My name is Bettina Schäfer, and I am responsible for Investor Relations at LPKF. Here with me today are our CEO, Klaus Fiedler, and our CFO, Peter Mümmler. Klaus and Peter will review our business performance over the first nine months and provide an outlook for the current financial year and beyond. After that, we will open the floor for your questions. The conference will be recorded and published for a period of two weeks on our website. Before we begin, please note that today's discussion may include forward-looking statements. These are based on current assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results could therefore differ significantly. We have no obligation to update these statements unless required by law. With that, I would like to hand over to Klaus.
Thank you very much, Bettina. Hello and welcome everybody to our Q3 reporting for the first nine months of 2026. As usual, I want to start with the main key takeaways and then go deeper into market and business development before we come to the financial numbers. Key takeaways from the first nine months, we have a revenue of slightly above EUR 60 million, which is significantly below prior year and also reflects in the EBIT. As communicated, the main driver here is that we are missing large, high-volume factory fitting in our solar business due to the ongoing, and driven with very high energy, changeover to perovskite technologies. In Advanced Packaging, where we are very well-positioned with our, by now, three glass processing processes, what did we see? We see now that the promised transition from a qualification and R&D period to first ramp-up deals is happening.
We got, and we announced that as well, an LOI from a leading Asian manufacturer that shows that we also make the transition into being the operations partner from being a multi-year technology partner. As communicated, I will have more details later, we expect that to continue. It is also a fact that we expected these orders earlier in the year and therefore already to a larger part in revenue recognition. There were delays, and they were driven by downstream processes, not by our processes, that forced our customers to shift their decisions by a couple of months. Peter will later say more about North Star. It is clear that we need to set up the company with a more efficient cost structure and more flexibility. First wave is completed.
We are well on the way, and we will make a transition to a new organization form, to a more functional organization to continue getting more efficient in our cost structure. Due to the fact that an expected deal in the solar business is now highly likely to shift into 2027, we had to revise our outlook and are now guiding in a range of EUR 93 million- EUR 100 million with a negative EBIT between -7% and -2.5%. Background of that shift, I will come later to. Our midterm ambition is intact. We are now in the transition phase from positioning to ramp-up orders and later high-volume orders in the highly attractive and broad field of Advanced Packaging.
We are doing the necessary measures on the cost side for our core business and see ourselves well on the way to reach a sustainable double-digit EBIT by 2028. Next slide, please.
Let's talk a bit more deep about market situation, business development, and operations in Q3. Overall environment is unchanged, and you all know it very well. We have persistent macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, wars, fragile supply chains. That, of course, brings caution into the investment behavior of our customers, with basically two fields excepted, and that's, of course, anything related to AI and to defense. As mentioned, in solar, our customers prepare for the perovskite transition with high energy. Until that transition is done and ramps can be executed, we see limited investment in legacy technology and basically need to bridge this phase with strict cost measures, but also with supporting our customers to our best capabilities in reaching their goals for perovskites. In the semicon industry, ongoing transformation towards glass-based is happening, is happening with strong energy.
We see now that first players are positioning themselves, are placing ramp-up orders. You will find a lot of details of that in the press because it's a very hot topic. We see, yes, also this year, it didn't come as communicated to us timeline-wise when we did our planning for 2026, but it's not like we talk about delays in, "Oh, it's shifting a year." Couple of months, and now people are really moving in the direction we were preparing for. What does it mean for us when we come to business development? I'll have a bit more details later. We have a really strong position in. Our customers were developing their processes also to a big extent with LPKF equipment, transitioning it now into the operational lock-in. That's where we are right in the middle and are delivering the proof points this year.
That is extremely important because, and I saw that very clearly at SEMICON West this year, even an LOI from a very large player, it massively increases our visibility in the market, it increases our credibility in the market, and it also brings us more and more in contact with established players in the market, where we are also considering forming potential strategic partnerships to improve our market access to improve the transition to high volume. Looking at our core product lines, rapid prototyping, order entry is up year-over-year. We see that book- to- bill is developing in the right direction, but not full steam.
