The investor conference is about to. Good morning and good evening, ladies and gentlemen, no matter where you are. Welcome to WIN Semi's Result Webcast Conference for the fourth quarter of 2025. My name is Joe Tseng, Spokesman and Associate Vice President of Finance in WIN Semi. Joining me today on call are Kyle Chen, our CEO, and Steve Chen, the General Manager of Corporate Administration. Today's call is organized into three sections. First of all, our CEO, Kyle, will comment on the company's result and provide brief guidance for the first quarter of 2026. Secondly, I will go through the operational analysis over the past two years and the financials in details. General Manager Steve Chen will have the industry outlook to share with you. After that, we will open to the floor for Q&A.
Please freely submit your questions in the input box on the webcast window throughout the conference. Before we begin, I would like to draw your notice on page one of the presentation slides. Please note that this presentation contains forward-looking statements. These statements are based on our current expectations. Actual results may differ materially from our expectations, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements going forward. Now, let me hand over the call to Mr. Kyle Chen, our CEO in WIN Semi.
Thank you, Joe. Hi everyone, and welcome to join this call. For the fourth quarter of 2025, WIN Semi reported consolidated revenue of TWD 4.794 billion. It's up about 7% quarter-on-quarter and up 29% year-on-year, slightly exceeding the previous expectations. Individual gross margin for the quarter was 35.1%, improving by 6% from the previous quarter, which consolidated gross margin reached 31.8%. It's up about 4.9% sequentially. Capacity utilization will keep steady about 60%. It's consistent with our previous quarter. The improvement in this gross margin was primarily driven by a more favorable product mix, with an additional contribution of approximately 0.5% from the revenue profit generated by a listed Chinese customer paid by our consolidated subsidiary. The result consolidated operating margin reached 33.9%. Net income attributable to the parent company for the fourth quarter was TWD 1.029 billion, and the EPS was TWD 4.43.
For the full year of 2025, accumulative revenue reached TWD 16.638 billion. It's about down 5% year-on-year, and the full year's EPS was TWD 4 billion. Okay, now I will review the detail of the fourth quarter. For the fourth quarter, that's divided by the four major application segments. Firstly, it's infrastructure. It still sustained a strong momentum from the previous quarter and remained a strongly performing segment with continued revenue growth. Secondly, in terms of the Wi-Fi, as the peak season of the US-based flagship smartphones came to the end and the router market went soft, so Wi-Fi revenue declined slightly. Third one is cellular PA, supported by better-than-expected end-market sales through and recovery in demand from the Android smartphone PA customer. Cellular PA revenue remained flat. Last one is the optical segment, driven by a relatively later inventory build cycle for smartphone.
3D Sensing application as well as engineering revenue from the project development of AI optical communication. Demand momentum extended to this quarter, so in total resulting in continuous growth in optical revenue. So overall, although the full year 2025 revenue was slightly lower than previous year, WIN Semi's product mix has shifted meaningfully. The business focus has gradually moved away from the mature smartphone market toward aerospace, infrastructure, and AI data center applications, which offer higher valuated content and greater technological complexity, closely aligning with the core strengths that we have been long invested in developing. Looking ahead to 2026, this year, and even further in the future, as AI-driven.
Accelerating the space-based economy expands both the demand for ultra-high bandwidth and low latency in AI optical communications, and the need for broad coverage and high-speed transmission in low Earth orbit, so-called LEO satellite network, rely heavily on the superior material properties and the performance of the compound semiconductors. Our competitive advantage and strategy in compound semiconductors are built on many years' proven mass production experience, as well as a longstanding co-developing partnership with a leading global customer, enable us to offer a comprehensive and differentiated portfolio for advanced process technologies. With stable mass production management, we are also the only compound semiconductor foundry in this industry that provides a truly turnkey solution delivery integrated service from the upstream architectural structure design to downstream testing.
By leveraging and repeating the successful business model, especially established in the wireless microwave communication, we are extending this capability into high gross margin, including the AI optical communication, optical sensing, and the rapidly developing satellite sector. This integrated approach enables customers to shorten development cycles and accelerate time to market. In AI optical communication, we are currently engaged in joint development projects with multiple optical communication customers, supporting our continuous revenue growth in the year ahead. Looking ahead for the first quarter this year, 2026, due to this traditional low season, few working days, and WIN Semi fab is for the annual maintenance, so our forecast is the consolidated revenue is expected to decline by high single-digit quarter-on-quarter, with consolidated gross margin expected to be around mid-20s level. So now I turn the call back to Joe.
