In today's earnings call, we will delve into the financial figures of the first half year of 2024. I'm delighted to welcome the management board and Sven Köpsel, VP from the investor relations department, who will start with a presentation shortly. After the presentation, we will move forward with a Q&A session. With this, let's start. Mr. Köpsel, please, the stage is yours.
Thank you so much, and welcome to our H1 2024 conference call. As you all probably know from earlier calls, this call is being recorded and considered as copyright material. It cannot be recorded or rebroadcast without permission, and participating in this call implies your consent to this procedure. Please be aware of our safe harbor statement on page two of this slide deck. It applies throughout the conference call. Now, I hand over to CEO Burkhardt Frick, who will present the H1 highlights, followed by our CFO, Cornelia Ballwießer, with the financial update. Burkhardt, it's yours.
Yes, thank you, Sven. Welcome to all participants, also on behalf of our CFO, Cornelia Ballwießer, and our COO, Thomas Rohe. All of us will be available for questions after our presentation. No surprises today regarding our key figures for the first half of 2024. We already published these numbers as preliminary results when raising our guidance in July. The key changes so versus the first half of 2023 are that the order intake is up 7.9%, sales is up more than 45%, gross profit margin increased by 4.2 percentage points, and EBIT is even up by 6.9 percentage points. Our key messages, you know, for this first half are that we managed to continue the strong order book execution in the first quarter of Q2.
At EUR 99.3 million, quarterly sales were even higher than the EUR 93.5 million of Q1 2024. Quarterly gross profit margin with 40.5% and EBIT margin of 15.3% came in stronger than some analysts had expected, driven by the continued favorable customer and product mix. The strong performance in the first half of the year and the outlook to orders we intend to execute in the second half creates confidence that we will be able to keep up the positive sales and margin momentum. We have therefore raised our guidance for all three financial KPIs. The unchanged high order book level of around EUR 450 million continues to put high pressure on our operations team. Consequently, we push ahead with the expansion of flexible production capacity and measures to increase our operational efficiency.
At a time when our customers are rapidly expanding their capacity, we are committed to be a strong partner for continued growth. By accelerating our ability to deliver from all our manufacturing sites, we want to show that we can do even more in the future. Now let's have a look into our two business units. First, the Advanced Back-End Solutions . Our bonder business again contributed strongly to the segment order intake. We experienced continued demand for temporary bonders, debonders, and cleaners for HBM capacity ramp-up. We are in a constant dialogue with our key customers to determine demand and further capacity expansion for 2025 and beyond. Further good news from our hybrid bonding activities. We have received an order for our new die-to-wafer and wafer-to-wafer hybrid bonding all-rounder, which we launched in May. The customer is our US technology partner, BRIDG, based in Florida.
Once the system is installed in 2025, our North American customers will be able to use this tool for demonstration and evaluation purposes. This unique hybrid bonding all-rounder will allow research institutes and R&D teams of semiconductor manufacturers to explore all different hybrid bonding processes. For high volume production, customers will then choose a dedicated die-to-wafer or wafer-to-wafer solution, which we can also offer. Bonding sales benefited from the strong order intake of the second half of 2023, and we were able to almost triple versus H1 2023. It is worth to mention that bonder sales in Q2 outperformed Q1 sales, as some tools which were already produced in Q1 were delivered to customers in Q2. Imaging and coating business continues to be slow. However, the number of customer inquiries increased towards the end of the first half.
Let's see if that translates into an increased order intake in Q3. Now, a few words on our Photomask Solutions segment. Order intake momentum was below Q1 2024, but the order book level of EUR 170 million is well above our annual production capacity. While we, of course, are eager to grow the order intake, we'd like to reduce the backlog to better serve our customers. Comparing our sales performance versus 2023, we are happy to see growth rates of 61% in Q1, and even 71% in Q2. And driven by a positive product and customer mix, our gross profit margin was above average at 37.6%. It is worthwhile to mention that sales in this segment represents low volume systems with relatively high selling prices.
Therefore, the resulting margins are subject to greater fluctuations if product and customer mix changes. Next, I would like to hand over to Cornelia for more details on our financial results.
