Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome and thank you for joining the conference call on the first quarter 2022 results. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touch-tone telephone. Please press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Alexander Everke, CEO, Mr. Ingo Bank, CFO, and Mr. Moritz Gmeiner, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, gentlemen.
Good morning to everyone who's joining us this morning for this morning's call. This is Moritz Gmeiner. I'm very happy to welcome you to learn about the results of the first quarter. With me are Alexander Everke, our CEO, and Ingo Bank, our CFO. As usual, Alex will give you an overview of the developments of our business, while Ingo will lead you through the details of our financials. With this, I would like to hand over to Alex. Please.
Thank you, Moritz. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm very happy to welcome you to our first quarter 2022 conference call this morning. In this webcast, I will comment on our business before handing over to Ingo for details on our financials. Starting off with the key results. Our first quarter revenues were solid at EUR 1.25 billion, and the adjusted EBIT margin for the first quarter was 10.1% above the midpoint of our guidance range. To update you on our portfolio realignment and integration, I'm glad to reiterate comments from the recent Capital Markets Day that we remain fully on track with our programs for integration and synergy creation. I'm pleased to see the positive momentum these programs are creating for our business, and Ingo will have a few comments on our progress on the synergy side.
Importantly, we continue to move ahead at a strong pace in realigning our business portfolio. In the first quarter, we already announced the disposal of the automotive lighting systems business, AMLS, to French automotive supplier, Plastic Omnium, for a purchase price of EUR 65 million. The AMLS business had only been established in the fourth quarter as a consequence of dissolving the OSRAM Continental joint venture, so this announcement demonstrate our fast implementation of planned disposals. We have just announced the successful closing of the disposal of Fluence, the horticulture lighting systems business, to Signify, which will remain an important customer for our horticulture lighting LED products. We are now focused on implementing the remaining portfolio realignments and disposals as communicated. Let's now take a look at the development of our business.
I'm pleased to report a very solid performance of our business in the first quarter, despite a demanding environment characterized by constrained supply chains and market volatility. In light of this situation, our business demonstrated a robust operational performance in the quarter. Let me emphasize that I'm sure this is very much what you are hearing from our semiconductor peers, that the developments in our markets and in our industry are defined by tight chip supply and ongoing imbalances in supply chains. This is not restricted to the automotive markets, and we do not expect these imbalances to be resolved quickly. If anything, we see that recent additional volatility in markets like consumer and macroeconomic uncertainties regarding the world economy and Ukraine will add to this demanding environments going forward. Moving to our business segments.
Our semiconductor segment again provided the majority of our revenues at 63% of total. The segment's automotive business recorded a very positive performance in the quarter. We were able to manage through ongoing supply chain imbalances and lower OEM production volumes in the automotive market worldwide. Our automotive supply chain showed good resilience, and we could ensure high shipments levels to our global customer base from available backlog. We generally benefit from our focus on higher tier vehicles and their more attractive applications as important OEMs continue to concentrate their manufacturing efforts on these segments. The semiconductor segment's consumer business showed a robust performance in the first quarter, which was fully in line with expectations.
We were able to achieve this result in light of a more demanding environment in the consumer market compared to last year, as the first quarter was characterized by sequentially lower global smartphone shipments and emerging volatility in demand on top of typical seasonal effects. Our consumer business continues to be driven by optical solutions for display management and multiple sensing applications, including 3D and world-facing camera enhancements such as 1D dToF or automatic white balance. I'm happy to confirm that we are strongly engaged with all our top relationships in consumer for both operating systems. These engagements relate to a wide range of development and design-in projects at various stages for different applications and devices.
This traction contributes to our layered consumer pipeline, supporting the midterm financial targets we have presented at our recent Capital Markets Day. When I look at the present, on the other hand, we are shipping a variety of optical consumer solutions to a strong group of OEMs, and this continues to include front-facing 3D sensing components and display management products for non-Android platforms. The semiconductor segments, industrial and medical business also performed well in the first quarter. This performance continued to reflect our diversified range of lighting and sensing applications in attractive industrial and medical markets. We saw overall good demand in industrial markets for established and emerging LED lighting, augmented by contributions from industrial and medical imaging. The Lamps and Systems or LNS segment provided the remaining 37% of our revenues and recorded overall positive results for the quarter.