Okay. Okay. Let me go to the operational analysis and also the Q4 review. Thank you, Kyle. Welcome, everybody. Then please turn the page. From the very beginning, please read over the Safe Harbor notice. Then page 3. Page 3 is our ESG achievement. We keep updating the ESG award, including DJSI and also Taipei Exchange listed the ranking. And now please flip to page 4 and page 5. We're going to share with you that in the past 2 years, our operational review and I think for business and the revenue review, I'm going to leave it to Steve later include in his report. Then I will focus on, first of all, the operating expense on page 5. As you can see that in the past 2 years, our OPEX has been kept at a stable level around TWD 800 million profit margins.
Even in the period, we may suffer some kind of downturn, but—or even in the second half—we have a better utilization rate, but we intentionally control the OPEX. But we also allocated around 50% of the OPEX to R&D to input more resources into the new technology or new application for the future growth that we have to do. On the right-hand side, I'm going to show you the operational cash flow and the CAPEX. In the past two years, even during the period of Q4 2024-Q2 2025, we suffered a loss. We were having a downturn at that time, but we're still keeping our operational cash flow positive. Even in the second half, entering the second half of 2025, we have a better utilization and better business. We still manage the operational cash flow very well.
And then at the same time, we also manage the CAPEX in the past two years, also disposing of idle assets. And you can see that starting from the second half of 2025, we have a little bit higher of a CAPEX. That's the project-based CAPEX. That's for new opportunity and to work with our partner and the customer. Okay. Please flip to the next page, page 6. This page, on the left-hand side, you can see the depreciation expense trend. In the past two years, we intentionally have a control of the CAPEX so that CAPEX, we have less pressure of depreciation expense. And even in the second half, you can see that we already the depreciation already passed the peak, and the depreciation expense is going down significantly entering 2025, and then also reducing the fixed cost burden at the same time.
And especially the second half, the single quarter, even below TWD 1 billion for each quarter. And that's. But we can we also improve the product mix and also the cash flow by lowering the depreciation, amortization, etc. And we're still keeping the operating cash flow positive. And on the right-hand side, we're going to show you the utilization rate. See that in the past 2 years, quarter by quarter, we may suffer the up and down, but the second half of 2025, we're coming back to around 60% of a utilization rate, and with the revenue ramp up, the revenue ramp up, the utilization also ramp up. Can see we haven't reached the peak of the previous, the peak which is in the second Q2 of 2024, but our gross margin already exceeds the level at that time.
That's because we have a better product mix together with UT utilization, a better utilization, and then pushing the gross margin also become better. I think that we're doing a lot of things to moving the business to the high-margin business. Okay. Then we come back to the Q4. Please flip to the page 8. The Q4 2025, our consolidated revenue was TWD 4,794 million. QoQ was up 7%, and YOY was up 29%, and mainly driven by the high-margin product, for example, infrastructure and optical electronic business. And then even though the smartphone, the Q4 is the inventory pull is entering almost the end, but it looks like the new model, fresh model of smartphone seems selling better than expected. So the decline for cellular and Wi-Fi is limited. At the same time, the Android cellular phone have a better performance. So that's making our gross margin improve.
As we mentioned, the utilization maintained at 60%, but because of favorable product mix, the individual gross margin was 35.1%. And in addition, the relevant profit generated by our by the listed stock from the Chinese customer held by our consolidated contributed 0.45 percentage point to our gross margin. So as a result, our consolidated gross margin at Q4 becomes 31.8%, and the operating profit margin was 13.9%, which each one was increased by QoQ by 4.9 and 5.3 percentage points compared to Q3, which is for those are better than our earlier expectations. And please flip to page 9, talk about the earnings. Because of the gross margin improvement, also operating ratio stable, the net income attributable to the parent company reached around TWD 1,029 million for the Q4. In the whole year of 2025, it was TWD 1,694 million.
The Q4 EPS was TWD 2.43, and the whole year of 2025 was TWD 4.00. Okay. That's for the bottom line. Please flip to page 10, talk about our product mix in Q4. Our product mix, okay, the Q4, as you can see that as our CEO mentioned that we are moving our product mix gradually to the more favorable to our gross margin and profit for a period of time. So you can see that Q4, very clear that the infrastructure increased the most. For the expense of cellular PA and the Wi-Fi also going down at Q4, another growth happened at business. For optical business, because of 3D sensing ramp up later than other segment for the freshest smartphone, so there's still a good performance in Q4 compared to last quarter. Okay. Then finally, we go to the guidance.
