Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Bernhard Schweizer, investor relations contact at INFICON. I have the pleasure to host this Microsoft Teams webcast of our Q3 results conference. With us today are Lukas Winkler, CEO of INFICON, and Matthias Tröndle, CFO of INFICON. The management team will first present the results and then take questions. During management's prepared remarks, online participants are kindly asked to turn their microphones and cameras off, so we have a full view on the presentation.
Thank you. You should have received by now a press release on the Q3 results, together with the links to the accompanying visuals for this web conference. All documents are available for download in the investor section of the INFICON website, www.inficon.com. We ask online participants to post their questions in writing using the chat function in MS Teams.
This should be the second icon on the top right-hand menu. Alternatively, you can, of course, also add yourselves to the queue of people wanting to ask questions orally by clicking on the I Raise My Hand icon. I would like to inform you that we record this web conference to archive the audio file later on the INFICON website. The oral statements made by INFICON during this MS Teams session may contain forward-looking statements that do not solely relate to historical or current facts. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of our management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect our current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition.
We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Having said all that, I would like to hand over now to Lukas Winkler.
Thank you, Bernhard.
Grüezi,
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today to review our results for the third quarter of 2022. A year ago, we talked about the rebound after the COVID crisis in our industrial activities. Now, the focus changed more to the unstable global geopolitical situation in Ukraine and other parts.
Estelle Betizet from the Credit Suisse.
As well as just released.
She's now joining.
US export restrictions for high-tech products sold to China. This represents a new strong signal from The White House towards the Chinese government. Two things did not change. First of all, we still suffer from supply chain issues for certain materials, and that still limits our ability to ship more. Secondly, we still enjoy a very high order intake, with now more than 10 consecutive quarters, with a book-to-bill ratio above one. In total, with revenues of approximately $144 million, we reached almost the same as the level of our record quarter, which was Q4 as of last year. Slide three shows the key figures for the reporting quarter. Organic sales growth compared to the same quarter a year ago was almost 25%, if you add the negative impact from foreign exchange rate changes.
The sequential increase versus Q2 2022 was 2.9%. As already mentioned, the book-to-bill ratio was again far above one. Both a record high backlog and far too long lead times puts even more pressure on us to increase our manufacturing capacity and solve the annoying material shortage situation. While we are on track to install a much higher internal capacity, the situation on the material supply side did not change much compared with three months ago. We expect the third quarter gross profit margins reflecting the low point. For the last quarter for the year, we foresee a slight improvement based on expected higher sales level, a better capacity utilization, and the first impact of the recent sales price increases.
With our overhead costs under control, we finish the third quarter with an operating income of $25.3 million or 17.6% of sales, compared to $22 million or 18% of sales for the same quarter a year ago. Net income reached seventeen point eight million US dollars or 12.4% of sales. Matthias will review the numbers with you in more details later, while I highlight now some important developments in our target markets first. On the next slide, you can see the sales breakdown into our served four key markets, as well as the regional sales trends. The pie chart shows an increased contribution from the semi and vacuum coating market, with a slightly lower but stable contribution from all other markets.
The trend chart on the right-hand side shows increased sales to customers in North America, while Asia and Europe did not change much, also influenced by the weakening currencies in Europe, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. China remains the largest contributor in Asia. Now, let's do a quick analysis market by market and starting with the smallest one. In security and energy market, on this slide, sales decreased 11.3% year-over-year and reached, with a 9.5 sequential decrease, sales of $4.7 million. Sales to customers in the security market started to be above the revenue from customers in the energy market. Since we just started to ship the first HAPSITEs to the U.S. DoD as a part of the large order that we booked in July to support the so-called CALS Program in the U.S.
This program will keep us busy the next 12-18 months. This success story enabled us to position the HAPSITE as the preferred mobile warfare agent detector to customer outside the U.S. as well. We see first successes for the new HAPSITE in Europe and Asia for this unique portable regulatory instrument. On the energy side of this market, we continue to see the long-term opportunities, projects for alternative environmentally friendly energy sources. The short-term political focus changed to the more urgent, immediate energy situation for the coming winter period. Therefore, we expect some reprioritization of certain projects, especially in Europe. On the other hand, for the last quarter of the year, we expect larger HAPSITE shipments to the U.S. DoD, as mentioned before, to support the CALS program. Now moving to the refrigeration, air conditioning and automotive market.
