Thank you. Good morning and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Romil, and I'm the IR consultant for the company, and I will be the moderator for today's call. On behalf of the management of ASM Pacific Technology, I would like to welcome all of you to ASM Pacific Technology's fourth quarter and full year FY 2021 investor conference call. We would like to thank you all for your interest and continued support in the company. Before we begin with the presentation, let me highlight some housekeeping rules. To facilitate the identification process, please kindly provide your company's name and your name as your display name if you haven't done so. All participants will be muted to ensure good sound quality when the management is presenting.
For the Q&A session, please either use the raise hand function, and we will allow you to unmute yourself for you to ask your question or type your question in the chat to ASMPT-Q&A, and we will read out the question on your behalf. When asking questions, please limit to two to three questions at your turn and ask your questions one by one for the management to answer properly. You may join the queue again in case you have more questions. We will start the Q&A only after the management has gone through the entire presentation. We endeavor to answer all questions during the Q&A session, but due to time constraint, priority will be given to the covering analysts.
In case we are unable to answer your question during the call, we will follow up with you through emails, or if you have more questions, then please feel free to email us with your questions, and we will attend to those. Please do note that during this conference call, there may be forward-looking statements with respect to ASM Pacific Technology's business and financial conditions. Such forward-looking statements could involve known and unknown uncertainties and risks that could cause actual results, performance and events to differ materially from those expressed or implied during this conference call. For your reference, the investor relations presentation related to our recent results can be downloaded from our website, www.asmpacific.com. With us this morning are Mr. Robin Ng, the Group CEO, and Mr. Justin Tham from Investor Relations & Economics Research.
Robin will begin with a brief discussion and key highlights about our latest results. He will provide some color to the financial performance. This will be followed by an update on the prospects and outlook, and then we will open the floor for Q&A session. Without further ado, let me hand the time over to Robin, please.
Thanks, Rom. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before proceeding with the details of our performance for 2021, let me offer my sincere wishes for your continued safety and health, even as we gradually arise from the shadows cast by COVID-19. I am pleased to say that we have managed to achieve exceptional results in 2021 and to show sustained momentum and progress in deepening our leadership as a leading global supplier of hardware and software solutions for semiconductor and electronics manufacturing. Let me emphasize that these milestones have only been made possible through the continued commitment, focus and skillful execution of our strategic initiatives and plans. Here, the leadership team and I continue to be deeply indebted to our team of more than 11,700 people across the world.
Let me now describe some of the highlights that shaped our business in 2021. As you can see here, there are a number of key developments that characterize our business in 2021. First, some color on our record-breaking financial performance. Please note that the figures in the group and the Semi segment financial review sections have excluded one-off items to provide a more meaningful analysis of the group's financial performance. As you can see from this overview, we had an exceptional year. First, I want to highlight the record earnings per share of HKD 7.72 on the right of this slide. A powerful indicator of our profitability and value as an industry leader. We also achieved a number of new highs.
We record revenue of $2.82 billion, record bookings of $3.36 billion and record net profit of HKD 3.24 billion. Our exceptional results were in part enabled by the very strong first full year performance of our strategic joint venture, Advanced Assembly Materials International Limited, or AAMI, in 2021. We achieved an EPS of HKD 7.72 for fiscal year 2021. This represents a significant 94.5% growth over fiscal year 2020, and is also a record high for the group. Let me provide more color on our group financial results.
Our group's record full year revenue of $2.82 billion represented year-on-year growth of 49.3%. Our strong revenue performance was driven by a few macroeconomic growth trends that you can see here. Overall, these have created heightened demand for silicon content and contributed to the performance for ASMPT throughout 2021. Let me share that in the face of this positive momentum, we also executed excellently in the face of a dynamic global supply chain environment that still continues to prevail. We achieved this in several ways. First, capacity allocation. When the manufacturing utilization reached record levels, we were able to achieve a significantly higher proportion of our external manufacturing capacity to respond dynamically. It is safe to say we would have delivered even higher output if not for these ongoing industry-wide supply chain challenges.
Second, we shifted to just in case inventory management to strengthen our supply chain resilience for some key components. Finally, we balanced these measures with a strategic adjustment of our selling prices where feasible in order to relieve the inevitable cost pressures from some component price increases, not to mention increased logistic costs. In terms of bookings, we experienced a record year of $3.36 billion, representing year-on-year growth of 65.6%. Here, both our Semi and SMT business segments achieved record bookings, with Semi comprising the majority. Our gross margin of 40.6% was a 427 basis points expansion year-on-year, and our operating margin was 18.9%, representing a very strong year-on-year expansion of 1,007 basis points.
This strong margin performance was mainly due to both our semis and SMT segments, achieving stronger gross margins and higher operating leverage as a result of both record deliveries and margin accretive effects from some of the strategic initiatives that I will share more about later in this presentation. Let me also emphasize that we achieved this strong margin improvement in the face of cost impact from component price increase and higher logistic costs, and these trends have not abated. Let's look at the group fourth quarter performance. Our revenue of $796 million exceeded our guidance of $722 million-$770 million. This is a strong 43.9% year-on-year increase in revenue, anchored in our consistent and excellent execution of our business.
Q4 bookings of $674 million were a group record for fourth quarter as well, increasing 25% year-over-year, but dipping 8.2% QoQ. However, this dip was largely due to a high base effect from a high Q3 booking level and general seasonality trends for our fourth quarter. Please note that this quarter's bookings still remain elevated compared to the Q4 levels of our prior years. Group gross margin of 41.2% was a year-over-year improvement of 188 bps and slight QoQ improvement of 76 basis points. Operating margin of 20% was a year-over-year improvement of 976 basis points . This year-over-year improvement was largely due to relatively stronger gross margin performance across both our Semi and SMT segments.
Let me add that group net profit, which includes the shares of results from AAMI, achieved record Q4 levels of HKD 976 million, a year-on-year improvement of 182.5%. Our Semi segment quarterly performance was good with robust year-on-year revenue growth, encouraging revenue drivers across its business units, strong year-on-year margins improvement and a quarterly record segment profit. Q4 bookings remain elevated in line with general seasonality trends. Our SMT segment's Q4 2021 performance was characterized by strong bookings achieving $360 million, a healthy year-on-year and QoQ increase. Also, demand from its key automotive and industrial markets continued into Q4. Let me mention a point here that full year SMT segment profit also achieved a record of HKD 1.38 billion. This is nearly a 110% year-on-year increase.
This slide shows the breadth of the markets and customers which the group serves. Let me now share some positive developments from a progressive but structured shift towards higher growth markets of advanced packaging over time. Our diverse advanced packaging or AP portfolio is very broad, from wafer level to die level high accuracy placement tools and SIP placement tools, and spans a wide range of packaging technologies. This visual representation at the bottom of this slide should give you a sense of the breadth of solutions that we possess in this space. AP solutions revenue for fiscal year 2021 was approximately $590 million, representing 35% year-on-year growth.
A book-to-bill ratio of 1.15 for AP is higher than for the year 2020. Overall, we are seeing a broadening of our customer base and widening customer adoption of a comprehensive AP solution that span both Semi and SMT segments. Consequently, we added a significant number of AP customers in fiscal year 2021. I would like to highlight the progress with our hybrid bonding solutions. They are on track for delivery this year for qualification by leading tier one customers. We assess that our hybrid bonding tools will begin delivering meaningful contributions for us from year 2023 onwards, closely aligned with our customers' roadmap plans. Our sustained investment in hybrid bonding reflect our strong intention to capture a sizable share of this market. Let me now talk about our TCB leadership and momentum.
