Hello, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of Siltronic's Q2 2026 results. Please note that this call is being recorded and streamed on siltronic.com. The call will also be available as an on-demand version later today. Your participation in this call implies your consent to this. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Verena Stütze, Head of Investor Relations & Communications of Siltronic AG. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Cynthia. Welcome everybody to our Q2 2026 results presentation. This call will also be webcast live on siltronic.com. A replay of the call will be available on our website shortly after the end of the call. Our CEO, Michael Heckmeier, and our CFO, Claudia Schmitt, will give you an overview of our financials, the current market developments, and our guidance. After the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions. Please note that management comments during this call will include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of risk factors, I encourage you to review the safe harbor statement contained in today's press release and presentation. All documents relating to our H1 2026 reporting are available on our website. I now turn the call over to Michael for his remarks.
Thank you, Verena, and a warm welcome also from my side. I would like to begin with the key messages of today's call. Demand is gaining traction. We see a market recovery in the 300 mm business. In 200 mm, conditions were still sluggish in the first half, but we are expecting a clear volume improvement for the second half of the year. At the same time, the market pattern remains uneven. Although demand for AI-related applications is strong, prices are still lagging behind. In Q2 2026, wafer shipments increased, and our financial performance developed in line with our expectations. Two important milestones during the quarter were the successful completion of our capital increase and our re-entry into the German MDAX. Both reflect investors' confidence in Siltronic's long-term performance. Finally, based on improved wafer market sentiment for H2, we have slightly edged up our sales guidance for 2026.
Now let me give you an update of our performance in the second quarter. Q2 showed a clear sequential improvement. Sales increased to EUR 322 million, which lies 5% above first quarter sales. Profitability improved slightly as well as EBITDA increased to EUR 69 million and the EBITDA margin reached 21.6% compared with 21.2% in Q1. EBIT remained broadly stable at EUR -52 million as a slightly higher depreciation largely offset the EBITDA improvement. CapEx amounted to EUR 39 million and continues to focus predominantly on our 300 mm activities. Net cash flow improved compared with the first quarter, but remained negative at EUR 27 million, reflecting our continued cash outflow for investments.
During the quarter, we also successfully completed our capital increase, further strengthening our financial position and increasing liquidity to EUR 650 million at the end of June. Let me now hand over to Claudia for a more detailed review of the financials.
Thank you, Michael. A warm welcome from my side as well. I will now take you through the financial development in the second quarter in more detail. In June, we successfully completed an accelerated book building transaction, raising gross proceeds of EUR 273 million through the placement of new shares, representing 10% of our existing share capital. The placement price was EUR 91 per share, corresponding to a discount of around 7% to the previous day's closing price. Given that Wacker's secondary placement had established a market reference point only a few weeks earlier, the achieved pricing underscores the strong investor appetite for this transaction. The offering was very well received and multiple times oversubscribed, attracting strong demand from both existing and new investors, including long-only investors from Europe and the United States. We are also pleased by the meaningful support from our anchor shareholder, HAL Trust.
We chose this timing because we identified an attractive market window supported by improving demand fundamentals, AI-driven growth opportunities, and strong investor interest. Importantly, the transaction was not undertaken to address a near-term funding requirement. Rather, it reflects a proactive step to further strengthen our strategic and financial flexibility and to position Siltronic well to capture attractive future growth opportunities. The use and timing of the funds will depend on market developments and pricing trends. The strong performance of our share price, combined with the increased free float, supported our re-entry into the MDAX at the end of June.
Now turning to our operating performance. The second quarter showed a clear sequential improvement. Sales increased by 4.9% quarter-over-quarter to EUR 322 million. This improvement was driven by higher wafer areas sold, while pricing, product mix, and FX remained broadly stable compared with the previous quarter. Despite slightly higher depreciation, gross profit improved from EUR -26 million to EUR -14 million. The higher wafer areas sold resulted in improved utilization and fixed cost absorption. As loading continues to increase, the fixed cost burn associated with our expanded production capacity in Singapore is gradually declining. We expect the fab to continue progressing towards group margin levels by the end of this year. The positive impact from higher shipments was partially offset by a swing in valuation effects from hedging activities.