On this slide, where sales was $26.9 million, which is an increase of 11.2% year-over-year and 12.6% sequentially. We experienced a stable market, a strong lithium-ion battery testing business, very dynamic after-sales service activities, and a continuation of a weak traditional automotive market. Increased quality status-standards forced the use of highly integrated, semi or fully automated solutions. In the lithium-ion battery, this is a must-have solution already. Even in a traditional, still mostly manual labor-based RAC manufacturers industry, the need for more reliable and predictable quality standards is ongoing and growing. Therefore, eliminating the potential error of a human-dependent quality inspection process with an automatic solution is the new trend. Properly made and installed, it will increase the output quality while reducing the cost at the same time.
E-cars drive the need for more lithium-ion battery capacity, and the need for safer batteries drives the higher demand for our quality inspection instruments, such as the unique INFICON ELT3000 lithium-ion battery leak detector. We will end the year 2022 with a strong last quarter. Now let's go to the semi and vacuum coating market, which includes solar display optics and of course, semiconductor applications, where sales increased 27.4% year-over-year and 1.3% sequentially. The total of $75.4 million is the second best quarter in this market ever. The semiconductor market remains strong, while we do not see any improvements in the vacuum coating and display market.
Chipmakers continue to invest in the latest technology, and with the new U.S.-China export restrictions for those technologies, the importance became more prominent, and has even been elevated to the political level as a new measure against the Chinese aggressive isolation tendency in the semiconductor industry. Despite first indications of a semi downturn, we continue to gain market share at equipment manufacturers, and we add more value to chipmakers for their most advanced process technologies. The need for additional monitoring instruments grow with the miniaturization of the node sizes. Additionally, higher profitability requirements at existing fabs increase the need for more advanced software solutions. In all cases, INFICON is the preferred partner to work with, and we continue to work very closely with OEMs and end users to develop next generation sensors, solutions and methods to assure high quality chip production.
2022 will be another record semiconductor year, and we expect a good 2023 as well. Investments in OLED flat panel and optical coating technologies will remain flat. Finally, we have a solid third quarter 2022 in the general vacuum market on this slide, with sales of $36.8 million, which reflects a year-over-year increase of 9.9%, but a 1.1% sequential decrease, mainly influenced by a weak euro in Europe, which represents the majority in this market. Chinese customers contributed the largest part of the growth compared with a year ago. We sell analysis, measurement and control products for many different industrial applications through private label partners, primarily vacuum pump manufacturers.
We sell INFICON-labeled products via direct sales channels to industrial OEMs, as well as through distributors and agents in order to reach and serve tens of thousands of smaller and mid-sized customers around the world. We will end the year 2022 on a new record level as well. Let me close my part of the presentation with an outlook for the rest of the year on this slide. Despite the increased uncertainty due to political and other crises, combined with high inflation rates and ongoing supply chain issues, we are confident to reach new annual records. With a full order book, the final result depends heavily on how much and how fast we can get the missing parts to complete our manufacturing schedules and ship and install our instruments on time before the year ends.
Market-wise, we should foresee the semiconductor market will remain very dynamic with high but lower CapEx rates going into 2023. Our close cooperation with OEMs and end users for new advanced sensor solutions generate new growth opportunities. The exact impact from the new U.S. export regulations are not clear yet, but we carefully observe the development in the market. The e-car trend will continue, and the need for safe energy supply systems, mainly lithium-ion batteries, offers plenty of growth potential. Safety concerns around the world will trigger new upside potential as well. We are on plan with our capacity expansion program and expect a strong last quarter of the year. Therefore, we narrowed our full year guidance to now $570 million-$590 million with an unchanged operating income margin of approximately 19% of sales.
With that, I'd like to turn over to Matthias Tröndle, who will give you more details about our financial performance. Matthias.