Over the last few years, our chip-to-substrate TCB tools have been the tool of record at leading tier one customers. These workhorse TCB tools continue to dominate the share of global installations. Supported by a broadening customer base and greater customer adoption, our TCB platform is bringing some exciting opportunities that will help further cement our dominant market position. As you can see here, we recently secured a significant order for a new generation chip-to-wafer TCB tools. The win is nearing $100 million over the next two years, and a significant portion of this will be delivered this year. We have scaled up both additional manufacturing site and capacity to deliver this next-generation chip-to-wafer TCB tools. This significant win highlights how our cutting-edge TCB innovations are boosting near-term performance. It is also a strong indication of our technology leadership in the 3D packaging space.
Looking ahead, the bullish capital investment plans from leading semiconductor companies should bode well for our continued leadership as a partner of choice for innovative TCB tools of the future, such as the work we are presently doing to enable finer solder bump pitch below 30 micron for thermal compression bonding. This will help them meet the increasingly demanding requirements from advanced applications such as high-performance computing. We expect the first of these future generation prototypes to be delivered by the second half of this year. Let me now speak about some exciting growth opportunities for our business. There's no doubt that automotive electrification will intensify and establish itself as a multi-year growth driver. In this slide, you can get a sense of our unique and comprehensive automotive solution that spans semi and SMT segment.
This comprehensive solution range puts us in a good position to continue growing and capturing market share. Our automotive end market application contributed approximately $430 million to Group 2021 revenue. This is more than double last year's contribution. We have also added a significant number of new customers in 2021 that have qualified our tools. We believe this will help generate significant opportunities for us going forward. Let me now cover some developments in our advanced display unit that is part of our optoelectronics business unit within the Semiconductor Solutions segment. With ongoing accelerated global digital transformation, the industry is at an inflection point for advanced display before an imminent technology replacement wave. Also fine pitch Mini LED RGB and Micro LED applications are progressively emerging to replace conventional displays across both commercial and high-end consumer devices.
Mini LED and Micro LED wafer demand is expected to expand at five-year CAGR of 55%. We are also poised to benefit from the expanding addressable market with multiple engagement within our top-tier customers' development roadmaps. We have seen our customer base expanded significantly over the past three years. Across Mainland China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S., our customers have been increasing capital spending on Mini LED and Micro LED manufacturing requirements, deploying our broad suite of advanced integrated solutions. For Mini LED, we added 17 customers in 2021, with seven in high-volume manufacturing phase. For the more nascent Micro LED space, the vast majority of Micro LED prototypes assembled worldwide use our best-in-class AD300 Pro tool, which is a multifunctional mass transfer cum mass bonding tool and the tool of record for major customers in upcoming high-volume production for Micro LED applications.
This slide gives you a flavor of how we are deeply entrenched into our customers' development roadmaps across Mini LED and Micro LED space. We made a strategic breakthrough in this hitherto underrepresented area for ASMPT, which is a sizable addressable market. In this, our efforts have been anchored by leading memory market customers who are adopting both our mainstream wire bond and advanced packaging tools for high-volume manufacturing requirements in both conventional memory and high-bandwidth applications. With a suite of tools to address memory packaging needs, some key developments here include a tier one memory player qualifying our TCB tool to produce HBM3 multi-die stack memory chips. In another development, our workhorse Wirebond II has been qualified to deliver high volume production of new generation NAND memory chips.
These represent important developments in expansion of our served markets, and we are confident about securing a strong position in this space. Our solutions are ubiquitous across many end market application areas, and demand continues to grow. This slide shows the approximate revenue contribution to fiscal year 2021 group revenue from each of the key end market areas to give you a sense of the spread of our solution across these industries. This slide gives a bit more color to the three end market application areas that more than doubled year-on-year in terms of revenue, namely automotive, consumer, and industrial. We expect the challenging supply chain environment to persist and impact the broader market in 2022.
While this dynamic situation remains a concern, we are anchored by a strong order backlog and expect revenue for Q1 2022 to be between $640 million- $690 million, a record first quarter at the midpoint of this guidance. Let me now share about our development plans to progressively transform and prepare ASMPT to achieve a bright and a sustainable future. Our aim here is to help the investing and the general audience understand our business better, and to provide some robust key takeaways on how we are supporting and driving ASMPT long-term performance. Let me now place these business transformation plans and strategic initiative in the context of how our business is being structured. We have a truly unique broad-based portfolio in the market.
You can describe us as a total interconnect company, as we believe we are the only one in our space able to offer solutions that truly link the entire semiconductor packaging and assembly value chain. Our Semi segment offers solutions ranging from deposition interconnect on wafer and substrate to first-level die interconnect on wafer and substrate. In turn, our SMT segment solutions cater for package interconnect onto PCB boards. As you can see from the center of this slide, our portfolio can be roughly divided into two broad areas. One, mainstream and application tools, and two, advanced packaging tools. First, our mainstream and application tools business typically has large installed bases, providing scale that gives significant volume leverage and cash generation capabilities to fund innovation, expansion, operations, and more.
Second, our advanced packaging tools business, which is a higher growth and higher margin segment, addressing more complex packaging requirements, with each having the potential to grow rapidly. Spanning this is a growing area of software solutions for smart manufacturing that we are also investing heavily. We are developing and supporting increased industry needs for automation, scheduling, and predictive monitoring, optimization, and analytics. Over time, this area has the potential to evolve into a key business in its own right. The interplay between these businesses in ASMPT enables what we term a virtuous cycle, where resources made possible by the volume mainstream business that enables further development and progress of the high-growth innovation business.
In addition, our unique broad-based portfolio is in turn being fueled by macroeconomic tailwinds that will provide a sustainable boost to our business for years to come, as you can see on the left-hand side of this slide. These tailwinds and our unique broad-based portfolio will drive our long-term performance sustainably. This consists of two elements. First, reduce the cyclical revenue and profitability that is typical of semiconductor and electronics manufacturing space. Second, create the conditions for structural growth, revenue growth, and margin expansion that will form robust and enduring foundations for a bright and sustainable future for ASMPT and all its stakeholders. Riding on a strong performance and supported by the positive macroeconomic tailwinds I described earlier, we confidently roll out strategic growth and cost optimization initiatives that will unfold in distinct phases over the next few years.
Let me provide some color to this effort that we have alluded to in the past earnings calls. First, let me talk about our growth initiatives. These are structured by the business area that have been described in the previous slide. In terms of our mainstream and applicative tools business, our growth focus is on increasing our market share in targeted areas, namely the high-end segment of the mainstream and applicative tools business. These, there are two strategic areas of activity here. First, we want to meaningfully expand into targeted adjacent market. The example you can see as shown here. For the memory market, I have shared earlier about strategic breakthrough into this underrepresented yet sizable space. This will benefit our mainstream tools in the near term, particularly for wire bonders.