At the end of the first quarter, higher oil price assumptions resulted in a positive valuation effect from hedges related to electricity supply contracts with an oil price component. In Q2, however, easing energy and raw material markets led to a negative valuation effect. The combined FX and hedging result moved from positive EUR 11 million in Q1 to EUR -3 million in Q2. Despite this headwind, EBITDA increased from EUR 65 million - EUR 69 million, with the EBITDA margin improving to 21.6% from 21.2% in Q1. Besides improved fixed cost absorption, this development also benefited from certain costs that are typically incurred only in the first quarter. EBIT remained broadly stable at EUR -52 million, as higher depreciation largely offset the EBITDA improvement. Net loss improved slightly from EUR 67 million - EUR 63 million, also supported by a somewhat stronger financial result.
Overall, the quarter confirms that improving demand is translating to higher sales and gradually improving operating leverage. At the same time, prices and product mix have remained a challenge. Michael will discuss these trends in more detail later. Let's now turn to the key developments on our balance sheet. As of the end of June, total assets amounted to EUR 4.9 billion, compared with EUR 4.8 billion reported at year-end 2025. Fixed assets decreased by EUR 93 million, mainly reflecting depreciation exceeding CapEx. Working capital rose during the first half of the year. Inventories increased, reflecting a targeted build to support improving demand and prepare for higher shipment volumes. Receivables were also higher, primarily due to the timing of customer payments around the reporting date. Liabilities and prepayments decreased by EUR 45 million, mainly due to the settlement of trade payables related to CapEx, including investments already incurred in previous periods.
Cash and securities increased to EUR 650 million, supported by the proceeds from the capital increase and partly offset by ongoing cash outflows for investments. Equity increased to EUR 2.2 billion, resulting in an equity ratio of 45%, compared with 43% at year-end 2025. Net financial debt declined to EUR 692 million. Based on our current assumptions, we continue to see potential for further improvement towards the end of the year. Overall, our balance sheet remains solid. The capital increase has further enhanced our financial position and flexibility. Let me conclude the financial section with a brief update on our liquidity position. As discussed earlier, cash and securities amount to around EUR 650 million at the end of June. In addition, we continue to have access to an undrawn syndicated loan facility of EUR 127 million. Overall, our debt maturity profile remains well-balanced and largely unchanged. With that, I hand back to Michael.
Thank you, Claudia. Turning to our updated end market view for 2026. The overall picture continues to strengthen, although the underlying drivers have become even more differentiated. We continue to expect wafer area consumption to grow by around 7% before inventory effects. This overall growth expectation remains unchanged compared to our Q1 view. The strong growth continues to come from servers. We now expect server-related wafer area consumption to increase by around 46% year-on-year, compared to 44% in our Q1 outlook, supported by strong demand for AI applications, advanced logic, and high-bandwidth memory. At the same time, the outlook for smartphones has weakened further. Memory capacity and allocation continue to prioritize towards AI-related applications. As a result, less supply is available for other end markets, which is weighing on smartphones and PCs. For smartphones, we now expect wafer area consumption to decline by around 11% in 2026.
PCs are also expected to remain soft, with demand declining by around 10%. Automotive remains broadly unchanged compared with our previous view, with continued moderate growth of around 3%. Industrial applications are gaining further momentum from a relatively low base, including demand coming from data center infrastructure. We now expect growth of 13% for this end market. Beyond end market demand, inventory developments have also changed somewhat. In memory and logic, inventories at chip manufacturers had largely normalized. We are now seeing indications that memory players are starting to rebuild wafer safety stocks, most likely to secure supply in an environment of strong AI-driven demand and tightening wafer availability. In power-related applications, inventories are improving but still remain elevated. This keeps weighing on the 200 mm market in H1, although we see clear signs of demand recovery for the second half of 2026. Overall, the positive end market trend continues.
