Thank you very much, and welcome to our conference call following the publication of SÜSS' quarterly statement as of September 30, 2026. Before we start, please note that this call is being recorded and constitutes copyright material. Any recording, reproduction, distribution, or rebroadcast of this call without prior written permission is prohibited. Transcripts of this call may be generated or reviewed using automated tools, including AI. Such transcripts, summaries, or analyses may contain inaccuracies and do not constitute an official statement by SÜSS. In case of any discrepancy, please refer to the company's published financial reports, presentations, and other official communications. Please be also aware of the safe harbor statement on slide two of this presentation, which applies throughout the call. With that, I'll hand over to our CEO, Burkhardt, who will take you through our results for the first nine months of 2026.
Thank you, Sabrina. Welcome also from my side to the conference call for the third quarter and the first nine months of 2026. Let me start with the key messages. Record order intake drove our order book to an all-time high of over EUR 600 million, which gives us exceptional visibility into 2027 and beyond. Demand is strong across all product lines, led by our coating solutions. To support sustained growth, we are extending our capacity, workforce, and supply chain. More on that later. Temporary supply chain constraints delayed the shipment of selected tools in Q3, which shifted some revenues into late 2026 and early 2027. Customer demand, however, is unchanged, and the affected orders remain fully reflected in our order backlog. Mitigation measures are already in place, including second sourcing, supplier qualification, and inventory builds. On technology, we launched our first GreenTec tool in October.
With this product family, we enter the growing backend wafer cleaning market with an attractive cost of ownership and a sustainable solution. Just a quick look at the results highlights. For the first nine months, order intake showed a significant acceleration. Sales were, as we expected, below the record levels of 2025. Gross profit margin was very robust, sitting at the top end of our guidance corridor after three quarters. EBIT margin was also well below prior year's strong level. Let's dive into the segments. Advanced Backend Solutions took the lion's share of the order intake. Orders for coaters are more than 50% of the segment order intake. Sales was lower compared to record 2025 levels due to low order intake of that year and recent tool pushouts. Bonders had the strongest sales contribution. Photomask Solutions also saw accelerating order momentum.
Demand from China came back strongly in the first six months, while Q3 is more evenly distributed between the regions. We launched the GreenTec 200, the first tool of our GreenTec product line. Here we are leveraging our cleaning expertise from Photomask Solutions to production wafers in advanced process stages. We are entering this market with a unique pitch to customers: lower chemical consumption, less toxic chemicals, and an improved cost of ownership. The GreenTec line is one of the drivers behind our 2030 ambition, and we are happy to have launched the first tool, with more to come. As often requested, let's have a closer look at the evolution of our order book. Order intake accelerated significantly. In the first nine months of 2026 alone, we booked EUR 633.5 million. Just a reminder, full-year order intake was EUR 423.7 million in 2024 and EUR 354.3 million in 2025.
2024 was a strong year with a lot of orders for our bonding solutions. Demand was strong across all product lines. The third quarter growth reflects the expansion of the major coater order from Q2 and a new order from an OSAT customer of about EUR 45 million. Of the EUR 601 million order book, orders for coating solutions account for about 45%, with deliveries already stretching into 2028. Looking ahead, after three strong quarters, we expect that Q4 will not be the strongest quarter of the year, but still above fourth quarters of prior years. Now let's look at the projection of the order book and the expected sales conversion. First, our order book reached an all-time high of EUR 600.6 million as of September 30th, 2026. Out of this, about EUR 105 million-EUR 125 million is expected to convert into sales in Q4 2026.
This corresponds to the range of our sales guidance for the full year. For 2027, visibility greatly improved, with EUR 415 million to EUR 435 million of orders already planned for the fiscal year 2027. First orders for scheduled deliveries in 2028 are already placed, roughly EUR 60 million worth. As the order book for 2027 is filling quickly, additional revenue upsides will depend on the timing of the order intake and the type of tools ordered. Orders we receive in Q4 and up to Q2 2027 can lead to sales in the running year. However, production slots are filling quickly for some products. Deliveries could then also spill into 2028. The customer order pattern is important, as it has changed. Customers started ordering further ahead, so we might receive orders in early 2027 for delivery in 2028.
Please note that the expected revenue conversion reflects the current order book and planned delivery schedules as of September 30th, 2026. It is subject to change and does not represent management guidance or revenue forecast. With that, I'd like to hand over to Cornelia.
