ams-OSRAM AG (AMS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

February 11, 2025

SIX Swiss Exchange CH Information Technology Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment fixed_income 45 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Juergen Rebel

executive
#1

Hello. Good afternoon, Europe. Good morning to the U.S. This is Juergen speaking from ams-OSRAM. I welcome everybody to our fourth quarter '24 and full year '24 credit holder call. With me today is Rainer Irle, our CFO. And for the introduction, we'll walk you through a few selected slides from the analyst call, and then we open the floor for Q&A. Rainer, turn is yours.

Rainer Irle

executive
#2

Yes. Thank you. So good afternoon. Let me give you a quick recap of the most essential topics from today's announcement and the analyst call this morning European time. We are on track. We generate cash, and our turnaround is in full swing. Re-establish-the-Base is ahead of plan. The savings are showing its effect more and more in our profitability despite heavy headwinds during the year and the quarter. Let us look at the financial performance of the group on Slide 2. Revenues came in flat quarter-over-quarter at EUR 882 million, above the midpoint of the guidance. Tailwind from stronger U.S. dollar helped a bit. In brief, the strong seasonal aftermarket auto Lamps business compensated a small seasonal and cyclical quarter-on-quarter decline in sales. Year-over-year, we are only down 3% despite the weaker Industrial & medical and auto semi markets and the phaseout of an OEM's Lamps module business. Now on profitability. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved year-over-year by 50 bps to 17%, thanks to Re-establish-the-Base and the nonrefundable engineering payments that we keep receiving. Why down EUR 60 million quarter-over-quarter? We reduced wafer starts in Q4 to reduce inventories. And we had customer engineering payments in both quarters. But in Q3, it was higher due to some catch-up payments. It was EUR 150 million, the same absolute number as a year ago on a lower revenue base, which is good. Let us briefly look at the semiconductor business dynamics, and I'm on Page 3 now. Semis in total came down 3% year-over-year and 6% quarter-over-quarter. This can be explained by looking at the main verticals. First, automotive. Our biggest exposure, biggest market. Revenues came in even a bit better than we thought, 3% up where we had guided flattish quarter-over-quarter. Cyclical demand was indeed down with the ongoing uncertainty in the supply chain. However, we succeeded in reducing the order backlog with some scarce parts. In addition, new position sensor projects ramped up and revenues there grown noticeably. The 14% decline year-over-year, both due to the inventory correction as well as a higher basis of comparison. Q4 '23 has been our record quarter so far for auto semi revenues. Second, Industrial & Medical is still the weakest of all. Horticulture revenues declined as a peak installation month during the third quarter of each year when new greenhouse light fixtures are installed for the winter season. The Professional Lighting segment is still okay, though. Mass market and medical, no news, but it feels like we have reached the bottom. Third, consumer, where we are mainly supplying sensors to smartphones and wearables, a strong quarter with EUR 210 million sales. The seasonal decline of 9% comes after the typical peak Q3 quarter when large mobile phone platforms ramp. Demand from the Android space remains very healthy. Some parts were even becoming a bit short. Now the next slide is very dear to my heart and cash flows. Now as you remember, when we tapped into the Eurobond, we said that we wanted to use the proceeds also to reduce supply chain financing, which we did. In Q3, we benefited from a EUR 250 million customer prepayment that boosted operating cash flow. We did not get such a prepayment in Q4, but another tranche of nonrefundable engineering payments that we will be getting every quarter. As such, fourth quarter operating cash flow came in strong with EUR 79 million, as you see in the table at the bottom of the slide. We actually reduced factoring in Q4 by around EUR 100 million, and you can imagine how strong the operating cash flow would have been without that. You can also see the improvements from reestablish the base kicking in. Inventories went down a bit in Q4 due to reduced wafer starts. Just for the avoidance of doubt, net interest paid is always included in the definition of operating cash flow and free cash flow. Now on CapEx, basically flat was EUR 104 million. Now almost half of that number, more than EUR 45 million were still payments from the microLED equipment overhang that we had to pay. But the good thing is Q4 was the last quarter with such a significant burden from microLED. Without that, we would have already been below our 8% CapEx to sales target. Looking at inflows from divestments at the bottom of the table, the EUR 27 million are almost entirely for microLED equipment that we were able to resell. All in all, this led