The LNS automotive business, including legacy traditional lighting, drove this development, which reflected seasonal effects and good overall demand in line with expectations. The non-automotive areas of LNS offered further attractive contributions from diversified industrial, building-related and medical applications. At our recent Capital Markets Day, we presented our clear strategy for growth through optical innovations. Laying out a strong model for mid- and long-term profitability growth, profitable growth, we confirmed our revenue growth trajectory alongside a clear path for significant margin expansions with defined midterm financial targets. We expect to deliver this model through a range of attractive growth vectors and differentiated applications across end markets.
Our R&D investments and product developments are focused on these growth vectors, which include consumer and automotive light sensing, 3D for world-facing camera applications, AR/VR applications, display management, horticulture and UVC LED solutions, advanced automotive LED front lighting and LED technology for microLED displays. To move forward on these opportunities, we will drive the expansion of our technology platform and the focus investments into industry-leading eight-inch LED manufacturing at our existing Malaysia location. Let me now come to the outlook for our business and guidance for the second quarter. The market environment in the automotive industry remains demanding as supply chain situations continue to be constrained and create ongoing volatility. This will continue to impact production volumes across regions. In addition, we are currently experiencing a volatile development of demand in the consumer market, together with decreased year-on-year contribution in line with previous comments.
Our outlook also reflects deconsolidation effects from disposals when compared to the previous year. Here, the closing of the disposal of the horticulture lighting systems business, Fluence, creates a revenue deconsolidation effect for the second quarter, which would reduce the second quarter revenues by approximately EUR 30 million on a comparable portfolio basis. Despite this backdrop, and based on current information and exchange rates, we expect a solid second quarter with group revenues of EUR 1.15 billion-EUR 1.25 billion. On a comparable portfolio basis, this means second quarter revenues of EUR 1.18 billion-EUR 1.28 billion, almost unchanged at the midpoint sequentially. When looking at this guidance, we expect our semiconductors business to be practically flat between the first and second quarter, with the difference being driven by lamps and systems.
We see our business continuing to show a good operating performance and expect an adjusted operating EBIT margin of 8%-11% based on currently available information and exchange rates. With this, I would like to hand over to Ingo.
Yeah. Thank you, Alex, and very good morning to all of you. Before I start going through the key financials, a few things upfront. When we refer to adjusted financial metrics, we refer to adjustments for M&A-related transformation and share-based compensation costs, as well as results from investments in associates and sale of a business. Starting with 2022, we have now standardized the presentation of functional costs throughout the ams OSRAM Group as part of the integration. To ensure proper comparability, we have adjusted the consolidated income statement for 2021 accordingly. You will find a reconciliation in the financial information on Q1 2022 that we have published today, alongside the overall reconciliation to the IFRS basis of presentation. It is available on our IR website.
As indicated in our Q4 2021 earnings release, starting with the first quarter of 2022, we will focus on presenting the company's financial results solely in euro, being the functional currency of the group and better aligned with the updated business structure and composition of the group. Now let me take a closer look at some of the key financial metrics for the first quarter of 2022. I'm on page 18 of the presentation. As pointed out by Alex, with revenue of EUR 1.25 billion and an adjusted EBIT of 10.1%, we came in above the midpoint guided for in both metrics. Adjusted gross margin was 33% in the quarter in line with expectations. Adjusted net income was at EUR 102 million.
Net income, as reported, was EUR 15 million. Operational cash flow continued to be strong in the quarter with EUR 147 million or approximately 12% of revenue. Net debt was at EUR 1.85 billion, only slightly higher than in the previous quarter. In the quarter, overall leverage stood at around 2x as per the thirty-first of March, 2022. Moving to revenues on slide 19. Revenues for Q1, 2022 were 1.54% higher sequentially, despite an ongoing rather demanding market environment. When comparing to the same quarter in 2021 on a comparable portfolio basis, that means adjusting for portfolio changes, revenue were higher, with around 1.9%, supported by a robust automotive as well as, industry and medical business development.
We see this also reflected in the revenue distribution on page 20, where we have a well-distributed revenue mix with automotive at 42% of revenues in the quarter, industry and medical at 35%, and consumer at 23%. Our semiconductor segment contributed 63% of the revenue generated in the quarter, Lamps and Systems, 37%. Looking at the group profitability on page 21, we can see a stable gross profit and gross margin development moving from Q4 21 into the first quarter of 2022. Overall gross margin was at 33.1%. Adjusted EBIT for the quarter came in at 10.1% and then improved in absolute euro terms on a sequential basis by around 7% to EUR 126 million. Compared to the same quarter in 2021, adjusted EBIT was one percentage point lower.