Next, in the ADAS or Advanced Driver Assistance System market, we aim to capture new opportunities more quickly in the automotive camera assembly and test solutions space, assisted in no small way by tapping our newly acquired company, Automation Engineering, Inc., or AEi, which is the market leader. Next, electric vehicles or EVs provide good growth opportunities that benefit our silver sintering solutions for durability and reliability. Other areas of opportunity for silver sintering include the energy and power semiconductor space. Finally, we aim to capture new opportunities for fuel cell manufacturing in the green energy space through our SMT segments printing solutions. Our other focus area for mainstream and dedicated tools business involves further strengthening of our strong market position through targeted product enhancement in the various areas that you can see here. The next growth area concerns our advanced packaging tool business.
Here, our growth focus is to widen our technological leadership. This will be achieved primarily through intensifying our R&D support and resources into targeted areas. Here, there are two areas of strategic activity. First, we want to grow in the emerging market, and here are some examples. First, for high bandwidth memory, HBM3 memory is a key growth area with reduced power consumption and a smaller form factor. Our memory market breakthrough continues to be crucial here. We are anchored by a leading memory customer and are confident about capturing emerging high bandwidth memory opportunities for TCB die stacking solution. Two, for Mini and Micro-LEDs, our mass transfer and mass bonding solutions are ready to address customers' high-volume manufacturing needs for the advanced display applications.
For the system-in-package or SiP market, increasingly complex and demanding requirements will further drive demand for our SMT SiP placement tools, as well as our multi-chip module bonding solutions. Finally, HPC or high performance computing will drive demand for hybrid bonding solution. As I have shared earlier, we are expected to ramp this up for high-volume manufacturing from 2023. The second strategic focus area under advanced packaging tool is to intensify investment in process innovation in order to widen our technological position in key process areas that are shown here. A third area of growth involves actualizing the AIoT-enabled smart factory of the future. In this regard, we have good foundation in place. We have enjoyed strong growth of a range of software solutions, including our MES or manufacturing execution system software suite.
Our momentum here has been enabled by Industry 4.0, in the digitalization trends and the increasing automation needs of electronics manufacturers. At the same time, we have developed a unique software-based framework we have termed AIoT or Artificial Intelligence of Things, that basically consists of integrated software solutions that blend connectivity, monitoring and analytics with AI-driven machine learning capabilities. We expect our combined efforts across our software business to progressively deliver significant value to our customers over time, positively impact the other areas of our business, and possibly evolve into a key business of its own. These are the growth initiatives which will take up the majority of this slide's content. Let me now share briefly about the cost optimization strategic initiative that will help drive long-term sustainable operation excellence for us. Overall, there are two areas.
One. This will improve our product and operational cost structure, including procurement and design to cost action. Second is to enhance our manufacturing scalability and flexibility in both capacity and supply chain management. Here we want to focus especially on achieving the optimum mix of internal and external manufacturing capabilities that will help us better navigate the peaks and troughs of a business cycle in this industry. We are confident that this growth and cost optimization initiative, which align closely to our unique and broad portfolio, will help drive and sustain ASMPT's significant and meaningful long-term performance. Looking at this slide, our own through-cycle revenue growth over the past 11 years has stayed in tandem with the semiconductor device growth in general.
This is a good foundation for ASM, ASMPT to possess, and we are confident that the efforts we are making to reduce this cyclicality even further will place us in good stead for the future. As you will discern from our strategic initiatives, sustained R&D investment is a critical part of our ability to deliver the required semiconductor and technology breakthroughs that will tap secular growth opportunities to create value for our customers and stakeholders. On average, our annual R&D spend was about 10% of equipment revenue. In 2021 alone, we spent $251 million on R&D. To date, we have generated close to 2,000 patents and pending patents as well. Subject to shareholders' approval for final dividend per share of HKD 2.60 per share.
2021 full year dividend of HKD 3.90 per share is a 44% increase over 2020. Over the last 11 years, we have rewarded our shareholders with consistent and sustainable payout ratio of about 50%. Over the same period of time, we have paid out more than 80% of our cumulative free cash flow to shareholders. Hope that the time I've taken to share a little bit more about ASMPT development initiative and some key principles underpinning our business will be able to highlight a compelling value propositions. Basically, we have and continue to be able to generate strong and sustainable cash flow from our mainstream and application tools, fueled by bullish global semiconductor device unit growth prospects.
Margin expansion continues as a result of a consistent and significant investment in R&D for both high growth and high margin advanced packaging and automotive market segment, and these are funded by strong cash flows. Our unique and broad-based portfolio is a strong advantage. It has enabled us to achieve a leadership position in key electronic sectors from the mid-end to the back-end to SMT. This cushions us from the cyclicality and volatility and helps underpin true cycle revenue and profitability growth. Last but not least, we have a consistent dividend payout ratio of 50% that provides attractive and sustainable returns to shareholders. We are fully confident that we have the right foundations, plans, and people in place to steer ASMPT into a bright and sustainable future. Thank you. We are now ready for Q&A.
Thank you, Robin, for that. For the Q&A session, please either use the raise hand function, and we will allow you to unmute yourself for you to ask your question, or please type your question in the chat to ASMPT-Q&A, and we will read it out on your behalf. When asking questions, please limit to maximum three questions at your turn, and please ask your questions one by one for us to answer it properly. You may join the queue again in case you have more questions. For the first round of questions, can I request Leping to unmute and ask your questions, please?
Okay, thank you to take my question. Congratulate for the good results. The first question is about your first quarter guidance. Can you provide some more color about your guidance between your two segments and between customer type? Are there any? Since you are guiding for a sequential decline for the first quarter, are there any sub-business line which will show some positive growth in the year? Thank you. Yeah.
Thank you. Let me read the first question again. You are asking more for the Q1 guidance and, you would want to know, and get more color between the two segments, and also on our customer types and the timings. Are there any businesses, among our line of businesses which are showing positive growth for the guidance?
Thanks, Romil. Leping, let me share some color. Yes, indeed, we are guiding at a midpoint $665 million. That is lower than Q4. This is in line actually with seasonality trend. Q1 tend to be lower than Q4. Looking at Q4, the whole last year, actually, you know, we have five quarters of consecutive growth since Q4 2020, so it was a very strong also performance last year and also Q4. We are you know, comparing against a also a very high base. Now, at $665 million midpoint, as you know, we have guided, nevertheless, it will still be a record Q1 for the group.
We believe it's also for both semi as well as SMT, looking at how, you know, the book-to-bill development has progressed so far. Let me put it that way. If not because of the supply chain constraints that we are still facing, you know, our Q1 book-to-bill could have been higher. We have to take into account this very challenging supply chain environment. Also, not forgetting that the COVID-19 situation is still around and has disrupted, in our opinion, some readiness of our customers' new plans. That also, to a certain extent, impacted, you know, our delivery timing for some of these tools.
A little bit more color in terms of where we see the, you know, the end market application segment would be for, at least for Q1. We think looking at the development so far, we feel that the automotive momentum is expected, you know, to continue for both the semi and the SMT segment. I think that's what I can share at this point in time, Leping.
Okay. Thank you. It's very useful. The second question is about AP business. I think it's the first time I, if I remember correctly, disclosed the full exact amount of your AP business, and it seems to account for 20% of the total revenue. Can you share some color, what are the current application or end market for these AP products? And what will be the growth momentum for this AP revenue this year? I think. Can we assume that this will be a higher proportion of the AP this year? Yes. Thank you.