to a positive free cash flow in the fourth quarter. And we're obviously proud of the next chart on the right side of the page. We turned a heavily negative free cash flow into a positive one within 1 year of minus EUR 330 million to positive EUR 12 million. And we could reign in CapEx significantly. We implemented Re-establish-the-Base faster. And we could leverage our technology position to receive significant upfront payments by customers, which in the end made the success possible ahead of time, a clear indication that the company and its cash flows are back on track. Now let us look at the full fiscal '24 strategy and business summary. And I'm on Page 5 now. '24 presented some surprising challenges. The biggest headwind was certainly the cancellation of the microLED cornerstone project. Later in the year, the weaker auto demand came on top. We reacted fast and decisive, and I'm pleased with what I -- we achieve in these circumstances. Before we touch upon some of the points in more detail, let me share the major achievements from my perspective. First, the focus on the core portfolio in the semi business has proven itself right. We showed a solid 7% revenue growth when you correct the reported revenues in semis for the contribution from the exited noncore business. Second, the savings from our Re-establish-the-Base strategic efficiency program are exceeding the '24 targets and starting to show effect. We will be much more visible in '25 with improving profitability. Third, the noncore semiconductor portfolio is almost entirely out of the door. So customers might still place some very last orders this year. Technology leadership is at the heart of our strategy and structural growth ambition. We won the German Future Award for our latest automotive forward lighting solution and customers entrust us with cutting-edge technology developments that they are paying for. New business was won almost at the same pace as in '23, close to EUR 5 billion of design wins stand on the [indiscernible]. We stabilized and improved company profitability despite the hit from the discontinued large microLED program. Above all, most importantly, we finished the '24 with a positive free cash flow, including net interest. The customer prepayments that pivoted for this achieved. And with that, let's take a look at the business on Page 6. In '23, we divested about EUR 124 million of revenues in the Lamps segment. At constant currencies and same portfolio revenues would have stayed almost flat with just 1% down year-over-year in a like-for-like comparison. For '24, we recorded in total EUR 3.43 billion with a small currency headwind of EUR 9 million. Now considering and Re-establish-the-Base and ignoring the noncore portfolio revenues, we grew 4% year-over-year. on group level. The Lamps business declined year-over-year by 14%. Like-for-like, the decline was minus 4%. I just mentioned that we had sold a number of unprofitable businesses in '23. The 4% decline was essentially because of exiting some OEM module business. Looking at semis, reported revenues stayed flat. If you look at the -- if you look, sorry, at the core portfolio only, we see an increase of approximately 7% year-over-year, very nicely in line with the midterm trend line growth ambition for our semiconductor business. If we look one level deeper, it is certainly evident that the growth in the core comes from the rebound of the consumer business, driven by launching of new products, including the regained ALS socket we had spoken about earlier. We grew by almost EUR 90 million year-over-year in consumer applications to EUR 769 million. Automotive was just slightly down despite the inventory correction that hit the second half of '24, approximately EUR 980 million versus EUR 1 billion a year ago. Industrial and Medical was also down '24, reaching a low of around EUR 680 million, which looks to be the bottom of the cycle now. And now on Slide 7. With reported revenues and absolute EBITDA down, EBITDA margin stayed flat at 16.8%, supported by Re-establish-the-Base, we were on track to improve the margin, but then the auto market slowdown in H2, spoiled the party. We often get asked where we see the great improvements of Re-establish-the-Base in the numbers. You see the effect in EBIT number on the right-hand side, a lower cost base and the gradual phaseout of nonprofitable products led to an improved adjusted EBIT margin by 50 basis points, again, a bit spoiled by the market weakness. You can also see it in lower R&D spending and a lower SG&A, which both came down nicely. Again, once market improved, it will be more visible. And now on Slide 8, winning new business is essential for our structural growth model in Semis. Fiscal year '24 was again a very successful year in this respect. We could book well over EUR 1 billion of new wins in the fourth quarter despite the slowdown in Autos and the weak Industrial and Medical market. This brings the full year tally close to the EUR 5 billion mark. The new wins in the fourth quarter were very well distributed with many smaller projects, reflecting the broad business traction