While we are seeing a healthy demand in China, which is actually above plan, and also Europe, the public sector orders in the U.S. are very weak given that budget availability in public research institutions is volatile in the U.S. at the moment. We are seeing that order entry is increasing year-over-year. It could be stronger, and that's clearly driven by U.S. being in a volatile situation. Our SMT sector, which is depaneling, as you well know, and our stencil lasers, that's actually showing a very healthy year-over-year improvement in order entry despite, of course, a global investment restraint and geopolitical tensions. Some of our applications in SMT are related to the wider ecosystem of AI, and that continues to generate, of course, strong growth.
We will show a growing business that is good, but the growth could of course, be much stronger if the broad sector would not be affected by the geopolitical tensions. Solar, as mentioned, a massive gap. There is no other wording for that relative to our steady state, which we had for many, many years due to the perovskite shift. Definitely a very good outlook when the perovskites are there. We take the cost measures, support our customers to our best capabilities, and basically bridge this phase. Welding business, we still see revenue down and earnings negative, driven by the fact that our classic area where we were active, automotive, is not in a strong investment phase. We see that the areas we are focusing on show now the progress we expected. In the robotic sector, we have been delivering the first batches of machines which are in successful operations.
We see a positive outlook in that area, truly going into high volume in the robotic sector, but we are still in a transition phase. We are not yet at a stage where we say this business is performing to a level that we expected. With that, I hand over to Peter to talk a little bit about operations.
Thanks, Klaus. For operations overall, you see the development in the net working capital, and this is pushed by the actual development of the revenue. The headcount development is going down. This is majorly driven by the Wave 1 of North Star that we really used here in third headcounts. This is really about competitiveness and cost reduction, this headcount down to 651 headcounts. What I mentioned, the first wave of North Star is completed. We are really on track. We have cost savings now close to a little bit over EUR 8 million, and this will be now materialized over the time. But the measures are completed, and the full impact will be next week and next year. But we keep going on this.
Wave 2 North Star, the leadership team, the functional structure is appointed, and now we are really working on the processes for really implementation continuous, and the start is planned for 1st of January . The new organization, as I mentioned, 1st of January . We still have a couple of discussions with the works council about this, because it is changing from a business unit structure to a functional structure. But what is very important here is that we are talking about a transformation. It is not only that we have another push in cost reduction. This step is a further step, especially when you look at our future in the Advanced Packaging, make us operational, ready to being a high excellent operational company. This is another step in the direction, get ready for the ramp-up in Advanced Packaging.
When you go to the next slide, because we talk about a lot of times about North Star. That's the way of North Star. As I mentioned already, the Wave 1 was really clearly cost saving. I must say that, yeah, we saw that we have a decrease of volume due to the solar business, the perovskite decisions in the market. We get ready. North Star is a lot of help in the profitability to really get this company stable. The Wave 1, I'm very happy to say that it's completed. We are done. You see the line ramping up the Wave 2. It started now, will be started on the 1st of January, that we really implement all the measures. We are ready for the measures. The target is clearly a double-digit EBIT, as we promised, for 2028.
With the North Star, we are really in a pretty good way, I must say, to secure this double-digit EBIT in 2028. I mentioned that the reason it's very important, Wave 1 and Wave 2 are two areas. Yes, both have cost savings, but Wave 2 is transformation towards the operational excellence and getting really, make a further development, a further step in our product development area that we getting, gaining more output out of our investments in our products in the future. We are pretty good on track and confident that we are delivering this, what you see in front of you. The full impact then, the full impact in our P&L will be in 2028, and this is our target. Therefore, all the measures will be completed in 2027. Therefore, I will hand over to Klaus about a further view in the Advanced Packaging market.
Thank you, Peter. Just a little bit more details. Transition now from positioning phase into ramp-up phase. Where are we? What's going on in the market? You know well that we already won one customer in the first half of 2026. A second customer has now formalized his decision with an LOI, which is very important, and will issue the POs in this year, consequently. With that LOI, visibility and also pressure in the market, oh, people are moving, has increased. What we are seeing right now is that several other players are making their operational ambitions more tangible, are working with us. We are also seeing, you know that we defend our IP, and if somebody is not playing game, we are also willing to take legal measures.