Thank you, Lukas. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter 2022 conference call. I will cover Q3 results and also comment quickly our guidance for the full year. As always, let me begin with our revenue segmentation on slide 11. Revenues for the third quarter of 2022 came out at $143.8 million. This compares to $122.2 million in our third quarter of last year. This represents an increase of 17.7%. Taking into account the negative currency impact, which is mainly driven by the strong U.S. dollar of -6.9% or $8.5 million, we achieved an organic growth of 24.6%. Mr. Winkler did already go into the details of the individual end markets.
The highlights are that all markets except security and energy increased, and they increased with a double-digit growth rate. The semi and vacuum coating market increased significantly by 27% or about $16 million. Compared to Q2, the general vacuum market developed somewhat stably, and all other markets also showed some growth. Last but not least, refrigeration, air conditioning, and automotive had the best quarterly sales performance ever. With that, the third quarter of 2022 showed a sequential 2.8% sales increase and reached the second-best quarter in terms of sales, only a few hundred thousand dollars away from our record level in Q4. Now let us turn to the regional distribution of sales. Compared to previous year, we had the highest growth in North America with 40%+, followed by Asia and Europe with 12% and 11%.
North America had growth in all markets, predominantly in semi and refrigeration, air conditioning. Both Asia and Europe showed a strong growth in semi and vacuum coating and in the general vacuum market. Let's go to the next slide. Our gross profit margin reached 44-45% in Q3, down 183 basis points versus Q3 last year and down 35 basis points compared to previous quarter. Higher material prices, increasing broker fees, and higher freight costs have been the main drivers for that decline. What happened on the cost side? We spent $11.4 million on R&D in Q3, an increase of 5.6%. As a percent of sales, expenses decreased to 7.9% in the third quarter from 8.8% in the previous year.
Higher personnel-related costs and project-related costs, partially compensated by some favorable foreign currency impacts, did drive this increase. In SG&A, the expense level showed a $3.6 million increase. Personnel expenses due to increased headcounts, general cost increases, and factors like reviving trade shows and travel are the main driving elements, partially compensated also here by some favorable foreign currency impacts. The operating profit for the third quarter therefore reached $25.3 million or 17.6% of sales after $22 million or 18% in Q3 last year. This corresponds to an increase of 14.9%. The tax expense for the third quarter was at $6.6 million, which represents an average tax rate of about 27%. The tax rate did increase versus previous quarter, especially mainly due to the profit mix of our various international entities.
The net profit therefore reached $17.8 million or 12.4% in Q3. This compares to $16.8 million or 13.8% in the prior year, a 6% increase in absolute numbers. Consequently, we see similar development in earnings per share. This also went up by 6.3% and stands at $7.30 in Q3. Now let's move to the balance sheet highlights. Our net cash position reached $0.8 million compared to $54.6 million at the end of last year. For better comparison, net $40.9 million in the third quarter of last year.
What did drive this? Like in Q2, there were basically two main reasons for the decrease. One is our working capital, and as a consequence, the lower operating cash flow. Two, our CapEx and investment program. First of all, our working capital closed at $181 million or 31.5% of sales. With that, about $30 million higher than end of last year. The increase was entirely due to the $31 million increase in inventory resulting from the high business and order volumes, as well as the various supply chain issues with corresponding availability and bottleneck situations.
As a consequence of the increased working capital level, our operating cash flow, which you can see in the bottom right of that chart, reached a level of $11 million, similar like in Q2, but lower by about $11 million against our second-best cash flow performance from Q3 last year. The turns for inventory decreased slightly to 3.0, and the DSO for AR finished slightly better at a similar level compared to Q4. As a second driver and as communicated last year or during 2021, we continue to invest in our capacity, meaning mainly building and machinery and equipment. After $9.5 million in Q2, we had another $9.7 million of capital expenditures in Q3. For the last quarter of the year, we expect somewhat declining and lower figure here. The balance sheet shows a solid structure.