that we are enjoying. Still a few wins stand out. We made especially good progress in China with our Automotive products. Our products convinced another leading Chinese OEM, and we landed multiple design wins with broad portfolio at that OEM that will feature many new models. But the momentum also continued in many other applications, nice wins in Professional lighting and new sockets for our spectral and time-of-flight sensors in Android smartphones. In the full year or to date view, the new business won accumulates remarkable numbers. On Slide 9, you find the latest update on debt, liquidity and maturities. Our cash balance remains unchanged. We had EUR 1.1 billion cash on hand end of the year. By the end of December '24, we paid back the short-term bilateral facilities. However, we also received EUR 140 million in new bilateral loans, exactly as we had told you when we last met. Next in line is a '25 convert. We are going to pay it back at maturity in March from cash on hand. The value of the Malaysia sale and leaseback transaction remained stable at EUR 441 million as interest accrual was offset by FX effects. This brings us to pretty much unchanged net debt position of EUR 1.85 billion compared to the previous quarter. The outstanding minority [Audio Gap] December. Towards the end of '24, we only saw a small amount of shares tendered. Our revolving credit facility could in principle fully cover an exercise of all outstanding OSRAM Licht-AG minority put options. Taking cash, the revolver and the bilateral lines into account, our available liquidity remains strong at around EUR 1.76 billion. And the factoring lines that we reduced in Q3 and Q4 are still available, but they are not shown here as available liquidity. On the right, you find the maturity table of our outstanding debt. And now let me summarize the key developments of the last quarter and the whole year on Slide 10. In the last quarter, we delivered revenues in a difficult environment above the midpoint of the guidance. We delivered profitability above the midpoint of the guidance, and we came in free cash flow positive. And for the whole year '24, we had a small positive free cash flow, which is nice. The core semi portfolio grew approximately 7%, clearly driven by the ramp of new sensor products. Reported revenue was a bit down due to the deconsolidation of Lamps & Systems business and the steep decline in the old noncore semi businesses. Re-establish-the-Base implementation is progressing really well with already EUR 110 million run rate savings implemented. The semi noncore portfolio is mostly history and customers continue to love our products, close to EUR 5 billion new business won in '24. And that concludes the last year. Now we come to '25 on Slide 11. So for the first quarter, we expect revenues to land between EUR 750 million to EUR 850 million. Automotive Lamps aftermarket will be seasonally lower. Automotive semi should see their low point in view of the persisting uncertainties and corrections, while the order intake has improved recently. Industrial & Medical continue to be weak. Consumer continues to go down seasonally, Christmas season is over, but also this year, we'll have a new Christmas season. In line with fall-through, but with Re-establish-the-Base savings making a difference, adjusted EBITDA margin will be between 16% plus/minus 1.5% at euro-US dollar of 1.05. And looking at the revenues for the entire year, we have a pronounced first second half seasonality in our business in every year. Think of the seasonal cycle in the Auto Lamps aftermarket business, horticulture, products for consumer handhelds, automotive semis. This year, this seasonality will be even more pronounced with the cyclical low in automotive semis in the first half and the persistent weakness in Industrial, Automation & Medical. Now why are we optimistic that H2 will be better than the first half? Principal drivers are scheduled project ramps in automotive, industrial and smartphones. So they will come for sure. And the cyclical recovery that we start seeing in higher order intake will come on top. A word on the new tariff war. We assess the situation to the extent new tariffs are known or expected. In detail, the trade wars are quite complicated. We do currently see though not a meaningful impact to our cost base. A noticeable impact on our business would come along when global car production is negatively affected or when people buy smaller -- by fewer smartphones. All in all, we have to see how the situation develops. Now looking at profitability. We are ahead of realizing our run rate savings from reestablish the base, and this will lead to improved gross margin and bottom line even with moderate revenue development compared to '24. And looking at cash flow, we will be very strict on CapEx investments and plan for less than 8% of sales, lower than our target operating model. Finally, we expect free cash flow to come in exceeding EUR 100 million. And for the avoidance of doubt, that obviously includes the net interest paid. This concludes our remarks, and we are happy to take your questions.