On the one hand, our gross margin in Q1 2022 was lower year-over-year, resulting from a less favorable mix. At the same time, however, we were able to reduce our OPEX spending level when compared to the same period a year ago. We also see this positive development on page 22. SG&A spend reduced to 11% on revenues, also reflecting progress with the realization of our synergy and savings plans. R&D spending was in line with previous quarters at around the 12% mark. Moving to synergies on page 23. Here you see what we also presented during our Capital Markets Day recently. As per the end of Q1 2022, the synergy and savings run rate increased to EUR 200 million gross when compared to the baseline of 2019 and is well on track with our plans.
As we outlined during the CMD, key contributors thus far have been cost reductions in overhead functions, a streamlining of our go-to-market approach, as well as MarCom spending, accompanied by a good contribution of procurement synergies, just to name a few key areas. Key focus areas in 2022 for our synergy and savings spending are the consolidation of ERP and IT application areas, a simplification of our legal entity setup, and the consolidation of office spaces, also to name just a few examples. Turning now to our adjusted net result and EPS on page 24. The adjusted net results for the group in the first quarter 2022 was EUR 102 million, similar to the prior quarter and improved compared to the same quarter in 2021.
Reported net results was EUR 15 million in the quarter, including a fair value adjustment of -EUR 25 million in the net assets held for sale related to the sale we announced during the quarter of the AMLS Automotive Lighting Systems business, which had been established after the dissolution of the former OSRAM Continental joint venture. Adjusted basic earnings per share in Q1 2022 were 0.4 CHF, respectively EUR 0.39 for the quarter. Let's now move into the segment results, starting with the semiconductor business of the group on page 25. Revenues for the semiconductor segment were stable quarter-to-quarter at EUR 789 million, delivering a healthy 13% of adjusted EBIT, improving by a percentage point when compared to Q4 2021.
Compared to the same quarter a year ago, revenue declined by approximately 5%, largely due to the life cycle effect of the market share loss in our consumer business as we communicated in 2021. As a result of the lower revenue and higher R&D investments, adjusted EBIT for semiconductors was lower with four percentage points compared to Q1 2021. During the quarter, we saw a robust performance across our automotive product areas, as well as a solid performance in our industrial business. Our consumer business had a good contribution in the quarter, well in line with expectations. The supply chain environment continued to be challenging, further exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, as well as the COVID-related lockdowns in parts of China. Now moving into the Lamps and Systems segment for Q1. I'm on page 26 now of the presentation.
Revenues for Lamps and Systems were EUR 457 million, up 4% sequentially, driven by solid traditional automotive demand. In line with typical seasonality, particularly in the aftermarket, as well as good demand in the industrial businesses of LNS. The business was able to fully offset the portfolio-related divestment impact in its revenue line of about EUR 59 million when comparing to the same quarter in 2021, driven by both the automotive and industrial businesses within the LNS segment. Adjusted EBIT for the quarter improved to EUR 27 million, representing an adjusted EBIT margin of 6%, up five percentage points compared to the same quarter in 2021. In the quarter, we saw the successful signing of the sale of the mentioned AMLS business to Plastic Omnium for EUR 65 million. Ongoing supply chain challenges further impacted by the war in the Ukraine and COVID-related lockdowns in China.
Moving now on to our cash flow and debt position for the group on pages 27 and 28. The group's operating cash flow was solid in the first quarter of 2022 at EUR 147 million, translating to approximately 12% of revenues. CapEx levels for the first three months were at EUR 113 million or 9% of revenues for the group. This was up sequentially and in line with our expectations and the plans we've laid out at the Capital Markets Day. Free cash flow in the quarter was positive with EUR 34 million. Moving to page 28 now. The group's cash and cash equivalents stood at EUR 1.2 billion at the end of Q1 2022. In the quarter, we reduced our gross debt further as we retired EUR 60 million of a bilateral bank loan.
Net debt was at EUR 1.8 billion in line with our plans. Overall, this translated into a solid financial leverage of the group of approximately 2x at the end of Q1 2022. Moving now to the outlook for the second quarter of 2022 on page 29. Alex already gave you the headlines of our Q2 2022 guidance, with group revenues of between EUR 1.15 billion and EUR 1.25 billion and an adjusted EBIT margin expectation of 8%-11%. Let me now add a bit more color to it, particularly from the perspective how we see the business moving from the first into the second quarter. First important aspect is that we need to account for the fact that as of yesterday, we have deconsolidated Fluence given the successful closing of the sale.