The above-mentioned safety stock rebuilding could provide additional upside to wafer demand. Let me now translate this market environment into Siltronic's volume and pricing development. The demand recovery is becoming increasingly evident in our business. In 300 mm, we're seeing positive pricing developments on low volumes in the non-LTA space. However, these prices are still below reinvest level. In 200 mm, we see a strong demand environment in H2. However, our current staffing needs to be adjusted to accommodate these developments. Prices in 200 mm declining during the first half of 2026, and we expect them to stabilize in H2 from this low base. As a result, we expect wafer areas sold in 2026 to increase year-on-year despite the closure of our small diameter business. Although the environment is improving, we still expect an overall negative price impact in 2026.
In addition, 200 mm product mix weighs on our performance, particularly due to the still subdued wafer power market. We also expect a negative year-on-year FX impact. The average euro against US dollar exchange rate was 1.13 in full year 2025, compared with 1.17 in H1 2026. For H2, our planning assumption of 1.18 remains unchanged. Now turning to our updated guidance for 2026. Supported by the improving demand environment, we have slightly edged up our sales guidance. We now expect the top line to come in low to mid-single digit below 2025. On a like for like basis, excluding FX effects and the close of SD business, sales are guided to be on or slightly above previous year's level. Our EBITDA margin guidance remains unchanged at 20%-24%.
While sales are expected to develop slightly more favorably than originally anticipated, the positive impact on EBITDA is partly offset by higher freight and energy costs compared with the assumptions underlying our original forecast. We also confirm all other elements of our guidance. With that, we conclude our Q2 2026 results presentation. Claudia and I are happy to take your questions. Thank you very much for your attention. Cynthia, please open the Q&A session.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to assemble the queue. The first question comes from Constantin Hesse with Jefferies.
Good morning. Thank you so much for taking my questions. It's great to see a more constructive environment finally coming through. I've got three questions, if I may. One is just to understand the pricing dynamics and LTAs. If you were to close LTAs today, would prices have to be above the levels that you closed the previous one in order to reflect higher costs, inflation, et cetera? Is it fair to assume that you probably will not be doing any LTAs until we see prices being above the peak that we saw in the previous cycle? That's my first question.
Thank you, Constantin. That's a great question. We always said prices need to come up and to cross the reinvest level. That holds true unchangeably. We see good pricing dynamics in 300 mm outside LTAs, but on a very low volume base. We would see this to further improve in the near future. Then it would become more attractive to close future LTAs. At the same time, we have to have in mind that LTA is not only governed by price. There's of course, a whole load of parameters, specifications, volume considerations, and so on and so forth. We're saying clearly pricing should further recover to come to a reinvest level, and that would be the future LTA framework.
Thanks, Michael. Just to understand, did you say it has to cross the previous reinvest level? We have to see prices higher compared to the previous high?
It depends then on specifications and the world moved from 2021, 2022 to today, of course. You're right. There were cost increases, inflation. On the other side, we have scale effects in manufacturing. We have different product mix. It depends then really on the details. Every LTA is a bit a unique thing. As we said, we would love to see prices coming up above before we talk about reinvestments.
Okay. No, fair enough. Second question on the capital raise. I want to drill down a little bit into this because obviously the communication was often said that a capital raise was not really in the books. What I'm wondering here is, I understand that you can always do a capital raise opportunistically and the market environment was pretty attractive then. What I'm trying to really get a little bit more detail out of this is, with this capital raise, could this also be a signal that you potentially see the requirement to have to increase CapEx again because of all this new demand that is coming around in 2027 and 2028, and probably because demand is now reflecting a faster recovery than initially anticipated.
Is it maybe fair to assume that this capital raise also has a bit to do, beyond being opportunistic, also has a bit to do with the fact that you're now seeing the requirement to invest in CapEx potentially faster than what you had previously planned? That's my second question.
Thank you, Constantin. The capital increase was clearly an opportunity which we captured. As you know, we're talking about more general terms around this. Strengthening our balance sheet, increase financial flexibility. We do not plan to allocate those funds very clearly to future CapEx or to deleveraging or whatever. For us, it was a really great opportunity to broaden the bandwidth we can act on. At the same time, our statement is clear. We are ramping our fab in Singapore. We're following with that the market demand and at a certain point in time, which we want to also combine with the earlier pricing environment discussions. Of course, we need to move on with investments and bring in the machinery and tools further into Singapore. That's, in a way, an independent question.