Let's put it that way, Leping. I think when you talk about proportion, we have to take into account the overall, you know, business of ASMPT. Last year, as you have noted, last year was a high year for us. You know, our revenue topped $2.8 billion. Even our AP, you know, revenue has grown 35% year-on-year to roughly $590 million. Not a small amount, but of course, you take into consideration the high base or denominator, it appears to be small. More importantly, as we have highlighted, you know, our AP revenue has grown 35% year-on-year.
Now, in terms of the application, we continue to see the deposition tools by our NEXX business continue to be strong, you know. This is in part because of the high performance computing requirements that require high-end multilayer laminate substrate. We call it ABF substrates, you know, in order to be able to pack those devices for HPC. Now, those laminate substrate multilayer requires our NEXX tools with deposits RDLs and also copper pillars, you know, in order to package those application basically. We see that momentum will continue for time to come. Of course, not forgetting TCB, as we have highlighted in our announcement and also in my call just now. We just won a recent order of nearly $100 million.
This is really a testimony to our leadership position in TCB. Mind you, this is a new platform. Up to now we have been supplying what we call chip-to-substrate TCB tools, which are used to place a bigger die to a module onto a substrate. For chip-to-wafer, we are talking about placing more smaller components, basically high-end heterogeneous integration onto a wafer first. You know, it's a testimony that we won this sizable order from a leading tier one customer, you know, for their packaging needs.
Besides these two, I must also highlight that, you know, our laser dicing and grooving tools have also taken off in a nice manner in 2021. You know, I would dare say we have gained some market share. You know, although it's still not a big business for us, but the progress of this dicing tool is very encouraging. Besides that, of course, I also highlighted, you know, Mini LED tools, we are seeing an inflection point as well. This very high precision Mini LED tools for Mini LED for mini RGB, for video wall, for displays also seem very encouraging sign.
Thank you very much. Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you, Leping. Can I next request Arthur from Citi to unmute yourself and ask your questions?
Hi. Good morning. Thanks, Robin and Justin and Leonard. I noticed that you upgrade your presentation this time and then more informative. My first question is on the page 33 bullet point two. You mentioned that highlight will be continue margin expansion. Look at quarter four of last year, actually the margin already you know returned to quite high level. My question is the margin is sustainable and or not and how we achieve that? You also mentioned that there's a cost headwind. I want to learn more. Thank you.
Right. Arthur, let me repeat your question. Basically, your question is about our margins, and you did note that, you know, Q4 2022 margin was--
2021 was reasonably high. You would want to know from us whether the margins are sustainable and you know or not, and how we plan to achieve a reasonable or high margins going forward.
Yeah. Thank you.
Now, Arthur, I think when we compare 2021 versus 2020, I think there is one area that we have to be cognizant about. Now, in 2021, it was a high year. As I said, our revenue reached $2.8 billion. Typically in a high cycle like this, it is the mainstream tools that provide the volume. That's why in one of our page and in our business model, we have mainstream packaging tools and we have advanced packaging tools. Now, we are unique in a sense that we are playing in both, you know, high volume as well as a very niche advanced packaging tools area at the same time, you know. So in a high cycle like 2021, what really provided the volume is really the mainstream tools.
As probably you're aware, you know, mainstream tools basically comprise tools like the wirebond. Now, wirebond is really a so-called a tool to have been around for decades, you know, and still very relevant of course. You don't expect wirebonder margin, you know, to be high compared to the other tools. As a result of this volume effect of wirebonders, you know, the impact on the margin can be also quite significant. Having said that, on the full year, you know, we have improved our margin for both the semi side as well as the SMT side.
Now, all these programs that we have put in place, the strategic initiative that I took some pains to share with you guys earlier in my opening remark, will continue to uplift our margin over time. It's not gonna be an immediate next quarter or two, you know, because this growth initiative will take time to execute. We are confident that over time, you know, we will continue to see our margin improvement. Also, I must say that the fact that we are focusing on high growth, high margin area like automotive and advanced packaging, this wil efinitely help us to uplift also our margin over time. Yeah.
Thank you. A quick follow on this topic. I want to explore page 23. Also, we love this chart. You show how your revenue from the key application. If you look at the margin among those application, which top two application would be the higher gross margin?
Thanks. Thank you for your compliment. I mean, we have taken all your feedback into consideration, and as much as we can share without losing any competitive positioning, we will try to do that over time. First, Arthur, I must say that this is really a management best estimate. As you can imagine, you know, when we ship our tools to our customers, sometimes they will tell us what our tools are being used for. Sometimes they will not tell us for competitive reasons. We are just using our best guess, looking at the packaging, you know, looking at the business of our customers. We try to give shareholders and analysts an idea where our tools are being deployed, you know, for an end application.
For 2021, this is the result. Now, to answer your question, I would say among here, I would say computers, because computers have a higher proportion of advanced packaging tools in there.
Mm-hmm.
Communication, okay.
Mm-hmm.
Automotive, okay.
Mm-hmm.
Industrial. Not in that order, but I'm trying to give you a sense of where, you know, our AP tools are being deployed. Now, our AP tools are not really deployed very much in automotive because automotive is still a very conservative industry, okay. However, automotive segment tend to command a better margin. In terms of AP, we'll find a little bit more in computers, in communication.
Right.
Industrial and automotive is because traditionally these two are a higher margin segment.
Got you. Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you, Arthur. Can I next request, Gokul from JP Morgan, to unmute yourself and ask your question?
Thanks. Good morning, and thanks for taking the question. My first question is on more near-term trends. If you look at bookings have been declining for the last three quarters. If I look at the last couple of cycles, I think the last time it happened was back in 2018 ahead of semi down cycle in 2019. Could you talk a little bit about what we are seeing in terms of bookings? Is there anything specific that is happening which is leading to this kind of decline in bookings? Could you also talk a little bit more about wire bonding specifically? Because some of your key customers have talked about reducing their capital outlay on wire bonding in 2022 after a very big increase in spend in 2021.
All right. Thank you, Gokul. Okay. So your first question is to know more on the booking. You acknowledge that the booking has been declining over the past three quarters, and what is the reason behind? And can we give more color about this and also a bit on the outlook? I will let Robin answer the first question and then I will go on the wire bonding part.
Sure. Thanks, Rom . You're right. If you look at 2021 booking trends, it has come down from Q1- Q4. We have to see in this context. Q1 2021 was a very high booking level. We are talking about crossing the $1 billion U.S. dollar mark. It came down sequentially into Q4. Even at Q4, I must say that at... How much was Q4? Let me see. It was... Q4 booking was how much? Anyway, I think Q4 booking was around $674 million. That is not a low number traditionally, you know, in the Q4 quarter.
In our equipment business, you know, with such a high booking number that we experienced already in 2021, the customers need time also to digest, you know, those equipment. I can give you a little bit more color what we are seeing so far. Now, before that, I also want to point out to the fact that if you look into a longer term, or you know, how some industry experts are projecting our industry. The likes of SEMI and VLSI. You know, they are still pretty bullish for 2022.
In fact, between the both of them, they are still guiding or projecting, you know, a growth here for the SEMI side of between 4%-14% on the back of a very strong year, very strong double digit. I think it was more than 60% or something like that, you know? They are still quite bullish about the SEMI industry. These two industry research houses are still quite bullish about the SEMI industry. This will probably give you some idea how the, you know, the independent research houses are looking at our industry. Next question.
Yes. Our next question is more on wire bonders. You did highlight that you are witnessing some reducing capital outlay expected in 2022 by some key players. You would want to know, based on that, the wire bonder outlook for us.