Thank you, Burkhardt. Also, a warm welcome from my side to all of you. We already spoke about some key financial indicators, so I try not repeating our explanation so far, but summarize and add some more details. In terms of order intake, Burkhardt already mentioned the 7.9% growth in the first half compared to 2023. If we compare the second quarter as a standalone quarter with the second quarter in 2023, order intake was 12.7%. As it grows, yes. Please, sorry. Sales revenue went up 45.6% compared to the first half of 2023. You can see here the impact of our capacity expansion quite impressively. Gross profit increased by 63.1% versus 2023, and as a result, we achieved a very strong gross profit margin of 39.8% in the first half of 2024.
In Q2, we even achieved 40.5% after 39.1% in the first quarter 2024, as we again had a favorable product mix. The positive gross profit development also supported the EBIT margin, which was at 15.6% in the first half of 2024. This is six point nine basis points jump versus the last year. Net profit for the first half was EUR 80.8 million. The sharp increase is due to the sale of our MicroOptics business and due to a significant improvement in earnings from continuing operations. Earnings from discontinued operations after tax amounted to EUR 58.3 million, and earnings from continuing operations after tax rose very significantly to EUR 22.5 million, compared to EUR 9.5 million in the first half last year.
Consequently, we were able to more than double our earnings per shares from continuing operations. We also managed to convert the positive business development into a strong free cash flow from continuing operations, amounting to EUR 22.6 million in the first half of this year. We are extending our workforce as well. Since June 2023, our head count increased by 18.6%, as we welcomed more than 200 new people at SÜSS MicroTec. Most of our new employees work in production and R&D department. Now, let's take a closer look on order intake. Please note that all the presented years are adjusted for the MicroOptics order intake, meaning they only include continuing operations. Overall, order intake in the first six months was up 7.9% compared to last year, leading to a book-to-bill ratio of one.
This is a very robust development after the extraordinary second half of 2023. Our customers still plan their investment cycles for 2025, which may lead to an increased order momentum in the second, second half of this year. At the right-hand side, you can see a breakdown of our order intake by region. Asia Pacific continues to be the strongest driver of our business, with 76% share of global order intake. The majority of this share is divided fairly equally between Taiwan and China. The remainder is attributable to Korea and Japan. This overview shows the key figures for the segment in the first half of the year compared to the previous year. Our biggest segment, Advanced Back-End Solutions, contributed about 70% to group sales and around 75% to the group's gross profit.
Sales revenue grew by 39.2%, gross profit +57.6%, and EBIT +133%. Consequently, the margin improved significantly. As already mentioned, the bonder sales revenue almost tripled and Q2 outperformed Q1. Segment Photomask Solutions even grow more. Sales revenue +64.3%, gross profit +83%, and EBIT +152.5%. In this segment, sales growth in Q2 outperformed Q1 too. EBIT margin rose from 12.6% to 19.6%, stronger than in the segment Advanced Back-End Solutions, due to less operating expenses. So here, just a look at the balance sheet. Total assets increased by EUR 85.3 million. Non-current assets remained almost unchanged. The biggest change is in current assets, +EUR 74.7 million.
Inventories increased by EUR 30 million compared to the beginning of the year to serve the well-filled order book. Trade receivables and contractual assets decreased by EUR 10 million, EUR 5 million each. Due to the sale of our MicroOptics business, assets held for sale in the amount of EUR 33.9 million euro were derecognized. Cash and cash equivalents increased by EUR 87.7 million euro. On the liability side, we see all the big impact from the divestment of our MicroOptics business. Equity rose by a gain of EUR 58.3 million related to this discontinued operation. But equity benefited also from our strong results from continuing operations in the amount of EUR 22.5 million euros. Considering other comprehensive income and dividend payments, equity increased by EUR 72.8 million euros in total, and equity ratio developed from 49.2% to 56%.