I think Kyle has mentioned that I'm going to repeat again. For the Q1 2026, because it's a traditional low season and also less working day, in addition, we have annual maintenance. So we expect the consolidated revenue is going to decline high single-digit QoQ. And also Q1's gross margin, we expect it will be around the level of the mid-20s% for the gross margin. And if we separate different segments of the product, we probably will see that except cellular PA, we'll be growing in Q1. The rest of the infrastructure, Wi-Fi, and optical electronic will be entering the low season and will not be higher. Okay. Then we can go through our financial statement. Okay. Please flip to page 13. For those, I have to remind everybody this is on an audited basis. The actual results should be based on the CPA's report. Okay.
The revenue for Q4 was almost TWD 4.8 billion. Up 7%, YOY up 29%, and the gross margin was 31.8% compared to 26.9% in Q3. Operating ratio keeping the same at 18% as last quarter. So the operating margin become almost 14% compared to 8.6% last quarter, which is better. And the non-op item, again, around TWD 437 million, we have in page 15 for your reference. And then next, the income before income tax was almost TWD 1.1 billion, and then the income tax expense was 100 and I'm sorry, TWD 142 million. Therefore, the net income become TWD 960 million. QoQ was up 40%, and net margin was 20% compared to Q3. Q3 was 15.2%. And then net profit attributable to the parent company was TWD 1.029 billion. So therefore, the EPS was TWD 2.43.
Return on equity is 10%, and utilization same as last quarter, 60%. Depreciation expense keeps going down, became TWD 827 million. The CapEx was also lower than last quarter. That's Q4. Please flip to page 14. Page 14 talks about the whole year of 2025. The total revenue for 2025 was TWD 16,639 million. The YOY was down slightly, around 5%, and gross margin for the whole year was 24.2%, one percentage point higher than last year. OPEX ratio equivalent to 20%. So operating margin became 4.3%. And non-op item, TWD 672 million. The income before income tax was TWD 1,387 million. So therefore, the net income became TWD 1,090 million. Therefore, net margin was 6.5% compared to 1.9% last year. And the net profit attributable to the parent company was TWD 1,694 million. Therefore, the EPS became TWD 4.00 even.
The return on equity for the 2025 whole years was 4.3%. The whole year's utilization equivalent to 50%. The depreciation expense was TWD 3,907 million, which is lower than last year. And CapEx, a little bit higher than last year, was TWD 1,691 million. And normally, we will provide some kind of depreciation expense and the CapEx guidance for 2026. Depreciation expense, we expect it will be going down around 10%-20% at 2026. And the CapEx for the whole year 2026, we also expect probably will be TWD 2 billion plus and minus. Okay. Then please flip to the page 15. It talks about the non-op item. I think this is quite straightforward. Non-op item was a gain was a gain of TWD 437 million, including the foreign exchange gain and the financial cost, which is income is the interest expense. That's pretty straightforward. Okay.
Finally, the last page will be the balance sheet. I think the cash and cash equivalent [were] TWD 67 million, and total assets was TWD 60,729 million. And total liability was TWD 18,738 million. And common stock remained the same. So total equity become almost TWD 42 billion compared to almost TWD 40 billion at September 30th. Okay. Then therefore, the book value per share was TWD 98.00 compared to the TWD 0.9312 at September 30th. And the key index, including current ratio, was 248%, not much different than the September 30th. And debt ratio was exactly the same as last quarter, which is 31%. Okay. Pretty much what I have. Okay. Thank you. And then I will hand over the call to Steve Chen, the general manager of corporate administration.
Okay. Thanks, Joe. Good afternoon to everyone. Yeah.
I think we'll start some stuff on the overview for 2025. Yeah. That's page 18. Yeah. We can see if we break down to our application, from 2025, we can see the cellular was the biggest change from 2024. The revenue will drop around 5%. But at the same time, our infrastructure level increasing about 5%. And then I think Wi-Fi and optical keep very much the same level. Yeah. So that's the whole picture about our revenue in 2025. And although we dropped maybe around 5% of the total revenue, but because of the product mix was better in 2025, so actually, the margin for 2025 is a little better than 2024. Next page, we can break down by our full application. We can see the cellular actually drop around 20% year-on-year.
I think that's mainly due to our refocusing on the high-end and premium model of the smartphone market. And the second one is Wi-Fi. I think thanks for the Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6, the penetration rate of these two new specs is keeping higher and higher year by year. So it helps us, our Wi-Fi application, have a double-digit growth in this year. And then the next one, which is growing, is our profitable infrastructure-related application. I think thanks for the very active new satellite launch and the contribution of both the AI data stream, the high-speed request to driven the optical drive IC become more the major position in this portion. So even though the base station, I think, is a little saturated at this moment, but we still can keep our infrastructure application grow around 5% year by year.