This takes approximately EUR 30 million out of the revenue of the second quarter of 2022 that otherwise would have been part of the group's revenue guidance. On a comparable portfolio basis, our revenue guidance for Q2 2022 would have been EUR 1.18 billion-EUR 1.28 billion instead. Secondly, underlying our Q2 guidance is our expectation that our semiconductor business revenue will be a notch better than Q1 2022. For Lamps and Systems at the same time, one should expect the typical seasonal effects of a softer second quarter. In addition, we also expect some downside impact in the lower double-digit EUR million range. This relates, on the one hand, to the Ukraine war as we've discontinued our business activities in Russia and Belarus for the time being.
In addition, we also expect some supply chain headwinds from the COVID-related lockdowns in China related to one of our Lamps and Systems manufacturing sites. If we add back the portfolio change related to the Fluence closing of approximately EUR 30 million and the combined impact of the Ukraine war and the zero COVID policy in China, our midpoint guidance for Q2 2022 would about equal our actual revenue for Q1 2022. In other words, a stable quarter-to-quarter development, or without the disposal of Fluence, the midpoint guidance, point of our guidance for Q2 2022 would be just around EUR 10 million euros shy of our Q1 2022 actual revenue levels. Finally, for reference purposes, when comparing to the second quarter of 2021, the portfolio effect on the top line amounts to approximately EUR 80 million euros.
This means that this amount of revenue was in our prior year's Q2 financials, but no longer in our expected Q2 2022 financials, given the deconsolidation that was effective during the course of 2021. With that, I would like to thank you for your attention and go back to the operator opening the floor for questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wished to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of Janardan Menon from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for giving me the question. I just wanna go a little bit deeper into your margin trends. Your margin overall is not showing much improvement quarter-over-quarter, both Q4 to Q1 and Q1 to Q2. I'm just wondering, you have exited from the AMLS business, which I sort of regarded as being a loss-making business and therefore should have a positive effect on your margin trajectory. Can you just tell us, you know, what the moving parts, like you did for the revenue side, you know, what the moving parts are.
Can you just give us a little bit of guidance on what the moving parts are on your margin as you move from Q4 to Q1 and Q1 to Q2? Also, you know, you've given quite a wide range for your margin for Q2. If you are at the high end of your revenue guidance, would that imply that you could be at 11% margin in Q2, or are there other factors which are affecting that range that you've given? I've got a quick follow-up as well. Thanks.
Yeah, thank you for your questions. So on the margin trends, just to avoid any misunderstanding, so yes, we've sold, we signed the sales agreement for AMLS, but AMLS is still in our numbers because the closing of the transaction hasn't yet taken place. Therefore, like Fluence was also still in our Q1 numbers, because it closed the business yesterday. AMLS is still there, and we also expect it to still be there in Q2, because we expect the closing of AMLS more into the third quarter of this year, which is typical for all kinds of approvals and disentanglement activities that you need to take in order to then also facilitate the closing itself.
From that perspective, it would be inadequate to assume that there's already a benefit. The second comment maybe in general on divestments, which I also highlighted last year in the call and also during the CMD, is that we would expect still some stranded costs of some of these businesses because you typically have an infrastructure that is based on the business you have, and then if one exits, you are still here and there. You have some remnant costs as to the infrastructure you had in place, largely fixed costs, and it takes some time to move these out of the P&L. That's therefore it sort of should show an improvement over time, but not an immediate impact after you have sold the business.
Third thing I would like to point out is that compared to a year ago, our SG&A expenses were more than a point better overall, which shows that we are working on synergies and savings and are showing results in the financials. It's clearly visible year-over-year in our financials. If you look at also the improvement, particularly in Lamps and Systems, in the quarter compared to Q4 and Q1 last year, I think you can clearly see that some of the things we're doing there, including divestments and other things we've done there, cost savings, et cetera, are showing fruit. It's not that you don't see that overall, I believe.
On the Q2 guidance, I think you've seen us giving guidance in the same range for now quite a while, 8%-11%. You also have seen us where we then eventually came in from that perspective. It is certainly true that sort of if you give a range on the revenue, then typically somewhat the range you give on your EBIT margin guidance is also somewhat related given the fact that you do have, of course, scale effects depending a little bit on how revenue goes. Also there, we have not changed the approach that we've chosen now for quite a while.
