Onto Innovation Inc. (NYSE:ONTO) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Craig Ellis: So, that would imply that you should be at least 54% in the fourth quarter to get to 53% to 54% for the full year, Mark?

Mark Slicer: I won’t comment on it specifically, but I think from where we are and trying to figure out what the business will be in Q4, I think our goal is obviously to continue to drive that – target 53-plus in Q4.

Operator: We will take our next question from Brian Chin with Stifel.

Brian Chin: Maybe start with Mike, I think you have really good, strong visibility on the packaging and specialty side of the business. Visibility is clearly not great in terms of the advanced nodes. But would you characterize the level of not just DRAM, but also memory investments, including non-volatile memory? Does it feel like it’s below sort of normalized kind of maintenance or even sub maintenance levels at this point? Does that give you some of the conviction in saying that Q3 looks like a bottom right now?

Michael Plisinski: Meaning couldn’t go lower. It is pretty low. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this much of a drop for this long of a period of time. So, yeah, I think that – then you’re starting to hear from our customers as well that they’re beginning to see signs of price increase and inventories are coming down and that kind of thing. So, yes, we’re below maintenance levels. And when it recovers, I don’t know. But I’m not expecting a very quick snap back. We’re not planning for that. That’d be a nice surprise. But right now, that’s why we’re saying we expect Q3 to be the bottom.

Brian Chin: Lithography has always been a bit bumpy and a bit lumpy for you guys. But it sounds like – obviously, you take the three units. If you parked them in 2Q, you’re kind of revenuing up. And you’ve taken out of the third quarter guidance, you’re kind of flat. But given that dynamic and you maybe – you shipped six tools in 3Q, that kind of flattish preliminary fourth quarter outlook, is that really saying that the X500 lithography ships maybe back to normalized levels, maybe down a few units Q-on-Q and then you make that up with some of the growth that you’re seeing in the other businesses?

Michael Plisinski: Yeah, we think that the litho will be – it depends a little bit on timing because we’re trying to catch up on things. So there may be one or two tools that would move forward into the first quarter. But it was more or less normalized at that $20 million or so that we’ve always talked about. So $20 million, $25 million revenue.

Brian Chin: Just framing up sort of specialty business where that’s a synergy you’ve talked about in terms of technology and customer synergies. And I think you’d expect to bear more fruit this upcycle than kind of what you’re able to progress on last upcycle. So if you look at kind of calendar 2022 and already you’re having some pretty good run rates on the specialty side of the business, how much larger in three years could that specially revenue for you guys be relative to the counter 2022 year when you guys were at $1 billion and that was going to be a smaller amount of the revenue contribution to $1 billion? How much bigger could specialty be in three years, say?

Michael Plisinski: Compared to current level, it depends on spending from the customers, right? So the estimate out three years is always tough, but I can say that our adoption rate is only beginning. So we’re just winning new customers. I think we added five new customers in the quarter. So those are just initial sales by a couple of tools. And there’s going to be repeat sales as they continue to grow. And every one of those customers is a potential to sell more of the portfolio. So we have opportunities to not only continue to add customers, but continue to grow our portfolio within the customers. So if we’re looking at where we end up for this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if we could double that revenue in three years given the growth dynamics in the industry and given our positions and the new products we’re releasing and the value that we’re delivering with these connected solutions, these integrated portfolios to solve unique problems.