Axcelis Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACLS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Axcelis Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACLS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 8, 2024

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Operator: Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Axcelis Technologies Call to discuss the company’s results for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023. My name is Michelle, and I will be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today’s call, Doug Lawson, Executive Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Strategy. Please proceed.

Douglas Lawson: Thank you, operator. This is Doug Lawson, Executive Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Strategy and with me today is Russell Low, President and CEO; and Jamie Coogan, Executive Vice President and CFO. If you have not seen a copy of our press release issued yesterday, it is available on our website. Playback service will be also available on our website as described in our press release. Please note that comments made today about our expectations for future revenues, profits and other results are forward-looking statements under the SEC’s Safe Harbor provision. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to the risks inherent in our business. These risks are described in detail in our Form 10-K annual report and other SEC filings, which we urge you to review.

Our actual results may differ materially from our current expectations. We do not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Now I’ll turn the call over to President and CEO, Russell Low.

Russell Low: Good morning and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter and year end 2023 earnings call. Axcelis delivered record revenue for the fourth quarter of $310.3 million and $1.13 billion for the full year 2023. The implant intensive power device segment enabled Axcelis to achieve 23% year-over-year revenue growth during a significant industry downturn. Fourth quarter earnings per share of $2.15 exceeded our revised guidance, while full year 2023 earnings per share came in at $7.43. Looking at our geographic mix, China continued to provide strength, especially in the power device segment. In the fourth quarter, China represented 49% of our system revenue, with Korea 18%, Europe 12%, the U.S. 11%, Japan 5%, and the rest of the world 5%.

For the full year, China represented 46%, the U.S. 15%, Korea 14%, Europe 11%, Japan 3%, Taiwan 2%, and the rest of the world 9%. Looking at the market segment distribution for 2023, the overall mature segment represented 88% of the shipped system revenue. Memory was 10%, advanced logic was 2%. Breaking down the mature segment in more detail, power continued to lead system shipments with 59% of total systems revenue. Silicon carbide made up 34% and silicon 25% of total system revenue respectively. The general mature segment was 26%, image sensors were 3% and DRAM represented the entire 10% of memory systems revenue.

IGBT: Currently, DRAM is expected to pick up towards the end of the year and contribute less than 10% of total systems revenue in 2024. NAND is not expected to recover until 2025, when DRAM and NAND are forecast to have a strong year. Geographically, in 2024, we expect China to represent 40% to 60% of our quarterly systems revenue, with the remaining revenue spread relatively evenly across the other geographies dependent on specific customer projects. The power device segment and in particular silicon carbide has driven our growth in 2023. We have developed a large and diverse customer base in this market, and we continue to win business from new customers as well as expanding our product footprint with existing customers. The full portfolio of Purion Power Series products is valued by these customers.

New fab projects and customers often start up by establishing a core of Purion M silicon carbide tool and then adopt the use of the Purion H200 silicon carbide and Purion XE silicon carbide systems to improve productivity, cost of ownership, and device performance. As a result, we have seen a significant increase in the adoption and great success with the Purion H200 and Purion XE silicon carbide systems. Additionally, we continue to work with customers to further increase this opportunity and currently we have three Purion H200 silicon carbide system evaluations underway with customers in multiple geographies. Two of these systems are 150 mm and one is 200 mm. Customers are using these evaluation units to qualify productivity limiting recipes as they prepare to ramp to higher volumes.

Also, by utilizing the high energy and dose capabilities of the Purion H200 silicon carbide tool, customers can begin optimization work on their devices during the evaluation period. Axcelis is the only iron implantation company that can deliver complete recipe coverage for all power device applications. We are considered the technology leader and the supplier of choice, providing the best product family and manufacturing capabilities. This means that using Axcelis tools provides the lowest risk path to high volume manufacturing required to support aggressive fab ramp plans. We expect the memory and mature markets will recover later this year, but during this slow period, Axcelis remains close to our customers, supporting their install base and working with them on future technology and manufacturing needs.