These are 6.6 percentage points. Non-current liabilities are more or less stable. The slight increase relates to deferred taxes. The current liabilities are at roughly the same level at as the beginning of the year. However, there are higher trade payables of EUR 31.9 million compared to EUR 27.1 million at the end of the previous year. And contractual assets are also up to EUR 92.5 million. In the previous, at end of last year, we had EUR 87 million. Provisions, on the other hand, are down significantly to EUR 3.9 million, and the biggest factor is the derecognition of liabilities associated with assets held for sales with a volume of EUR 13 million. Burkhardt will now complete the presentation with the outlook for the full year 2024.
Thank you, Cornelia. I'm sure that all of you noted our ad hoc announcement in July, where we raised the forecast for all three financial figures, key financial figures, quite significantly. If you compare the midpoint of our initial guidance, with the new guidance, we upgraded our sales outlook by 11.3%, the gross margin by 2.5 percentage points, and the EBIT margin by 4 percentage points. This adjusted forecast reflects our confidence that we will be able to continue in the first half year, sorry. We will be able to continue the first half year performance into the second, half. This will be all about executing the strong order book. You're probably all familiar with our medium-term forecast of EUR 400 million in sales and EBIT margin of 15%.
You also noticed that we might be able to reach the 25 targets already in 2024, even without the divested MicroOptics business. At this point in time, we do not like to adjust our 2025 targets. This is not a lack of ambition. We want to continue to grow while we even further improve our margin profile. But first, we need to increase the visibility on our production planning and the order book level at the beginning of 2025. I said several times, our systems in high demand, especially bonders and Photomask Solutions tools, we have a fairly high level of visibility until around mid-2025. We now want to fill the remaining production slots for 2025 in the coming months. You can expect to see our 2025 guidance latest by March 2025. Now, Cornelia, Thomas, and I are happy to answer your questions.
Yeah, thank you so much for the insightful presentation, also to Mr. Frick, Mrs. Ballwießer, and Mr. Rohe. Now, let's transition to the Q&A session as said, and to keep the conversation engaging, we kindly request that you pose a question via the audio line. Simply click the Raise Your Hand button to speak. If you've joined via phone, please use the key combination star nine followed by star six. And if speaking directly isn't possible at the moment, you can also post the question in our chat box. And we received a first question from Florian Sager. Mr. Sager, you should be able to speak now.
Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for letting me on. I got two questions, and I'll take them one by one. The first one would be: What's your view on HBM and the risks of overcapacity? I mean, do you... When you speak to your clients, what is your sentiment? I know you only have visibility onto some of 2025, but just for us to better, you know, understand where you lean here. Did you see a risk of overcapacity high, or what is your feeling here?
Florian, that's a good question, especially after the stock movements of the past days. We don't see any signals of our direct customers slowing down. They rather like to have our tools today than tomorrow, and we are really trying on a daily basis to expedite shipments and install those machines as fast as we can. We have a visibility asset to mid-2025, and we are fully loaded with executing those orders we have received. So, I'm not very concerned that there is overcapacity, at least that doesn't look from my perspective.
We are in the midst of a ramp, and this ramp, as many ramp scenarios you might be aware of, always goes in phases, and we are still in the initial phase of a big HBM ramp.
Okay. No, that's good to hear. And the second question would be that you mentioned an improvement in customer sentiment at the end of Q2 for your lithography business or use of your lithography. Could you maybe quantify the improvement that you expect in orders for H2 versus H1? Or can you even say, just for us to get a better grip on it?
Yeah, as I said, in the first 2 quarters, it was rather flat, but also markets were pretty flat. We really see a much higher inquiry level and really leads we are close to execute. And of course, I don't want to comment on individual deals here, but I think in the next 1 or 2 months, we'll have also better news to share. But we see a clear uptick in order momentum and potential additional order entry for our coating business in particular.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Mr. Sager, for your question, and also for answering the questions. We have another question from Michael Kuhn. You should be able to speak now.
Hello, good afternoon. Also a few questions from my side, and I'll also ask them one by one. Firstly... Sorry, can you hear me?
Now we-
Yeah. Yes.
Ah, okay. Sorry, thanks for taking the question. So, starting with the product mix, I think couple of positive factors coming together in the second quarter. Still, first half gross margin already at the upper end of the full year guidance. Should we expect maybe with a somewhat higher photomask share, modest temporary deterioration in the second half? Or let's say, what is the reasoning behind the 38%-40%, was the almost 40% already achieved in the first half?