We see that, and that's specifically a China phenomenon, that also Chinese players, sometimes very short-term, are now approaching us in terms of, "Hey, we want to ramp. Can you deliver? Are you ready?" In terms of things are getting tangible in that area. What we also see, of course, it's a large market. We showed you the 10 that's confirmed by also other players trying to find their space in that market. That is a good sign for me. It confirms the market attractiveness. We see ourselves with our solutions clearly leading. That is also good to defend our market share, to win our market share. We will, and that is a constant process, always make sure that our core IP and all the IP around it needs to be respected in the market. We have a great position.
If people compare our technology against other technologies, we absolutely got to make sure that not somebody wherever in the world just copies our technology because it's great. That we will continue to monitor and, if necessary, to defend globally to keep our great positioning. I expect, I anyway will have that question in the Q&A later, that out of these players, my expectation is that in the first half of 2027, three, maybe four more will get tangible with their ramp-up plans and their equipment spec decision. That's exactly where we need to stay the course. Show the proof points, show the transition. It's getting operational and we are in. As already mentioned here, our position that we are in now and not just a technology partner, that is now seen in the market as, okay, they made it.
Now it's also time when we do market access, when we say which regions do we address in which way, to see if certain strategic partnerships with established players in the semicon equipment market wouldn't strengthen our position and show a win-win. That's discussions we are having as we speak. With that, I want to quickly come to the guidance. We told you we did not see that relevant revenue blocks, which are driven by solar, specifically one China deal, which is hinging on a government approval, which was not present by end of Q3, which basically led us to the conclusion, no, it's no longer more than likely that we will have revenue recognition this year, that we factored in. Also, of course, the effect that we get the orders in, like in the semicon sector, but later than expected.
We had to reduce our revenue guidance to EUR 93 million-EUR 100 million with the corresponding EBIT. But we see that in the strategic positioning as we set it up. We are on track. The things are happening as we expect in the semicon sector and in our core product lines, SMT and PCB prototyping showing growth also in order entry. That's good, but in all of those, we need to work and continue the course in our cost structures. Peter showed you the graph. We are not done, but we went half the way already. That we got to keep continuing that all product lines can contribute in a positive way, and the strong growth gets realized from the large market we developed in the semicon sector. With that, I hand over to Peter for the financial data.
When you look at the numbers compared to the previous year, it looks like a disaster. When we look at the red numbers here. But one topic we need to say, we saw it somewhere coming. That is now our plan that we are not growing this year due to the circumstances of the solar market, big portion, we saw it. We got in many areas headwinds coming up, if it's Iran, if it's the budgeting in the U.S. institutes and topics, what happened that didn't help. But overall, it was not a surprise that we do. The nine months revenue declined majorly compared to the last year from the solar business that we really have. We had reported last year, we had this one huge contract in welding what more likely was revenue in the first nine months.
This was a one-time impact, and we know this comes maybe only every two or three years, a contract like this. It's not usual. When you look at the profitability, the EBIT going down to EUR -12.8 million. Here we see that we have already these impacts resulting from the North Star. There's already a positive impact out of North Star, approximately of EUR 5 million in there that really the countermeasures, and that helps a lot. Otherwise, we would look much worse. But this shows that North Star is really on track on this area. Nevertheless, EUR 60.3 million will lead to an EBIT margin of -21.2%. Coming to the incoming orders, we are preparing, and this is very important, the EUR 65.1 million. This is really preparing for the next months too, because the quarter four is really an important month in these CFOs.
Free cash flow is driven by the profitability right now. This is for sure that the losses are really mirroring in our cash flow. Therefore, this is following EBIT. You see it down in the employee numbers, 651 is more likely the step after Wave 2. They still will coming with Wave 2. There will still coming a couple of reductions in the further steps. Next slide. Coming to the business units, to the segments. Here I want to give you a picture. Yes, it's a year-to-year, a little about a view about what's happening when I really go there and what we expecting. Electronics is stable in the year-to-year. Nevertheless, we expected a little bit more here due to what Klaus mentioned about the delay in Advanced Packaging. Here we see clearly that this market is coming. The whole industry is going to glass, but it's a change.
