Good morning ladies and gentlemen and a warm welcome to today's earnings call of the PVA TePla AG. Following the publication of the Q3 figures of 2024, we are delighted to welcome the CEO and CFO Jalin Ketter and Head of Finance Elke Kleemann who will give us a presentation on the results in a moment. After the presentation, we will move on to a Q&A session in which you will be allowed to place your questions directly via audio line to the management. We are looking forward to the presentation and having said this, Ms. Ketter, the stage is yours.
Thanks a lot. Good morning and welcome to our earnings call of the third Quarter 2024. The general economic situation as well as in particular the semiconductor market are still at a low level. Despite this challenging situation, we again achieved a very great quarter within PVA TePla and we are well on track to fulfill our guidance on the lower end of the range. In the short term view, we are still dependent on single economic cycles such as the semiconductor market. The upcoming year 2025 is a year of transition with only slight growth potentials. In the long- term view, we want to be independent from single market cycles. To achieve this, we strongly focus to execute the foundation of our long- term growth and again we made a lot of progress during the third quarter 2024.
Let me start with some highlights of the third quarter before Elke Kleemann, our Head of Finance, will lead you through the financials. I'll take over afterwards to take the opportunity to give you a better understanding of our technology hub and before I will end with the guidance of 2024. Metrology demand still remains strong. Business activities in this area are mostly related to already developed customers and markets. We further make progress with the qualification processes in new market opportunities in the back end of the semiconductor industry, especially in Asia with PVA Technology Hub. We started a long-term R&D approach in Q1 2024. Within this concept we set a short-term focus to silicon carbide and we made a lot of progress within this project. Today we are able to produce silicon carbide powder in various grain sizes in a reproducible format.
Further, we stepped into a strategic partnership with Scientific Visual. With this technology we extended our metrology portfolio meaningful related to the challenges of silicon carbide. I will explain you more about this later. In early Q4 we finalized our new facility in Italy. With this new and modern production line, we are strengthening our presence in Southern Europe. Here we are producing one of our key components in the product group Material Solutions, the Process Chamber, the heart of the system technology. With this we further reduce dependencies on external suppliers and improve our resilience and control about quality and delivery time. This location will also drive a metrology application center and a service hub to support our local customers. With these kind of investments, we are also strengthening our after-sales capacities and set the foundation of a long-term growth. Also in this field of operation.
The facility further achieves full autonomy in energy and supports our sustainability approach. Before I come back to our technology hub, I hand over to Elke Kleemann for the financials.
Thanks, Jalin, for handing over and good morning to everyone on the line from my side. Let's start with the key figures overview. Some remarks up front from my side. The financial year 2024 has been very successful for us so far and I am in particular pleased about that because of two things. The first one is we have succeeded in doing so in this indeed current weak macroeconomic environment. Secondly, we achieved that while working intensively on implementing our strategy and investing in our technologies and our organizational structure. In a nutshell, I can once again report a good set of results for the first nine months. Starting with sales. Sales are up by 3.7% amounting to EUR 198.3 million in the first nine months.
We announced that we are heading towards a transition period with a moderate growth for the next one or two years and that's exactly what we are seeing here. Starting profitability. EBITDA is up over proportionally compared to sales plus 11% at EUR 32.4 million. This translates into a nine-month EBITDA margin of 16.3% compared to 15.2% last year. A really good improvement considering the somewhat lower volume growth we see and the strategy-driven transition investments we are making at EUR 107.2 million. The order intake is still subdued and the order backlog has decreased to EUR 187.3 million. We will have a closer look at the order situation later on. Before moving on I would like to point out and highlight the CapEx development.
The CapEx at EUR 19.5 million is at a record level and of course it reflects our future oriented investments in research and development to name the technology hub here in buildings and capacities as well as in sales and the sales infrastructure. Already in the first half year call we highlighted that we spent already more than the full year 2023 amount in CapEx and as we see we further continued in Q3 in a similar pace and will do so in Q4 as well. Jalin already elaborated on our progress in the CapEx, next to this, we acquired a somewhat below 25% stake in Scientific Visual, which is not included in the CapEx. Moving on to Group sales, what catches the eye here is that actually nothing seems to have changed here significantly in the last three months.