Operator

operator
#3

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Toby Hanson.

Toby Hanson

analyst
#4

This is Toby Hanson at Sona. I just wanted to ask on the liquidity front. So when you look at the available liquidity figure that you gave and then the amount of cash that you have, I think the total -- the total difference is about EUR 660 million. And obviously, RCF is EUR 800 million. What's the reason for the difference there? Are you issuing guarantees or anything out of the RCF that reduces the availability of it?

Rainer Irle

executive
#5

Yes, that is correct. We have been using some of it to guarantee the customer prepayment we got last year. So EUR 650 million is the remaining amount

Toby Hanson

analyst
#6

Okay. And that guarantee will remain in place until that prepayment reverses in '26 or begins to reverse?

Rainer Irle

executive
#7

Yes. Yes.

Toby Hanson

analyst
#8

And then on the bilateral lines, I guess if you could just talk through what the relevant -- why you've extended some of the lines for only less than 12 months seemingly, given the amount that mature in '25, like why do you need these lines at all? And why did you not extend them out further?

Rainer Irle

executive
#9

Yes. I mean discussion optimizing on pricing. I mean the one is -- the smaller one is one we're extending every year by year. And the other one is a 2-year new line kind of we were getting a good offer with pricing for a 2-year extension. So that's basically the logic. The bonds have a higher maturity and the bilateral lines have bit shorter [indiscernible].

Operator

operator
#10

Our next question comes from [ Tee Libon ].

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#11

Okay. Perfect. Just a question on the cash on hand. So it's EUR 1.1 billion, if I'm correct. Which -- what is the amount of cash in the individual statements?

Rainer Irle

executive
#12

What's the question there? Could you...

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#13

Yes. What is the amount of cash at the topco level, at the holdco level?

Rainer Irle

executive
#14

I'm sure you're asking kind of if there's any cash in there? Or what's the reason for the question?

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#15

The reason for the question is to have more clarity on the location of the cash, and this is a question I'm asking to many companies I follow.

Rainer Irle

executive
#16

Yes. But there is no trapped cash in the company, right? So there we can basically...

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#17

But it was not my question is -- my question was what is the amount of the cash at the topco level?

Rainer Irle

executive
#18

Yes, it's around EUR 800 million, but that's something we could change at any time.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#19

Okay. And could you remind me the expected materialization, the ramp-up of the expected materialization of the exercise of the put options at OSRAM?

Rainer Irle

executive
#20

Yes. certainly, -- so we expect the final verdict in the second half of the year. And then shareholders, minority shareholders that...

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#21

I'm sorry, I can't hear you very well. I can't hear you very well.

Rainer Irle

executive
#22

So after the -- we expect the verdict in the second half of the year and then shareholders have 2 more months to tender their shares. The outstanding amount was EUR 560 million, I believe. And -- but we expect only a portion of that to be tendered. I mean, a larger portion. But there's also -- there's more than 10,000 retail investors in there that we believe a lot of them will actually stay in.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#23

Okay. And on the factoring lines, could you indicate what is the amount of the factoring lines that remain available?

Rainer Irle

executive
#24

Yes. It is somewhere close to EUR 200 million, a bit less than EUR 200 million.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#25

And what was the average drawdown of these lines during the full year 2024?

Rainer Irle

executive
#26

Mid of the year, we have drawn almost all of that. And then we started reducing Q3 a bit and we reduced further by another EUR 100 million or so in Q4.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#27

And at the end of Q4, no drawdown?

Rainer Irle

executive
#28

We still have end of Q4, 16, okay, almost nothing

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#29

So 16.