The change, sorry to say, takes two, three, four months more. This we are seeing here right now, that we have a delay. We had commitments in certain areas from customers that they really believe they can make it in quarter two or quarter three, but they shifted more likely a little bit later, and they really need to reverse and rethinking about the new structure with glass. This we're seeing it. We expected a little bit more in Electronics, but nevertheless, compared to last year, we are pretty stable. In Development, this is what we mentioned. There are positives and upside and downsides. We see China and Europe is keeping strong, and they're really supporting this business. That's the reason we have only a slight delay, but we have a significant impact out of the U.S. market.
Here we really see that institution, you saw it in the press in the past, that institutions are really careful spending budget because they don't know if the budget is there or it's coming in. This is a topic what we're hoping that end of the year, that in the quarter four, this is a high peak that here we will get a catch up in this area, but it's still a very delayed budget approval. This is not losing contracts. This is not we are don't purchasing. This is really hesitation in the market. Can I spend it? Do I have it? Again, profitability in the Development, it's good. We're working on countermeasures. Even we are reducing the revenue slightly year-by-year, we're improving the profitability. In welding, as I mentioned before, welding, we have last year in the nine months this huge contract from the consumer market.
What a significant investment was, this is missing. Therefore, we are dropping down by EUR 8.8 million. This you see in the profitability. We are working on our product portfolio. We made the cost reductions here, what's really materialized, and now we're gaining markets back in the existing markets, market shares back by better profitability and better competitiveness. We're going in new market, like smart robotics, where we see already successes and we will go further in other elements, other markets to gain here a broader base on the market and secure that we get this welding back on track in volume. Then the profitability will follow because the cost savings we did. Significant. Solar business. Looks dramatically, is dramatically, must really say the situation with the investment stop. Solar is a little slightly on this track where we believe that they are. This is planned.
The EUR 11.2 million are not a surprise. It's not for the nine months. This is really on plan because we know it's coming and we're doing significant cost savings, short-term working in this company to keep the EBIT impact as good as this can. When you look at this dropping by a volume by more than half, and keeping on this profitability, this is a really good storyline, what we're doing and to really make it happen, because we see solar still as a positive future for us as a company. Going to the next slide. Working capital. Inventory. We increased inventory slightly because that we are getting ready for the Q4. The Q4 is a significant quarter for us. Being ready to deliver important topic, therefore, the inventories went up.
Trade receivables, must say still, cash collection, we started the initiative last year that we're really getting in all the markets, very good in cash collections, and we keep sustainable a high performance on this. Therefore, trade receivables, we're collecting cash in, and really this helps a lot, supports a lot our cash flow in this area. Prepayment, as Klaus mentioned, is always following our order intakes. We're getting the order intakes increased in the quarter three and automatically because we have in our terms always down payments that we receive from the customers. Trade payables follows a little bit the business. Keeps stable because we increase the inventory. Overall, the working capital keeps stable due to the fact that we're preparing for Q4 deliveries. Next slide, then I would hand going to Q&A.
Exactly. As always, we are ready for your questions now. As always, you can hand them in either through the chat, or you can raise your hand, then we will unmute you. If you are calling from a phone, please press star nine to raise your hand and star six in order to unmute yourself. Let's see if I can see any hands raised. Yes, here we go. Johannes Ries from APUS. I have unmuted you. Can't hear you yet.
Oh, it works now.
Yes, now it works.
It works.
Yes. Hello. Yes, a couple of questions about the big surprise. First, maybe on the Q4, you mentioned in the call it is a challenging quarter. So we will see a higher risk that you maybe could miss even the reduced full year expectations, or is it only because it is a challenge to manage this growth you are expecting in Q4?
It's the latter. Clearly. We stand behind our guidance, Johannes.
Okay. That's the first question then. On LIDE and SEMICON West, did I get it right? You have seen even additional interest because of the LOI you got, and you have discussions with potential new customers, partly of China and maybe potential new partners?