The capital raise was very good to broaden the bandwidth and let's say give us flexibility. At this point in time, we wouldn't clearly combine it with a future Capex statement.
Okay, fair enough. Michael, if you could just give us an update on where are we on the FabNext? A few months ago, actually a year ago, we were talking about a slower ramp-up of about 100,000. I think we're definitely quite a bit above that now. I'm assuming you probably still have quite a bit of room left inside that clean room. When could we see potentially a next round of brownfield investment coming through?
First of all, you're right. We put the brake a bit on the earlier phase of the ramp in Singapore. I think that's more historic. In the meantime, we are fully back on, let's say, ramp scale, following the market demand. That's running from our perspective very smoothly. By the way, including epi, which we brought into Singapore, 200 mm for the first time, as you know. We are quite happy with the ramp there and with the profile of customer and project qualifications. We set the base to really now ramp the factory. At the same time, the future view on this, I combine it again a bit with the pricing environment.
We would take the liberty to look carefully at which volumes do we want to onboard going forward, and where do we wait maybe a little bit until pricing recovery is really visible and coming through. Because we need to see better prices in the 300 mm to justify more investments also to fully beef up the capacity in Singapore. It's a bit all the same story. Yes, volume-wise, we're doing extremely well. We see that the loading progressing nicely. We see the fixed cost dilution. It's all nicely evolving. However, we now have conversations with customers that we need to see also price rising to really move into the area where we then could feel more comfortable to talk about future Capex there.
Understood. Thank you so much, Michael. Thank you, Claudia.
The next question comes from Harry Blaiklock with UBS.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I guess, a follow-up to that last question and comment from you, Michael, in terms of hearing from customers around potentially being willing to pay higher prices for wafers in order to justify new capacity. I guess it would be useful to get some color around your conversations with customers. We hear a lot about leading-edge logic and memory capacity that's getting built out globally over the next few years. Are you having any conversations with them about your capacity and your ability to satisfy that increase in volume?
Yeah. Thank you, Harry. I think what we were touching so far from Constantin's question was more near-term demand and situation. Indeed, in addition to that, we have customers approaching us to manifest and confirm their, let's call it midterm demand. Particularly in the memory space, we see that there is, let's say, that the need for customers also talk about, let's say, two years, three years time from now about volume developments and talking starts about some LTAs. At the end of the day, it's a bit the same story. Yes, we appreciate those conversations, and we engage in them very happily to understand the market need. The pricing here, it's the same statement. If we talk about the more brownfield view on Singapore, or if we talk about whatever in the future, we need to see prices coming in higher to justify further investments.
I think this is pretty much in line with what some of our peers are also articulating. From that perspective, yes, different time perspective and similar conversations.
Got it. Super clear. On your comments on pricing in terms of 300 mm wafers, LTAs stable. I understand that, but the spot price is rising. I was wondering whether you could quantify that at all, even if it's high level, low single-digit, mid-single-digit.
Harry, if I got your question right, your question was, how does LTA pricing in 300 mm compare to current spot pricing? In spot pricing, we still see the indications that some small volumes are coming in already at better pricing. However, talking at the complete spot space, it's still below the LTA level of pricing. That's what I said earlier. It needs to come up now to really enhance the operating performance that we can talk about further investments at a certain point in time. What we see today in spot pricing, it's still below LTA level, and it's clearly below reinvest level.
Got it. Thank you, Michael.
The next question comes from Martin Jungfleisch with BNP Paribas.
Yes. Hi, good morning. Two questions, please. The first one is on the demand side in 300. One of your peers this week was saying that customers are now requesting volumes above their LTA volumes. Is that something that you are seeing as well? Maybe you can also share how 300 mm volumes have trended through the second quarter, and if you saw demand trending up through the end of the quarter, so in June. That's the first question.
Yeah. Thank you, Martin. Indeed, demand is moving on, and it's one of the reasons this demand recovery driving also our sales development Q2 versus Q1, and were also the underlying reasons why we could improve a little bit our full year sales guidance. We have both. We have new customers or small customers approaching us around 300 mm, and we have some existing customers who are considering how to get upsides. It's in a demand environment. Volume-wise, it's a very nice situation. Coming back to the earlier questions and discussions, this happens still at the price level where we want to be very careful and selective whom we give which volumes currently, and particularly locking in volumes for future-directed LTA. Pricing is of utmost importance.