Yes, I think I said it in the presentation, that if especially photomask business is depending on a relatively small unit sales at high prices, and a different configuration and margin distribution. So depending on that mix, it has an impact on the margin. And therefore, we are a bit cautious, not to overshoot here, and really base the first half year performance, especially in photomask business, and project this into the second half. But so there's more variance in the margin distribution. That's the key message.
Then on bonder sales, you mentioned in the release it almost tripled year-over-year. So looking at last year's numbers, that would imply something like a EUR 70 million number in the first half. Is that level realistically level to think about, and would that be a run rate for the second half as well?
Yeah, well, it's always difficult to project run rates, huh? We, as I said also a couple of times, we are executing now the huge order intake of last year, especially the last half of the year. And that's really lifting the sales level to these levels. However, we are running at peak rate at full production capacity, which is in total allowing us to produce and sell about EUR 150 million of AI-related equipment. So we can, if we have the order coverage, continue on that level. But that again depends on continuous order intake, and we first want to finalize, especially the second half of next year, in terms of slot planning.
Understood. Thank you. Then one on the cost side, there was quite an increase in SG&A expenses in Q2 versus Q1, more than EUR 2 million increase. Is the Q2 number kind of a cost run rate we should think about over the next few quarters? Or is there, let's say, any non-recurring effects included in there?
If it is a run rate, I'm a little bit cautious. There are some extra costs, I would say, related to our growth. For example, higher costs for recruitment, for interim workers, and one, a bonus payment because of the inflation bonus in Germany, and this is definitely non-recurring item. We are also a little bit growing in SG&A with this growth.
... But there could be, let's say, some kind of modest normalization in the third quarter. I hear you talking about bonus payments and temp workers, recruitment costs, et cetera.
Yeah, recruitment costs, I will still go on because we are growing. We are looking for people. We are not at the point that our workforce is where we need. It was only one point with the non-recurring item with the inflation bonus. It's around EUR 1 million. As I said, G&A will also go up a little bit with our growth.
Good. And, two more. One, that is obviously related to the question asked earlier on HBM. The delay of NVIDIA's Blackwell platform was a big topic over the past few days. What are your thoughts on that? And, what would you think could be the impact, if at all, for your business?
Yeah, Michael, you're talking about the customer of our customer, and operating in, in that AI market space. So it's... Personally, I don't see any immediate impact, you know, for our business, because the surrounding ecosystem is still being built. Meaning that the high bandwidth memory capacity, which was at its infancy, is being structurally increased. And so the number of increases needed for any AI chip, whether it's NVIDIA or the other players who are starting up now, will be tremendous. Therefore, I would not hinge on a single chip delay for NVIDIA. 'Cause there's a big race going on, really increasing DRAM and HBM memory capacity, and that will continue for years.
It's not linked to a single delay of one chip.
Yeah, and then, last one. You spoke about selling the remaining production slots for 2025. Looking at your two segments, what would be, let's say, kind of blue sky numbers, if you were able to fill kind of most or all of your current production capacity, just to get a rough idea here? Thank you.
Yeah, I have to ask you for some patience till early next year, because we really don't want to, you know, speculate, you know, a potentially large range of numbers here. And it also depends which particular systems we are filling those slots. We have quite some flexible capacity in advance of a high value tool is occupying that slot or, you know, a lower value tool, which can have quite an impact on the sales you're generating. So that's why we are a bit cautious here, but rest assured, we will keep growing nicely.
Excellent. Thanks a lot.
Thank you so much, Mr. Kuhn, for the questions and also for answering the questions. We have another question from Malte Schaumann. You should be able to speak now.
Yeah, good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Good. Okay, thanks. First question is on the bonders. Can you provide maybe a sales share of the bonder revenues? How is the split between temporary bonders and other bonder products in Q2 or the first half?
Yeah, Malte, I think we stopped really reporting on individual product lines. And we also don't want to reintroduce that. But the majority is obviously temporary bonders of the past sales, and that's also reflected in the order book.
Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Then on the potential recovery in lithography you mentioned, you said that's affecting both areas, imaging products and coaters, or was it more geared towards one of these applications?
It's actually both. We see increased inquiries for both platforms.
Okay. And, this would probably then come through as orders in the second half and then more or less affect revenues next year?
That's what we hope for, too.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Then regarding Intel, I mean, there was a major announcement of Intel recently. I mean, Intel is not a large client of SÜSS, as far as I know, so just wanted to reassure that their quite significant cut in their CapEx plans for this year, next year does not really affect you guys. Would that be the right assumption?
Well, yeah, also that is correct. We have some activities with Intel, but we are not heavily exposed there.
Yeah. Okay, good. Then on MEMS wafer cleaning, you mentioned that you're on the process of developing the tool, et cetera. Maybe you can provide us with an update regarding when the tool will be ready for a pilot tool with the lead customer, or when it will be ready for introduction. What's the current expectation here?
... Yeah, Malte, this is Thomas speaking. Thank you for the question. So the green tech, the wafer cleaning is on its way. We have the alpha tool right now in our demo lab, and we can really do some demonstrations also with customers, which we are doing. The interest is pretty high, and we are looking right now also for a partner for really developing and manufacturing now the better tool for our customers. So this is ongoing, and we are pretty optimistic that we get a good tool, and the demand and the request from customers is pretty good.
Okay, so no showstopper there, thus far, so prospects-
No.
Look, quite good.
No showstoppers right now.
Yeah. Okay, good. Another question maybe for you, Thomas. I mean, last year, we all were pretty disappointed with the Q3 results. So now we're in the Q3 this year, so what, what's your take on the visibility you have, and when you compare maybe the status this year compared to last year, the assurance that you have, the visibility on your production levels, that things have sustainably improved, and that it's very unlikely that many things go wrong? And, how... In general, how satisfied you are with the targets you had in your area for improving productivity, qualifying outsourcing partners, et cetera. So maybe a general update on these areas.
Well, I think the numbers speak for themselves. So right now I'm pretty happy with the development over the last half year. We could really increase sales significantly. Supply chain is also changed, and we improved also our supply chain concerning with the suppliers to get into higher volumes, so that we really get the tools out of the door. So this is pretty good, or has been really changed significantly and in a very positive way. Concerning outsourcing, we are also making good progress here. We identified a few partners so that we really get complete modules out and get them in right now in the right quality. But for sure, I have to say, well, you never know, it's not a given.
There's no, no guarantee that this holds for the next half year. But right now, we see it pretty optimistic that we can continue on the path which we went into over the last, let's say two years. And now I think we also see some fruits of these developments.
Mm-hmm. Sounds good. And then looking at your order backlog, I mean, is there a particular reason why maybe second half, gross margin levels should be, meaningfully lower than what we have seen in the first half year? Or is the product mix, in general, more or less, kind of, kind of similar?
Yeah, Malte, I think this question came kind of already, and it's again, with the margin variance we have in the Photomask business, due to product mix and customer mix. That is really the key reason we're a bit more cautious. I think we did raise our expectation significantly more than most of you, I think, expected. So I think, and that's, I think, what was the right thing to do.
Yeah. Okay. Sorry for asking the same question again. It dropped out at the moment. So many thanks. Okay.
Yeah, thank you so much, Mr. Schaumann. We have another question from Jens-Peter Rieck. You should be able to speak now.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay, great. Thanks for taking my question. I would like to ask three questions. First of all, other operating expenses, they increased from EUR 1.1 million - EUR 1.9 million in Q2. Could you please explain what are the key drivers that caused this increase?
It's to make it short, people increased this in R&D, as well as in SG&A, as I already mentioned. And,
Production.
Sorry? In production and R&D, yes. And we have expenses for finding the people, training the new employees, and also for, as I also mentioned, for interim workers, interim management. It's driven or it's needed because of our growth. And yeah, that are the main reasons.
Okay, perfect. Thank you. The second question would be regarding your hybrid bonding solutions. Could you probably tell me what are your further sales expectations, or probably tell me if you're already in discussions with potential clients?