That's right. Two effects I see. It's really we are new in the semicon market. Let's never forget it, and it's not said often that a new player comes in. With this, the semiconductor industry is a village. Everybody knows, of course.
Yeah.
Who selected us. That opened certain doors, which I was hoping would be opened in terms of, "Oh, couldn't we do something together?" This we are evaluating in terms of strategic partnerships can make a lot of sense in certain areas. What I also see at SEMICON West, but also right now, the frequency of customers which we have on a long list and have some relation, but not on the front of the radar, suddenly jumping up with very short-term requests. "Can you still deliver machines by very short timelines?" Yes, we see that increasing, which is for me par for the course. Very first players have now set the signal, we are starting. Of course, then the others get under a certain pressure in terms of, "Okay, I have to move if I want to find a space in this industry.
Okay. Maybe two follow-on questions first. After so many disappointments in the past and push outs, which is not unusual for new technologies like glass substrates because of technical challenges, environment, and so on. We knew it. But the market is now in a position, believe it when I see it. How big is the chance, a year we have maybe seven weeks left because today in eight weeks, it's the 24th of December. How big is the chance that we see maybe a larger order for LIDE coming in this year? Or is it you are not brave enough to give such a forecast after all the experience in the past?
I am definitely not brave enough, Johannes, but I want to give you insights what I am seeing. Basically, yes, there are a couple of deals which would not be ad hoc deals because as mentioned, the typical ramp-up deal is in the middle seven figure. That's not ad hoc territory for us. But what I see is some deals that are very hot and where also customers want to make decisions rather fast. Some of them in the Advanced Packaging area, some even in associated areas. I cannot give you more details due to NDAs. Yes, there is stuff still on the radar that is relevant for order entry, and therefore backlog for 2027 still happening this year.
Okay. But the solar contract, if I got it right, only side remark, it's more likely to come in 2027, so pushed out solar contract.
Let me give you what I know, Johannes because my crystal ball is as bad as yours. The customer wants us, check mark. Conditions for contract, check mark. It's a government approval thing, and it seems there are new regulations in China and cadmium telluride technology is in a different bucket than perovskites. It's a question now if the regional government or the central government needs to approve and nobody seems to know.
One topic, Klaus, and this is a check mark we forgot in between, but it's very important. The customer has the money for investment. It's financed.
Yeah.
It's not that he needs the government to finance it. This is the most critical for me, but he needs to get an approval.
Yes, absolutely. Johannes, it's basically hinging on a political approval where I am, I want to be honest, out of my league to project how governments in China are deciding and even on what base, and therefore I rely on my customer making the right moves and the right pushes. It's a large company. It's a company that should know how to get certain approvals, and I would be happy if I get it into the backlog for 2027 in Q4, but this is something I do not dare to project, Johannes.
On perovskite also, there was a news one week ago or two weeks ago that Chinese government may as a countermeasure to the maybe export bans of U.S. for semi equipment want to ban also solar equipment to deliver outside China, especially also perovskite. Is it positive or negative for the development of six technology and could it need to further push out of the introduction or happen to expect there's no impact?
It is.
Can I answer, Klaus?
Yeah, sure. Go ahead, Peter.
Okay. Now the financial view, Klaus, and you may be given another insight.
Yeah.
Financially-wise, it's a positive news because we are not counting in the future on this Chinese solar markets. We take it as an opportunity, yeah. Opportunistic, but we are not planning with this. With this decision, a clearly message is to the all Western solar companies, "Hey, don't count on Chinese." There could be a restriction that you do not get the equipment for your production. This is a message was packaged with this. But for the CFO, for me, for the numbers, it's due to the fact that I'm not really bringing the future significant volumes out of China in my planning. Strategically, is it a good news?
Thank you, Peter. I can only confirm that for business outside China, it's actually very positive for us. Outside China is not only our large key account in the U.S. We see that India is getting very tangible at the moment with welding their own thin-film solar industry. I'm not talking about five-year plans. I'm talking about right now, and that is very good. Also in the U.S., we see players beyond our large key account getting tangible when it comes to perovskites. Those players, of course, will look at the risk of getting Chinese equipment in and will very likely come to the conclusion, "No, this is not a business risk I can accept." Then we are positioned excellently. Within China, we have to take it more cautious. We work with our Chinese partners. We support them in the best of our abilities.