Now the price need to come up to make this whole wafer industry viable and bring us and that whole wafer space into a position of following this whole overall chip growth being announced.
I know you're not guiding quarterly, but what is your expectation for the third quarter? Would you expect this to be rather like a gradual improvement from Q3 into Q4, or maybe more like a hockey stick one? Do you expect Q3 to be marginally up, or is it meaningfully up versus the second quarter?
You gave the major answer already. We don't guide Q3. If you take our full year guidance and make a simple math exercise and what we said earlier, we see a more gradual recovery. We wouldn't see explosive or dramatic changes. We would more see a steady growth over the quarters for the rest of the year in the framework, of course, of the total year guidance.
Okay. No, that makes sense. Thanks. Then finally, just on 200. You sound a bit more positive on 200 mm today. Is it fair in terms of utilization rates that these are still lower than, I guess, 2019 or 2023 levels? In terms of pricing, you also said it's stabilizing. I guess if the trend continues, would you expect you would be able to increase prices maybe towards Q4 this year, maybe early 2027?
The 200 mm situation has been very difficult. I think we were very clear and vocal about that, including H1. Last year it was really volume and price-wise, very, very difficult. This year now over the year, and particularly around the second, third quarter, we see the volume recovery still at a very low price level. UTs are coming up. I would say it's fair to say we're still below 2022 UTs in 200 mm. However, now it's even more important that the prices also pick up, because price went down so heavily that it's of utmost importance that we also see the price recovery. In addition, those nice additional volumes that are coming into the game now are not delivering a lot of, let's say, revenue or even a bottom-line contribution because of the price effect I was mentioning.
In addition, we have still a negative product mix as some of our more margin strong 200 mm products are in low demand still.
Okay. No, that makes sense. Thank you.
The next question comes from Maissa Keskes with ODDO BHF.
Yes. Thank you. I will be back to the LTA. Can you please specify what portion of LTAs is due to expire in 2027 and in 2028? Hello?
Yeah. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah.
Hello, Michael. Yes. Thank you. I just want to ask again about the LTA. What portion of the LTA is due to expire in 2027 and in 2028?
Our overall situation is that around two-thirds of our business is in LTAs. The majority of that is in 300 mm. We do not see an LTA cliff or major LTA changes. However, there are smaller ones which we could then hopefully launch under new terms in 2027 and 2028.
Okay. As demand continue to recover, there is a growing discussion about a potential wafer shortage, especially as some part of the semiconductor industry is already experiencing supply constraints. What's your view on supply-demand balance over the next few years? Do you think that also the wafer industry could enter a period of shortage?
For the time being, as we talked about pricing already a lot, there seems still to be a bit, maybe let's call it a bit more wafer supply than demand. I would say that could change pretty soon in the next quarters. The true indicator for all of us would be the price pattern and the price behavior. We need that price change. I think I was very vocal and clear around that, and we want to see it hopefully happening in the very near future. Otherwise, people like us will consider how to spend money on further capacity, which would then further shorten demand and eventually price need to come up to bring this back in balance. As you know, the chip industry enjoyed very nice quarters and even years, when we look at the memory space.
For the wafer industries, it was much more difficult, and now it's the time that this has to be rebalancing.
Okay, thank you. Very clear.
We will take our next question from Veysel Taze with Bankhaus Metzler.
Yes, good morning. Veysel Taze . Claudia, a question regarding your prepared remarks. I'm not sure if I got that correctly. You said that by the end of the year, the utilization will be at group level, or you said it will be not a drag on profitability anymore, and it will be on group level. I'm not sure if I got your statement correct. If you could repeat that, please.
Yeah. Hi, good morning. My statement was that by the end of the year, FabNext EBITDA margin will approach group margin level, or in other words, the dilution effect will fade out.
I will try that. Are you willing to share what was the drag in first half coming from FabNext?