Yes. Now, yes. The good thing about ASMPT is that we serve a broad range of customers, so we are not heavily dependent on one or two customers. The way we look at it is that, yes, wire bonders have a good run, you know, in last year. Now, if the industry continue to grow as predicted or forecasted by those independent research houses, from the base of 2021, it's still gonna be a high year according to their prediction. In such a scenario, as I've alluded earlier, typically the mainstream tools, you know, will continue to do well. When we talk about mainstream tools, we are still focusing very much on the likes of wire bonder and die bonder.
These are two mainstream tools that typically perform well. The demand will continue to be strong in a high cycle year, you know. Yes. I hope that also answer your question. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you very much. Maybe one more question on hybrid bonding. Could you talk a little bit more about this opportunity, like, compared to, like, what does it do to advanced packaging as this starts to ramp up? I think you talked about potentially customer sampling in 2022 for one of your customers. Could you talk a little bit about are you already tool of record for any of the 3D SoICs or 3D packaging kind of projects that are out there in the industry, or are you still in the qualification phase on hybrid bonding?
Let me repeat your question. On the hybrid bonding side, you want to know more on the opportunities out there, you know, and keeping in mind the AP side and the ramp up. From your customer side, how's the progress there? Are you involved in the customer sampling and, you know, how is it going to go on the tool of record, you know, or qualification phase? More details around that.
Yeah. Thanks, Rob.
I think when we look at the hybrid bonding, you know, we have to bring also TCB into the context. Now, hybrid bonding is a very high precision tools, you know. So in terms of a pitch, in terms of accuracy, we are talking about pitch maybe below 20 micron and accuracy down to 0.2 microns.
These are very high precision tools. Because it's so high precision and the cost of using such solution is very high. It's a very expensive tools, no doubt. Now, in our equipment space, I think we must realize that cost is a primary driver, you know, for a customer to choose which tool they want to use. For packages that do not require hybrid bonding, okay, they will still choose. The next closest tool will be the TCB. That's why I say when we talk about hybrid bonding, we must put TCB into context. Because the closest in terms of technology to hybrid bonding is really the TCB tools, and there is still a long runway for TCB tools the way we see it. Now, back to your hybrid bonding.
Yes, we are engaging some key tier one customers, both on the logic side as well as also on the memory side as well. As I mentioned in the opening call, that we are due to deliver a few prototypes for some of these leading tier one customers.
Thank you, Robin. Can I request Kyna from Credit Suisse to unmute and ask your questions? Thank you.
Yes. Thanks for taking my questions. Congratulations for the third quarter results. Kyna. I have a question about the outlook. We see the peers like they guide single digit growth like for 2022 for their financial years. Is ASM Pacific seeing similar growth this year? And also extending to a longer term as you adjust in page 30 that every three years, which in a record level, so according to the IC content like numbers of chips. This kind of level right now has experienced like two years that will sustain into the third year, or we should expect some kind of like correction in between the migration of the next level. This is the first question.
The second question is about the materials business, that the segment profit margin decline 4.6 percentage points year-over-year. Even right now, it's under the JV. Could you like, give us more color about the business in the material side? Thanks.
Thanks, Kyna. Let me repeat your first question. Your first question is more on the outlook, because you noted that some peers have guided single digit growth for 2022, and you want to know whether it's similar for our company. You also highlighted that, you know, what will it be for the longer term, noting that, you know, we try to highlight on a three-year basis and, you know, and whether it's going to continue based on the IC content and the number of chips, or, you know, what is the indication from Robin's side?
Okay, Kyna, now on the outlook, as I said earlier in the question, we take reference also from this industry research houses like PRSI and SEMI. They are projecting between 4%-14% growth year-on-year, compared to a very high growth in 2021. Now, in this very challenging supply chain situation, it's really very difficult for us to see, you know, beyond a couple of quarters, you know, very challenging. We should continue to take reference from there. Now, maybe I can give you a little bit more color what we are seeing right now so far into, you know, the first 1 month or so into our business. Now, if I may give you some color, you know, on these aspects.
Now, Q1 group booking momentum so far is strong, I would say, you know, and looks like it's shaping up also to be a good quarter, you know, compared to previous Q1 quarters. You know, we always have to compare with previous Q1. Now, however, we don't expect this year Q1 bookings to be higher than Q1 last year. Q1 last year was an exceptional high year. We booked more than $1 billion, so we don't expect to be. Nevertheless, I think so far the Q1 booking momentum has been encouraging. A little bit more color on that as well.
Now, when we look at the semi so far in Q1, first one month or so, because of the win that we have from the TCB, the HKD 100 million, because majority of this order was booked already in Q1. Coupled with the momentum we see in power and automotive application, which these two areas are our stronghold. So far, I think, this TCB tool booking power and automotive applications for semi seems to be on the right track. We also see, just want to talk about NEXX as well. We also see customers in continued interest in our NEXX tools, you know, for the deposition interconnect for ABF substrates. That interest continue to be sustained.
After Chinese New Year, when we do our checking with our customers, we also see Chinese customers seems to be picking up their interest in talking about new tools. That is also quite fairly encouraging. We also check in with IDMs and regional OSATs. Their utilization seem to be also staying at a high level. That's also very encouraging so far. Although it's only about one month or so into Q1. I must say, however, that the CIS business has relatively remained on the softer side, you know. But there are still some green shoots that we see, in particular demand for AE tools, you know, coming from top tier one customers.
Although generally the CIS business is relatively soft compared to the other business unit, but because we have a very entrenched position in terms of our active alignment tools, these are still generate a lot of interest among tier one customers. We believe they are buying these tools more for capability buy at this point in time for new innovation features that will come out of the smartphones in the later part of this year or maybe even 2023. When that happens, then, you know, our CIS business will also start to pick up. Now, the other area we see so far is our opto business. We see continued interest in our Mini LED tools, as well as our wire bond for lighting as well.
What's more interesting so far we see is really on the SMT side, you know. The SMT momentum so far in Q1 is strong, particularly for automotive. I must say that the demand is also very broad-based, you know. The way we see the business for SMT is now benefiting actually. SMT business is now benefiting from the high output of packaged chips and devices coming out of the semiconductor supply chain in the last few quarters. That now these devices, this huge volume of devices, you know, now need to be placed onto PCB boards using SMT placement tools. I think these are some of the color I can give you, Kyna. For at least so far we've seen so far into Q1.
For the full year of 2022, it's really difficult for us to forecast, you know, or to give a forecast because of those challenges that we face in supply chain and. I think this is something for you to take away.
Thank you, Robin. Kyna, your next question is more to provide an update and color on the materials business segment and in particular highlight on the performance and the margins.
Thanks, Rom. Now our material business JV, or AAMI did very well for the first year. This completely justified, you know, our decision, you know, to spin this JV off into very capable hands of our JV partner. They did so well, they meet all the pre-agreed EV target, you know, under the earnout agreement. So much so that, you know, under the accounting rule or standards, you know, we have to book a revaluation gain of close to HKD 184 million to reflect this good performance of AAMI, you know, for 2021 and also into the next couple of years.
With this performance, you know, we are more than likely, you know, able to increase our shareholding from 44.44% to around 49% in about 2024, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. Because they are on track to meet those targets, and under the earnout agreement, if they meet those targets, we will be able to increase our share from 44%- 49%. That's the reason, under the accounting rule, we have to book those gains in the year 2021. I hope I answered your question, Kyna.
