focus on medical and consumer applications, but we also need to broaden the addressable market to get that back on a stable growth course.
We demonstrated our new product line, absorbent to absorbent, which opens up a lot of plastic types to be welded that were not addressable before at the large K show just a couple of weeks ago with strong customer interest and also with good head start to any competition. That aspect of getting welding back on track is now beginning to become reality. Couple of words on operations. Operational execution is on track with no significant bottlenecks. We didn't have, like we had at times, there were supply chain constraints, any delays in shipments or other issues. Operations-wise, no negative news to report. As already mentioned, we already started in 2024 with implementing cost reductions to make us more resilient for adverse market developments like the tariff situation. It's good to see that now as a significant positive impact to our bottom line.
We also continue to focus on our working capital reduction and see good results in that one. Peter will report about it in a minute. Cash collection here at the front line and with Peter now on board, we have launched project North Star, which is less focused on short-term cost savings and more on true structural changes. Structural efficiency improvements to make LPKF more profitable but also more resilient to adverse effects that can happen. As you all know, the tariff situation has stabilized for now, but it's definitely not a true solid planning foundation yet. Many aspects, many countries, many product areas are still under investigation by the U.S. Administration. We need to be more resilient while staying our strategic course. With that, I want to hand over to Peter for the financials. Peter, please walk us through the numbers.
Hello everybody. Sorry I had some technical problems. That's the reason I'm joining now via phone. I would like to go through the financials.
Can you see the slides, Peter?
Yes, I can. Good, go to the first slide.
Yep.
Basically, what you see in our first nine months overall in the revenue and profitability, we really had a good improvement in the revenue, about a slightly 2%. Despite when we look at all the tariff discussion and that we have an impact in SQ, we had a very strong, strong WQ business here. What really from the consumer market, what really lifts us and can show a strong revenue with a growth compared to the previous year. When you look at the profitability, the EBIT, the EBIT margin, that's even higher. The background of the EBIT margin is really that we could secure stable prices and material costs. You see it down when you look at the total employee numbers.
With our saving program we started last year, we found a significant impact in this program that we really cut costs by reducing headcounts and really put some materials in there. This you can see in the EBIT improvement of 51% in the adjusted EBIT, 86% the adjusted EBITDA. You see that reduction of employees will cost money in certain areas. Therefore, we have a slight more improvement in adjusted EBIT, but for the first nine months a really good performance. When we look at the incoming orders, there we see our challenge. I mean, Klaus mentioned this already in the beginning. We have in our solar business really a topic about big orders. You can see this here. This is for us a challenge and even a slide in Q2 due to the tariff discussion.
A slight shift of order income and this hits us really significant with minus 22%. This you can see even is a following income is the free cash flow we have compared to the last year. We missed significant size of big orders, what was combined with advance payment. You see this later on in the other slides that we have an impact of -EUR 6 million in roughly in advance payments. The first nine months we recovered significantly by really an improved cash collection. Therefore, the impact compared to the previous year was really roughly around EUR 4 million, EUR 3.5 million - EUR 4 million, and really still a good performance when we look at compared to the other income orders on hand. You see this. This is the consequence, missing incoming orders from SQ. This you can see really that we significantly use compared to the previous year the orders and hands.
As you see, I mentioned this already, PIP cost improvement program has an impact in employees overall from 780 employees - 736 employees. Go to the next slide. The next slide is there you can see the performance of the business units. Overall you see a good picture of our business units. We have a good step still in electronics where we really have an improvement in revenue compared to last year and 4.2%. Our development business is strongly in the U.S. market too, even with all this tariff discussion, improvement about 2.8% of growth. Very good welding I mentioned is the most impact in the first half year. Nine quarters we have is driven by really a backwind we received from large consumer orders, which helps us a lot in the first nine months.
You can see the challenge we have in the solar business towards the missing orders we received with minus 20% compared to the previous year. More likely you can see that when you're going in the profitability side of the business unit. Electronic develops step by step, slowly improving compared to the revenue, and the profitability in development we have a slight better improvement due to the fact that of these measurements like head count and material, there we had the biggest impact. Therefore, we have compared to the revenue development a much higher improvement in profitability. Welding, pretty clear, very volume drives profitability here. We made huge step here in cost savings with the growth in the revenue, and even the solar business, even we lost significant revenue. We find countermeasures, but we could not cover all the reduction of revenue towards the business in solar.