Thank you, Burkhardt, and also a warm welcome from my side to all of you. I will guide you through the most important financial KPIs after nine months compared to prior year's figures. Sales were around EUR 300 million compared with EUR 386 million last year. This decline by 22.3 percentage points, sales had been, as we already explained, affected by the supply chain situation, with suppliers de-committing at short notice or pushing out delivery schedules. This created revenue pushouts from Q3 into Q4 and into 2027. Gross profit was around EUR 111 million and about 22% lower compared to last year. The main driver of this development was the lower sales volume. Profitability was with 37% slightly higher compared with 36.8% than last year. So profitability was supported by higher volume of service and spare parts business. Selling, administrative, and R&D expenses were EUR 88.8 million, up 2.7%.
The selling costs decreased, administrative expenses were flat, and R&D expenses increased by 11%, supporting our product launches. EBIT at EUR 18.3 million was below the prior year. With the lower sales, the cost absorption decreased. On the balance sheet and cash flow, net cash was EUR 112.1 million compared with EUR 43.9 million. Free cash flow increased strongly to EUR 65.3 million, driven by prepayments for large coater orders. Capital expenditures were EUR 15 million cash out. In the third quarter, we increased capital expenditures by EUR 9.5 million, mostly for self-constructed tools that we intend to use for demonstration and training purposes. The number of employees increased as well. We are scaling our resources to build our capacity for 2027. Let's move on to the development of our main financial KPIs for the third quarter. Order momentum and seasonality.
As we said in the half-year call, we expect a continued strong order momentum in Q3. We received orders worth EUR 223.5 million, which was well above market expectations. For Q4, we expect a good order momentum too. Sales development in Q3, as I said, was driven mostly by pushouts of tools due to the supply chain situation. Despite this, the first quarter remained the weakest quarter of the year as we communicated. It is particularly encouraging that we achieved a gross profit margin of 36.5% at the corresponding level of revenue. It is also evident that the margin was higher in the second quarter, primarily as a result of increased sales volume. The same applies to the EBIT margin, which likewise benefited from higher volumes in the second quarter. We see the effect of the lower sales volume in Q1 and Q3.
Let's have a quick look at the segments and their development. Advanced Backend Solutions. Like we already said, most of the order intake was for coaters. In the imaging product line, orders were predominantly attributable to mask aligners this year. Imaging was around 15% of segment order intake. The bonding solutions were around 20% of order intake. Service and upgrade business was also very good. Revenue in the third quarter amounted to EUR 75 million, below the level achieved in Q2, but significantly above Q1. Encouragingly, despite the lower revenue volume, the gross profit margin was slightly higher than in the second quarter. The EBIT margin amounted to 7.7%, exceeding the group EBIT margin of 4.2% in the third quarter. Compared with the corresponding quarter of the prior year, the margin was naturally significantly lower.
The same applies to Q2, as both periods were characterized by substantially higher revenue volumes and consequently higher gross profit in absolute terms. Photomask Solutions. The order intake in Q3 in the segment was strong. Sales were in line with Q2, still reflecting the lower order intake in late 2025. While sales in Q3 of EUR 22.1 million was only slightly below that of Q2, the gross profit margin did not reach the level achieved in the previous quarter. At 29.1%, the margin was lower due to product and customer mix effects. Given the lower gross profit in absolute terms and a slight increase in operating expenses, particularly in R&D, EBIT amounted to minus EUR 0.2 million, corresponding to a negative EBIT margin of 2.7%. Now let's have a look at the regional split of order intake and sales.
Compared with last year, we grew strongly in every region in terms of order intake. North America was a region with the strongest relative growth. Orders were up 168% compared with the first nine months of 2025. In EMEA, order intake also increased, although not as strongly as in the other regions. Still, order intake more than doubled in EMEA. Our most important region, Asia Pacific, or APAC, also recorded significantly higher order intake, up 161% on the prior year. APAC remained our most relevant region in terms of share of order intake in the nine-month period of 74% compared with 76% last year. Within the region, China accounted for 16.2% of order intake in the first three quarters. EMEA's share of order intake expanded from 10% last year to 14% in the first nine months of 2026.