We have currently a 60% equity ratio and no long-term debt. Those were my comments on the balance sheet in Q3. Finally, I come to the outlook. Mr. Winkler has already gone into the details on the assessment of our end markets. We consider the further development of our business to be quite positive, despite the situation on the supply market and all the geopolitical and trade policy uncertainties. Based on our order book, order intakes, and the overall business situations, we are quite positive for the closing quarter. We have narrowed the top-line range a little bit and expect now sales between CHF 570 million-CHF 580 million and an unchanged operating income margin of around 19% for fiscal year 2022. We are now ready to take your questions.
Right. Thank you, Lukas. Thank you, Matthias. We are now ready to take your questions. I see that we have first question on the list from Jörn Iffert. Jörn, please.
Yeah, thank you, and thanks for taking my question. If I may start with two questions, please. The first one would be, I mean, you have expanded now your capacity by more than 50%, but we are likely facing a quite severe semiconductor downturn in 2023, where semiconductor wafer equipment CapEx will be down 20%-30%. Can you give us some insights how flexible your cost base will be? What is your headcount planning now for the next 1-3 quarters, to get a feeling, what is happening to your margins when sales would decline significantly in 2023. The second question, please, on China. Very tough to get the exact impact.
Can you give us roughly the exposure you have in semiconductor to China, in particular, to the more leading-edge memory, for example, which could be impacted by the restriction? If you have a rough range, what you think about could be the negative impact from the incremental restriction. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Jörn Iffert. Let me go with the second question first. The Chinese or the new U.S. regulation to avoid certain technologies from being exported into China. How is the impact from INFICON point of view? As you know, we are affected currently just one way, and that's with our products that are made in the U.S. that could eventually be shipped to Chinese semiconductor manufacturers. Here we are primarily serving chip makers and not chip equipment manufacturers. The chip maker market currently for INFICON is the small one compared with the equipment maker market or at least from INFICON point of view. Even the competition is tougher on the chip maker side than on the equipment manufacturer side.
The impact that we see currently for the potential threat that we see with new regulations are somewhere in a high single-digit $ million figure, maximum for 2023 or at least for the near foreseeable future. Now, having said that, we do not know yet exactly how these new regulations will impact the other technologies or if the U.S. government even will start to put pressure on maybe the European government to put similar legislation in place. That would dramatically change the way we look at the potential in China. That's currently not the case. The products that we make in Europe are not affected.
By the U.S. regulations, and therefore we will continue to gain market share in the equipment manufacture side of the market in China, and that's the bigger one. Therefore, currently the impact is relatively small. Having said that, we don't know exactly if the regulation might change again. There was just a small change that has been added two days ago.
I'll give you an example. Now we can continue to serve so-called foreign transplants in China, meaning that those fabs that are owned by non-Chinese, like Intel, Samsung, SK Hynix, we can continue to serve them even with products made in the U.S., and that's already a first kind of relief of those regulations. There might be other changes coming in the near future. We simply don't know yet. Now, you mentioned that we added capacity. Yes, we did.
How does it cope with the fact that maybe there will be some. Oh, no, there will be some semi downturn. Currently, we are not very much concerned about that yet for three reasons. One is that we enjoy a huge order backlog and into the semiconductor market, especially in the semiconductor, equipment manufacturers market. We still gain market share and especially in China as well, because there we are seen as European manufacturer, not American manufacturer.
Last but not least, even if the downturn will be as severe as eventually 20% or maybe 12%, I don't think that will limit us from even producing more revenue in 2023 compared with 2022. As I mentioned before, we are well-positioned in the new applications. We are well-positioned with software.
We are well-positioned with most advanced processes, and those are all the areas where we do not expect a big reduction in CapEx, because it will help the chip makers to become more productive and to have this very advanced semiconductor process under control. On top of that, the top-notch manufacturer will continue to invest in so-called EUV-based technologies, and that's one of the areas where we do not expect a big weakening in the market.
Biggest weakening will come from the memory side, and our exposure in the memory market is relatively small compared with our exposure into the logic, analog, and foundry business. Now, flexibility. We are working with a lot of temporary workers currently, not because of the issue in semiconductor, but we simply don't get enough fixed workers, so we have to rely on temporary workers.
We have a relatively high flexibility in terms of headcount. We have a relatively low flexibility if it comes to fixed cost in conjunction with our additional capacity, especially with calibration tools.
Thank you. Yep.