Understood. Just a quick follow-up. You've previously commented about, you know, some loss of revenue this year on the consumer side. Is the quantum that we're looking at this year roughly in the region of about EUR 200 million, or is that understanding not valid anymore at this point in time?
I think we have said in the past that you would see the normal life cycle effect that you would expect of a program or a number of programs. I don't think we have particularly said what the number would be. What you're saying is about is not wrong, let me put it this way.
Understood. Thank you very much.
The next question is from the line of Didier Scemama from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Oh, thank you so much for taking my question. I just wanted to discuss a little bit the segmental trends. If you could maybe give us a sense of the direction of gross margins or underlying gross margins at least in Q1 and Q2 for Semis versus the automotive lighting business. I'm just trying to compare the direction of gross margins that you've shown versus your peers, and it feels like you don't see the same mix or at least pricing benefits as some of your peers. Just wanted to double check that. Also if you could quantify the impact of FX in your guidance on top line and also on OPEX or gross margin or at least the EBIT margin, let's say, that would be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah. Let's start with the environment. Clearly, as we all know, working in an environment that clearly has started to display inflation also already beginning end of last year in the fourth quarter. We've done quite some work on translating that into also somewhat different pricing with the customers, where that is possible, where contractually that was doable. I think we've been so far quite successful. Current expectation is set for the year that there will be some headwind but not in a material way. I think the teams have done quite a good job.
Of course, you also see that because of the war and the lockdown policies, that you have some pressure on your logistics and other expenses because you need to reroute certain shipments. You need to take different routings and that sort of thing. We're also trying to see how to compensate that with customers. Clearly it's an environment that clearly shows inflation, and we're doing a lot of work, and the teams are doing some work also on the cost side to try and compensate for that. Far, I think we've been quite successful in compensating that to the largest extent.
I think if you look into the quarterly margin developments also in the gross margin, you know, we know, as you all know, you know that it's not different from prior years. We have now, with the second quarter, the normal seasonality in the consumer and the automotive businesses that you see in as you have every year. We will move through that like we also did in prior years. Of course, that also has sort of the normal expectation you should have what that means in the P&L. Then the third element is certainly the work we're doing again on savings and synergies.
There, as I said, we did a good job, and our SG&A expenses were more than a percentage point lower this quarter, Q1, than they were in Q1 last year. Also, as we reiterated during the Capital Markets Day, I do expect that we have ongoing progression also from expense perspective. SG&A, that is particularly for the rest of the year as we are moving through the programs, and particularly towards the second half, I would expect some impact, positive impact here as well. I think those are the key things on the margin. On foreign exchange, we do have some benefit of a stronger dollar as around 60% of overall revenues are still driven by a dollar-denominated environment.
We also have some benefit on the profit side. However, that is to a larger extent also offset because we do have a policy of rolling forwards hedging, where you basically do that in order to be able to better plan the business and it's a kind of a rolling forward type of program that we have for a bigger part of the business. Another small part of what should be benefit is then obviously compensated by hedging and the other way around, of course. Yes, there was some benefit in the quarter, but it was also offset by some of the hedging that we're doing.
Okay. If I understand correctly, what you're saying is that the net impact of repricing versus rising input costs is still a small negative, let's say. Is that correct? Is that valid for semis and automotive or is there a difference between the two things?
No, I think that would be a general remark for the group.
Okay, wonderful. Thank you so much.
The next question is from the line of Jürgen Wagner from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. Thank you for letting me on. A question on your technology roadmap. How are you progressing with your microLED technology testing, so to say, and when do you see first design wins? On OSRAM minorities, how much have you acquired recently, and what are your plans going forward? Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks for the question, Jürgen. Let me take the first part. On the technology roadmap related to microLED, I think we gave quite some information during the last Capital Markets Day, but we are progressing exactly according to plan. We are very satisfied with our R&D teams to move forward. As you know, we invest into a pilot line and now expanding capacity. It's a significant investment, a pilot line which shows very good results to industrialize the technology. We are really on the right track to industrialize the microLED technology for real applications. We also mentioned that we are investing into the first eight-inch LED manufacturing site in Malaysia, which is a very strong
Competitive advantage because of cost and functionality and performance for microLED. Thirdly, I clearly can say that the customer engagement related to this technology is very, very strong, and we are very satisfied with the progress, and that's also one of the reasons, obviously, for this investment in this technology. On the mid to long term, we are strongly believing, as we mentioned multiple times, that this is the future technology for displays with the advantage from ams OSRAM to integrate any kind of light sensing functionality within the display. We are very excited about this moving forward.