This we see in this margin overall, still huge improvement compared to the previous year. We are in the right direction. Next slide. Here we can see what I mentioned already, the topic about the cash flow. We are stable with the inventory, even we go into a slight growth. We're managing this pretty well, and this is for me the most impact, the prepayments received. There you can see what I mentioned about this significant impact due to missing orders. We did this counter initiative with the trade with the receivables. We really improved our cash collection process to get the money on time in our bank accounts. This is continuous way to improve, but we are in a really good level, I must say, to really managing our receivables properly. Trade receivables received developed a little bit low.
This is again driven by the revenue loss we have in solar business and overall we can show a stable working capital with all the impacts we're having so far. Summarizing, good nine months, we pushing forward to keep the impact as low as possible. Klaus, next page and I hand over to Klaus.
Thank you very much, Peter. As you know, we had to adapt our guidance for 2025 after we did a bottom-up round call of all our customers in August and were basically able to see how their plans are now affected by the tariff situation. We stick to this guidance here. Of course, let's talk a bit about midterm aspiration. Clearly, as Peter mentioned, through North Star, our aim is, while keeping our growth cost in strategic markets, to basically make sure through true structural improvements of LPKF that we continue to stay the course to reduce costs, gain efficiency, and have a sustainable double-digit EBIT margin already at the revenue levels that we have right now, and basically boost that with strategic growth in the areas we are focusing. Let's quickly walk through them.
Semiconductor market, I already reported that we see a strong strategic positioning with our LIDE technology, and we also make sure that this is defended not only through the performance of our products but also through clearly pointing out about our intellectual property, which is visible in the product if our intellectual property has been used or not, and making sure that all customers are aware if anybody infringes on our IP, we will take the corresponding measures, and we will do that. Also, and that is for me very important, to now use the opportunity to expand our product portfolio to get out of the situation of being a one-trick pony in our markets and to really expand into becoming a strategic partner for the semicon market.
We will offer the next step right now this quarter, and we will expand on that in optical co-packaging, which for us is a logical next step once glass is in the semiconductor package in SMT and rapid PCB prototyping. Solid growth prospects, we see them clearly also in Q3 in our order entry. Q2, yes, this basically brought the market to wait-and-see mode. With transparency in the tariffs, we picked up the growth cost very nicely. We are very convinced that with what we are doing, laser will step by step completely replace milling technologies in most application areas. Rapid PCB prototyping, we have basically the dominant part of the market. We want to keep it like that. That's a clear outlook. We are seeing solar currently clearly in a weak phase. There is a transition going on in the market.
We need to manage it on the cost side the best way possible. We also see that the transition to perovskite will give a very strong boost to thin film solar. It will become a much more relevant part of the overall solar industry compared to currently, where, say, crystalline or amorphous silicon is the dominating part. We see that as a very promising growth opportunity for us. We want to manage through the current slump situation, and we want to continue to stay very well positioned for the perovskite ramp ups that we see in the future. In welding strategic realignment, including structural realignment, we are not planning on automotive demand coming back to its previous levels. If it does, great, that would be upside. We are realigning on markets in medical and consumer, with medical as a foundation.
We, of course, stay the course with expanding our addressable market with absorbent to absorbent. All of this needs to happen at a cost base where we see this is profitable, this is contributing even in this new market environment, in this new direction we are taking. As Peter already mentioned, we did first steps in 2024. These are good, these help us right now, and they are visible in our bottom line. We want to absolutely stay the course to now basically go to true structural future-oriented changes in the structure of LPKF. Basically, we want to grow, and we have taken the steps, and we have the proof points that we are making the progress. We need to be resilient. Even if the next adverse factor would come in 2026, we don't know, but the tariffs clearly hurt us in 2025.
We need to be resilient enough that we are a profitable company and can then, with the growth impulses we are seeing from semicon market, from SMT, really show a presentable EBIT margin to the markets. That's the overall summary on where we stand and our Q3. I'll head back to Bettina to open the Q&A session.
Thank you very much, Klaus.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready for your questions. You can ask them either by typing them into the Q&A session or by raising your hand, and then I will unmute you. The first question I will read out comes from Peter Baer. Can you tell a bit about reasons for the lacking of the solar segment?