The regional sales split shows that as in the first half of this year with 56%, the highest share is coming from Asia. This results from the execution of our bulk orders where we work off the part we deliver to Asia. 12% of sales relate to North America. It has been 13% in the first half year. Happy to see this as the growth in North America is one of our strategic initiatives. Europe, including Germany, accounted for the remaining 32%. Here we see a 3.7% year- on- year growth in sales, our semiconductor segment contributing 68% and our industrial segment contributing 32%. Hence a slight shift but no real structural change. What is very important, both of our segments have increased in sales and that's good. The growth rates differ with the industrial segment showing the higher growth rate.
A development we have been seeing since 2023, driven by industrial applications and our acquisition in CVD technology in France. This is part of our Synthesis product line. That's the first important message here. Within the semiconductor segment, the contribution to sales from the execution of our bulk orders decreased in absolute terms, and in relative terms we have seen that in the first half as well. This development was compensated by the growth of our Metrology business, resulting in a moderate absolute growth of segment sales by 1.5%. We are excited to see sales from Metrology continue growing as this perfectly matches our strategic plans. And that's the second very important message here. Coming to Group Profit, the quarterly development in a direct comparison quarter to quarter, sales are slightly down minus 2.3%.
From our updated guidance you can see that we expect a higher sales share in Q4 2024 again in Q3. EBITDA and EBIT are down in the direct comparison with last year. The good news here is that gross profit was on the same level as in Q3 last year despite the somewhat lower sales level. Hence, we achieved a really sound gross margin of 30.8% in Q3 and this is even increased compared to the previous year. Next to that we see that the overhead and holding costs are going up. This comes along with our investments in, on one hand, our organizational structure, including the sales organization, and secondly in our technologies, so to say in research and development. Both are core elements of our strategy and its implementation.
Overall margins are excellent and remain strong. This all is reflected in the EBITDA and EBITDA development we see here on the slide. But now to the year to date perspective, the nine months group profit development here looks really good. We see a positive development in all key figures in absolute as in relative terms. All the three earnings figures give us a fairly uniform picture and show a year- on- year growth of around 11% and that at a 3.7% sales growth rate in brackets only gross profit at EUR 68.8 million with a gross margin of 31.2% to a very sound level and a good improvement. EBITDA at EUR 32.4 million and a margin of 16.3% and EBIT finally EUR 26.6 million at 13.4% margin. To summarize that we are really pleased with that performance.
It provides a good starting base for the upcoming fourth quarter and it prepared the ground for us to achieve a margin increase for the full year 2024 and staying in the guided corridor. Coming to our two segments and starting with the semiconductor segment. Here sales are up by 1.5% year-o n- year and amounted to EUR 135.7 million. We see a stable development in sales despite the current challenging environment. The continuous growth in metrology compensates the effects of the progressing finalization of the bulk orders. I already mentioned. We are satisfied to see that continuous growth in metrology as this precisely is where we see excellent long- term growth opportunities. EBIT margin improved to 17.3% which is driven by a positive product mix and of course an effective cost control. The order intake reflects the current general weakness in the industry and stayed subdued at EUR 71.4 million -39.8%.
The strong order intake from acoustic metrology didn't compensate the weakness in other areas here. Thus our order backlog was down by 46.5% and lower, of course, as in last year. The industrial segment was able to nearly maintain the growth rate of the first six months and outperformed the previous year by 9% with sales amounting to EUR 62.5 million in the first half of this year. The main contributors were material solutions for industrial applications and MPA. The new business we acquired end of 2022 at an EBIT in the amount of EUR 6.7 million. In the first nine months the segment margin remained well above 10%; the more it even increased further during Q3 to now 12.5 12.2%. Thus the industrial segment showed a more than solid performance.