Rainer Irle

executive
#30

That was -- yes, that was kind of...

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#31

Okay. And last question...

Rainer Irle

executive
#32

That was part of the strategy, right, to draw on -- to tap into the bond and use that to repay short-term supply chain financing.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#33

Okay. And last question on my side. Could you remind me if there is a maintenance covenant on the RCF? I haven't looked at it for a while.

Rainer Irle

executive
#34

The covenant?

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#35

The Maintenance covenant on the RCF. Yes.

Rainer Irle

executive
#36

Yes. That is a 4x forward adjusted net debt to EBITDA. And forward adjustment means that all improvements you were making from your structuring programs, you add on top to the average of the last 4 -- to the cumulative last 4 quarters, right? So in a simple way, you could say it's roughly 1.25x the EBITDA of the -- rolling EBITDA of the last 4 quarters in relation to the net debt.

Juergen Rebel

executive
#37

So this is Juergen. Could the next people in line, please restrict themselves to 2 questions. We have so many people wanting to ask questions. So it's just a matter of fairness, giving the colleagues a chance to ask a question as well.

Operator

operator
#38

Our next question comes from [ Ryan Elwood ].

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#39

So you had mentioned you guys have -- you're optimistic around some cyclical recovery in autos in the second half of '25. Could you just comment on is there anything particular that from your seats that gives you the encouragement of a rebound in kind of global auto demand?

Rainer Irle

executive
#40

Yes. I think the end market demand hasn't really changed a lot. If you look at the IHS numbers, they're currently seeing it's down, I believe, 0.8% or so in '25. So basically flat year-over-year. but we have been seeing a reduced demand in Q3 and Q4 and certainly also in Q1, which is solely based on our customers and I mean, the OEMs reducing their inventories, maybe they prebuild wrong parts, from cars. And so the supply chain is being cleaned up. But it's not that there's fewer cars sold really. So as in every kind of this supply chain bullwhip effect, it takes a few quarters and then it comes back. And that's what we're seeing. And the question is how quickly will it come back? It's always a question for the shape of the recovery. So we don't know yet how quick it will recover. We're certainly seeing that the book-to-bill is improving significantly. We're seeing an increased order intake. It's probably too early to say what shape of kind of recovery we will be seeing.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#41

Sorry, that was a good answer. Just to confirm, I want to make sure I understand what you're saying. So you're saying in Q3 and Q4 of the last 2 quarters, your Auto decline has been more than the decline in Auto sales. And so when -- if Auto sales are flat through Q4 '25 of this year, you expect just some recovery to be -- for ams to be more in line.

Rainer Irle

executive
#42

I mean the weakness last year took, I would say, a mid-double-digit [ million ] number of revenues away from the previous forecast, right? So it was significant. Otherwise, it would have been even stronger last year. Now Q3, Q4, we saw weakness. We still had the ability to make up for some backlog. Q1, we don't. There's no backlog left. So Q1 is probably the weakest quarter than in auto. And then we see improvement going forward because we have a stronger book-to-bill, right? The order intake is improving. And we also have the design wins kicking in, right? And the reason why we believe that the second half will be better is first because of the design wins, right? So that revenue will come and also because we believe of a cyclical recovery because we see an improved book-to-bill.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#43

Got it. And then my second question is, you guys had mentioned -- it looked like working capital was up pretty significantly. It was up, I think, 35% versus prior year. Could you discuss the drivers of that? Is there any write-off risk? And I guess maybe some of this just due to the factoring?

Rainer Irle

executive
#44

That is solely -- I mean, compared to Q3, inventories are down [ EUR 40 million ] and...

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#45

You're saying year-over-year, your working capital is up 35%?

Rainer Irle

executive
#46

Yes. And you can look at quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year. The main reason is factoring, right, because we have been reducing factoring end of last year. And it's also year-over-year inventories up certainly because we have some more complex products like the new EVIYOS product that has very complex supply chains where with kind of a 6-month cycle time or so. So that certainly also increases inventory a bit. But the major driver -- the major reason for the change, particularly Q3 to Q4 is the change in factoring. And there's no write-off risk, right? I mean we are always accounting for our inventory risk adjusted.