Thanks for clarifications. Maybe I wanted to say is that because previously, the performance, maybe, yeah, we understood that you have disclosed in the accounting, but just like the color you mentioned met all the pre-agreed targets. Should we expect this price should be also quite on track in terms of improving profitability, yeah, in line with that, those like initiative you adjusted in the past? One more follow-up is about the hybrid bonder that you, Gokul also mentions. Because the previous year that you mentioned the hybrid bonder should come out in 2021, and now you adjusted the delivery in 2022.
What's the changes here is like, is this because of, like, customer schedule or something happened in terms of cooperation with, like, EV Group and all things? Thanks.
Yes. I think this question is to AAMI, right? No, it's precisely because you know the forecast is that they will continue to do well. That's why we booked the revaluation gain. Yes, we expect this JV you know to continue to do well. In fact, I must say that you know they have increased their capacity by adding additional plant you know on top of what we have so far. I think if this plant are fully operational by this year, we can expect you know the volume also to increase, of course, subject to the prevailing you know industry condition.
If the demand for lithiums continue to grow, I think this JV will continue to benefit from this. Yes, it is something positive in our opinion. Now,
Let me repeat the last question. The last question is on hybrid bonders. Kyna noted that some of the hybrid bonders which were supposed to be out in 2021 moved to 2022. Kyna just wants to know more on the reasons why that happened and what sort of change. Is it the customer schedules or are there any other reasons? Robin needs to highlight on that. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks. Now, considering our partnership with EVG, you know, is proceeding very well. There's nothing changed from the expected. However, we must be aware that this hybrid bonding is a very new tool. You know, very new tool. Also being an advanced packaging tool, there is really no standard way of packaging. So there are a lot of deliberations, you know, engagement with customers, exactly what, how, you know, this hybrid bonding tool will be deployed in order to package their devices. So there's a lot of all this engagement going on.
In any case, you know, we are deepening our relationship and our engagement with all these Tier One customers, and we should be able to deliver, you know, the prototype, you know, within this year. As we have said earlier, for hybrid bonding, although we may not be the first, you know, to deliver this tool, you know, but we strongly feel that we are not late. You know, because a hybrid bonding tool, you know, is really a nascent tool, in our opinion, and it will take some time for this tool to mature. Based on our, you know, channel checking with customers, we still believe that, you know, the...
You know, we are on track, you know, to deliver you know in a more meaningful way in line with customer ramp-up plan in 2023. That's how we see the hybrid bonding situation.
Thank you, Robin. Next, can I request Sunny from UBS to unmute and ask your questions? Thank you.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. I'm really glad to see you are providing a lot more details for your business. I believe that will be very helpful for investors to have better visibility on the company. Good job. Well done. My first question is also on your hybrid bonders. I think last week one of your key competitors was very aggressive about this opportunity, announced to extend their capacity for this year. I understand you just mentioned that you think you are not too late for the opportunity. At this point how would you evaluate your technology gap versus the industry leaders?
How's your capacity looking like versus the competitors as well?
Thanks. I think first and foremost, we will not comment on competitors' positioning. Okay? I think that's only being polite, you know. Now, as far as we are concerned, we focus on our own development. Now, we believe our partnership with EVG is the right one. If you recall, we mentioned EVG is a leader in terms of wafer-to-wafer bonding. Their tools have been used for CMOS packaging for some years already. They provide a wafer-to-wafer bonding capability as well as die preparation capability. Because in a hybrid bonding scenario, you know, the die and the substrate has to be very clean, you know. They have the capability to clean before we do those hybrid bonding activities.
We believe we partner with the right team, you know, to push this hybrid bonding into the market. We are proceeding well. You know, as I said, we have been engaging Tier One customers, not just on the logic side, but also on the memory side. As I mentioned before, this is a very new tool, you know. The packaging requirements are still evolving, you know. It's different from customer to customer, and that also explain why it takes some time, you know, for us to come up with a tool for the qualification because of all these new innovation features that we have to incorporate into the tool.
I think I hope that that sort of give you some color where are we in terms of a hybrid bonding. Yeah.
Thank you. That's very helpful. Maybe a very quick follow-up, is that we're seeing, the logic customers that you are working with, are they, mostly foundries and IDMs? Or are you seeing any momentum from OSATs?
Yes. I think for such tools, typically, we see IDM and foundries will take the lead. You know? They will take the lead in this kind of capability before it start to proliferate down to the OSATs in the future.
Got it. My second question is on your lead time. I think back in October, you mentioned that on average the lead time was about 4-5 months, roughly 5-6 months. I wonder how that's looking like at this point.
I would say if there is no supply chain constraint, it could be better. It could be better. Because of supply chain constraint, you know, even though we are ready, you know, in terms of technology, but we simply lack the component to put into our tools, you know? That will hamper the lead time. That's why it's very challenging. That's why I forgot to also answer Kyna just now. You know, one of the factors that we could not really predict too far away is really the constrained environment in terms of the supply chain. Coming back to your question, probably lead time is still around three to four months for semi and SMT.
For certain tools as usual, those advanced packaging tools, the lead time typically will stretch to beyond six months. We have a mix of tools, so I can't give you an average, but I can give you some color. Mainstream tool, probably three to four months, but for certain advanced packaging tools, more than six months.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next, can I request, Dylan from Morgan Stanley to unmute and ask your questions? Hi, Dylan. We can't hear you.
Hello? Hello?
Now we can hear you. Yeah, go ahead and ask your questions. Thank you.
Thanks. Yes, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Yes, my first question is on the automotive side. I wonder how the company reconciled the strong auto sales versus this weak car production right now, and how do we think about the 2022 growth is going to be along with the car production recovering, especially for our automotive segment?
Okay. Hi, Dylan. Now, in terms of automotive, we believe this is a multi-year driven by automotive electrification, EVs and so forth. Yes, we also look at the car production. According to one research analyst, they are still thinking of a expansion in terms of car growth, vehicle car growth, passenger vehicle car growth this year. That should bode well for the industry as well. Now, I must also highlight that for automotive industry, we don't just sell to the customers that are in high volume.
As you can see in one of our slide, we also mentioned that, you know, we engage much more customers compared to last year, and some of these customers are actually, you know, doing some prototyping, you know, using our tools for future years' production. It's important for industry like them to engage customers early because the characteristics of the automotive industry is that once they qualify your tools, they will use your tool for a long time to come because of safety reason. It's important that we must continue to expand our customer base so that we serve both customers that are on high volume production now, as well as customers that are doing qualification of tools, which will generate significant future opportunity for us. In this way, we continue.
We feel that the automotive for us will continue to grow in years to come. Yeah.
Yeah, I see. Thanks for that. Very helpful. My second question is also about the booking trend. As other analysts have just suggested, that the booking trends has continue to tone down in the past several quarters. From what we can see right now, when do we expect this kind of a decline to end and probably to see some sort of a booking rebound? What would be the driver here?
Yeah. I mentioned just now. I gave some color just now about so far we've seen in Q1. I know it's still early days. You know, we are talking about perhaps just one month, certainly one month of data, you know. It's still early days, but it's pretty encouraging so far, at least for ASMPT. You know, the booking momentum is strong and you know, the various areas that we look at will continue to underpin the booking, you know, for us going forward. Like for TCB too, you know, I don't want to mention everything, but I'm sure you heard what I said just now. TCB, Power, Automotive. We continue to see those main drivers, you know, driving our business so far into Q1. Yeah.