Turning to sales, you can see softness in APAC and a strong development in North America and also an improvement in EMEA. The share of sales in China was 14% in the first nine months of 2026 compared with 26.7% last year. This was driven by the order intake from China in Q3 and Q4 of last year, which was quite low. Let's take a look at the key balance sheet developments. The major driver on the balance sheet were the prepayments we received for our coater orders. These payments increased our cash and cash equivalents on the asset side. On the liability side, contract liabilities increased by EUR 83 million, reflecting the same prepayments. A second major driver is inventories, with an increase by EUR 25 million. Because of the supply chain situation, we are not able to finish certain tools as planned.
Such tools are classified as work in progress, which temporarily increases our inventories by EUR 21 million. Turning to equity, our equity increased by 4.2%, around EUR 13 million. This was driven by net income of around EUR 10 million and other comprehensive income, in particular foreign exchange gains. Despite the increase in equity, the equity ratio declined from 62.2% to 54.5%, primarily as a result of the significant increase in total assets of around EUR 97 million. With that, I hand over to Burkhardt for the outlook.
Thanks, Cornelia. A lot of numbers.
Yes.
Like you said, order intake of EUR 633.5 million and order book of EUR 600.6 million are the new record highs for SÜSS. If you add to that the orders expected for Q4, as well as recognizable intake from Q1 and Q2 2027, you get to even bigger numbers. SÜSS is capable to execute big and is in full swing of getting ready. We prepared the ramp in our sites since the end of Q2, especially in Zhubei, where we are expanding an additional floor for production. Without our Garching site, we still have the max revenue capacity potential from our two sites of a combined EUR 1.1 billion in 2027. We are adding capacity in production, warehousing, and logistics, and are still expanding our workforce. The production relocation from our Garching site will not hold us back operationally. Quite the opposite.
The current market expectations for sales in 2027 do not make us uncomfortable. Now, let's have a quick look on our product roadmap. GreenTec was launched October 1st. It is an eco-friendly manufacturing solution dedicated to wafer cleaning and stripping processes. The DSC310 panel-level scanner is also launched, installed, and in customer qualification. The next generation of our UV scanner wafer tool is currently being developed. The ASC9500, our mid-end mask cleaner, already has orders before we officially launch the tool. The launch will happen in November. Lastly, MaskTrack SMART, our next-gen high-end mask cleaner, is ready and scheduled for shipment in the first half of 2027. As we said, we managed four out of our 10 major launches this year. With that, here's our revised guidance as already announced. We have trimmed down sales and EBIT margin expectations for 2026.
One-offs from the relocation of our production activities are the major driver for the lowered EBIT margin. Sales guidance is lower due to the supply chain constraints, as we already said. The underlying customer demand remains very strong and will be strong for Q4 also. With that, please open the lines for questions.
Thank you very much for the presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, now it is your turn. We are opening the Q&A session. If you would like to ask your questions in person via audio line, please click on the raise hand button. Should you be dialed in by phone, please press star key nine to raise your hand and star key six to unmute yourself. Additionally, you're also very welcome to post your questions in our chat. We already have some risen hands. Mr. Michael Kuhn, you should be able to unmute yourself and ask your question.
Yes, thank you very much for taking my question. I have got one main question, and thanks for providing the details on, let's say, production capacity of your two sites, and also the comment on that you feel comfortable with market expectations still. One thing in that context, how quickly do you think your supply chain catch up, and let's say, how big is your level of confidence that your supplier base can ramp capacity as quickly as you can? Also in that context, looking into next year, what sales cadence should we expect? Are we looking into a rather backend-loaded profile, or could we see quite a major capacity ramp already showing a positive effect in the first half of the year? Thank you.
Yeah, let me, Michael, start, and then I hand it over to Thomas, who probably can also comment best on the supply chain side. As said, we are preparing for quite some time, and we have to clearly differentiate between those short-term supply chain issues and those long-term ramp issues. A long-term ramp, you can plan, and we are in the fortunate situation that we have the facilities prepared, and we are in full swing and expanding them. These long lead time items, we are already starting procuring well ahead. This is something where we feel quite comfortable in. What you can only react to are short-term incidents or supply chain issues, and they are harder to mitigate on short term. This is a bit the difference between the current Q4 situation and the ramp we are planning.
In terms of the distribution, it is of course a buildup since we received big orders in Q2 already for this first huge coater orders. You can imagine they are starting already in Q1 next year, with the delivery and the execution. Then, of course, it is a compound effect of the additional orders, because we have three quarters with quite some intakes. You can expect a further growth, but it is not a hockey stick or something you might be implying. It already starts with high levels in Q1. But I would like to hand over to Thomas to comment on the supply chain challenge.