In Q3 we see a sound increasing level of customer activities, but on the other hand also longer decision cycles in customer awards. Therefore, the order intake fell short of the previous year by 39% to EUR 35.8 million in the first nine months at EUR 78.6 million. The order book order, despite being down by 16.5% year- on- year, is at a really sound level and provides us visibility for future sales. Finally, let's have a look at the order intake. In Q3. The order intake stayed at a level we have seen in the last couple of quarters. At EUR 107.2 million. It stayed behind the previous year of EUR 177.6 million by 39.7% with the semiconductor segment contributing 67% and the industrial 33%. There was no material change here to report. While on the other hand the regional split keeps changing.
We see an increasing share of order intake coming from North America with 23%. It was 11% in the last year. In the half year call I already highlighted this gratifying increasing share from North America underpinning our strategy. The share coming from Asia continued increasing as well to 42%. To recall its first half it was at 38%. This is driven by the joining technology. The contribution of Germany and Europe in combination went down from a peak of more than 60% to 35%. Despite these quite significant shifts here, the order book is still very well diversified in terms of product lines. You can see that in the middle the pie chart in the middle of the slide. Metrology has still its nose ahead, contributing 53% to the overall order intake after 57 in the first year.
First half of 2024 order intake in essence, what do we see? Recovery continues, but at a lower pace than we expected. From the customer requests, the market activities and the customer feedback we get, we clearly see ourselves on the right track. We see signs for a gradual semiconductor recovery and expect the market to pick up in Q4 and beyond. This could soften up the current more than 50% share of metrology. The difficulty here is it's really hard to predict the exact pace of the pickup. However, this does not change our fundamental and high level confidence in the PVA growth opportunities. And with that I'm handing back to Jalin for further explanations on the Technology hub, the outlook and some closing remarks.
Thanks, Elke, for those insights and financials. As we made some progress since the foundation of our technology hub in Q1 2024, I want to take the opportunity to tell you more about the activities around that. Let's first talk about why we did set up such a concept. In the past we did some R&D work based on our individual units very focused to the technology the units are running. This will stay also customer related development projects will further take place in our units. With PVA Technology Hub, we set up a long-term oriented R&D approach, not just focusing on the next one or two years. PVA Technology Hub is focused on future materials, the progress around them and the connection of our system technology to the value chain of these future materials.
With this concept, we are strongly connected to the needs of the market and our customers. We set an initial focus to silicon carbide and I want to explain more how we do this. On the slide you can see here the value chain of silicon carbide till the wafer level and our activities in this value chain. Our focus is not only related to the 8-inch silicon carbide crystal growing process and its development. We already start at the very early stage at the base material, the powder. The quality of the powder is very important for the quality of the crystal.
And so the other steps that you can see on that slide, we are closely connected to all critical steps of the value chain relevant for the quality of the crystal with our system technology and the process know how which we are developing. Additionally, today metrology is only used at the wafer level and the most relevant methods are destructive. With our silicon carbide approach, we want to bring non destructive metrology methods in at the earlier stage of the value chain. Therefore, next to the connection of our own metrology methods, we stepped into a partnership with Scientific Visual. Together we create a volume inspection tool to see defects at the early stage with which reduces costs, time and waste for our customers. The combination of metrology results from the different methods we provide help the customer to further improve the production process.
To give you a better understanding of this metrology, I would like to show you a video. Okay, sorry. So here you can see the PROC which is analyzed in that volume inspection and all the dots in the PROC are defects in silicon carbide material structure. In orange you can see the areas of the crystal that cannot be used afterwards or for the next production steps. In green the areas that can be used which mean that we enable the customer already on an early stage to decide which area of the crystal they will further take to the process and yeah, produce the power modules or something else. So when the orange areas would be used in the production process, there is a high risk for defects in the final part.
They are producing Silicon Carbide just is a first example how the technology Hub concept works. We plan to go to market for these future material concepts with a turnkey solution together with partners for the infrastructure around the system technology. We further brought our related sales activities to the next level to support all that development. So for example, we presented ourselves and the concept the first time at the most relevant exhibition in Silicon Carbide in a consistent and coordinated format for the whole company. And we are also expanding our sales capacities for this kind of products steadily. Silicon Carbide is a relevant material for all areas with high power and energy such as electromobility. Actually, there is no independent supply within whole Europe and a strong dependency from China and North America within today. Let's close this presentation with our guidance for the full year 2024.