But China giving a clear message, "Perovskites is our key area," and we are so far ahead in their view that we do not let this equipment be exported. Yes, that could also dampen the willingness to import key equipment to execute that industry. So as Peter mentioned, let us get more cautious also in the planning about the China outlook, but it clearly helps us in all business outside China.
Very helpful. Very short two questions, and I go out of the Q&A. Maybe on the partnerships, going back to Advanced Packaging. On the partnerships with other players out of the semi equipment space, where could it be? Is it more technology to combine your products, or is it more maybe in selling and supporting your equipment? Such that maybe you are added to support activities or to your sales offering.
Again, these are scenarios, Johannes.
This is not something where we have a committed plan. But as you know, it is a full process chain, and we are now respected as, okay, LPKF is part of the process chain with a key process. Now, if we see other key processes that are not within our, let us say, scope in this process chain, and we would see companies addressing these processes who have a very strong position in the semicon market and excellent access to key accounts. Then a strategic partnership with one of these key players in other processes in the process chain could be very beneficial for both sides because everybody knows, okay, for glass, those guys from Germany are the best.
We could work together on qualifying process flows with us giving in all the glass processing, they giving in their process and market it as, "Look, that's an integrated process flow with a proven and excellent yield."
We would definitely benefit here with access to key accounts with players who are not a newcomer like us, but are in there for decades and know all the decision-makers. That's our way of thinking, Johannes.
That's a good point. Finally, you didn't mention the other activities in LIDE at the semiconductor space. You mentioned only in a half sentence the cutting of glass substrate and the bonding. Don't talk about maybe the photonic, which is more ahead. But they're developing also LIDE plant, and there could be also, especially for the cutting orders in near future or in the coming months.
Absolutely. We have good results with these processes. The cutting is more short-term than the bonding. That is clear. And we are positioning that at all the customers together with our glass structuring equipment, so with LIDE, and we see a good reception. So that's working out as expected.
Great. Thanks for all the comprehensive answers.
Anytime, Johannes. I know you also have great insight, so it's not only a Q&A where I'm answering. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks. Bye.
Thank you very much, Mr. Ries. The next question comes from Malte Schaumann. If you can unmute yourself, you should be able to speak. Mr. Schaumann, can you unmute yourself? I'm not sure if you are still here and hearing me. Maybe.
Malte, but he is still on mute.
Yes, he is, but I have unmuted him. But maybe his questions have already been answered, and he has. I am not sure. I cannot see any other questions at the moment. If there are any further questions, please raise your hand. I can see another question, so we will take that first from Thomas Brown. I have unmuted you.
I have too, hopefully.
Yes, you have. I have unmuted you.
Right. Thank you for your time today. I saw in the statement a reference to increased competition in LIDE. Could you just explain that, please?
Of course. Many players have realized now this is a huge addressable market for production assets. Of course, not only LPKF, but also others try to find their piece there. We see that they have now developed solutions which they are actively marketing. In the big picture, that's a good thing. It cannot be a single source market. We stay the course. We want to clearly provide the best solution and therefore get a dominating market share. But it's good, and actually also requested by our customers from what I hear. No, please don't all buy LPKF. We need to have a good also risk management of this supply chain. That's where we see that players, which we also have on our competitor monitoring list, are increasing their activities, are marketing their solutions, and also try to find a space in this whole production chain.
As mentioned before, in the big picture, that's a good thing. That also confirms the attractiveness of the market, where we will very clearly always defend our rights and our work of almost a decade is when it comes to the IP. Please also provide solutions, but provide it with some alternative technology you've developed, which to our knowledge will be second best. But if anybody infringes on our core IP, which is granted globally and has already survived first attacks, then we will get active because that we cannot allow. I hope that answers your question, Thomas.
Yeah. Sorry, just to get a bit more detail. Are you?
Sure.