Yeah, thank you, Burkhardt, and thank you for the question. As you mentioned already, and as Burkhardt already explained, we prepared ourselves for the ramp already by the end of Q2 last year. That means concerning capacity, clean room capacity, and also manpower, I think we are well prepared, and we are ramping up again since half a year. This is looking quite okay. But what we were also really a little bit surprised was really the shortcoming by some of our suppliers. This was really on short notice, even after we got already committed delivery dates. This is why we got surprised and why we are now facing these shortages somehow. Nevertheless, we are in close and very strong contact with our supplier base in terms of, okay, when can you ramp up and what do you do to ramp up?
They already have a lot of measures in place concerning their supply chain, their own capacity ramp up, so that we are really pretty optimistic that the shortcomings will be overcome within the next months. Nevertheless, up to now, we also got some good surprises, and we are never sure about any surprises which are coming up. But again, we are somehow optimistic that this can be solved within the next months.
Maybe to add, Thomas, we already started dual sourcing activities or second sourcing-
Sure
for some of those key components, because for that ramp next year, there is still time to do it. So we will be in a more safe position, having options to choose from. But this takes some time to develop. It will not help us this quarter, but it will make next year much safer.
Yeah, thanks for that. One more on, let us say, one technological platform that was probably a bit out of focus for your company as of late, hybrid bonding. Could you share some of the latest developments here in terms of where do you stand? Where do your partners stand? Could there be, let us say, a change in the partnership setup? Are you in any advanced customer discussions here and probably in the position to announce something over the next couple of months?
Yeah, it's too early to make any announcements. We currently have the setup you're well familiar with on die-to-wafer. We have SET as our flip chip bonder partner. That solution, as we also frequently said, is not a high-volume, high-throughput tool, so we will not be able to compete with that in the HBM space yet. We need other constellations to be able to do so. On the other hand, also as often discussed, the real takeoff for hybrid bonding for HBM is also not running smoothly because it's a big technology risk. TCB suppliers are extending the runway, the other runway to achieve the output and the performance. We don't see a mass adoption of that technology yet.
At the same time, we are receiving orders for our integrated solution, not out of the HBM space, but other spaces, because the accuracy and the placement accuracy of our tool is very good. We see kind of single-digit activities in terms of order activity for that die-to-wafer tool as we speak. Our permanent bonding solutions, including fusion and hybrid bonding, also that continues. We are also there putting quite some effort in because that might even have bigger prospects in the mid and long-term future. But it's too early to make any announcements or statements yet. But we are very busy to pursue hybrid bonding on multiple fronts.
Excellent. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. There are further risen hands. Mr. Malte Schaumann, you should be able to unmute yourself and ask your question.
Yes. Good afternoon. First, to follow up on the supply side or on the capacity side, can you quantify the revenue capacity you have for the next year, beginning with the ramp at the moment, and what is your exit plan, exit capacity then towards the end of the year?
Malte, the capacity which we have really planned for is really, well, I would say, in the same range of euros which we have order intake for. We prepare to fulfill all our orders which we have right now for 2027, and additional, because in Q4 next year, we still have space for more orders. We plan for the capacity to have in place to really fulfill all orders in 2027 and even for 2028. Concerning the end capacity by the end of 2027, we are really dealing a lot with flexible workforce in terms of temporary workers or contractors so that we are really able to breathe. Depending on the further order intake which we are seeing in the next months, we can adapt our capacity easily to the request or the order intake.
Okay.
Also, the max capacity I shared earlier of our two combined major sites, if you max out the physical capacity we have installed there, and this is, of course, irrespective of supplies or so, then we are looking at a number north of EUR 1 billion. There is sufficient headroom in there to move that volume on relatively short notice. Of course, we built this factory not for 2027, but for 2030, but it seems like things are fast-forwarding as we speak.
Okay. Sounds good. Then on the phasing of demand or order intake during the next couple of quarters, you sound pretty optimistic regarding your pipeline. Maybe you can add some more color. What do you see? I mean, we had two extremely strong quarters now behind us, so what should we expect, kind of a more muted fourth quarter, and then order intake will start to accelerate again in early 2027? Any color on that would be appreciated.