Operator

operator
#47

Our next question comes from [ Peter Osowick ]

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#48

Okay. So 2 questions from me. First, just following up on the Auto demand. You said that in semis, you have seen -- you think you have seen the bottom and now you're seeing improvement. Can you give us a bit more color on what is this improvement in order intake and also the further improvement you expect in 2025. To what extent is it driven by a larger number of cars being built versus the increased content per vehicle, which I think is a longer-term secular trend which is more LEDs going into every single car.

Rainer Irle

executive
#49

Yes. So I mean for the cars produced or sold, we follow very much IHS, which is basically flat year-over-year, 0.8% decline. We have more design wins kicking in, in the second half of the year, which is basically more content. And then we had the last 2 quarters with the low in Q1 now, just to reduced demand because customers were reducing their inventory levels. And we assume that is now coming to an end, and we see an improvement in the order intake throughout the semi also for automotive.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#50

Right. I mean I think the genesis of the question is that IHS actually reduced their expectations for second half since we had the Q3 call, and your guidance remains essentially unchanged, right? I think they expected before weak H1, better H2. And on the tariff risks, they also reduced the expectation for H2 '25. So I was just trying to understand how do we square the difference, right? Because you haven't really changed your guidance.

Rainer Irle

executive
#51

We do not give guidance for the year, right? We only give guidance for quarter. The guidance we published for Q1. And let me say in addition that we expect a more significant uptick in the second half of the year.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#52

Okay. That's fair. And my second question is about the broader approach to refinancing, whether there's been any update on how you think about addressing the maturities beyond 2025?

Rainer Irle

executive
#53

Yes. I mean the big maturity coming up is the convertible bond in '27, EUR 760 million. We certainly have a plan, as I said, and the plan consists of positive cash flows in the next couple of years, which will reduce our indebtedness a bit. But as I said last time, this is also certainly that we are looking at kind of to generate a bit of proceeds from some of the assets we have, some of the smaller business we have to jump start and the next round of refinancing.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#54

And when do you expect to start the work on the refinancing of '27?

Rainer Irle

executive
#55

Yes. I mean we want to be done a good year ahead of it. So that will be somewhere mid of '26 or so.

Operator

operator
#56

Our next question comes from [ Ankit Gupta ].

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#57

Just a couple of questions...

Juergen Rebel

executive
#58

Ankit, we lost you.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#59

Am I audible?

Juergen Rebel

executive
#60

Yes, you're back.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#61

Okay. So a couple of questions. The first one is around the cost saving plan since overall guidance is around EUR 225 million. Any guidance like how much you're planning to achieve for '25? And the second is, probably I might missed it, but what is the outstanding number for the supply chain financing as of December?

Rainer Irle

executive
#62

The outstanding amount of supply chain financing was pretty low. And the target base EUR 150 million, I believe. I mean last year, we were ahead. So kind of this year, we will also come in a bit higher.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#63

Okay. So supply chain financing, I think for like FY '23 was around EUR 150 million. So is it materially lower for this year, December '24?

Rainer Irle

executive
#64

Yes. I mean factoring came down to very little there.

Operator

operator
#65

And our final question comes from [ Chris Money ].

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#66

Apologies. It seems to be a lot of lag. Just a really brief one for me. Just in terms of tariffs, I just wanted to dig in a little bit more on that. I appreciate there's no real clarity at the moment and it's ever evolving. But I'm assuming you've done a lot of scenario analysis. What, if anything, are you most concerned about in terms of potential tariffs out there? And then what you can see as mitigants, I guess, to protect the business from anything because I don't know how much directly you're kind of shipping into the states, for example, if they put tariffs on components going straight in, I guess a lot of manufacturers are outside the U.S. and then shipping the vehicles in. I guess that's not really your problem. Just curious to sort of understand how you can kind of defend yourself and how much really impact I know you said there's not a lot at the moment, but just curious.