As mentioned, the economic situation around us and in particular the semiconductor market are still on a low level. However, we see early signs of a recovery next to this weak market situation. We are able to fulfill our guidance for sales and EBITDA at the lower end of the range for 2025. We still will have a year of transition where we will continue to execute what's necessary for the long term development to finally achieve independency from single market cycles and prepare for long- term growth starting from 2026 and beyond. So, thanks for listening and we are happy to take your questions now.
Thank you very much for your presentation and the dive into your numbers. Ms. Ketter and Ms. Kleemann. We will now move on to the Q and A session for a dynamic conversation. We kindly ask you to ask questions in person via audio line. To do so, click on the Raise your hand button. If you have dialed in by phone, please use the key combination nine followed by six, and please note, questions via the chat cannot be submitted today, so we have some raised hands and Ms. Kaas, you should be able to speak now, so we start with Mr. Froberg. Mr. Froberg, you should be able to speak now.
Yes, hello, can you hear me?
Yes, perfect.
Good morning and thank you for taking my questions. I have a few. I'll run through them and then we can answer after. Firstly, what was the percentage share of Metrology to sales and how fast was Metrology sales growing in the nine months and in Q3? Then I was wondering how many customers are you currently trying to qualify with on the Metrology side? And could you help us understand if these customers are IDMs, OSATs, foundries or any other type of customer? Then how long are the qualification times in Metrology? How far along are you in the process? When can we expect to see tangible results in the form of orders? Then a question on North America. North America share of orders is increasing. What is driving that? And then finally you did say you expect a pickup of semi orders in Q4 next year.
What gives you this level of confidence? It seems like very few other companies are saying that at the moment.
Thank you.
All right. That was a lot of questions. So let me try to go through that and note that you mentioned them. So Metrology's portion of sales was about 34% of the total amount. And yeah, they were steadily growing over the nine months period. In the last years Metrology was growing in a double digit percentage year on year. So the qualification processes especially. So you were mentioning the 3D metrology and ultrasound on the back end of the semiconductor industry that we are working on are done at all the big accounts that are relevant for these activities. Qualification processes are going over a longer time frame. That means I mentioned that in our last call, but let me repeat that concept a little bit. So I hope you have that time.
You're starting with a system that you're bringing into that customer and then the customer is starting to test the system over a period up to nine months. After that nine months they are making a decision for which Metrology method or which Metrology system they are going for, and then you are jumping into a GDP with the customer, which means that that's a long term agreement over three to five years. Something around that where you're getting forecasts for the next years, how many systems they will get into the fabs in the several locations and then you are the key supplier for these customers for that time frame. We are making progress on that and step by step into further accounts. We already qualified an additional account to the already existing in the first half and we are making progress also in the area of Asia.
I think that answers the two questions that I get after the Metrology portion. North America increasing is majorly based on joining technologies, so diffusion bonding technologies. This is a method to create complex parts with, for example, cooling structures internally or heat exchangers, which are also a good example for that technology where you have a complex inside structure and the need to get the parts together in a very high quality to be resistant for pressure, and this is a market that is steadily increasing in North America. We also see a huge potential for the aerospace industry in North America and our CVD coating technology that we just acquired in France.
This is a technology where turbine blades, for example, or the edges of the wings of a plane are coated with silicon carbide to make them more resistant, given the longer lifetime and given a better efficiency going through the air, the pickup. In the semiconductor industry, this is something that we see in an early sign, as I said. So we have an increasing activity in our discussions with customers in the leads. We see early signs that orders will come up before the market finally will pick up. But it's always a matter of time when the final investment decision has been done. And for us as well, when the prepayment is coming to our books. We are only showing orders when the prepayments are already at our side.
With the economic situation around us and also the challenging times in politics, decision making is not easy for customers at the moment. I hope that was the answer of everything that you asked.