Well, I think we added some colors, but we left it to you to connect the dots. Usually, we had very strong Q4 quarters. Q4 always has been the strongest quarter in the last few years. We said, "Okay, this year, this is not the case." Q4 will be below the strongest quarter we had, which was Q3 with EUR 270 million order intake. We also said, if you listened, that this Q4 will be stronger than any other Q4 we had before. The last strong Q4 was EUR 150 million. I don't know. Now, I guess you have the range of what to expect, I hope.
Yeah, that's fair enough. I think I missed that comment. Thanks for that.
Yeah.
On HBM, the discussion around Samsung, any changes to the situation here? We discussed that earlier in the year, but has anything changed?
No, I think it's both Samsung and Micron, they are all preparing for massive ramps. We see some activity also from Samsung. We saw more activity compared to the time we talked last. Both companies so far are a bit cautious in sharing long-term forecasts with us. We are trying to get this better nailed down. On the other hand, they are very bullish in showing their own expansion plans. I think we are in deep discussions with them also to get a longer-range forecast, because as we said, we are starting to fill our factory. The slots, which also are available for bonders, will become limited on short notice. As you know, coaters and bonders are built on a similar platform, so we can easily shift between them. If the max capacity is used, it's becoming difficult.
We do expect more bonders and debonders to come in on, I think, short, medium-term notice. But our factory is increasingly loaded with coaters.
Yeah. Okay, thanks.
Thank you very much. In the meantime, there are also some questions in our chat box. I will read out the first one, which is, "What gross margin is embedded in the Photomask Solutions and the Advanced Backend Solutions order book, and how is the potential impact of cost inflation in the supply chain reflected in contract structures?
Yeah, that's a difficult question, which we cannot just answer so easily. I think I'd like to start with the second part. We are adjusting our pricing also to reflect higher material costs, higher transport costs, and inflation effects. This goes across the base, and we are in discussions, especially with our key customers, to also do this in kind of context with new DPAs we are negotiating with our large customers. What we see so far is that there is, of course, customers are never happy if you increase prices, but there is some acceptance that this is a necessity. Plus, end products, so chips are also increasing. The ASPs of chips are going up rapidly, so there is obviously also a space to absorb price increases. This is an activity running across the base.
The new orders we received are big volume orders. Of course, when volume orders are placed, customers also expect kind of package pricing or more discounts, which we, to some extent, accommodated, but we have not sacrificed large steps in our margin. Plus, since we can now also go out to our supply chain and buy in large parts, we also get discounts in our supply chain. In that sense, it's a wash. We don't see a margin decline. We think we can definitely stabilize, if not improve the margins, even with these volume deals. Of course, with higher revenue, our overall margins go up because the fixed cost coverage improves. But maybe, Cornelia, you want to add?
Yeah, there is not really something to add. We will see a volume effect, of course. You asked for the gross profit margins from the segments, and it is in both segments we will see improvements due to more volume. That's clear. Regarding the supply chain or the supply, Burkhardt, I think you explained it in detail. There's nothing to add.
Thank you very much. The next question in the chat box is, "What might be the impact of the U.S.A. elections for the semicon business in the world? Might it slow down, or do you see possible changing trends in investment in AI infrastructure in Taiwan, China, U.S.A., and Europe because of the Democrats won the elections in U.S.A.?
Please understand I can't comment on the political impacts there. I mean, I think there were some reactions. You could see that tech stocks deflated slightly. But I think I don't have a crystal ball to see. But I'm pretty sure we're not driving off a cliff here, because there are lots of projects running in full swing, and AI, I think, is here to stay.
Thank you. There are also further raised hands. Janardan Menon, you should be able to unmute yourself and ask your question.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. I was just going back to your gross margin, which you are, if I heard you right, you're sort of saying, could be sort of in a similar range next year, and you'll get the operating margin upside from the revenue growth. I thought the messaging previously was, as you move more production to Zhubei, as your new platforms come in at higher gross margin, and also now that you're shutting down the Garching facility, all of these should have a positive effect on your gross margin. Is it that some of those effects will take more time, or what is it that has changed that your gross margin trajectory could be a little bit more muted than at least we had assumed previously?
Yeah, Janardan, it's a good question. I think you're spot on. It will take some time to sink in, those effects you mentioned. The large orders we are getting are not for new products, and they are for established platforms, like our spin coaters. They're not the new launches I was referring to. As I always said, the effect of these new launches, they will start kicking in in 2027, but at a slope. Now, of course, if the bulk of the business is based on existing platforms, and the bulk also of the increase, the structural margins of those products, they benefit from some volume effects, from some maybe lower manufacturing costs, and some improved purchasing activities, but not more than that. I think we will see better margins next year, but to the extent we have to see.
