Good morning, a warm welcome from my side as well to our Austrian Select Conference today. The next presentation will be AT&S. Today's speaker is Johannes Mattner, Manager Investor Relations at AT&S. Unfortunately, the video line is not working properly, so we will just be with his voice, and he will lead us through the presentation touching on the key milestones and the current market trends. Before we dive in, the quick housekeeping notes from my side. The conference is being recorded, and we have all participants in a listen-only mode. If you have any questions, please use the chat box on the right corner of your screen, and we will get back in the Q&A session in the second part of the presentation. With this, I will hand it over to you, Mr. Mattner. The stage is yours.
Hello. Thank you very much for the nice introduction. Thanks also for giving us the opportunity to provide here via your platform. As already mentioned, my name is Johannes Mattner. I'm working for the Investor Relations Department of AT&S. I've been with the company since 2018, and I've now the honor to guide you through the presentation and tell you our story. First of all, I'll give you a quick overview of what AT&S is doing about KPIs, so that you can already get in the beginning a first overview on AT&S. What is AT&S doing? AT&S is a producer of high-end printed circuit boards. Who is not familiar with printed circuit boards or PCBs? It's integrated in any kind of electronic device. It's more or less the electronic nervous system of any kind of device.
In former times, you would say all the electric signals were routed through cables. Nowadays, you do it via a PCB as it's much more efficient. Second part of our business is the so-called ABF substrate business. I can do this later on and describe it to you. With its products, AT&S is really a kind of enabler of megatrends. Yeah, everyone is talking about artificial intelligence, about rising computing power, but also we're in an age where electrification is becoming more and more important. For instance, when it comes to electric cars, AT&S is really working together with industry-leading companies, who are really setting the trends in the industry, who are providing the most sophisticated products. This is not just happening since the last couple of years. This has happened since the beginning of the company.
When it comes to KPIs, to give you some kind of overview. From the sheer size perspective, AT&S is generating approximately EUR 1.7 billion. That's the revenue target for the fiscal year that just has ended three weeks ago. We have a shifted fiscal year. From a margin perspective, we aim for generating a margin of 23% EBITDA. From market cap perspective, AT&S, after the very strong rally that we have been experiencing with a market cap as of yesterday of EUR 3.4 billion. The market cap really, really improved over the last couple of months and, as I said before, we really have experienced a very strong rally. When it comes to locations, AT&S was founded in Austria. It's still located with its headquarters in Austria, two production sites. AT&S has, over the last 25 years, really increased its global footprint.
We have production facilities in China. In India, we are active also in Malaysia, of course, where we have opened our newest production hub. Of course, we're running a lot of sales offices around the globe. We employ approximately slightly more than 14,000 employees. As we are a manufacturing company, I think this is nothing unusual. We expect also the figure to grow over the next couple of years. Maybe touching our products. As I said before, we provide high-end PCBs, so that's on the left-hand side. You can find our products nearly everywhere. Maybe the most or the best example here is when you have your smartphone in your hand and maybe also one of the most important U.S. smartphone manufacturers, then there's some kind of opportunity then that you also have our product in your hand.
Our target here is really to play in the high-end segment. Because AT&S as a European company would not be competitive when it comes to, I don't know, PCBs for window lifters in a car or PCBs in your washing machine. That's nothing that we are doing. AT&S is focusing really on the most complex PCBs with the highest density, most powerful systems, and here we play in the absolute top league in the world. We have a number two position when it comes to high-end PCBs. Since 2016, we are also manufacturing ABF substrates.
To make it simple, a substrate is a very advanced PCB, but using different manufacturing approach, using different materials and the reason why a substrate is existing is, usually you have the chip, then you have the so-called motherboard in your PC, but the chip and the motherboard cannot communicate because the structuring of chip is in nanometers. The structuring of the motherboard, the PCB, is in micrometers. Therefore, you need a kind of translator who is routing down the very strong signal density down to the PCB and then again to all of the components. This is what we are doing here. A rather new field to AT&S is the so-called substrate for modules or PCB for modules. Again, when coming back to the example with the smartphone, when you turn around your smartphone, you for instance see the camera. Yeah.
The camera consists of a so-called camera module. Here we are providing very fine PCBs with the finest structuring on the market. Those are the most advanced PCBs that are out in the market. But there are also different kinds of modules. Think of your Wi-Fi function in your phone or your Bluetooth function in your phone. Those are all examples for modules that you are carrying around every day. There's a big opportunity that AT&S is also included in one or other module. What are we serving? Yeah. When it comes to PCBs, again, smartphone is a very good example, but we are also very heavily active in consumer electronics. Here on the picture you see, for instance, the example of drones, but we are also active in robotics, in optical modules.
This is very much related to data center stuff. Routing signals very fast through a data center. It's also included in automotive areas. A lot of things can be served with our products. ABF substrates, here our focus is more on the semiconductor industry, which means our main clients are coming out of this field. For instance, very important central processing unit producers. We are also serving companies that are very active in graphics processors, which again is very important, and very important driver to the artificial intelligence trend. We are also providing substrates really for high-end performance computers, which are, for instance, used for weather models or things like that. Here we are very much focusing on this field and where I would say also where innovation is happening and where the market is driven by those new innovations.