Yeah, I mean, we launched our kind of all-rounder solution in May. And as mentioned before, we have first orders for that tool. We have more also demo requests. We have also the same tool installed in our production center. And that's really a all-around tool where you can do distinct die to wafer bonding and wafer to wafer bonding for low volume and prototype production. That's kind of the starting point for many customers to get familiar with our solution and work on that. For high volume, then, these customers will decide on high volume versions of that tool, where the wafer to wafer tool is already available, and we see we have several orders for that tool.
The dedicated die-to-wafer high-volume tool, we plan to launch at the end of the year. Also based on the traction we are getting out of this all-rounder tool, which is now available. So we are in an initial phase to gain traction. There are other players out, obviously, but I think we so far haven't missed the boat.
All right. Sounds great. And the last question would be regarding your HBM chips. There we can see that Chinese tech companies already are increasing their purchases of them to safeguard against possible, yeah, excess restrictions under the new U.S. guidelines. And we can also see that Chinese chip producers appear to be in the early stages of manufacturing HBM chips. Could you probably explain if you see any potential business impacts or any possible threat?
I think, obviously, Chinese semiconductor companies are trying to work on their independence, to be self-sustained. They also started working on HBM, but they are far behind what the Korean and American players are currently working on. So I have no immediate concern, or even medium-term concern that this will create a big change.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Mr. Rieck. We have another question from someone from Apus Capital. Could you please say your name and then ask your question? I don't hear you. I'm sorry. Is anyone else hearing something? I don't hear it.
No, we also don't.
So I think we're gonna pause this for now. So this is also a reminder for you. If you want to ask a question, you can do this via the audio line. And if you just click the Raise Your Hand button, and then you get the permission to speak. If you've joined via phone, please use the key combination star nine followed by star six. And if speaking freely today isn't possible, you can always use the chat. And we got another question from Florian Sager. Welcome back.
Thanks. Thanks.
Thank you so much.
Jumping in here again.
Jumping in.
Um-
Hello?
Hi. Oh, now.
Can you hear me now?
Go ahead, Johannes.
Yes, we can hear you now. Mr. Sager, we're gonna... Okay, who wants to go first? I would say, let's go with Mr. Sager. And, and we're gonna go to Apus Capital then. Thank you so much.
Okay. Okay, thanks. Just one follow-up on your high backlog that you have in photomasks. I know that you improved sales this year significantly over last year, but there's still a lot of backlog left. Is that just because you don't have enough capacity here? Yeah, just for me to better understand this, what's holding it back?
Hmm. Yeah, Thomas speaking here. So you, you're absolutely right. This is mainly driven by capacity, which we have to increase. We are continuously looking for people also and hiring, as we already mentioned a few times. So this continues, and then we have to train them, and as those tools are also pretty complicated, also training of people takes more time than on other tools. So this is the simple reason for that.
That makes sense. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you so much, Mr. Sager, again, and we're gonna try it again with Apus Capital. You should be able to speak now.
Oh, hello. Now, now you can hear me, I think, yeah.
Wonderful. Could you please say your name?
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, Johannes Ries from Apus Capital. Sorry, I pressed the mute button without re-recognizing it. So now, maybe also some follow-on question, maybe first on the customer structure in HBMs. It looks like your two most important customers maybe are not qualified by the most important customer, NVIDIA, we all know. So for... Could it be that they win market shares, and that's also a driver for you, because they need more capacity, because they could maybe growing faster than some key market leaders of ours, which is SK Hynix?
Johannes, I don't know if I completely understand the question. So, I mean, obviously, we are involved in two out of three players. And they are ramping as we speak, and we have no information that they are not qualified. So you know, we, they are, at least, towards us, they're acting that, you know, they are part of the game, otherwise they wouldn't deploy machines in that volume.
Oh, and the question was that, in the past, they have been not qualified on NVIDIA in every regards, and now they seem to definitely come back in the game, more and more, especially Samsung. And so that's the question, how far this is positive for you now, that two out of three maybe seem to hurry up or speed up now?