Yeah, we didn't disclose that. What we always said is that the ramp of a new fab comes with, let's say, ramp cost. A lot of fixed costs compared with a still low volume. With the increasing volume, and with the increasing ramp, the situation has improved gradually, and as I said, by the end of the year, we expect the effect of that to fade out. That EBITDA margin of FabNext will approach group margin level. We won't see the ramp cost effect any longer.
Okay. Thank you. Second question, a follow-up to your LTA comments that you are not going to face any LTA or bigger LTA cliffs 2027 and 2028. Maybe I have a wrong understanding, the last time you signed LTAs was probably 2021, 2022, the last up cycle. If we assume the duration of such LTAs is on average around three years, you had some volume push during the downturn. In my view, the LTAs from the last up cycle are coming to an end, no? Customers need to agree on new LTAs or extend LTAs with new volumes and pricing, or what I'm missing in this assumption?
Yeah. Thank you, Veysel. It's a bit more complex, indeed. You're right. Yeah, major LTAs have been concluded in the framework of setting up FabNext. That was around 2020, 2021. They were far above a three years duration. Yeah. I think we were very clear that some of them are even running till 2030. There's a bunch of LTAs which are really long-term agreements. At the same time, we call everything what is a one year or above an LTA. Besides those long ones, of course, we have a portfolio of shorter ones, one year, three years, two years, whatever. Some of them have also been concluded even last year, two years ago. It's a kind of rolling, ongoing overall portfolio. Therefore, we have longstanding LTAs.
At the same time, we have shorter ones, which would then give, at a certain point in time, some flexibility to negotiate new ones if prices are coming up then in better commercial frameworks.
Got it. On the 300 mm wafer loading, one of your competitors, last week indicated more or less that 300 mm is sold out. I was wondering if you could share a little bit, your utilizations. The assumption was, in Q1, yeah high 80s, low 90s. Would you say that we are going into areas really where you can say full utilization, and that would be for me around 95%+ for the 300 mm?
Yeah. Thank you. We have indeed a strong duty, particularly in our legacy fabs. In our new fab in Singapore, of course, there is some space we can gradually further ramp there in the existing framework. You're right, overall duty in the industry looks to be very high, which coming back again to my major theme, should be the point where then also prices are moving upwards, where we, for the time being, have small volume indications, but we don't see the major trend yet. That needs to happen now.
Thank you. Then final question on the pricing environment, a little bit tricky one, not specific to Siltronic, but to understand a little bit the dynamics on the industry level. I think in the 2017-2018 up cycle, the prices were quite low, and I think the LTA prices moved during this time around 50% to the upside during this up cycle. I think 2021-2022 was a much lesser LTA increase, probably, around 20%, maybe, high teens, low 20s. If you have to compare now this cycle versus the previous two cycles, what would be your gut feeling for the industry in terms of the pricing, if all elements really develop the way like we are expecting for the next two, three years, particularly on the strong AI demand as well? What would be your gut feeling for the industry from LTA pricing perspective?
Would it be rather more the 2021-2022 or the stronger area, the 2017, 2018, 2019 years?
Yeah. Thank you much. I'm not maybe the best historic expert here in the call, but what I want to reiterate is the following. When we look at chip price developments around AI in memory, in leading edge logic, and in the meantime, even the power players are very vocal that they also contribute meaningfully of this AI hype and cycle. From that perspective, I think there must be a very significant price increase coming to the wafer industry as well to balance the value creation around the whole value chain. We don't see it yet on a broad scale. We see it here and there on small volumes happening. I think a broad, meaningful price increase is a fair thing to happen to rebalance the situation that emerged in the last two years also.
I wouldn't speculate now about any real numbers, but I would definitely work on the assumption, if demand is getting shorter, of course, then prices will raise and have to raise significantly for the said reasons.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Florian Treisch with Kepler.
Yes. Good morning, all. Thanks for taking my question. I have basically a follow-up, just building on your last message. If I look at FabNext now being ramped up, I think most of those capacities are covered by LTAs, i.e., are probably not good for any near term, let's call it next one, two years price increases. Let's call it the big price uptake on Siltronic and can probably come from, let's say, additional expansion, additional investments, which would then ultimately trigger the question, do we need another FabNext announcement in the coming days or coming quarters or years to really be available towards the end of a decade? Thank you.