Of course, happy to go into that. As you know, our solar segment has a large key account in the U.S., but to basically mitigate the risk of being dependent on a large key account, already many years ago we also focused on the Chinese market to balance it out. When we look at our U.S. business, the first thing that happened is that our customer was strongly affected by the tariff situation. He has a global production footprint, and suddenly with imports from countries where he's producing for an end customer market in the U.S., the whole business needed to be reevaluated, the whole production chain. That brought a certain, let's say, stop to the usual investment cycle. The second effect that we see is that our customer in the U.S.
is working strongly on perovskites and is basically in a fact-finding mission on whether he will still expand in the legacy technology, cadmium telluride, or will he wait with investments? So far, he therefore did not give us the necessary transparency on orders that we usually in a normal year would already see in our books. The second effect is China. We see the same foundation, people being very focused on perovskites and therefore saying, should I invest before the perovskites are ready? We also see a general investment hesitancy in China. The few deals that are currently available don't have high technical, let's say, requirements. When it comes to low and mid-end applications, Chinese local competition is aggressively attacking those deals. This is the situation we see right now for the current slump in order entries for solar. What are we doing about it?
We have been preparing and we have it ready and are already offering it in the market. Let's say we call it allegro essential, so a basic solution for the needs of the Chinese markets, basically a no-frill solution at a superior price point to be competitive also in the low and mid-end sector. That's running. We work intensively with key accounts both in China and in the U.S. on being very well positioned for the perovskite boom. I think we did the right steps. We are positioned with prototyping lines in both countries and we are well prepared and continue to work to basically take the expected boom in perovskites with our product offerings. I hope that answers your question, Mr. Baer.
Thank you, Klaus. The next question comes from Bastian Brach. I have unmuted you, Mr. Brach.
Hello.
Yes, we hear you.
Perfect. Two questions for me. The first one is on the guidance. The guidance range is quite wide.
That we only have two months left.
In the year with EUR 10 million between lower end and high end.
What does the difference imply here?
Is it because of maybe potential last minute orders or the date of revenue recognition at the end? My second question would be, could you remind us what the timeline of the North Star project initiative is, with the majority of the effects already be in place in 2026, or is it planned for 2027 and onwards? Thank you.
Thank you. I would say I take the first question. Peter takes the second question. To the first question, basically what we saw, we had a weak order entry in Q2, which was mainly caused by customers saying look, I want to buy but I don't have numbers to put in my business plan. I don't know what to put in as tariffs. In Q3, we saw it starting basically in September, a lot of nice orders came in. We continue to see that also now in October. Yes, we have a bit of a last minute rush at the moment. Yes, we see nice last minute orders coming in. For example, also in rapid prototyping where suddenly people say okay, now I have my budget and approvals, here's the order, can you still ship? We are as best as possible managing that operationally.
I got to say that we are chalk block full in operations, in electronics and in rapid prototyping. We have been preparing to be as flexible as possible, but of course we are definitely controlling our working capital. We did not put a ton of bill of material in stock. These orders are coming in as we speak and we are working on what can we still execute. Yes, no, as we speak, that's the reason for the range. What I also want to mention, because we had that occurrence in the past, there are no large bulk orders that we plan to ship in December and there could be a cut off risk or something that we don't have this year. It's portfolio business we are doing. To the second question I would like to hand over to Peter.
I think it was a good question because we need to really combine the last year initiative towards North Star. The last year initiative was focusing really on cost cutting purely and really taking, I would say, low hanging fruits. North Star is a more strong strategic profitability improvement program. I'm saying strategic because, as Klaus mentioned already, North Star has two main areas where we need to go. First, we need to get resilient on the revenue fluctuation. In the past, we lost 10% revenue, had an impact of 50%- 100% impact in profitability. We need to change that, so not immediately when we have an impact in revenue will we have this dramatic impact in profitability.
The second is, when we look at the long term, we need to create a second lever to really bring towards EBIT, towards the profitability, besides the lever growth. In North Star, we are more looking at really improving the base, the fundamentals, looking at the processes, getting speed. We are in the process and we're going in really in all areas of the company, like operations, complete supply chain, R&D, engineering, sales, administration, infrastructure costs, and structures. What we're doing is, now we are in the first, in September, we had the kickoff. We create now all the ideas and coming to the beginning that we have a bunch of ideas. Now in Q4, November, beginning of December, we really bring it down to specific measures. In this case, I can tell you when and how long will it take.