Just seeing vague sort of increased marketing efforts, or are you seeing new tools and tools with technical specifications that come close to yours?
I would say the former.
Okay. All right. Great. Then just on the downstream technical hurdles, which are not your fault, but clearly impacting you. Why are you confident they will be solved in the next few months?
They are solved because. Not solved. Solved would mean, "Hey, great yield, everybody happy." But we see that the customers who have, again, been delaying their equipment decisions have taken the decision now. They are moving ahead, and that means, to the level of insight I have, that they are at a yield level where they say, "Okay, we can ramp," but not yet at a yield level where they say, "Hooray, now I can go for high volume." You will make yield improvements when you operate. You can only do so much in a lab, and that's the work ahead in the next quarter, the next two years, that those guys get the yields now to true high volume levels. But it's not a showstopper, Thomas, otherwise nobody would issue any PO for ramp-up.
Right.
They would say, "Okay, back to the lab," and that's not the status we're in.
Understood. Last one from me. Just on solar, you've given us great detail on the Chinese delay, but if I'm not mistaken, we were hoping for U.S. orders as well. I just wonder, are we still waiting for field tests, degradation data to sort of come in and validate the tools and therefore the transition?
Maybe we didn't communicate that clearly. Let me give you the status. Our large key account in the U.S. is preparing with strong effort to get perovskites market ready. We are supporting that with prototyping lines and so on, and these orders are running as planned. So they are ordering all that equipment to get it to market readiness. No, we are not expecting right now any large order in terms of I'm building a new high volume factory, because that is something where they first need to finish their R&D qualification work and so on. That's progressing with strong effort. But there is no delta between our expectations, what orders we get for right now and what we are getting.
Understood. Great. Those are my three. Thank you so much.
Any time, Thomas.
Thank you very much.
What about Malte? Are his questions up?
Yes. We have Malte Schaumann. I have unmuted you again. I am not sure whether we have a technical issue here, but if you want, you can unmute yourself and speak.
I can try. Can you hear me now?
Yes. Yes.
Yeah. Now all good.
Good. Good morning, guys. First question is also on the competition competitive side. It is kind of the first time you mentioned that specifically in the quarterly pattern in the press release. What has actually changed that you mentioned this increasing competitive situation potentially? Does this have any impact on your expectation on the achievable market share? Do you see actually projects where the customer potentially might lean toward one of your competitors instead of maybe an initial expectation that you would get the project awarded?
Malte, I see complete par for the course. Nothing that is outside my expectations. What did I tangibly see? I will not mention names, but I saw that one competitor now formally with marketing material said, "Look, and this is what I have to offer in that field." And of course, tries to find in certain, let's say, segmented areas of the Advanced Packaging field now his space. That's, for me, par for the course. What I also see, and that is also not new but confirms what I expected. You never get it in writing or in anything that you can prove, but you have your sources that from the end customer side, there is the need and also communication in terms of, "Please, guys, make sure that not only LPKF gets all the deals in that market.
Try to find some applications, some areas where also others can sell some equipment, because we don't want this to be a single source market." That's pretty much what I was expecting. Others will come in. They will find certain areas, certain application segments where they also find a piece of the pie. We continue to stay the course to say, "Nope, we want the dominant piece of the pie." We will justify that with our performance, and we need to make sure because our performance is driven by technology that is well-patented. Always our technology needs to be exclusive to us. Others should find their space, but please with alternatives that you developed yourself and not trying to do what we are doing. Malte, no.
The reason I mentioned it is because it's visible, others really come out with, and this is what we have, and this is par for the course for me how we expected the market to develop.
Okay. Actually no change to the market expectation you have for your product?
No, absolutely not.
Okay.
There are deals out there. The first ones are distributed. I want to win the biggest part of these deals, clearly above 50%. Actually, I would begin to frown if I win 100%, because then the market will say, "Look, this is a cluster risk. We don't like cluster risks. Maybe take it a bit slower." If they see, okay, and if for some reason LPKF would not deliver or whatever, at least there are some others who can also help us. Much safer situation for a market to develop.