Thank you very much. Talking about the whole business firstly, we said roughly 2/3 of the business in LTA, that's one-third outside LTA. That means, of course, that's the space where we would clearly need to see now the, let's say, multiple discussed price changes and increases. We are not in the situation where we will announce a FabNext anytime soon. There are manifold reasons. First of all, we don't see the demand spiking up to those levels, really. Secondly, our fab is still partly ramped, but we were very clear there is still a lot of brownfield opportunities there. That, of course, would be the first things we will consider. Now repeating myself maybe for the fifth time, but even for that further brownfield ramp, we would need to see pricing really increasing meaningfully.
Overall, no discussion tomorrow and even anytime soon about a new greenfield investment from our side.
Great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Dirk Schlamp with DZ Bank.
Hello, Dirk speaking. One from me, a follow-up on 200 mm. Could you elaborate a bit on what has changed in the 200 mm field over the past few months? What drives the recovery currently, and do you think there is a good chance that the pickup will be sustainable?
Yeah. Thank you, Dirk. When we look at end markets, I think when you follow the power chip manufacturers, maybe two, three quarters ago, they started being more vocal. That their business also starts and increasingly is benefiting from data center, power supply, and power management, and so on and so forth. We would say we see that now really tripling also into the wafer space, despite some of the areas in 200 mm still have large inventories at our customers. That means that the volume pickup did start quite significantly, and it will continue, of course, in the next months and quarters. Typically, and that's what we were discussing, 300 mm, after volume picking up, demand supply should be in a new balance. Then also pricing should pick up.
From that perspective, we would definitely see that 200 mm also marching upwards in a more sustainable manner. It's not only, let's say, a one-time or one-quarter effect. We're seeing in terms of loading, it's advancing nicely already. We are stuffing or restuffing some of our lines again, which we were handling very carefully for our cost and cash-optimized approach. Therefore, we can follow that demand. Of course, with recent news flow from one of our competitors, there could be another smaller shortage around certain 200 mm products. We have been approached by some of our customers to fill up some demand, and some of them even started discussion about 200 mm LTAs. We see definitely a changing environment for 200 as well.
Okay. Thank you.
We have a follow-up question from Constantin Hesse with Jefferies.
Thanks. Just quickly, just to better understand on the FabNext situation. Michael, you said in Q1 that utilization was already running in the 90s at an industry level, right? Clearly, demand is picking up quite a bit now. What I want to understand about FabNext, and I know you don't like to share numbers, but I'm just trying to understand here. You say you still have a lot of room inside FabNext where you can still add equipment, which would require brownfield investment. But with demand now picking up, it doesn't look like you have a lot of room left until you run out of production capacity at all. In order to satisfy customer demand, I'm just trying to figure out, is there still equipment coming into the fab which you already paid for, which will give you some additional capacity?
If we get to the point, part two of the question would be, if we get to the point where prices have moved to a level that will basically allow you to do brownfield, how long does it take to basically order the equipment install the equipment and get it certified?
First of all, Constantin, yes, you're right. Still, we have equipment flowing into FabNext, and that's one of the reasons why we still have a little mismatch between our CapEx and our cash numbers. I think we talked about this, and that this cash overhang is still there. That means UT is one thing, but of course, capacity is also growing in the current FabNext environment. You're right, UT is large, but as capacity is still growing, of course, overall output is still growing and has room to grow further. In terms of future brownfield and having in mind the discussions we were having around pricing, lead times would be, I think we were also clear about it, 18-24 months, depending on different equipments.
We are in close contact, of course, with our major suppliers and want to be ready in case we feel we have to be. We're warming up here and there, but we didn't, let's say, trigger any real future CapEx.
Okay, this is the point that really.
For the further capacity there.
Understood. This is the point that really surprises me. With lead time of 18 -2 4 months, with so much capacity coming online at the chip level over the next two years, you still don't see from today's perspective, you still don't see the need for that additional brownfield at the moment, given the current demand curve that you have over the next two years?