There will be a part of the measures that will be a fast track, will have an impact in 2026, but there will be sustainable measures, what really the foundation will go into 2027, therefore. We will answer this question really specific in the next, in the quarter and then full year session next year because we finalize this quarter. Do you answer your question?
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Johannes Ries. I have unmuted you, Mr. Ries.
Hello.
Yes, Mr. Ries,
Me.
Yes.
Okay. Good morning. First question maybe regarding the digital products in the semiconductor space. If I got it right, even from your interviews in the press as recent interviews. It's not only CPO, there could also be maybe panel-based level packaging is also maybe an area in the semiconductor space you are looking for.
Pardon? I didn't acoustically fully get your question.
Maybe your talk. If I got it right and suppose you want to widen up your semiconductor portfolio. Is besides CPO co-packaged optics or the panel level packaging a topic?
Thank you, I got the question. Let me elaborate a little bit. The nice thing is that all the large players in advanced packaging are now really opening up their needs and their roadmaps to us. We systematically went through the whole production chain for advanced packaging, not for future like co-package optics. We do that as well, but for right now. We said look guys, how do you do your production steps? Where do we see that you have pain points? Where do you have needs? We analyzed and yes I think I can be specific here. You know you have the large glass panel, you do the glass structuring, that's our process step. Then you metallize, that's not our process step. I wish these guys were already a bit further than they are currently.
In the end you need to, and then you bring the multi-layer of routing onto this glass panel. That's a so-called ABF, complicated and expensive process. At the end you've got to singulate that whole glass panel, so you gotta make individual chip carriers out of it. In the singulation step you have to very precisely singulate also this ABF layer, and if you do that wrong you have a big yield loss. Our customers currently have a solution for that which is a mechanical, slow, and costly solution. We have did our homework here and found out oh with a laser and our tensor technology we can very nicely, fast, and super precise make that cutting singulation step.
We presented that to the customers, found a significant interest, and said let's be fast, let's release that as a market offering this quarter and at least have two process steps that we can offer and cover in that production chain. That's for me the strategic direction we gotta take, become relevant. Be more than the guy who can do one thing very well, become a strategic partner. I hope that answers your question Mr. Ries.
Maybe short follow on how much this additional solutions increase your total available market.
Market in the semiconductor space.
50%, 80%.
We are currently evaluating. I don't want to give you a half-baked number here. It will of course be more than we currently address, but I don't want to give you a half-baked number. We are evaluating throughput figures, which go one to one into the number of machine needs. We are of course evaluating pricing here and so on. Expect me in the next call to give you a more precise answer. I don't mean I'll give you a.
Half baked one.
And the single laser machines, when they will be available, when they will be ready to market.
Oh, they are completely synergetic to the platform we use for light. We basically only need to change the laser process and the optics. This will be fast.
Great. Maybe on the other parts you didn't mention or only very shortly, the display market and the area in the press release you mentioned, ARRALYZE develops lower and it's more difficult to enter the market. Maybe you can give us a little more background information. You're looking for further partners. It looks like you don't give up in the space. You see you have a strong solution, but it's more difficult because it's an area you are not active so far. On the display market you mentioned it's slow. It means you are more cautious on this market. Adoption is slower or do you still see interesting potential maybe in a year or two years in the display market?
Of course. Let me answer these questions. We are a no name in the biotech field and we so far were doing the market access and the market penetration organically out of our own resources. Yes, we have, how shall I say, lighthouse customers who are using the machine and the feedback is positive. I am absolutely not happy with the speed of market graduation. We said no guys, wait and see is not the right approach. We got in a very senior expert who has executive experience in this specific market field for decades. We hired him as a consultant. He is on board and he will guide us. I think the product is good, but what we are doing in market access is obviously not working. He is guiding us towards, look guys, this is an approach you can take that the rubber hits the road.
I very much suspect that what we will do is say, look, without a partner to cover the market access, we will not gain the speed, the traction and the top line we need here. This is in the works. The guy is on board and we want to come to a conclusion here within this quarter. That's where we are in our lives. You were saying display. That was for me something where I was not happy with when I was visiting Korea two weeks ago. We are not doing the customer access ourselves. Our display partner is doing it. What I saw is not the speed in market penetration I was expecting. We were doing a deep dive. What's going on? We found out that it is not surprising that the legacy technology of course fights back through pricing.