During industry slowdowns like this, customers have more time to collaborate with Axcelis on new technologies and product capabilities. We use this opportunity to focus our R&D efforts in key areas that will be critical to customers as they enter their next phase of growth. Ultimately, this results in shipping evaluation systems to customers and joint development engagements that help us grow our market share. Currently, we have an evaluation system with customers across nearly all market segments and multiple technical customer engagements designed to improve capabilities and increase our footprint across all segments. We have focused initiatives expected to grow share in the advanced logic segment and geographically in Japan. In 2023, we shipped a Purion Dragon, our most advanced high current implanter, to a leading research institute focused on advanced logic process development.

We also have another Purion Dragon under evaluation with a leading advanced logic customer. These tools and the associated technical collaboration will be critical to the customer’s development of next generation logic technology. In Japan we have seen initial success in the power market due to the strength of the Purion Power Series and we are engaged with multiple Japanese customers in additional market segments. We expect these efforts to increase the Purion footprint in this important and growing geography. As the industry exits this downturn Axcelis will return to healthy growth in the mature and memory markets. This, combined with continued strength in the power segment is expected to drive Axcelis to our $1.3 billion revenue model in 2025.

Additionally, investments being made in advanced logic and Japan will help drive our continued growth beyond 2025. Now I’d like to turn it over to Jamie.

James Coogan: Thank you, Russell and good morning everyone. We are pleased with our financial results for the fourth quarter and for the full year 2023, especially with the 23% year-over-year revenue growth during this industry downturn. As we entered 2024, the industry continues to deal with market weakness, but as Russell discussed, there are also clear signs of recovery and an expectation for a strong 2025. As a result of the current market conditions, we are guiding first quarter revenue of approximately $242 million with gross margins of around 43.5%, operating income of approximately $45 million and earnings per share of about $1.22. We expect full year 2024 revenue levels to be similar to 2023 with revenue weighted towards the second half of the year.

Power is expected to remain solid throughout the year with the mature markets and memory recovering in the second half. Our strong systems backlog and the expected recovery of these markets sets us up to achieve our $1.3 billion revenue target in 2025. Looking at our fourth quarter, revenue and earnings per share finished above our revised guidance due to solid execution and continued demand for Purion, especially in the silicon carbide power market. Q4 revenue was $310.3 million, with system revenue at $241.8 million and CS&I at $68.5 million. Full year revenue was $1.13 billion, with systems revenue of $883.6 million and CS&I at $247 million. Q4 earnings per share of $2.15 was driven by higher than expected revenues and gross margin, as well as lower overall operating expenses.

This performance led to full year earnings per share of $7.43. Despite softness in the general mature and memory markets, bookings and quoting activity for systems in the power segment remained solid and continued to support our revenue expectations. Bookings in the quarter were $236 million, maintaining our backlog at $1.2 billion, a portion of which stretches into 2025. Given the increase in installed Purion systems, we expect CS&I revenue to increase in 2024 over 2023. Although revenue will fluctuate quarter-to-quarter, CS&I should be modeled at approximately $260 million for 2024 and approximately $300 million for our $1.3 billion revenue model. Q4 gross margin finished at 44.4% and at 43.5% for the full year. In 2024 we expect to see year-over-year improvement in gross margin.

However, quarterly gross margins will fluctuate based on product mix. We remain laser focused on margin improvement and have a number of initiatives underway to lower the cost of goods sold and to drive higher sales of Purion product extensions. Execution on these initiatives will allow us to model gross margin at greater than 45% in our $1.3 billion revenue model. Turning to operating expenses, the fourth quarter ended at 19% of revenue, better than our guidance, and at 19.9% of revenue for the full year. We expect OpEx in the first quarter of 2024 to be approximately 25% of revenue. The increase as a percentage of revenue is a result of the lower sales volume in the first quarter and the incremental investments we’ve made to support the higher revenue loads we anticipate in the future.