Maybe your question on the minority situation, let me maybe reiterate what we said during the Capital Markets Day. Acquiring more shares of OSRAM is not a priority for us right now from a capital allocation perspective. We do own around 80.5% at this moment in time. We occasionally get very small amounts of shares back under the existing DPLTA agreement, but these are really too immaterial to even mention on this call. As I said, this is not a priority right now for us.
Okay, thank you. Maybe a third question. You talked about the consumer business. How do you see the second half momentum for you? Thank you.
On the consumer parts, usually the second half is stronger than the first half. We see a more challenged situation in the Android camp, which is certainly driven by coming from China and Ukraine. I think this impacts all the industry will see and has seen already. On the way forward designing activities, we are very positive moving forward.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Sebastien Sztabowicz from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello, everyone, and thanks for taking the question. Just to come back on the previous question on microLED. Have you received any kind of initial commitment from any of your customer regarding microLED at this stage? Also could you help us understand the level of fab loading in your LED component fabs in both Kulim and Regensburg today? Thank you.
Let me start with the first question, then maybe you could repeat the second. We didn't get. On the microLED design win activities, I can clearly say that we are seeing a very positive trend in this regard. That there is a clear alignment with the customer base and the investment related to development and manufacturing, which gives us a very positive and strong confidence in making this happen. But obviously it's difficult at that point of time to give details on this activity. The second question, could you repeat the second question, please?
Yeah, it was on the fab loading on your LED content fabs today in both Kulim and Regensburg. Where are you in terms of fab loading right now?
Yeah. On fab loading in general, in Regensburg is very well utilized. Also Kulim is increasing, and that's the reason why we're expanding our capacity. Basically the timing is the moment, the additional capacity we are currently installing in Malaysia, when this capacity is able to ramp up, we clearly see that the existing capacity in Kulim will be loaded. It's a very good timing. This is a matter of couple of years. This is the timing of the fully utilized Kulim factory of today with then phase over into the additional capacities we are building up.
Just to complete the statement, the additional capacity will have the capability in eight-inch for microLED as well as other differentiated LED technology.
Okay, thank you. As a follow-up, on the OpEx side, how should we model the OpEx moving to Q2, taking into account the disposal, ongoing influence and also the synergy?
Yeah. Look, I mean, we don't give particular guidance online items, but as I said, first of all, again, compared to a year ago, we make good progress. I also said that we have a number of programs running that I expect to complete more towards the second half of the year. I think that should give you a sense as to what to expect in Q2, probably.
Okay, thank you.
Next question is from the line of Sandeep Deshpande from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. 2 questions, if I may. Actually, going back to one of the earlier questions. I'm trying to understand, in terms of the synergies. I mean, if you see slide 23 of your presentation, you can see that incrementally from September 2021 to March 2022, you have implemented another EUR 70 million of synergies. My question is why are we not seeing that either in the reported numbers or in the guidance? The second question is, in terms of the deals that need to be completed to complete your ongoing program. I mean, are there multiple deals yet to be done, in terms of, disposals or are there only one or two here? Thank you.
Maybe starting with the synergies. Look, I mean, we have I think it's two important things to remember. First of all, this is a run rate, which means that it's an annualized number. That doesn't mean that all of that is yet reflected in the P&L. That's different. The P&L view is a bit different than that. But that's been the way we've been reporting this for quite a while. Secondly, it's a gross number. Against that, you need to see expenses and investments that we're doing. If you look at, for instance, in R&D, for instance, we are consistently investing.
I also said in my prepared remarks that we had a higher spend in R&D in our semiconductor segment than a year ago, so we're also reinvesting part of it. You cannot just take it and add it to the number. It was therefore important for us to make sure that we understand that these are gross numbers. On the divestments, I think we've said clearly at the Capital Markets Day what these are. We just closed Fluence yesterday. We announced AMLS that we expect to close probably in Q3 of this year. We have the electronic ballasts business for Europe and Asia that is currently being negotiated.
We also are still in the process of selling the entertainment fixtures business, Clay Paky, which we also announced during the Capital Markets Day. We do expect to close these transactions also in the course of this year. That means that we basically start operating the business with a fully reset portfolio starting with the year 2023, and that plan is still on track.