Substrate for module I already touched upon. Also a good example are everything that's surrounding the smartphone. When it comes to, for instance, when you're talking about earbuds also, there are very fine PCBs included. I would also say watch, then in the car ADAS systems. There's just a couple of examples where AT&S is active in. Please don't be confused by those pictures. That's a very simple overview of the trend that we are currently in on the substrate side, on the computing side. That's why we are also investing. On the left-hand side, you see a classical chip mounted on top of the substrate. Very small substrate also consists of layers. Like when you bake a cake, you also have several layers. Yes, it's the same. The trend is clearly going towards very big substrate, very complex substrate, very sophisticated substrates.
Due to our capabilities and our proven capabilities that we have built up over the last decade, AT&S is capable to do any kind of substrate that is out there. Yeah. This is also very important when it comes with new clients. We have grown from just one client to several clients. Now we are playing together with all of the top players out there. That's why we are also investing, because those new substrates demand much more capacity. That was also the reason why we went for the new project in Malaysia, in Kulim, where we have started the production during the last fiscal year where more and more capacity has been ramped. This is the central driver for this investment activity.
I think one of the key questions that we are receiving day by day is, what's the relation of AT&S and artificial intelligence? I think in the substrate space, and I've mentioned it already several times, here, the semiconductor industry is the key driver for this, logically. Here we are not just serving this trend via our substrate for central processing units, but also our clients are showing more and more activities in so-called graphics processor field. I can name one client, this is AMD. AMD has very sophisticated products. I think it's behind NVIDIA, of course, one of the key players in this field. Already mentioned AT&S, due to its huge experience, is able to work together with these clients. We also talk about packaging. Packaging simply means semiconductor players try to set up more powerful systems.
They really need to improve the performance of chips and computing packages, and packaging is one way to do it without costs that are skyrocketing. On the printed circuit board field, I would say we are very active also in, or we are active with clients in the power electronics fields. Power consumption when it comes, for instance, to data centers, is one of the absolutely key areas. Here we're working together with very big European semiconductor companies, who is very strongly involved in this field, and here we are growing this business on a constant basis. Let me switch to the next slide. Okay. Here, maybe I'll skip this due to time constraints. In all the areas we want to grow our customer base, this is what we are doing to diversify the business.
Maybe when it comes to our production network, I already mentioned it before, when it comes to PCBs, we run several production sites, two in Austria, two in China, and in Nanjangud. Europe is more for specialized applications, small series product. China is then for huge volumes. Here really it's about scale. India is somewhere in the middle. It's for automotive, but also for local production demand. In the substrate space, we are also running three production hubs, one in Austria. It's one of the newest production hubs. Here it's really for R&D and for small series production. Very much welcomed by semiconductor companies because there's also a trend when you offer new capacity that this is then also outsourced from China. China is our established production hub, very well loaded at the moment. Malaysia is the newest hub.
We also went for Malaysia to diversify our production hub. Here, I think everything is according to plan. We ramp capacity line by line, and we are very satisfied with the development there. Sustainability, of course, we have our long-term goals. I think every year we fulfill our targets. We are also recognized by several rating agencies. We have very good ratings, so relatively and within our peer group. Here, also a lot of activities are on the way and have been established. I skip this and due to time constraints, I directly go to the outlook. For the last fiscal year where we report figures on May 23rd, we expect the revenue increase of approximately 1.7%, which corresponds then to an EBITDA margin of 23%. AT&S, as I said before, is a manufacturing company.
Therefore, we also need to invest a lot of CapEx every year. We have been up by EUR 1 billion, I think it was two years ago, and CapEx went down extraordinarily to EUR 200 million. Most of the CapEx has been done in our new projects. The positive thing is also that we are going to generate positive EBIT and also an operating free cash flow. That's just for you in the last couple of years due to the heavy investment activities, operating free cash flow has been negative, and so this also shows that the operating turnaround is happening and should also improve in the future. For the upcoming fiscal year, we say, okay, our revenue should grow to EUR 2.1 billion-EUR 2.4 billion. Due to heavy FX development and changes, we would say at the moment, we would say EUR 2.1 billion is more realistic.
EBITDA margin should be somewhere between 24%-28%. Also, there's room for improvement, compared to the last fiscal year. Equity ratio is one of the key topics of the management, so we want to bring it up. We have a hybrid bond out there, which the market is assuming that we will call it over the next couple of months. Therefore we say, okay, equity ratio could be below 20%, but we are also working on any kind of substitution financing for the hybrid bond. I think my time for the presentation is over and I am very happy to receive your questions now.
Johannes, many thanks for the insights you have provided and the presentation, and you are absolutely right. We have a couple of questions already. You have mentioned in the presentation that AI is currently a huge topic, and so some questions are surrounding this. I will start with the first one. Can you provide more color on your peer group and your competitive positioning, particularly within AI end markets?