The big thing is on the capacity and the machinery equipment. Depreciation periods are typically in the range 8 years and above. In building, it's more 20 years than eight. In machinery, it's eight years and above usage. The depreciation impact of eventually not used capacity in there is not really huge, I would say.
Thanks for this. If I may just follow up on China, can you just remind us your China semi exposure overall? Is it correct around CHF 30 million-CHF 40 million?
It depends on how you measure it, which period you take, and if you look at the current business or future business. That's probably not completely wrong.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jörn. The next question comes from Michael Foeth. Michael, please.
Yes. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my question. Actually, more or less add-ons to what Jörn just asked. I would just wanted to clarify. So you are saying that you can generate significant revenues through market share gains and new product categories. So would it be correct to assume that if the semiconductor market was to remain stable, for example, you would generate an additional 20% plus revenues on a like-for-like basis?
If it's exactly 20%, I have never. I will not comment that figure. The trend is certainly true. Yes, we are concentrating on fast advancing or most advanced processes which will not go down as much as others. We are still gaining a lot of market share, and we are adding new sensors that are capable to monitor even more processes in the semiconductor industries, even those that were we had no solution in the past. We call it, we like to share the size of the wallet at our customers, not just getting a higher share of that wallet. That's a target as well. We even increase the size of the wallet itself by adding sensor solutions that are capable to measure even more complex processes in the semiconductor industry.
Okay. Thank you. The second question would be regarding your exposure. You mentioned your exposure to the memory segment is obviously much less than to advanced technologies. You know, if your large American customers on the equipment side are suffering from restrictions to sell to China, can you compensate part of that by selling directly to Chinese equipment makers, or would that be a wrong assumption?
I think it cannot be compensated completely, but we certainly can compensate parts of it. There will be a certain impact. We are 100% sure about that, but it might not be as strong as the overall impact on the pure American equipment manufacturers.
Your business to Chinese customers is benefiting if the U.S. guys basically can deliver less. Is that correct?
On the equipment manufacturer side, absolutely true, yes.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Michael. The next question comes from Milena Gehrlin, AWP. Milena, please.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have some questions about two different topics, and the first one is the whole energy topic. I know INFICON is not an energy-intensive company, but have you been able to save energy so far? I wanna know what you will do if there really is the event of a power cut.
Let me take the question and some detailed numbers, maybe Matthias has. We did a lot to reduce the amount of energy that we need, especially in those areas where we added capacity. At the same time, we also invested in energy savings appliances and energy savings equipment, also using heat pumps and recovery system and so on.
Our overall energy consumption will go down. Having said that, it does not impact all the energy sources. We will have an increased electricity use, but use less, whatever it is, gas or wood chips or some other heating kind of sources. Therefore, the electricity will go up, but the overall consumption will go down, assuming a similar production volume as we had in the past.
If the production volume goes up, we will use a little bit more energy in absolute terms anyway. Secondly, it comes to what we prepared in order to have some cushion. Since we cannot afford certain equipment having not been powered up, we prepared some emergency situations in at least two of our larger production sites by adding a backup system powered with, I believe, diesel, so that we can fully run at least two of our three main manufacturing places independent from external energy consumption. We also have to cope with the fact that the gas prices go up. I think here, Matthias, you might can add some indication of how much that eventually could be for the next year.
Yeah, I can do this. First, I confirm, yeah, you're right. We are not very energy intensive, which is good in these circumstances and these times. Second, when you take a look at our footprint, there's a big footprint in the U.S. and quite a few in Europe. Europe is more exposed on energy price increases than the U.S., which is also good for us. About 50% of our energy is more or less used and coming from the U.S. There is not so much exposure in there, but especially in Germany and in other European countries, of course, we see this.
Our latest analysis basically say that there is most probably an increase between 80% and 100% in our energy cost. This is what we expect for next year, assuming the rules and procedures which are currently under discussion or even agreed upon will be in place. As I said, fortunately, we are not so energy-intensive. You also see this in our CO₂ consumption. When you take a look to the annual report, it's relatively low and from that point of view, it's yeah, helpful, I would say.