Yeah. One remark regarding our relocation from Garching to Sternenfels as well as Taiwan. We will see an improvement in 2028 because the whole thing will be transferred in 2027, and there will occur some costs, and the full effect will occur from this measure from 2028 onwards.
Understood. Just as a clarification on your trajectory of revenue. You are suggesting that Q1 will be somewhat above Q4 and then gradually keep rising over the next four quarters of 2027. Is that the way I should read your comments?
No, first of all, we are not really commenting on concrete revenue figures for next year. Please accept that. There will be a step up in Q1, and then thereafter, further increases. It is not even, but it is substantial structural increases we are seeing starting from Q1 onwards.
The last one for me is on the wafer cleaning. The 200 millimeter is more an R&D system where we probably shouldn't expect too much of business, and then the bigger upside will come next year when you launch the 300 millimeter. Is that still the same way to look at it?
Yeah, almost. The 200 millimeter is not an R&D tool. It is a tool for MEMS type applications, so for smaller wafer sizes. Of course, the available market for that is much smaller than a 300 millimeter opportunity. So it is for us an entry, where we have a number of MEMS customers actively engaged who are very eager to get their hands on this tool. But also, of course, there will be R&D sites also interested in this tool, but it is primarily for 200 millimeter and MEMS. We are starting, as we speak, the design for 300 millimeter, where we probably see the first hardware at the end of next year. That will be the tool we can also place, for example, with memory customers and logic customers, and there is quite some demand there.
Understood. Thank you so much.
Thanks very much. The next risen hand is by Basil Theiss. You should be able to unmute yourself and ask your question. We cannot hear you yet. I do not think your microphone is working. At least on my end, I cannot hear you. We will try to unmute you again. It does not seem to be working, so I would suggest, if it is possible for you to put your question in the chat box. In the meantime, I will take the next risen hand from Abed Jarad. You should be able to ask your question.
Hey, can you hear me?
Yes.
Cool. I have a couple of questions. Maybe the first one on gross margin in Q4. For the first nine months, you delivered like 37. I was wondering why you did not narrow your gross margin guidance upward, because that would imply some pressure quarter-on-quarter. Is it mainly mix, or are you expecting a one-off, or is it just simply caution built into the guidance?
Sorry. Yeah. Of course, we expect a one-off from our relocation measure in the fourth quarter.
Yeah. Okay. That was pretty quick. Did I understand it correctly that 2027 gross margins are going to be on the same level as this year?
2027?
Yeah.
Yeah. It's hard to guide right now for 2027, but the structure of our order book we already discussed. There we see the margins for our products in the same range we have it.
Okay. Okay. Another question is on lead times. Could you give us a quick update on them, maybe particularly for the coating tools? Have they changed much since last quarter?
Not dramatically, but for sure we have some delays because of the supply chain issues which we see. These directly affect also our lead times. In general, we still are fighting for the six-month lead time, around six months. But for sure, we have now one or two months, sometimes a little bit delay, which we are still fighting to pull in again. But this can happen here and there. It's partially happening already. But in general, the lead times are still okay.
Yeah, I'd like to add there, it's not a matter of lead time these days anymore. It's a matter of free slots available. Our lead time is around six months, but provided there are slots. You can imagine that slots in the earlier timeframe are pretty much occupied with production starts. But of course, we have slots available next year still for quarters. But I also said that the order pattern has changed, so we get much longer range orders from customers who are not ordering for a tool delivered in six months, but for a tool delivered in 12 or 18 months. And that allows us to have that visibility where we can plan for.
Got you. My last question is on supply chain. You mentioned some early improvement in robotic availability, and I think you just mentioned on the call that you are expecting it to resolve by next month, I guess. What actually Sorry?
Sorry to interrupt. It's not next month, within the next months. So several months.
Okay. Yeah, Abed. What actually has changed at the supplier that may give you this confidence, like by next months? What do you see now?
What we see now, as also Burkhardt already mentioned, we have also qualified second sources, so really alternative suppliers. That is one thing which we see, especially for some very critical components in the robotic area. There we have potentially an alternative really qualified, but we are also qualifying other materials with a second source. This is also something which we are following. And we are in really deep dive, let us say, interactions with our actual suppliers so that we know what they are doing to ramp up on their side. There is a lot of things going on also with ramping up on their side, which we see, which we follow, and which we get also confirmed by our suppliers. Nevertheless, for sure, we know this is not a given thing.