The next application we will review is the optical business. I think at this segment, the 3D sensing is still taking around 60% of the revenue. Due to the new player who has joined for the 3D sensing, we see double-digit going down for this segment. But fortunately, we diversify this segment by those non-3D sensing business becomes get some results. Right now, the optical business, the non-3D sensing, taking around 30%-40% of our optical revenue, which we're keeping the product is become better. We will look around the market outlook for these four segments. First, let's check with the cellular portion. I think the good news for this portion is, I think, the 5G penetration rate is still keeping a little progress year by year. But I think this year, we also see that the risk is about the memory shortage.
It may be will impact the global trend about the handset, yeah, and which we see from most of the market institutions. They also will see this year maybe around 5% because WIN Semiconductors is more focusing on the premium model, high-end model, and even some mid-end model. So we can see the premium model should still keeping growth in this year, which means I think the impact from the memory shortage should be less to WIN Semiconductors. And then the next one is a review about the Wi-Fi. And we can see in this page, I think, the Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7, like I say. Market. So the CAGR for these two specs, I think, still will have more than double-digit growth year by year for the next few years. So that's also helping WIN Semiconductors to have a better demand year by year. Yeah.
So I think this year, we still keep optics for Wi-Fi application demand. Yeah. And then we will go to the infrastructure-related demand. First, I think base station because I think 5G base station infrastructure is already more mature. So what we see for the market situation, that will be facing around 2% drop by year. But thanks to our diversification in this. Such as optical key driver for the data center, which is driven because of the very high-speed 1.6T, this kind of spec. Yeah. And we see in this year maybe because 1.6T, that will become the main spec in this year for the end application. So we foresee this demand maybe will become double, even triple in this year. And the next one that will be our optical 3D sensing market. I think right now, this market is not only for the Face ID.
It still will have more application will be used pixel sensing such as LiDAR used in car or in the cabin or even for some mobility device such as like the robotic mower or even the other kind of different mover. That also will all bring some increasing for the demand in this year. Next, I think we will more focusing the two key growth engines for the compound semiconductor in the future. I think first is the satellite. Yeah. We can see from the chart, start from 2021 to 2025, it's already become the first wave of the LEO satellite launch and bring a very good volume for this market. Then I think start from 2025 to the next 5 year, we already see the demand still will jump more than twice again.
Even we already see from the market, that's such some of the most of the end satellite operators, they will submit more aggressive satellite launch plan to the NASA. I think that all will bring a very good momentum in the future. For WIN Semiconductors, actually, we are not for those of the satellite communication, our technology can be applied in different kind of way. First is the satellite-to-satellite, this kind of communication, and then from the satellite to the gateway or from the UT. Even right now, we already see that's a more new project demand for the satellite to cellular phone, which we call is the direct-to-cell. Because of those more and more volume needed for the transportation, we can see the band from the satellite communication will extend from the original Ku-band to E-band and even V-band.
And even we see the newest demands come from the W-band, which is higher than 100 GHz. Yeah. But fortunately, WIN Semiconductors is used always to invest a lot for the technology developing. So for those of high-end frequency, we already have the technology well-prepared and showed to our customer and also have some NRE project with our customer such as the MMIC in GaAs and GaN. We use the 0.1-micron technology for both material and can provide a very superior performance to the customer for the satellite communication. And the next one, we will be discussing about the AI portion. Yeah. I think everybody know after the AI data center become more popular from the market, the CAGR definitely will become very high, moving 30% and even more than 40% for the optical communication speed.
WIN Semiconductors, definitely, will leverage our GaAs while it's less production experience and the capacity and technology to this new market. Because of the advantage for WIN Semiconductors to step into the optical market, definitely, we have a very wide global customer partnership with the tier-one customer. And actually, most of our tier-one customer, they somehow will have also covered the optical communication business. So it's more easy for WIN Semiconductors to build a confidence with those tier-one customers. And then we will leverage the same kind of technology in InP. So we will provide a very broad and advanced technology innovator for the VCSEL, CW laser, EML laser, even the InP PIC. Yeah. Those kind of different application to cover different kind of distance, which we can see on the page 35. Yeah. I think right now, our VCSEL and InP PIC is already mass production.
Then right now, our CW laser and EML, that still is in the ongoing qualification procedure. Yeah. And the next page, we're showing, I think, for WIN Semiconductors, CW laser's roadmap. Right now, our 70 milliwatt and 100 milliwatt is all collaborate with our customer for the qualification process. And we also have the NRE for our customer for the 200 and 400 milliwatt in the future. And as everybody know, WIN Semiconductors provide a turnkey solution in the NRE business. Yeah. We not only provide the wafer process to our customer, and also we have our internal AP process to support the advanced AP technology to our customer. And we also will leverage this kind of business model to the optical business. Yeah.