As I said, we can't really see beyond too far, but we have to take guidance from some of these industry experts. They're saying that, you know, our industry, the semi industry, will also continue to grow this year from a very high base already. You know? They're still predicting 4%-14% growth this year. It's not gonna be small, you know, for industry even for 2022. Yeah.
Okay. Got it. Maybe a little follow-up here. So in terms of Q1, as far as we know, is the booking momentum mainly driven by Semi Solutions or SMT segment? Because I noticed that our Semi Solutions booking has continued to come down, and I'm not sure if in the first quarter we will see some sort of a rebound for Semi Solutions.
Yeah. As I said, earlier, for SMT, we are pretty encouraged, you know, by the SMT booking so far. You know, we attribute this to really, you know, the semi has been enjoying a boom run last year. So as a result, you know, you know, the supply chain has a lot of packaged and assembled chips that need to be put onto a PCB board. So we are benefiting from that, the way we see it. You know, that's why the SMT booking already in Q4 was high, you know, which is quite unusual for also for SMT. Typically, Q4 booking is not a high quarter compared to Q3. But for SMT Q4, we've seen Q4 booking increase over Q on Q.
This momentum so far into one month or so seems to be continuing, you know, for SMT. I think that's a benefit, I must say, for ASMPT, you know. While you know because we are spending across the semi and SMT segment and the timing, you know, in terms of peak and trough are different. That's just advantage of ASMPT from that perspective. We took some pains to explain to analysts. You know, view us from that perspective. We are unique. You know, we have both semi and SMT. I hope I give you a little bit of color on how we see booking trending so far into Q1. Yeah.
Thanks, Robin. Next, can I request Donnie from Nomura to unmute and ask your questions?
Yes. Hi, Robin. Can you hear me?
Yes, Donnie. Go ahead.
Thank you, Robin, and congrats on the good result. Just the first question, pretty simple, because you have commented on the booking. I'm just wondering if you are seeing the first quarter booking direction-wise could be a little bit improved from the fourth quarter level. Thank you.
A bit too early, Donnie. If this momentum we see just on the first month, you know, possibly. This is not a guidance. I hope you don't treat this as a guidance, Donnie. We don't guide Q1 booking, but we just want to give you some color since you guys are so interested in Q1 booking so far. This is just some kind of color for you guys. Just purely on the momentum, it possibly could be a high quarter. Yes.
Okay. Great. Thank you. Same question, I'm interested in your comment on chip-to-substrate and chip-to-wafer TCB order wins in your prepared remarks. May I ask a couple short follow-ups on this? First, where are the order wins from? From same customer or different customers? What are the regions these customers locate? Second quick follow-up is that you are mentioning about that hybrid bonding equipment could be a high-cost solution for your customers. Does this imply that the chip-to-wafer TCBs ASP is lower, a little bit lower than hybrid bonding equipment in your perspective?
Yes. Yes, Donnie, you are right. Now, again, maybe on the TCB, I mentioned just now about the TCB being the closest in terms of technology compared to hybrid bonding. For that reason, you know, if hybrid bonding takes some time to mature, TCB will still has its place in advanced packaging. Because if you have a high-end packaging requirement, at this point in time, okay, either you use a TCB or hybrid bonding. First and foremost, I must say that we are capable, you know, for both solutions, okay? Needless to say, we are already a dominant leader in TCB. We are now coming up with the hybrid bonding.
Whichever takes off, you know, in a big way, we will also stand to benefit. All right. But as far as TCB is concerned, we are waiting for hybrid bonding to mature. It'll take some time, you know. You look at TCB, we started TCB probably eight years ago, you know. Right. It takes some time for new technology to mature, because at the point when we introduced TCB, it was an expensive solution to compare to flip chip at that point in time. Flip chip is the closest to TCB, right. It takes time for a new technology to mature. Of course, we hope that hybrid bonding can be different. If it's different, it can take off in a big way, in a fast time. We also stand to benefit.
Now coming back to TCB. While waiting for hybrid bonding to mature, TCB is the solution, you know, for increasing HPC needs. We customers and us are pushing, continue to push the TCB technology envelope further and further. TCB at this point in time is capable of maybe around 40-micron pitch and plus and minus 2-micron accuracy. It's already a very accurate tool. Just imagine, a human hair is 100 micron thick, and so we are talking about very fine precision, you know, even for TCB tool. We are pushing the envelope together with leading tier one customers to push down the bump pitch of TCB to 30 micron and below, and accuracy down to maybe even below 1 micron.
While we are pushing this envelope, you know, we are developing a hybrid bonding, right? The way we feel is that TCB has a long runway, you know, for advanced packaging application. Being a dominant player in TCB, you know, we will stand to benefit.
The first one you haven't answered is that where are the orders coming from? Because the common chip-to-substrate and chip-to-wafer TCB in your prepared remarks, so I'm just curious if these are two separate projects or these are all from the same customer, you know?
Mm-hmm.
Because it sounds like it's more than $100 million order if these are two different projects. Wondering if you can have some clarification here.
Yeah. I think, Donnie, you know, we have been always very open. TCB, we have one very dominant customer, but we can't name them, okay? Yeah. I think this is my response to you. Yeah.
No problem. Last one from me is that, I think you have seen that also companies this year are shifting more CapEx to testers and, AP like flip chip. Just curious, are you seeing, for example, like die bonder order momentum start to pick up or not happening yet due to the substrate shortage? When should we expect, the order from maybe like die bonder to pick up this year? Thank you.
Yeah. In general, die bonder also done very well. If I have not mentioned it in my call, okay, when we talk about mainstream, we typically focus on two types of tools, yeah, die bonder and wire bonder. Okay. Die bonder also did very well last year because in a high cycle, these are the two mainstream tool. Now, in terms of flip chip, we are very dominant in the low pin count flip chip area, you know. This tool was also very strong. Was very strong rather. Sorry. Was very strong in year 2021. Yes.
Thanks, Robin. Next, can I request Frank to unmute yourself and ask your questions?
Thank you, guys. I guess the first question was just on an earlier question or a discussion on shortages, component shortages. Can you guys give us an update in terms of, I think you talked about earlier in some of the component shortages maybe in improving and what the current outlook is like right now that was a bottleneck in the past?
Hi, Frank. Yes. It is, you know, pretty. It's not improving at this point in time. In fact, it still continue to be very challenging. As I mentioned earlier, we could have guided our revenue to be higher, if not because of component shortages. We have to defer some of our shipment to Q2, you know? Because some of the components really did not arrive in time.
Mm-hmm.
What we are doing is really, you know, we are taking very proactive steps. You know, we engage not just our immediate, you know, supplier, but we because most of these, I would say some of these components are actually our customers. We engage directly some of our customers and ask them for help to deliver these components through their supply chain, you know, to ASMPT. We are proactively managing this, but it's still very challenging. Now, on the longer term, you know, faced with this kind of challenge, you know, we also have, we also took steps, you know, to see how we can redesign, yes, redesign our products, you know, our modules, you know, our components, our modules, using alternative components or materials.