It is critical also for them to ramp up and to get the capacity on board, sometimes also concerning the raw materials, which are not really completely and easily to be purchased by them. Nevertheless, we think and we see that a lot of things going on in the supply chain, so that we are optimistic that it will be solved within the next months. And this is several months, it is not in the next month, so it is not really solved in December. But I think hopefully in the first quarter next year, we should be in a better situation than now.
Okay. Thank you so much.
You are welcome.
The next raised hand in line is somebody dialed in by phone. I ask you to unmute yourself. You should be able to ask your question. It does not seem to-
Yes, hello. Hello.
Oh, yeah.
You hear me?
Yes, we can hear you now.
Okay, great. Great. Okay. Ruben Devos from Kepler Cheuvreux. I had one on just the order book. I mean, you talked about longer dated deliveries, talked a bit about, obviously, coating making up a big share of your order book. You are now at around EUR 600 million, but maybe a bit more granularity on that EUR 600 million in terms of the deliveries. Like, what portion could be out next year, and what portion might go out 2028? Then maybe, apart from, let us say, coating, because, I mean, 50% of the last nine months Advanced Backend Solutions tool sales, sorry, Advanced Backend Solutions orders were from coating. But what about the other tools within Advanced Backend Solutions, being bonding, imaging? So that would be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah. When you dialed in by phone, so you could not see, we provided exactly this split in the call, because it is part of the presentation slides. So the EUR 600 million, which we have end of September this year, we said about EUR 105 million-EUR 125 million will be in Q4 for shipments. That is also in line with the guidance we adjusted. Then EUR 415 million-EUR 435 million will be within 2027, and about EUR 60 million in 2028. Now, this is again the order book as of end of September. Obviously, on top, you have to count whatever orders we get in this fourth quarter for next year delivery. And of course, the first one or two quarters, provided we have slots and provided customers are ordering for the same year. So, the base we already have now in the books, as of end of September, is around EUR 415 million-EUR 435 million for 2027.
Okay.
But I suggest you have a look at those slides because I guess they are available, right? Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. All right. Is there also a regional split in those slides? Like, in the sense that North America, those orders rose also significantly. Is that driven by the front end or the Advanced Backend Solutions side, the U.S. packaging build-out? The China share is Yeah.
Yeah. Now, also that split we provided, so we really added a few pieces of information because-
Okay
These are questions frequently asked, so we thought we give these insights for all to have.
Okay.
We see a strong increase of Americas in our order book. We moved from the first nine months of last year of EUR 25 million to more than EUR 90 million. That is the part of the order book for the U.S. Of course, we also see an increase for Europe, where we almost doubled the absolute orders we saw in this same timeframe, same nine months this year and last year. Clearly, this is a consequence of the various CHIPS Act initiatives and whatnot. Of course, APAC or Asia Pacific remains the strongest area, and in absolute terms, this is also with EUR 470 million the strongest component. But the relative growth is also very strong, but the others grew over-proportionally compared to past records.
Okay. A final question is just, the supply side of things obviously is still a major question for me, whether we could have a bit more clarity there. I see the logic of concentrating, of course, in Zhubei and Sternenfels. Of course, it comes at a timing where you have a record order book. We remember a bit the ramp of Zhubei last year, and it weighed a bit on margins for a few quarters. Just trying to think about how you will phase that transfer of mask aligners throughout 2027. You have quantified the one-offs, but what is your idea of the annual savings once it is done?
Now, these are a number of questions. First of all, let me also first put this in context. We are right now expanding those two major sites we already have, and it is a very different situation compared to two and a half years ago when we had to triple our bonder production and transfer the bonders to Taiwan and squeeze out as many bonders as we possibly can. We have now the base factory which has the potential to much more easier scale, and we want to utilize that. That is also why we have chosen the timing for Garching as such, because we can do this in one go. It is not as challenging as it might seem because we have prepared for it. We are adding resources.
We are increasing floor space, increasing the density of where we put and assemble machines, and we are accessing new clean room spaces as we speak. The question mark, of course, and that is rightfully so, remains, will this be matched by the supply chain? I think Thomas explained that we have a lot of short and long-term actions running to also get that covered. The final element is resources, and there we started to build up headcount since late Q2 this year on the temporary base because we are aware that this is a volatile market, so we have to have also quick means to turn it off again if needed, not to run over costs. I think in that sense, I think it is manageable, and we feel very confident to do so.