Yeah, they're indeed in catch-up mode. But of course, they maybe reacted a bit later, but also the other company you mentioned has been in HBM for quite some time and therefore had a head start. But you know, especially companies like Samsung, when they really are eager to get in, then they have the means and the muscle.
Mm-hmm. And with two of them, especially also Samsung, we have good relationships.
Yeah, I think so.
Maybe on photomask equipment, first question regarding the mix you have in the backlog. And maybe the growth you have seen, maybe from customers outside Taiwan, maybe from China. Has this mix maybe changed a lot in the last 12 months, that maybe higher margin products has customers has grown? Only a feeling, we know that one customer has maybe special prices and lower margins, and how much maybe the mix has changed, and maybe will develop going forward.
Yeah, well, of course, since the entire sales and order level is at this high level, you can safely assume that we have other than this one customer you're alluding to. So, and then, of course, there's also a China portion in that. As you know, China is really-
Mm-hmm
... scaling up their own infrastructure when it comes to mask making and mask cleaning. So, and then, of course, that is a significant portion also on the sales. If this always will stay like this, Johannes, it has to be seen. I mean, I cannot predict the future, otherwise I would be rich.
Maybe next year, to all forecasts, will be a strong year for semi equipment, especially a strong year for new litho systems. ASML is very optimistic to grow strongly, especially in EUV next year. How much this could be also a driver for new orders for photomask? How much this depends on each other?
Especially our high-end MaskTrack Pro benefits from that, and also the next generations we are working on, MaskTrack Smart, will-
Mm-hmm
... gear to, to those, yeah, single-digit nanometer
Mm-hmm
... nodes. So, so absolutely correct. So we, so we, you know, have the highest market share in the, in, in the, you know, with the highest, litho tool available.
Great. And this new generation, when it will be available? Photomask cleaning generation.
Yeah, I think next year is at least the rollout planned.
Mm-hmm.
The different versions, you know, for, you know, back development and the cleaner.
So it's-
There are different timelines.
Mm, and the sales impact will be in 2026, then?
For late 2026, more 2027, I would say, yeah.
Okay. In hybrid bonding, some delays, especially in the use, maybe in HBMs. Again, maybe we ask it in calls before, how much is it good for you that maybe the market would start later, so if you have more of your chance maybe to establish yourself as a second source?
Yeah, time is in our favor.
Mm-hmm
... of course, because I said before, we are a little bit behind. So of course, we can use that time to really get our solution settled, to get more customer traction, and to get more hardware out. Because that's key, you know, our key customers and their engineers get familiar with our technology. And so far, you know, the feedback we get is very positive.
Great. And, wafer-to-wafer, you mentioned some systems are already sold. I have a little bit the feelings that more and more application by use cases for wafer and wafer hybrid bonding are coming on the market. Also, wafer-to-wafer had a huge advantage that you have maybe less problems with key that that is some contamination on the wafers. So, do you share the view that wafer-to-wafer maybe can get more traction going forward and maybe a larger number of use cases than originally thought?
It's, Johannes, as you said, it's highly use case dependent. I mean, there are sweet spots for both bonding technologies. Wafer-to-wafer is cleaner because it doesn't have the somewhat messy die-to-wafer placement in there. But an integrated machine, where you focus on managing the contamination as we are offering it, is a nice workaround. So depending on the application field, you need both, and that's also why we are driving both technologies ahead.
On the inkjet partnership with Heraeus, any update on this? Is it in plan? Will it finally starting to get a revenue driver in the year 2026, you originally said?
Well, the project, Thomas speaking here, Johannes.
Mm-hmm.
The project is on track. We are discussing with Heraeus about the first tool next year-
Mm-hmm
... but also for evaluation of the process. So this is on track, and concerning really volume, this is not clear yet.
Mm-hmm.
Probably end of next year or beginning of 2026 or something.
Great. Now more financial question. You have started a lot of efficiency measures. You have started to outsourcing, which first create some pressure even on the margin. You see the first positive impacts already in this year. Will we see further steps of efficiency increasement next years by also some leverage effects? Or, it's maybe... I think the gross margin, even though it's yeah, it's very positive that you are able to increase your gross margin so much. It's not the final target, as I understand it all—understood it always.