Yes, perfect. Thank you very much.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay, because I didn't hear anything so far, but thank you for taking my questions. With regard to your guidance for the full year, you're saying you're coming in at both the sales level and the EBITDA level at the lower end of the range. If I look at the difference between what you have done in the nine month period and the lower end of this guidance, I arrive at a sales level and an EBITDA level that implies basically an EBITDA margin of roughly 20% in the forecast fourth quarter. Is there a reason why EBITDA margin should be significantly higher in the fourth quarter? Or are we probably looking at sales coming in a bit higher than the low end of the guidance, whereas EBITDA comes in at the lower. I mean these are the two options.
So either you have an increase in margin or you make more sales in the last quarter than. Or the increase in sales is higher than the increase in EBITDA. That's the first question. I go one by one, I think that's easier.
Okay. Yeah, so the first three quarters have been also affected by a higher cost level for the investments in our infrastructure and the strategic projects that we are running, so EBIT margin is highly related to this project, and you can see the development of the business activities better this time in the gross margin level for Q4. We expect to achieve the portion that is left now for the sales volume to come to the lower end of the guidance or in the range of the lower end of the guidance, and in EBITDA there is still an effect somehow in the cost structure because of that strategic investments, and we see developments in gross margin level further.
Okay. So basically you're saying you're implying an increase in margin and that's part of the plan.
Yes.
Right. Okay, fine. The second one is with regard to your order intake. I mean it's still low, but it's not the point. What I was wondering is in semiconductor you had in the first two quarters roughly a level of EUR 25 million coming in. Third quarter was just EUR 20 million. So where's the difference coming from? You're basically saying metrology is going up. I would guess in crystal growing there wasn't so much anyway in the first two quarters. So what went worse? Is it silicon carbide in the third quarter compared to the first two quarters?
Now it's more a matter of timing and prepayment structure when they are coming into our books finally and when we show that order. So there's no real change in the situation because of that EUR 20 million that you saw.
Basically coming. Orders, orders coming in. It's just timing effect. And we probably will see in the fourth quarter the additional five million EUR that are missing now. Okay, fine. And the last question also relates some way to the auto intake. I mean, I haven't heard and I haven't read basically any statements with regard to the next year. I mean, so far you were saying you still expect slight growth from this year's level, so say roughly 270 million EUR the lower end. So a slight plus compared to the current year. Can you confirm this? And this obviously implies that roughly EUR 160-170 million in order intake are still missing to achieve that for the next say 3/4. And that implies obviously an increase in order intake.
Do you still deem this is realistic in view of the statements you just made with regard to a pickup of the semiconductor industry? So are we really looking at some serious increase in order intake over the next one, two, max, three quarters?
We will achieve our guidance in a lower range that we announced for 2025. We still see a year of transition with just slight growth potentials coming from the expected market development that we're seeing over the next months. We see early signs for a pickup of the semiconductor market. But as we said, it's always a matter of final investment decision and prepayments that we are getting in house. So exact timing is not clear yet. We see that our discussions with customers are steadily increasing and the pipeline is further filling up earlier than the pickup of the semiconductor market in total is expected.
Okay, thank you very much, that was very helpful.
Thank you, Mr. Merz, for putting a question. And we have another one raising a hand. It's Mr. De Jong. Mr. De Jong, you should be able to speak now.
Hi, Edwin, can you hear us?
Oh, he's not.
Yes, I think this is better. I forgot to turn on the microphone, so I was already asking a question, but.
Okay.
You can repeat it, then you can answer it.
Exactly.
Yeah.
In 2025, you're guiding now for slight growth. I think also in the last call you were not very optimistic. In 2025, has there been change in the last quarter? Have you become a little bit more negative or maybe constant compared to the first half year?
More or less constant. So we still see signs for a recovery of the market, but also we see a very challenging situation at the moment, which was somehow also affected by the political situation that we saw in the last couple of days. So this makes it harder to make short term investment decisions for customers. But anyhow, they are talking to us and we see their expectations in investment plans. So still it's a matter of time that we have to watch out for and see how that's developing.