Yeah. Okay, good. Another question, maybe a short coming or fresh impression coming back from SEMICON West. Is there anything that has changed your perspective on how the market will evolve over the next 6- 12 months?
No. I still expect that with the first players having positioned themselves now, others will follow, and I expect this to continue. What was pretty clear from me in SEMICON West, look, this whole AI business is crammed with backlog and has restrictions due to the availability of high- bandwidth memory. You know it very well, Malte. What I clearly see is those guys are not under pressure to, as soon as possible, come out with a disruptive improvement in their performance. They are in a super comfortable spot in terms of, boy, we have much more demand than we can fulfill. That's also why our expectation stays intact. People will ramp now. First ramp orders will continue to come in, but we will need to wait, and you know our internal planning for when we expect true high volume orders.
It will not be something where the market is under pressure. They must bring this out ASAP because the AI market is just basically in a complete allocation situation.
Yep. Understood. Okay. Thank you.
Anytime, Malte.
Thank you very much. The next question comes from Klaus Schlote. I have unmuted you, Mr. Schlote. If you could do the same. Yes. Now you should be able to speak. But we can't hear you.
Mr. Schlote, can you hear us?
We still can't hear you, unfortunately, although everything seems to be on unmute.
Hello?
Yes.
Now it's working.
Yes.
Now it's working.
Okay. Thank you. Sorry for the delay. This is the story of the talk is delay. On the 23rd of September, there were two news coming out of LPKF. One was, I would say, positive. That was at 14:11 PM. Then there was one that was, I would say, negative. That was 14:26 PM, which I see as not very good timing. One should put it in one news, both measures. In 14:26 PM it was a sentence and that dealt with the possibility of a capital increase. Then the share price of LPKF then was at between EUR 16 and EUR 17. Of course, we got then the trouble with the AI and technology. I would say taking some air out of the prices in the stock market, which took back also or brought back the share price of LPKF to recent levels.
So let's say about EUR 5 deeper. But I would say the mentioning of a possible capital increase also put pressure on the price of LPKF. But you didn't mention a capital increase during the talk so far. So I would think that at prices of, let's say above EUR 16, you are thinking again about a capital increase and how urgent is that? Looking at the cash flow and the numbers you might have more interest in doing actually a capital increase.
Thank you. Peter, you want to take it or I take it?
Peter, you are on mute.
I take the first one about when. First of all, we are still in a clear area where we are financing our business as of today with all the elements we have. Even with the decrease of the volume, we are still in the green light and we have a storyline about financing our business through 2028. This must say this is safe, even the drop of the business, what we see right now in our numbers and the change of the guidance is covered. It covered with this financing model. About, and this was an element, if we are doing something and now, Klaus, it is your element, if we start doing something out of this range, that we are going in significant investments, then we need to think about it. Then we need to think about it about additional elements to finance this one.
The running business right now is covered by our financing.
Thank you, Peter. Mr. Schlote, to your questions. First of all, when it comes to ad hoc relevant announcements of LPKF, there is no timing. There are facts, and within 24 hours or even less, Bettina guides us there, we release the fact to the market. If it happens to be two facts a couple of days apart, that is how it is. There are legal requirements which we of course fulfill. Regarding a capital increase, we gave out the message in terms of we as the board entertain this idea if the conditions are right. For our current plan of record, as Peter mentioned, we have an existing financing.
If we come to the conclusion, that could also be related to the discussion about strategic partnerships, that we see business rationale in doing additional things that are not part of our finance plan, then of course this topic would be very much on the front burner. Yes, of course, it is also a question of having a share price that makes this a good idea to execute on it. I hope that answers your questions, Mr. Schlote.
It was not a couple of days, it was a couple of minutes. You should have a look at this on the 23rd of September. I think this was not very good move.
Okay.
Maybe accidentally. Things happen sometimes, but maybe next time you can get around this. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I can't see any further hands at the moment, so I assume that there are no further questions right now. I think we can come to the end of this call. Thank you very much for taking part in this. Our next regular earnings call will take place on the 24th of March at the release of our annual report. Thank you very much for joining, and goodbye.
Thank you, everybody.
Thank you. Bye.