Maybe you know, going back to one of those earlier questions. Will we see an improvement in the margin in the second half? Because, I mean, since the two companies have been merged, you've been reporting, you know, EBIT margin, adjusted EBIT margin of 8%-11%, and it hasn't broken out of that range. I mean, at what stage, I mean, is it the OpEx, is it the SG&A cuts or the disposals are going to cause this margin to break out of this range it has been since the merged companies merged?
Yeah. Look, I think also if you look back at what we presented during the Capital Markets Day, in one of the slides, we clearly indicated also the timing of the synergies that should feed also into the margin development and, particularly on the cost of goods sold synergies and the SG&A synergies, we said that you would see it in 2022, 2023. I just pointed out the improvement in SG&A compared to a year ago. I would expect also that this is an improvement we still see throughout this fiscal year. We've done a lot on the cost of goods sold already. We pointed to a number of other synergies around the footprint, the asset utilization, as well, starting a bit later.
From that perspective, you should expect that certainly on the SG&A side, we continue to see the improved picture from that perspective. Let me also point out, when the intention was announced in 2019, that was all pre-COVID and pre-war. I think that's important not to forget when we make these comparisons as well.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Robert Sanders from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good morning. My first question is just around the old ams, so pre-OSRAM. I was just wondering if you could discuss efforts to restructure both R&D and manufacturing there. For example, closing Woodlands, you've talked about that, transferring VCSEL and filter to Europe. Just if there's any timing on that, and I have a follow-up. Thanks.
Well, if you look at what we presented during the Capital Markets Day, we said that we would expect these moves to happen in 2022 and 2023, which is still the plan. We will start some of these moves this year. We will continue to do some of these moves into next year because you also need to work with your customers, particularly on some of these moves when you change manufacturing locations, and also sometimes with suppliers. That's again what we said early this year in April, that again is in 2022, 2023. The impact in the numbers in terms of savings will not be visible this year, but starting in 2024, which is also again what we said during the Capital Markets Day.
Yeah.
Got it.
Alex, yeah, maybe let me add that on top what Ingo just mentioned to you, that with all the activities we announced and which are in progress.
I can tell you that the R&D investments we have from the old AMS is exactly aligned with projects we are seeing and developing currently on the one hand, and on the second hand, the industrial footprint related to the old AMS business is aligned with the growth vectors we have indicated in the CMD. On the industrial side, on the R&D side, the investments we have today are aligned with the future business we are working on and produce them in the years to come.
Got it. Just as a follow-up, on microLED, I see your annual report talks about being in a strong position to become the number one player. Can you talk a bit about your role in the supply chain? It sounds like you're gonna avoid getting involved in the kind of pick-and-place packaging side to complete to make a complete display. Does that mean the business will be kind of direct to OEM and the OEM will handle the pick-and-place? Does that then mean that you can supply, you know, several OEMs with your LED wafers or packaged LEDs? Thanks.
Yeah, Robert, that's correct. Our focus is on the microLED manufacturing. The pick-and-place and manufacturing afterwards is not the focus we are looking at. This is done by the supply chain, either OEM or partners, and it depends on the application and customer obviously. Our focus is on the pure LED manufacturing and sale of those in development, and that also gives us the opportunity to deliver multiple applications and therefore customers moving forward.
Great. Thank you.
Yeah.
The next question is from the line of Achal Sultania from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, guys. Maybe two questions from me. Just firstly on the LNS business. I just wondered if you could contrast the pricing trends you're seeing in that business to the pricing trends you're seeing in the semiconductors business. Are they higher, similar, lower? Just a clarification for Ingo. The tax line had a positive impact in the quarter. I just wondered how we should think about this going forward through the year and beyond. Thank you.
Yeah. On Lamps and Systems, the trend we see there on, let's say, inflation pricing is actually very similar, also in semiconductor 'cause there are multiple different supply chains affected by what's going on, both the war, as well as the now also the zero COVID policy in China here and there. Also across different industries that we operate in, also in industrial, we're seeing this, not just in automotive or let's say, consumer. I would not necessarily see that there's a big difference. We also see, as I said, the impact on logistics is a general impact obviously, and it doesn't really distinguish between whether it's a semiconductor product or industrial product that you're transporting.
I wouldn't necessarily see this as a fundamentally different trend that we see in the two segments. The tax line, that's a technicality what happened in the first quarter because of the AMLS disposal. I still expect that we will have a tax expense for the full year of around -EUR 50 million. We shouldn't sort of extrapolate what we saw in the first quarter. It was technical. For the year, I still expect around -EUR 50 million as a tax expense.