I think AT&S compared to our peers, the history of our substrate business is much shorter. Therefore, one of the key targets of AT&S was to diversify its client landscape. Our clients, I would say, are a little bit ahead of us because due to the history. We have managed to diversify our business here. What I want to say is that, especially with AMD, our footprint is growing and growing in the AI field. I think AMD is one of the key competitors of NVIDIA. They have excellent products. I would say also from the hardware perspective, they are better than NVIDIA, but NVIDIA has the better tech stack because software is very important to the market. I can say NVIDIA is currently not our client. Some of our peers are doing business with NVIDIA.
Of course, they are participating also from this very strong trend at the NVIDIA end. Nevertheless, we also are growing in this field. As I mentioned before, we are also very active in power electronics, which without this, data centers would not work or would be too expensive. I would say our footprint in this field is growing quarter- by- quarter.
Many thanks. What is the total addressable market for glass core substrates in AI and advanced packaging, and how material will this be to revenue over the next two-three years?
Yes, glass core substrates is, I would say, it's nothing that's completely new to the market. This approach or the idea of this approach has, I think, came up more than 15 years ago. It had never been established. Yeah. What are we seeing today is that, and I think that's what's one of my key messages here, is that the substrate size is growing and growing. Especially for the highest-end applications and when the surface of substrate is growing, with the current manufacturing approach, we are coming to the limits of mechanical stability. A glass core substrate is nothing different that you exchange the core, which is responsible for the mechanical stability of the substrate with a glass core. Yeah. This is still, I would say in R&D stage. No one really knows what the market will look like.
There are estimates out there that it will come to the market in one year, in three years, or some others say, okay, that's something for the next decade. What AT&S is doing is that we, of course, are preparing for this. As you can imagine, we are not sleeping here. We are not sitting around. We need to prepare if this trend is really becoming relevant. What we do not say is that it will substitute the existing approach. It doesn't make sense that you use a glass core for a client computing substrate. This is more or less, I would say, that's something that comes on top for high-end applications.
Many thanks. That was speaking about the future market, but what about the current situation? How tight is the current AI substrate market in reality, and are you seeing any rational pricing improvements?
I would say in general, so I can just talk about the market and I think AI is one of the key drivers for this. Yeah. What's interesting is that also we see a recovery of the so-called server market, classical server market, where in the last two years, no one said, "Okay, CPUs will become relevant again to the market." Yeah. Now we have all learned that data centers and data centers that are related to AI also need a lot of CPUs in the market. This is really also driving the market. AI also is driving material consumption, of course. We feel it on the market that laminate market is relatively stretched, that we see some small tightness in the one or other area. In general, the market is absolutely driven by this trend. Yeah. When it comes to loading situation, we cannot complain.
We could do more business, but due to capacity constraints, I think we are a little bit limited, I would say.
Okay. Thanks a lot. Speaking about the near future, what are the biggest risks to landing at the upper half of the revenue range you've communicated? Is it FX, customer timing, or material availability?
I think one of the absolutely key factors here is FX. Most of our clients in the substrate space are from the U.S.. Every movement of the USD that's not in favor of us costs us revenue. Here, if there is some leeway on this end, we would also experience less of a burden here. I think there was also one factor mentioned that could be also material tightness. We all do not know what's happening, e.g., in the laminate space. Glass fiber mats, for instance. Here currently, we are experiencing a tightness. We all do not know how long this will be in the market. There are forecasts, okay, that new capacities are ramped, but no one really knows how fast this new capacity and how fast these new input materials will penetrate the market.
Perfect. Many thanks. When should investors expect the Kulim ramp to translate from revenue growth into visible stronger free cash flow?
Yes, of course. We have started the operations in Kulim in the last fiscal year. There were, of course, a lot of cost burdening, startup costs. I think we have now entered the phase where cost coverage is already given. Of course, what we still need to have in mind, this plant is, I would say, make it easy, we could do there approximately five production lines. Two are already in operations. The third one is already ramped. I cannot tell you how quick we will ramp the other lines, but there is also CapEx needed. As I said before, positive free cash flow should also be expected for the current year.
Maybe a short last question. If there's a need for a U.S. production or an investment, if Terafab or other semi plants will be built in the U.S.?
Difficult. Because what we have seen is that on the semiconductor end, they are building fabs there. What they're also experiencing, there's a big problem when it comes to people and trained people, of course. We have thought about this. Also when we invested in Kulim to go to the U.S. The environment there is still not sufficient yet to do also investment there.
Okay. I see. Johannes, many thanks for the insight you have provided and all the questions we have received. Unfortunately, we are running out of time, but not out of questions. We will provide the questions which were not answered to the company, and maybe we'll have the opportunity to reply them or to exchange at least. With the Austrian Select Conference today, the next event started already, which is Mayr-Melnhof. Please feel free to join the next event and I will see you there. Johannes, many thanks for your time and being here today.
Yeah. Thanks for all of you for participating, and also to mwb research for giving us the opportunity.
Sure. See you.
Okay. Bye.