Okay, thank you very much. The second topic that I would wanna discuss would be the prices. Do you pass on the increased raw material and energy prices to your customers? If yes, how has this affected the sales? When do you expect recovery?
Let me take that question and having it two-folded. First question, no, we did not just pass everything to our customers, but we certainly just have or just finished a global price adjustment round, considering of course, certain increased raw material as well. We rolled it out just recently. The impact, you can see certain small impacts already in the last quarter of 2022, but the big impact will be seen in 2023.
Just giving you some indication that the prices, of course, vary much between different product lines. We have not been the first company to increase prices, so the price negotiations are a little bit easier than if you are the first one. Some of the price discussion actually went through relatively smoothly.
In exchange for being capable to ship, that's more important for many, many customers. Therefore, our price adjustments will probably end up somewhere in the high single-digit % overall. The big impact we'll be seeing starting as of next year, not this year yet. The price adjustment was not just based on higher material price. There were several impacts like duties, like energy prices, like inflation, labor inflation and so on and so forth. The price adjustments are made as a permanent kind of increase and not just temporarily. That we did, let's say, bite into the apple for most of the increased material prices. You can see the impact on our gross profit margin, which is really low.
We expect Q3 might be the low point. Therefore, we did not pass most of the increases directly to our customers. We have established a traditional, permanent price adjustment for the coming periods.
Thank you very much. When do we expect a recovery of the markets?
We see some easing, let's say, in certain material categories. The most severe one for us are electronics anyway, as we pay the highest amount of brokerage fees. It's not over yet, but at least some first indications are visible. I think somehow within the next 3-6 months, we should have that situation behind us.
Okay. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thank you for discussing these aspects. Any further question? I still see Jörn Iffert has his hands up still. Is there a follow-up question from your side, Jörn Iffert?
Yeah, maybe. Thanks. Maybe to have a follow-up question on your end markets, lithium battery testing, and also the existing end market security with the HAPSITE orders. I mean, when we go into a kind of global recession, what is the contribution from the potential growth markets? What kind or what percentage of your revenues should grow even in a recession in 2023?
You already mentioned both. The HAPSITE revenue will not be affected by any recession. That's a typical U.S. program that we are part of will continue anyway, and they take whatever we can manufacture. That's why I said probably be 12-18 months. Keep that in mind. Full 2023 will have no impact from any recession on our security business. We don't think that the trend in the e-car mobility will be impacted heavily by a certain recession, because there's still not enough capacity in the market to make all those lithium-ion batteries for the new e-cars. The battery market will continue to grow as well, despite certain recessionary tendencies in the markets.
Therefore, those two markets will grow, and both markets, I have to say, luckily they have above INFICON average gross profit margin.
Okay. Thank you.
You are welcome.
Are there any further questions? If not, then thank you all, and I would like to hand over to management for any closing remarks.
I take the closing remarks because this is actually my last video or telephone conference with you guys. I calculated, I think it was the 60th over the last 19 years. That's why I'm kind of sitting very comfortable in those chairs here and being very relaxed. I'd like to thank you, all of you, for being with us for this long period of time. As I mentioned already before, my successor will be very well prepared to take over. We start introducing him to the financial community as of today. As you might see him before year-end, and from next year on, he will take over.
Luckily, I have to say, experienced CFO to my left side, Matthias, will stay with the company and support Oliver in all his activities, even in the communications with you guys. I simply like to thank you. I hope to see you in another place, in another part of the world anyway. Maybe having a glass of beer or a glass of wine. Actually, my assistant just brought me one, so I can take a glass. Thank you. Cheers. Having a great day, and see you somewhere. Thank you.
Yeah. Before we close this call, also, Lukas was faster than me. Yeah. This was his last call as a CEO. He goes now to a different journey. I counted, and I'm a finance guy, this was probably his 80th quarterly conference call and probably thousands of investor relations calls. I wanna give you a big thank you for your leadership in the last 18 years as CEO. We wish you all the best. You know this. All the best for your next journey, the next part of the journey. It was always a pleasure with you working. For that, cheers and all the best. Yeah.
Cheers, Matthias.
Yeah.
Thank you.
So.
Cheers to all. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.