OpEx as a percentage of sales is expected to decline over the course of 2024 given the higher volumes expected in the second half of the year. Investments in R&D will increase in 2024 to approximately 9.5% of revenue compared to the 8.6% of revenue we invested in 2023. The incremental funding of R&D will be focused on the continued development of our Purion product extensions and upgrades. As you would expect, we will continue to tightly manage spending while continuing to support the future growth of the business by solidifying our technology advantage in the specialty markets, increasing our footprint in the memory and advanced logic markets, and most importantly, continuing to invest in our employees and infrastructure to ensure we have the necessary skills, equipment and facilities required to achieve our financial models.

Moving to our balance sheet and cash flow, we ended Q4 with $506.1 million of available cash and generated $65.6 million of cash from operations in the period and $156.9 million for the full year. We continued to execute against our share repurchase program, buying back $15 million of stock in the quarter. In total, we’ve returned over $185 million of cash to shareholders since 2019 through our share repurchase programs. Before turning the call over to Russell for final remarks, I wanted to remind you that we will be participating in a number of upcoming investor events, including Wolfe Research’s Inaugural Semiconductor Conference in San Francisco on February 14 and Susquehanna’s 12th Annual Technology Conference virtually on March 1. In addition, we intend to host a Capital Markets Day on July 11 of this year in San Francisco in the time slot we usually hold our technical symposium.

At this event, we will provide our next long range financial model, discuss our expectations for the market, review our new product innovations, and introduce the team members that will help drive Axcelis towards its next phase of growth. We will provide more details on this event in the coming months, and we look forward to seeing many of you there. With that, I will now turn the call back to Russell for his closing comments.

Russell Low: Thank you, Jaime. Axcelis achieved record revenue of $1.13 billion in 2023 and is targeting revenue of $1.3 billion in 2025. This growth is achievable due to the same factors discussed last quarter. First, the implant TAM has more than doubled in the last few years and is expected to continue to grow with mature market segments representing greater than 60% of the total TAM. Second, power devices, especially silicon carbide devices, are highly implant intensive and the general mature nodes have increasing implant intensity peaking at 28 nanometers. Third, high value Purion product extensions were designed to optimize power and image sensor device manufacturing, making Axcelis the only company with a product line capable of covering all implant recipes in these key markets.

This uniquely positions Axcelis to benefit from high growth in the mature process technology markets. And finally, Axcelis has strong long-term customer relationships and a fundamental culture desire to win by making our customers successful. 2023 was a record year for Axcelis, but a turbulent year for the industry. I want to thank our employees, suppliers, customers and investors for your continued support throughout 2023 and into 2024. With that, I’d like to open it up for questions.

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Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Craig Ellis with B. Riley Securities. Your line is now open.

Craig Ellis: Thanks for taking the question and congratulations on the very strong exit to 2023 guys. I wanted to start off with a question that combines some near-term items with some intermediate term items. So, Russell and Jamie, from your color, it sounds like as we look at the first quarter guidance and then the way calendar ’24’s linearity plays out with the inflection in the second half. That mix would be fairly even within systems across mature foundry and memory. Can you confirm that? And then on the latter part of that, what are the things that you see that give you conviction in the second half inflection as you look at your backlog and customer engagements, et cetera?

Douglas Lawson: Hey, Craig, this is Doug. I’ll take the first half of that question. So, mix wise, power continues to be strong. We expect for the year power to continue to represent about 60% of our total revenue, and silicon carbide will be 50% of our total systems revenue. So we do expect that to continue to be strong. As we get into the second half, we expect the mature markets to recover really tied to the economy more than anything, as consumer, automotive and industrial start to return. And then we expect DRAM to recover ahead of NAND, with NAND being more of a 2025 thing. So if you look at the updated presentation, we’re expecting close to 90% of our business to come from the overall mature markets and about 25% of it from the general mature.

Russell Low: And regarding kind of our conviction about the second half, Craig, so yes, we do have a strong backlog. We do have solid business in power, especially in China. And in speaking with our customers, they are looking to start ramping their businesses in the second half of the year.

Craig Ellis: That’s really helpful, guys. And the second one is more for Jamie. So, Jamie, it’s real impressive to see how resilient first quarter gross margins are as volumes decline and I’m hoping what you can do is provide some color on how mix and some of the other company specific factors are playing out. And you indicated that calendar ’24 gross margins could rise year-on-year. Can you give us any color on the magnitude of the increase that we might see? Thank you.