We see that maybe that will become an advantage to WIN Semiconductors because for the optical process, regrowth will become a very necessary process for the laser technology. So by leveraging WIN Semiconductors' internal AP capacity, definitely, we can provide a more complete turnkey solution to our customer. Yeah. And also, everybody know we have testing AOI, that's for NIF. And I think we also will leverage to the optical devices application. And the next page is definitely our biggest advantage, is the 6-inch process capacity from the GaAs to InP because WIN Semiconductors have the largest GaAs capacity in the world. And those 6-inch kind of process for WIN Semiconductors is already running more than 25 years. And also, we start to our 6-inch InP HBT is also more than 3-5 years.
So WIN Semiconductors already have experience with transfer those kind of wafer size for the InP Phosphide from the 4-inch to 6-inch. Because we have very huge capacity ready for those kind of compound wafer process, I think in the future, WIN Semiconductors can leverage our technology and experience for the 6-inch in GaAs to the 6-inch InP Phosphide capacity in the future. That will provide a better tie to market and lower CAPEX and lower entry barrier to 4-inch to 6-inch. The next page is we will show that I think all the AI is associated not only for the data communication but also the sensing application. So for the past 10 years, WIN Semiconductors is already built a lot of the sensing technology, innovator for the LiDAR, for the AR, or for the VR, and even the autonomous vehicles.
I think in the future, because of AI, those kind of WIN Semiconductors technology can more better momentum in the future. So that's about our whole overview about 2026 and for the mid-term kind of optical and satellite future demand. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Steve. Now we begin the Q&A. Please submit your question in the input box on the webcast window now. Thank you.
Okay. There is a question asking around Q4, the reason QoQ decrease for Wi-Fi and QoQ increase for infrastructure. I think we have mentioned it by our CEO earlier. I think because the U.S. flagship smartphone inventory pool is come to an end. And also at the same time, the router market demand Q4 kind of up. That's making the Wi-Fi PA revenue decline slightly, not too much. And that's the reason why. But another regarding the infrastructure, I think infrastructure turned into stronger things at Q3 due to satellite business and also the optical driver in AI data centers demand. And also aerospace, also strong. That's the reason why. Thank you.
Okay. I think for our site mentioned, definitely, a lot of future demand driven that will come from the satellite and the AI related. Yeah. I think like Joe and Kyle just saying, I think right now, the satellite, which is the aerospace, those kind of demand is already taking around 30%-40% of our infrastructure applications revenue. And the AI related technology last year is taking should be the low single digits about our revenue. And this year, we think that should be up to mid-single this kind of range. Yeah. Thank you. Okay.
There's a question asking about the depreciation and amortization and asking if that's a decline at 2025, especially second half. I think we have mentioned it earlier. We expect the whole year of 2026, the depreciation expense going to reduce around 10%-20% compared to the whole year of 2025. Probably will going down quarter by quarter. That's pretty much like that. Thank you.
Okay. There's a lot of questions is all want to know a little better about our optical technology status. Yeah. That's to explain again, I think right now, like the slide we show, our VCSEL for data communication product is already mass production. And also at the same time, for those kind of very long distance PIC laser, we also is already mass production, which is the distance more than 10 kilometers. And for those of demand between 100-meter to 10-kilometer, which is like the CW laser or the EML laser. So these two kind of laser, we both already have a lot of customer have NRE with us. And some of that maybe right now is still in NRE, but some of them will already step into the qualification schedule. Yeah. And then that's for the transceiver side.
For the receiver side, I think our PD receiver technology into the qualification schedule. Yeah. Hope we have good news to announce in the future. Thank you.
Okay. I'm going to answer the last question asking about Q1. Okay. First of all, Q1's utilization rate is expected to be pretty much like Q4. And the reason why is although the revenue going down around high single-digit, but I think probably most of the growth will happen at cellular PA. The rest of the segment like infrastructure, optical, and the Wi-Fi will be going down. And because the cellular PA is a shorter product cycle, so we expect the volume of the production probably will be pretty much the same as the last quarter. Then that's the reason why we also expect the utilization will be probably pretty much the same as last quarter. And then because of that, the product mix will be unfavorable to the gross margin for Q1.
That's also the reason why we guide mid-20s of the growth margin for Q1. Thank you.
Okay. Now it's 5:34 P.M. right now. Thank you for your participation in WIN Semiconductors Conference. There will be a webcast replay within hours. Please visit www.foundry.com under the investor relations section. You may now disconnect. Thank you and goodbye.