Okay, so then no real change in the last three months next to the political situation, so to say. Okay. And then in Silicon Carbide, so my understanding now is that you're also going to be active in the powder part. Are you going to sell the powder or are you already selling it or? And what exactly do you add really in the front end of that process?
The powder is very important for the quality of the crystal. We are focusing on development of the process for the powder production. This is something that we finalized in the project already. There is a reproducible process available to produce the powder. Within our development of the 8-inch process, we are using our own powder production capabilities. Now in terms of the market, we want to use this process, know-how, together with a system for the powder production to sell that to the market, to customers.
Okay. And then you sell the process. Not like a furnace or something.
The furnace and the process.
Okay.
Okay. Then let's say, how far are you now with 8-inch compared to 6-inch?
We are stepping in the direction of 8-inch now and we still plan to have availability of an 8-inch process within 2025.
In 2025.
Okay.
Okay.
So that's the plan. And then I noticed that you provided a sales number for Metrology Tools, but I failed to really hear the number. It was 74%.
Of what?
The sales number of Metrology.
You mean the portion on sales that's 34%?
3.4%. Okay, okay, that makes it more clear. I was already wondering what was going on there. And then on the processes and metrology. So you're now selling with the U.S. customer, I would say with the metrology tools. And you're now also making progress, I hear, in Asia. So you're already qualified there or.
No, we are in qualification processes.
In qualification.
In, in.
For an Asian customer and then let's say the US is still going on and so that's really an ongoing.
Yes.
Okay.
And then final on the CapEx. So there's really a big step up in CapEx. We've seen building capacity and let's say also on technology spending. So how should we see it? The division between let's say capacity spending and let's say technology spending within the EUR 19.5 million.
We announced a CapEx volume of in total EUR 60 million for 2024 and 2025.
Yeah.
Which is on the one hand side most related to infrastructure projects in building structure. This includes the facility in Italy and the two buildings in. In that we just ramped up for the next year. We see a further extension in France. And in terms of R&D capacity, we just see a slight increase in the CapEx volume in 2024 and maybe a bigger portion. So it's the systems that we are setting up in a tech hub, for example, they are included in the CapEx for volume systems we are using for our own process development and just a slight portion on that system investments in 2025. Again.
Okay, so that's the R&D part is so to say more in.
The R&D costs reflected and not too much on the level of investment.
Okay.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. De Jong, for your question. We get back to Mr. Froberg who just raised his hand again. Mr. Froberg, you should be able to speak now.
Thank you. Just a quick follow up. Are any of your upcoming orders or discussions with customers or anything dependent on funding decisions from for example the U.S. government or from any governments in Europe?
Thank you. No, so there are no discussions around that. They're just upcoming orders because of funding. There are some discussions around, for example solar projects that we always have from time to time, which are depending on fundings, but that's nothing that we plan with.
Okay, so nothing directly tied to CHIPS Act or anything else?
No, no.
Great, thank you.
Yes, thank you Mr. Froberg for your question. And we have Finn who is able to speak now. Please put your question.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I have a question regarding metrology again. So just to get this straight, it was 34% in Q3 or the first nine months, and then what was the same number in last year? And the second question I have also regarding metrology is, so the pilot projects are in place at foundries and IDMs, but do they have a multiple supplier structures so the customers and so if you win a contract, are you the sole supplier of these metrology solutions or are there many in place? Thank you.
This is very different from customer to customer. There are some companies who are using a one supplier structure because they are taking best in class technology and that's in the point of focus, and there are some companies who are having multiple supplier structure, then it's mostly two companies who are related to the production lines that they are using. In terms of the metrology business, that's 34% for the nine months and it was roughly about 30% in the last year.
Great. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. Dear ladies and gentlemen, as this was the last virtual hand, we therefore come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you for your shown interest in PVA TePla and the lively conversation. Should further questions arise at a later time, you can contact Investor Relations at any time. A big thank you also to you, Ms. Ketter and Ms. Kleemann, for your presentation and the time you took to answer the questions. Dear participants, thank you for attending. I wish you all a lovely remaining week. Take care and bye bye.