Got it. Thank you.
Next question is from the line of David O'Connor from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Great. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Maybe a question on my side on the microLED. If when you look at the CapEx, the EUR 800 million wave of CapEx to build out the eight-inch fab, Ingo, how should we think about the return on invested capital on that investment? Is that along a similar line to what we saw previously on the Singapore investment? I have a follow-up.
The EUR 800 million also includes the sort of setup of a new building. It's not just equipment or so that we need to factor in here. That's important I think to understand, hence it takes some time to build it. Then as we said, during the Capital Markets Day, we should see it's ramping in 2024.
If you look at the plans we have, right, it's not just for microLED, it's also for, as Alex just said, also, following another question, it's also for other differentiated technology in LEDs, given also the growth that we expect in other LED applications that we also presented during the Capital Markets Day, UVC, horticulture, and it's just to name a few others.
Sort of if you completely build a new factory with everything included, including the building, you know, if a sort of a return is expected, anywhere around seven to eight years, that's a normal return horizon that you expect for a sort of investment of this size, because this is a facility that you build for at least the next 30 years or so. Like we also built
Thank you, Alex. That's very helpful. Maybe just to follow on from your comments. You know, when that does come, I know it's a bit far out, but when that does, that fab does come online, say late 2023, how should we think about the loading of that? Would that again be similar to what we saw in the Singapore facility when that ramped up a few years ago? Thank you.
Well, the ramp is more a topic of 2024. The ramp will be then certainly determined by the first volume products, which will be decided in the course of the next two years. We are still very confident that we will have a significant ramp in the starting 2024 for this wafer fab. Moving into a broader range of portfolio afterwards.
Got it. Thank you.
Our final question is from the line of Harald Eggeling from CPB. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. First question, please. What is your incremental expectation on price pass-through in H2 versus H1? Second question, basically listening to the call, reading your statements and so on, I get the impression that, yeah, top line increasingly is at risk, I would say, with inflationary pressure, probably also accelerating versus Q1. What would you answer to the thesis that Q1 earnings could be peak earnings in 2022, please? Thank you.
I think we need to be a bit careful what we read into this. What we try to say is that given what's going on around us, the visibility of course is a bit different than it was, let's just say, a year or so ago. That's all what we're saying. Again, if you think back about the guidance we gave for the second quarter where I said that we expect Semiconductor business to be a notch up compared to Q1, and the Lamps and Systems business being down because of seasonality normal as every year, and the conscious decision of us to discontinue business in Russia and Belarus, and the zero COVID policy because we have one factory affected in China because of it right now.
You know, tells you that, despite that environment, actually the outlook we gave is pretty solid. I think that's one. Number 2 is that we do not see why the seasonality we typically see in any given year, where the second quarter is seasonally always softer and then you see towards the end of Q3 ramps and then Q4 as well, why that should be fundamentally different from prior years. I would say that is how we would look at it right now, so very much the same as we did in prior. Simply given the fact that this is sort of corresponding to the different end markets we work in, particularly consumer and automotive. Then the first part of your question on pricing.
We have been working already since last year with our customers here and there, so I would not expect any kind of, sort of really meaningful change in momentum or so between H1 and H2. It's really, it's also very much depending on the type of contracts you have, when you start changing over, et cetera. I think it's important to go back to what I said earlier, that overall for the year, it is a headwind, but it's not a material headwind, how we are compensating the inflationary pressure that we're seeing.
Okay, one quick follow-up regarding the price pass-through. You would say H2 is basically similar to H1. Would you then agree that inflationary pressure is incrementally increasing, likely in H2? Thanks.
Well, again, pricing arrangements are at least for a year. By now we should have been pretty clear with all of our customers. From an inflation perspective, what certainly started to come in a bit more now was, because of the Ukraine war, you had to reshuffle your supply chain here and there. But that we also have, let's say, managed also with our businesses to feed that back into our customer base. Unless something else is happening around us macro speaking, which I sure hope not will be the case, I would not necessarily see that we should see something on top of what we already know now from an inflation perspective.
Okay. Thank you. Very clear.
Thank you very much to everybody. This concludes the question and answer session for today. We thank you for joining this earnings call this morning, and we look forward to speaking you again with our next set of results. Thank you very much and have a good day.
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