I did not see the right speed and energy to then counter that and say okay, this is what we do to accelerate. We said no, not good enough. We are partnering up now with the production partner that is selected and with our display partner we generated a task force and we now want to support as much as we can as LPKF to basically increase the speed of market penetration. There are projects and design wins are running, but this should be faster for me. We as LPKF now say, look guys, just talk to us if we can help you with something. We want to be there. We want to contribute to this market penetration. That's where we stand here. I see the potential as fully given the USPs and the attractiveness should be clearly there.
I do not see that we are doing enough to accelerate it as much as possible. I hope that answers your question, Mr. Rees here.
Finally, maybe to your midterm ambition. I missed something in the former statements you mentioned. You expect the single digit growth in the digital business and a three digit million revenue longer term in the new activities, the growth activities. Is that still a valid assumption or have you to change it because of all? Maybe the new assumption and new things you saw in the different market segments.
No, the fundamental direction is absolutely unchanged. We see ourselves at the moment in a situation where market volatility and especially the global situation is really hard to plan. Basically, we said we want to describe more clearly in our guidance in which sectors we see the growth drivers, but also where we see, for example, short term slumps or stabilization like in solar and in welding. That's the reason why we said let's make it more transparent and vertical like that. Addressable market sizes, for example, in advanced packaging are where we expected them to be.
Okay, suppose still valid that we expecting the leader for the new activity that was low revenue in the longer term.
That's correct.
Okay, thanks a lot.
Okay.
Who had a question, right?
Yes, the next question comes from Edwin De Jong. I have unmuted you. Mr. De Jong, hello?
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Okay, great.
Thanks for taking my questions. My questions are mostly related to light. Very good to hear that you're now HVM ready. I think you already were in the U.S. I was wondering a little bit on the situation there. Your American customer, as far as I understood, stepped back there from glass structuring business and is licensing it out or was considering to license it out. What's happening there?
I get your question. Basically, when I look at what production chains have now been established for glass in advanced packaging, it's very clear that none of the large OEMs anymore plans a vertical integration. They say we want a supply chain that covers that. I also see a clear split. There are companies that focus solely on the step of structuring and metallizing the glass. I see here seven, eight players that have positioned themselves. We then see a list of companies and they are partly the usual semiconductor substrate companies. PCB companies that are established who say great, we buy these metallized glass sheets, we do all the ABF layer and so on on that and the singulation. You have the usual OEMs who drive that business, who buy it, their packaging houses, package it.
The American customer you have been mentioning was in the past very well known for vertical integration, let's do everything in house. The only thing that changed, and he confirmed in a press release that he continues to be strongly engaged in glass, the only thing that changed is that he now does what everybody else does, give it to the supply chain.
Is it then something for the OSATs or am I completely.
The OSATs are more doing the assembly. The companies that really now do the glass structuring and who are the customers where we get POS from are partly established players that, for example, had a great footprint in glass for display and say hey great, I can leverage my core competences and I have a great new business field. Partly they are companies that are active in the current, let's say, semicon PCB business and say no, I take that process step as well. The OSATs are more the guys who do the final assemblies then, but not the actual processing. That's what we see by and large. It's a highly complicated ecosystem map, but that's by and large what we see shaping up. I can also confirm that Korea is a hot spot here. Those guys are very active and really are pushing ahead, stronger than other countries.
There's also a good footprint in Japan and Taiwan and partly U.S. Korea.
And Korea at least said so. The big memory player there has been very vocal also on glass substrates. Did I get it wrong from the introduction that you're not yet HVM ready there, or is that something ready?
We are absolutely ready. All players have confirmed that we showed them also our roadmap. We have machines ready also when they go to higher volume needs. What is the situation? Is that a following process? I need to be a bit careful what I say now. I have all this info. If I spread it too wide, I won't have it anymore. A following process step produces usable sheets. That's not the problem, but is not yet at the yield level and therefore the TCO, total cost of ownership, level that people say oh, I can go into high volume ramp up. Those guys are still figuring out the nitty gritty details of getting to the right yield level and that's a trigger that the customers and the market need to push the high volume ramp up button.