James Coogan: Yes, that’s a great question, Craig, and thank you. The team has done a fantastic job of putting in place some initiatives here to, one, lower our cost of goods sold for the systems and try to drive some greater efficiency without necessarily having to raise prices for some of these products, given the competitive environment. In addition to that, we have identified some service and upgrade opportunities which are providing incremental margin opportunities in our CS&I business. And given that, we expect CS&I continue to grow in light of the higher install base that we continue to build out there of the Purion product platform, that part of the mix is going to continue to contribute incremental margin opportunity over the course of the year.

And then on top of that, it’s also where the systems are coming from over the course of the year and we are seeing some higher volume in 2024 of some of our higher margin products, sort of shifting the mix a little bit towards that, especially in light of lower memory volume year-over-year. As you guys know, memory market is a little bit more competitive there. Margins are not as strong on those products as they are in some of our other areas and so with the lower memory volume, we’re also seeing benefit from that.

Craig Ellis: That’s really helpful, guys. I’ll hop back in the queue. Thank you.

Russell Low: Great. Thanks, Craig.

Operator: One moment for the next question. The next question comes from Tom Diffely with D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Tom Diffely: Yes, great. Thanks for taking my question. Probably for Doug, when you look at the TAM for ’24 in your slides you have it actually going up for the full year, but you’re talking about your business being flattish. Just curious what the differences are there. Are there certain sectors that you’re not as strong in that are doing well?

Douglas Lawson: Yes, that is exactly what’s going on Tom is, we see the TAM for implant going up. Power where we are strong is where we’re taking advantage of that. We’re seeing early recovery in advanced logic, which, while less implant intensive, Axcelis has a much smaller position in one that we expect to grow over the next years, but in 2024, it will continue to be smaller. As the mature markets grow in the second half, then we’ll benefit from the increased TAM there as well. And as we get into ’25, as you can see, the TAM continues to grow. We are expecting a good year across all markets in 2025.

Tom Diffely: Okay. And then, Russell, just kind of a general question about how the year is playing out. If you think back a quarter or two ago, were you expecting a dip in the first quarter, the first half of the year before second half strength, or did the book of business look more continuous a couple of quarters ago?

Russell Low: I think, so I guess what I’d say is, the power business has stayed solid. I think it’s the general mature has softened significantly. I think you’ve heard that from a number of our customers. So really, I’d say that it’s an evolving picture and we now have a little bit more visibility in Q1 and the rest of the year that we wouldn’t have had a few months ago.

Douglas Lawson: Yes, and Tom, on that point we had very, as you noted in the call, we had very strong bookings in the fourth quarter of this year relative to our systems revenue and our backlog again we maintain that backlog above $1.2 billion for the full year. And as we look where we are today, we don’t really see a meaningful change in the amount of backlog that we’re carrying. However, we have seen some shifting in the timing of deliveries. And as Russell noted, that’s consistent with what our customer commentary has been on that.

Tom Diffely: Okay, great. That’s helpful. And then, Jamie, last question. When I look at the margins going back to ’22 to ’23, you had really nice revenue growth, very de minimis margin expansion, and yet you’re projecting pretty healthy margin expansion over the next year. Maybe just take us back to what the stock margins from expense been in ’23 versus ’22 and I guess why you’re confident that it accelerates here going forward?

James Coogan: Yes, that’s a good question. A lot of that has to do with memory mix in the period and then the efforts that we are taking. So we say mix within the year relative to memory and then our CS&I and I business related to service upgrades and other opportunity sets that we see for 2024. But on top of that, a number of the initiatives we put in place to drive incremental opportunities on cost savings, specifically on the cost of sales line item, really are multiyear benefit providers to us. So these are things like the investments that we’ve made in the automated logistics center, where we’ve consolidated our footprint here in the Beverly area, and then also the continued work of the R&D team to identify new opportunities, upgrades and services on the CS&I front which as you guys all are aware does provide some meaningful uplift on mix.