The last question, I think, was on the Garching part, and I hand over to Cornelia on that.
Yeah. As I said, we expect positive effects from this measure from 2028 onwards, and roughly it's per annum around EUR 3 million.
Sorry, EUR 3 million you said?
EUR 3 million savings.
EUR 3 million savings per year.
Per year. Okay.
Roughly.
All right. Thanks.
Okay.
Okay. Thank you. That's all from my side.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. There is one last risen hand by APUS Capital. You should be able to ask your question now.
Yes. Hello, this is Johannes Ries. Good afternoon. Most questions are answered. Maybe some clarification questions. First one, gross margin in Taiwan. You said the gross margin will improve and will come with the new products, but it is still right that the highest gross margin from your two facilities which are left, the higher is in Taiwan, at average?
Yeah, that is correct.
That's correct.
Yes.
That's correct. Okay. On the cost development next year, R&D has grown comparatively strong this year. What do we expect for next year? SG&A should also not grow so strong next year. Is that right? What could we expect for R&D?
R&D will raise also next year, Johannes, but not as strong probably as this year, because we launched already a few products, and we will continue, and they are already on a good path. From that point of view, we still invest into our future with R&D, but perhaps not as strong as this year.
Okay. On the new products, I didn't get it right, the GreenTec 300, will it be launched in the middle of next year or to the end of next year?
More towards the end, Johannes.
Okay
Just finalizing the design, and then, of course, we still have to make it. So it is more towards the end of next year. To the earlier question on R&D, obviously this year we have the worst case combination. We have low sales levels and high R&D spend. I think we pre-announced that this year will be a dip, but we did not want to slow down our R&D activities to get all these products out. So we take the hit now and here, and yes, then get criticized for it, but I think otherwise we would have to delay the launch of those important products, and we decided not to do so. Next year, even with an increased spend of R&D, as the top line also will be significantly higher, the ratio of R&D is lower, and of course, the margin impact is also absolutely manageable.
Very clear. On the photomask cleaning, the two products, the mid-end is coming first, the high end a little bit later, but will they have some significant impact on sales next year already, or is it more 2028?
The mid-end will have an impact on sales because there we have a number of tools, but it is a lower single-digit number, what we are seeing there for next year. The MaskTrack SMART, we will ship the first system towards the end of the first half of next year. Of course, since it is a first, it will be evaluated by that customer, the launching customer. In the meantime, even before the evaluation is completed, we expect follow-up orders for that tool. We have deliberately delayed the launch a bit, or the launch in terms of the shipment, because we are prioritizing currently the mid-end tool in our factories.
Finally, if I look to your chart about the new products, which are up to 2030, there are also others to come in 2027. Is that right? Is that maybe at least announced or maybe at the end of the year, maybe even launched?
Yeah, in 2027, we have six more to go. We hope we get them out in 2027, but don't nail me down on this. We have a number of ones. I think I mentioned the wafer UV scanner is one of them. We have a number of upgrades on the bonding side. This is in progress. Of course, we have the 300 millimeter GreenTec product. It's a number of products. The high-volume 200 millimeter platform, that's still a question mark. Is it really needed? Because the current tool, the low volume which we launched, already has a wafer throughput of 50 wafers an hour. This is pretty good, even especially for MEMS application. We might not need a high-volume 200 millimeter. That's why we put all our efforts on the 300 millimeter tool.
Very clear. Thanks. Good luck for the coming year now.
We need it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hopefully it's clear, we are pretty confident on what's ahead of us. Yes, the numbers are big, but A, we have done it before, and we know how to do it, and we are in a much better shape and position to address this compared to the surprise ramp we had with AI and memory customers two and a half years ago.
Okay. Great. Final remarks. Thanks.
Thank you very much. With no further risen hands nor questions in the chat box, we come to the end of today's call. Thank you very much for your interest in SÜSS MicroTec SE, and if any further questions arise at a later time, please feel free to contact investor relations. I wish you all a successful remaining day and hand over to Sabrina Müller again for closing remarks.
Yes, many thanks for all of you for joining us today. As the operator already mentioned, if you have any further questions, do not hesitate to reach out to the investor relations team. We really appreciate your interest in SÜSS and wish you a pleasant rest of the day, and goodbye.