I want to be honest with you guys, I was hoping that those guys are a bit further than they are right now. They make good progress. We, for example, could show to our customers PPM levels that made them happy and said great, I can ramp with that. Those guys are not yet at this point but are working on it with high engagement and they are real global leading players who are engaged in that step. I am confident they will get it done.
Okay, clear. Finally, the other big country, Taiwan. I guess you've got competition there from T-Glass.
I guess I never mention customer names.
No, no, no, no, no.
Not the customer, let's say more as in competition, T- Glass. Is that the competitor there or should I?
Competitors for us are companies who also offer machines to precision structure glass.
Yeah.
Not the glass itself.
No, the glass itself. There are other companies who are doing that. The usual suspects, I would say, in Specialty Glass, SCHOTT, Corning, you name it. I think they've prepared themselves very well to serve that market. That's not a bottleneck. I see. Okay. Okay.
Finally, maybe on orifice here. We're seeing a lot happening in the glass structuring business. We see companies ramping up. How should we see the trajectory for you guys? Is it like the other ones, like the other back end companies, so to say the back end equipment companies, that H1 is probably, H1 2026 is probably going to be a little bit slow and the second half will be a lot better? Can you maybe elaborate a little bit on how you see the facing there?
Absolutely. First and foremost, we have a healthy and growing and profitable portfolio business with light. We are selling machines. If you walk into our production right now, it's chock block full with light machines. We already have a healthy business and first follow-up orders. It's on an eight-figure scale. It's not where we want it to be yet. When you ask me, hey, how do you see the point in time when finally somebody pushes the button on a high-volume order? It is dependent on the yield levels of consecutive process steps being ready for ramp. I talked to a lot of the large players two weeks ago when I did my Asia tour. The general consensus there is mid of 2026, but everybody also says, look, it depends on the yield levels being where we need them to be.
Where we do have transparency now, and I'm very happy about that, is roadmaps of the OEMs. What tangible product for artificial intelligence chips and so on is it actually going into? It's in the roadmaps, it's in the product portfolio planning of the large OEMs. They are also counting on it ramping up in the course of the time frame I just mentioned. There is an error bar on it because they gotta get the yield levels to where they need them to be. General consensus I heard was mid of 2026, we should be ready.
Okay, very clear.
I'm also happy to see that you're taking other steps.
I want to mention that I think I mentioned it many times. This is the semicon market. Only the paranoid survive. A lot of companies want in that market now. I need to make sure that our IP, which is strong and globally positioned, is really seen. Everybody needs to know we will defend it. We will not tolerate copycats because, of course, a lot of players want in. I'm happy with my positioning. I know it won't be a single source market, it should not be a single source market. I see that our technology brings very tangible advantages, and we cannot tolerate it to be copied. We gotta stay very alert here.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. I would like to read out a question from Bennett Meyerbom. Could you elaborate on what makes you certain that there will be high volume orders for LIDE technology in 2026?
Basically, as just mentioned, I see that it's now ingrained in the roadmaps of the OEMs for their packaging. We are beginning to see clearer transparency. The fog is lightening up. I see very much and I get that now, what my customers, when I visit them, of course I ask them, look, and what's your volume planning? When can I expect what? They show it to me and say, yeah, that's my plan. I gotta get that process, step X to the right yield level. That's what I plan. Based on this consensus picture I saw during my Asia trip, I say yes, those guys mean business. I see the end consumer pushing and putting it into their roadmaps and their product planning. I see that all the preparations are running for volume production, factories being prepared and so on and so forth. I also see the transparency on.
Hey guys, why haven't you started a year ago? What's holding you back? It's all a very plausible situation for me. That's the reason why I say, look, that looks real to me.
Thank you. Now I think the last question comes from Malte Sharman. I have unmuted you, Mr. Sharman. Mr. Sharman, can you say something? Mr. Sharman.
Let me know.
Yes, we can
Now It's good.
Okay, so first question is on LIDE with the business you currently have until here. Do you see the business going in 2025, potentially 2026 as well, or is that staying more or less flat on a similar level, and only once high volume production orders kick in, then you will see, I mean this will be significant growth. Much different from maybe you're seeing.
Today I see growth in the portfolio business, which makes me happy. That's not the price we are aiming for. The high volume is what will make a real difference for all of LPKF. It's growing in the portfolio business we currently have.