Yeah, maybe I start, and then I hand over to...
Yeah.
Yeah, Johannes. We have lots of measures kicked off in October last year, and we see some already is showing traction. But the main reason why the margins have improved in the last two quarters is again the nice product mix.
Mm.
And also, you know, the type of products that we are selling to a selected set of customers. Now, if all these operational improvement measures are gripping, on top of that, we should be able to stabilize those margins, or even improve further. Or we are more safe against when the product mix changes, which we didn't have in the past. So this is an incremental benefit, you know, we are still working on harvesting.
Mm.
There is nothing to add. Everything is said, I would say. Yeah, but please keep also in mind, we are, we have a lot of measures, and I would say we are on a good track. It's a long journey, and some measures, in the first place, will cost some money?
Yeah.
But then we will have the efficiency effects, and we are on a good track.
Great. Final question, also to you, Cornelia, regarding cash flow. That was one of the positive surprises, maybe the new things we heard today, that cash flow was nearly on the level of net result. Any indication, was there special effects in the first half? Any indications maybe how working capital could develop in the second half, and if you will be able also to achieve a positive cash flow in the second half of the year?
For the operating cash flow, we are working-
Free cash flow.
Free cash flow.
Mm.
Yeah, this depends on our spend for CapEx, and there is some uncertainties if it is in 2024 or if it's first-
Mm
... quarter 2025. But we are working on improving our operating cash flow, and this is also not that easy to project because of the down payments.
Mm.
As you see, in the first quarter, we had less than we have in the second quarter. There is also hard to predict because it depends on the customer mix.
Totally clear. Thanks a lot.
No question?
Thank you so much for all the questions. We have another question from Nicole Winkler. Ms. Winkler, you should be able to speak now.
Yes, thank you for taking my question. I had a follow-up question on capacities around bonder, so the advanced packaging solutions in general. When I remember it correctly, you were able to shift capacities from coater production to bonder production, and now both coater and matching demand recovers. Would this cannibalize capacities for temporary bonders, and what are your expectations for the second half and especially 2025 year?
So for sure, we see that coater may really take up again in this second half of this year, so we prepare for this. We still continue with the increase of capacity also in Taiwan, where we produce the bonder since the beginning of this year. So this is ongoing. We are pretty optimistic that we can really catch that up. We are also introducing two-shift work, and we are also looking for more clean room capacity right now, where we are also in negotiations to get a larger space here. So I'm not too much hesitated that we cannot really fulfill the demand which is coming up.
Okay, understood. Thank you.
Thank you so much for the question. As no further questions have come in, this is the last chance for you to pose a question here. We are the audio line in this earnings call. You can also use the key combination star nine followed by star six if you dial in by a phone, or you can also use our chat. I'm gonna wait a moment. If there is a question coming, and it looks like that there is no further. Oh, there's another, there's another question from Apus Capital . You should be able to speak now.
Only one last thing, the scanners. The scanners you also produce in Taiwan, which are also used in the CoWoS process of, TSMC. Can you give us a short update how this business develops, and how much is maybe in competition for, production capacity at your Taiwan facility?
So concerning scanner, we, as you know, we are also working on new generation, and we also really keep up with increasing the capacity to produce more scanners. It's the demand is there. It's also really pretty optimistic for us how we look into the future. And we are preparing also on the scanner to really catch up the demand, which is in the market from one big customer, as you know. So yeah, it's looking pretty optimistic, I would say. Pretty good.
Great. Thanks for this update.
Thank you so much. Yeah, as no further questions have come in, we draw today's conference call as we close. A heartfelt thank you to the leadership team. Thank you so much for your presentation, and also to you for your time and participating. Should any additional questions arise in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us or Mr. Köpsel. And with this, thank you so much on my behalf, and I give the last words to Sven Köpsel. Thank you so much.
Yeah, thanks for hosting ourselves today, and I think everything is set. Please let us know if any additional questions arise. Please just contact us. Take care. Have a great afternoon and a great summer period. Bye-bye.