Our current stance, when we look at all those chip announcements, there is not so much coming on stream in the very near future. We look more on a strong demand increase later. Our stance is from today's perspective, we would rather be more selective on volume and pricing than now investing and bringing low-priced volumes into a more expensive footprint. From that perspective, we need to see really how the demand is really gaining traction, how the pricing are really developing, and with that synchronizing and timing all our further CapEx and our future additional capacity.
Understood. This is just one last point, because I heard this a couple of days ago, and this was quite interesting. I heard that from one of your peers that we even had Chinese chip manufacturers reach out to get supply of 200 mm wafers from Western players, i.e. in this case, your Japanese competitors. Is this something that you're seeing as well? Are you seeing some of the Chinese customers reaching out to work with 200 mm? Because that surprised me quite a bit, because China obviously has a much stronger position, or has a strong position in 200 mm.
We get 200 mm requests from all over the globe, I can say, including China. It's not new for us, that also Chinese customers, even in segments like 200 mm, for advanced specifications, they love suppliers from the established supply base, including us. Let me reiterate 200 mm, before everybody gets overly exciting about the recovery story, that we still have the negative product mix effect. That means our best margin products are still in, let's say, lower demand, and that we have the pricing still recovering from a very low base. If we look at price development in the last two years, it was really difficult, and that needs to be recovering first before we see also meaningful revenue and eventually even bottom-line contribution recovery from 200 mm.
Understood. This is great. Thank you very much.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. We have a follow-up question from Veysel Taze with Bankhaus Metzler.
Yeah. My question was actually regarding this 200 mm, because you mentioned you have some negative mix impact there. I was wondering, I think the float zone power is in 200 mm, probably the highest margin product. If you can confirm that, AI data center power, the demand is quite high. I was wondering why the volumes are still for you then low in this part of the business. Again, maybe I'm wrong that this is not your highest margin product.
I think we always said clearly that we have strong position in float zone and in highly doped materials, that's true unchangeably. The details around this is really about what sort of end products are currently needed. Is it more MOSFET side? Is it more IGBT side? Currently, we see that unfavorable product mix also on the chip side, and that is coming through then to the wafer application side as well then. Yes, you're right, we like and have a strong position in float zone.
Okay. Probably in this part, also inventory is still high or at customers?
Yeah, you're right. In some of those, due to the demand lacking and not coming in very quickly, you're absolutely right. Also inventory is still a topic at some of our customers.
Okay. The final question, I guess, for the very short time or for the remainder of the year, you probably have already agreed on Q3 volume shipments, right? Probably all the early visibility into Q4, but volumes, et cetera, are not set for Q4 right now. Has that changed so that you already have prolonged visibility into Q4? Related to that, if you would compare July versus April and May, how was the demand trend in July?
Thank you very much. You're right, of course. Today we're already late July, it means one month of Q3 is already gone, we can say that a significant part of Q3 is already negotiated and kind of in the process of being manufactured, shipped, and commercialized. Q4, it's a bit more mixed picture still. Some of it is fixed and negotiated, we still have some volumes to treat in a flexible manner. Of course, we try to work very hard here to get the best commercial conditions for what is still available.
July trend, if you can comment from demand perspective. I mean, [Schnitzer] I think said that June was quite strong and I don't know if you can comment on July. Really month-over-month change in demand environment, if you have the feeling it's accelerating.
I would be reluctant to make a, let's say, general July statement. As you know, in our business, and I think we explained that in earlier calls, if some customer orders at the end of the month a bit more or less, or some order slips from one month to the other, we have a total or we have a significant difference in monthly performance. That's the reason we even sometimes have a bit between quarters, we have some special effects. I would overall confirm that we have indeed a very decent, strong demand environment. I wouldn't really emphasize a single month in this context.
Fair enough. Thank you very much.
There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the conference back to Verena Stütze for any additional or closing remarks.
Thank you. This concludes our Q&A session. Thank you for joining us today. Please note that we have rescheduled the publication of our Q3 2026 results and will now report on November 4th in 2026. On this slide, you can also see our next IR events. Thank you and have a good day. Bye.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.