This part of the activity we are currently, you know, engaging internally just to make sure that we don't depend on just one or two sources, you know, to manufacture our tools. These are the actions that we are taking. Yeah.
Okay. Is there any view in terms of when that component situation might start to improve? You guys have any kind of view on that?
Now, if you look at the number of new fabs, you know, the IDMs of the world, you know, are talking about coming up, you know, I think in time to come, it will mitigate the situation. Unfortunately, all these new fabs take time, you know, to build and to really go into production. Probably take a little bit longer before this situation can be somewhat better. Yeah.
It's unlikely, I guess, to be resolved in the next one or two quarters based on.
No, no.
Your view?
No, Frank, no. Definitely, no. I think we'll continue to face these challenges in the next two quarters. Yeah.
Okay. My second question is just in terms of your CapEx. I think your CapEx for this 2022 looks to be about maybe 70% higher than last year. But I guess you guys have also talked about, you know, the visibility not being that long and your book-to-bill ratio for semis has come down. I was wondering, can you give us a little bit of guidance in terms of how the CapEx is gonna be allocated?
Yes. It's a little bit higher frame compared to maybe 2020 and 2019. You can imagine during those COVID-19 height, you know, we are also more conservative, more prudent in the way we manage our CapEx. Come to a point, we have to renew some of our aging equipment in the plant, so we have to start to do that in 2021. Also, we also alluded to the fact that, you know, we will continue to increase or intensify our R&D. You know, those also need new and more capable equipment in the lab, you know, in order to perform those activities. Those are mainly the drivers behind this year CapEx. Yeah.
Okay, great. Thanks.
Thank you. I think we will take questions from two analysts more who are on the queue, then we will have to end the call. Can I request Laura to please unmute yourself and ask your questions?
Hi. Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you. Thanks.
Yeah, thank you very much for your detailed presentation. I only have one question on competitive landscape. We understand that China has been the biggest market for ASMPT. Given rising local competition, how could ASMPT sustain your market share in China, in particular in maintaining your shares in the mainstream wire bonding market? Also separately for the fast-growing advanced packaging and also automotive market. Since your targeted clients might be more for IDMs or advanced foundry makers, how is your position comparing to your international competitors? That's my question. Thank you.
All right, let me repeat the first question. You want to know more on the competitive landscape in the Chinese market. You noted that, you know, the local competition has been rising, so you want to know more color and more details from Robin's side.
Yes. Thank you.
Yes. I think this competition is everywhere, you know. The more lucrative the market is, the more competition. You know, we just simply have to up our game, Laura. There's no magic formula, honestly. You know, in all equipment makers, you know, we must continue to innovate, you know, spend resources into R&D, which is our bread and butter, and push out new products that are faster, more accurate, and makes more sense in terms of TCO or total cost of ownership for a customer. These are the three metrics that we continue to monitor. You know, otherwise, anyone, you know, can be out of the game in this industry, you know, in the equipment industry. I repeat, nothing new. Competition is nothing new, whether it's in China or in other places.
You know, we have to continue to be faster, more accurate, and improve our TCO for our customers.
Thanks, Robin. I think, Laura, your second question is more on the AP solutions. To simply put it's you want to know how do we compare versus the international competitors.
Yeah.
You know, more color if you want.
Yes. Now, I think for AP tools, at this moment, mainly the competition are coming from international competitors. Now, I will just speak more on ourself, right? Focusing really more on ASM. Now, if you look at page 15 of our presentation. What really differentiate us, you know, from our competitor is we offer a wide range of advanced packaging tools. Just like our business model for mainstream tools, you know, we also offer a wide portfolio. This has worked well for us over the last 47 years. So we are replicating what we know best, how we do best in the mainstream side to the advanced packaging side.
You look at page 15, you know, we have a whole range of tools, and we believe strongly that we have the most comprehensive suite of solutions to cater to all the advanced packaging needs of the industry. Okay? I hope that also answers your question, Laura.
Yes. Thank you. That's very comprehensive. Thank you.
Thanks, Laura. For the last batch of questions, can I request, Simon from Bank of America to unmute yourself and ask your questions?
Okay. Yeah. Thank you very much. Congrats on the great result. Very quick clarification, sir. Sorry, you don't provide the guidance for the Q1 booking, but yeah, we appreciate showing the color. The definition high quarter for Q1 means is kind of a quarter-on-quarter improvement in your booking kind of a trend? Thank you.
As I said earlier, Simon, I'm just purely looking at one month kind of data.
Yeah.
You know? Looking at the momentum is really quite encouraging. Now, if this momentum continue, it can be a good quarter for you know, for ASMPT as a whole. As I said earlier, maybe worth repeating, we see SMT very strong, because of the lagging effect. You know, a lot of chips need to be packaged onto the PC board. For IC and outdoor, we see certain segment are very strong. Also help in part, Simon, because we won the order, you know, the HKD 100 million order, because the order, a significant portion of the order was booked in Q1. That really helped us form a baseline, you know, for Q1 booking. I hope that helps.
Yeah.
Thanks. Yeah.
Yeah. It sounds not much semi solution related, more SMT related than.
SEMI is equally. I don't want to highlight SMT, because it's entering a cycle, you know?
Mm-hmm.
Because as I said earlier, you know, we experienced very strong cycle in the semi cycle.
Mm-hmm.
Now we see SMT experience, you know, the cycle.
Very good. Then very quickly, sir, page 22, sorry. Yeah, it's a great update for the memory market-related, you know, trend. But the high-bandwidth memory, even with the DDR5, do you see any meaningful order, equipment order increase to, for the, you know, new, more advanced memory for, I mean the HBM3 type? I think it's a very early stage to see that these kind of the new memory, you know, demand. But do you see the equipment order can be more meaningful for this area? I mean the HBM, 3D die tech, multi-stacking area. Thank you.
Yes, Simon. Possibly. Because if we look at the demand from consumers for more and more data, so all this data has to be kept somewhere. You know, it has to be kept in memory. So memory will continue to grow. That's why this strategic breakthrough by ASMPT in this space is kind of timely. You know, we have never been as strong in the memory market, but with this recent breakthrough in terms of wire bonders for key customers and also for this particular application using our TCB to stack HBM3, you know, we are seeing some good sign, you know, for ASMPT in this memory market. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Lastly, thank you very much. You know, wire bonder, yes, some analysts already asked, you know, very traditional, you know, the tool methodology for the back end. Again, this presentation material, page 22, a wire bonder for the NAND flash, you think that is. It will continue to be the necessary tool? No need a further more advanced, you know, back end equipment for NAND flash? It is still sufficient with the current wire bonder. Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah. Now, typically, if you look at the memory space, there are two types. We have the DRAM and the NAND, right? The way we see it is that NAND typically do not require advanced packaging tools. You know, they are more using wire bond, you know, because they don't need kind of high speed, you know, transfer of data, you know, because it's really keeping the memory. It's just NAND. It's a permanent memory. Whereas DRAM is different. DRAM has to interact with the logic chip constantly. It has to be faster. Because of that, DRAM typically sometimes they do still use wire bond, but DRAM we see more flip chip application for DRAM.
Yeah. Very clear, sir. I really appreciate. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Simon. I think with that, we want to officially end this call. We would like to thank all of you for attending today's investor conference call. That was quite a good bunch of questions posted to us. We hope to see you during the next quarter's call. In the meantime, please take care and stay safe. Thank you.