Okay, I mean, yeah, sure. I mean the packaging will make a significant difference. That's for sure. On, I mean, which options are on the table? I mean, are you considering potential sale of the technology to a partner? Do you think it's rather likely to license it out, or will the partner just act as a distribution partner and you manufacture it? Have you still made up your mind about which way is the right?
Way to go at the moment, all options are on the table, and I will in the course of November shape them up more tangible, do the pro con analysis at the moment. I'm very glad that we have the external expert on board here who has a great network in this industry, that we basically now get the insights. Look guys, what options do we have? I want to be very honest. I'm a big supporter of really venturing out into new market fields, but they gotta contribute at a certain point in time, and there I don't see that this has happened to a sufficient level yet. I also need to see options that contribute to a good profitability of LPKF. That will be also one of my guiding principles here.
New businesses may take their time, you need to take some risks, but they need to also then make the rubber hit the road. Very happy with LIDE. Yes guys, that's how it's working. I need to see a way that ARRALYZE does the same, and any option you were mentioning is an option I would consider if it fulfills that target.
Okay, early next year you might be able to provide a strategic update.
Exactly.
Okay, then on the welding, the larger consumer-related demand, is that more or less through by the end of the third quarter? Is there substantial business left for the fourth quarter or maybe early 2026?
The big bulk is through. It's in the books. There's still a bit coming. There's also still something coming in Q1 that's already ordered, so I can plan for it. We are in talks. We actually have the guys in house next Monday here on follow up orders as well. I plan with caution here. Welding needs to be a sustainable and contributing business unit based on the core of what we can get out of medical and automotive. Consumer can be huge, can also be nothing in a year. I cannot count on huge. I need to take it as upside opportunities we realize. For this year, we of course still have nice revenue in Q4, but the big bulk of the consumer deal is basically in the books and in the revenue.
Okay, good. On the order into fourth quarter order intake, you mentioned that you have seen some wash orders in October. Should we expect kind of a better order intake in the fourth quarter than you have seen in the first quarter, three quarters of the year?
I need to take it per product line. So electronics. Yes, yes. This is looking really like Q2 was basically a gap, and then it continues on the trajectory we're expecting for the full year. This is looking really good. I would say the same about our rapid prototyping business. We have a relevant business from the public sector in the U.S. that, you know, all these universities, research centers, defense is also to a certain extent public. We have a government shutdown in the U.S., and I would like to tell you how long that drags on, but nobody knows. In normal business conditions, also, they are nice and good. Growth could also be a bit flattish because when the government shutdown affects it, that's a risk we are currently facing.
Welding, they will definitely not have the order entry of the first half where they were getting the orders for this large consumer deal. I see a good and healthy order entry, and I like that it's coming more and more from the medical sectors. That is really nice from my side. In solar, I expect a couple of millions of orders from spare part here and nitty gritty stuff there. I do not expect a less high volume order in Q4. I hope that answers your question.
That's fair enough. Thanks. Last one, on the personnel expense, I mean that had been at a rather low level in the third quarter after the cost saving you implemented. Is that kind of the level you would expect as a run rate for the time being going into Q4 and then 2026.
Peter, you take that.
Already with the NOSA for Q4. This will be the range we're going forward somewhere because we're stabilizing. We are now the same in November, going really into details on all the measures and the activities about how we're really improving further and sustainably. This will be the outcome at the end of the quarter, and then we would see really what's going on in 2026. We still, and this is an ongoing process, we still are looking at every euro and being cautious with spending, cautious with replacing people. Overall, the change really is to see making really a forecast or looking forward of the North Star we will have in the next meeting in Q1 next year because we need to go more into the details down there.
Okay, good, thanks.
I hope we have time for one last question from Michael Reiss. What is the absolute difference in solar orders in the 29 months period?
Okay, I take that we do not report per segment our order entry. What I can tell you is the difference for first nine months Solar orders 2024 against 2025 more than explains the difference we see in total LPKF order entry. Okay, so what message I want to take? Actually, we cannot complain about order entry in three bus, but the big delta we see from one bus in the overall LPKF picture shows this delta. Sorry for not being able to give you more specific numbers.
Thank you, Klaus. I think with that we have to close this call. Thank you very much to everybody for joining. The next regular earnings call would be on the 26th of March when we release our annual report. Thanks again and goodbye to everyone.
Thanks everybody.