Rainer Irle

executive
#67

Yes. I mean the amount of product that we ship from China to the U.S. is, I mean, below EUR 50 million a year. And there's also a bit from Mexico. So we try to reroute that, right, in particular because we also have factories outside the China, you really have to look at kind of does 10% tariff make a difference or not in those decisions. And then the next question is kind of, I mean, are you able to pass it on to your customers or not? So whenever the customer is the importer, right? I mean if you ship at FCA, Incotermis FCA, the customer is importer and then they pay the customs and if it's a DDP or if you have a warehouse somewhere in the U.S., then you are the importer and then the question is, can you pass it on to the customer. So far, very low impact. Would get bigger, certainly if there were tariffs on more countries, including Germany and Austria I mean, or Malaysia or Singapore, which hasn't been touched so far, then it would be larger. In the end, probably the largest risk anyway is kind of if there would be a global economic slowdown because of the terrorists. And I mean, that's what history tells, right? I mean the higher the tariffs, the lower the GDP growth for everybody. But I mean, we're observing the situation every day, and we try to optimize our supply chains accordingly.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#68

Okay. That's helpful. And then in terms of just the guidance on Q1, obviously, it's still pretty negative. I just wondered if you've given any guidance on between the different segments as to what growth looks like for consumer versus Auto versus Industrial within that?

Rainer Irle

executive
#69

Yes. Yes. I mean it's a lot of impacts, right? I mean our traditional Lamps & Systems business, Q4 is always strongest, Q2 is the weakest, Q1 is in between, but it is lower. Our whole CSA business, the center for consumer applications, there's a very cyclical business, right, because all the new mobile phones are launched in the second half of the year and then you start preproducing in Q2 or so, but Q1 is quite weak in that whole consumer business. And then also in automotive, I don't think that automotive really demand is lower than in Q4. But we had, as I said, in Q4, the ability to reduce some backlog, right? So we had some orders where we were a bit delinquent. We reduced the delinquencies, and now there's nothing left for Q1. So kind of Auto will be weakest in Q1, I believe. Consumer has its typical seasonality lower in Q1 and also the traditional business sees a bit of a decline. But 9%, that is not an untypical number for our business, not too different from last year.

Operator

operator
#70

Next up, we have a question from [ Dan Grillo ].

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#71

Just a quick one. I know there isn't any kind of resolution on the plant in Malaysia, but how is interest in it looking at the moment? Have you had ongoing conversations, how many kinds of parties, et cetera, might be potentially interested?

Rainer Irle

executive
#72

There's quite a few companies that already looked at it, certainly more than 10. For some, it's a bit too small, for some, it's a bit too big. And for some, it's just rightsized, but the timing is not perfect. So they're waiting for a bit of a recovery. We have this week, a large semi company looking at it, looking for new site in Malaysia. So it is a bit the cyclical problem also because currently, I mean, as I see the [ gun ] people, they are not investing. Also the senior players are careful. But if demand will recover, we'll probably see much more interest going forward. So we remain confident that we will resolve it. It's just difficult to say when exactly.

Operator

operator
#73

And our last question on the line comes from [ Jeff Cope ].

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#74

I was just wondering if you can confirm the maturity on the RCF and if you guys have had any conversations with banks about extending that in order to meet the put obligation.

Rainer Irle

executive
#75

Yes. I mean I understand your question, please, except, that we don't want to disclose exactly what we are doing here. But I mean it is quite obvious what would make sense. And please be assured that we will do the right things.

Operator

operator
#76

And that concludes our Q&A session. I'll hand back to management for any closing remarks.

Juergen Rebel

executive
#77

So thanks, everyone, for joining. Thanks a lot for the questions. And as usual, and as you've done very actively, you can reach out to us on e-mail. We'll be partly on the road. So we try to answer as quickly as possible. And -- but the team with me, [ Vanessa ] and Juliana will also try to respond as quickly as possible. That concludes this quarter's credit holder call. Thanks a lot, and looking forward to speaking to you latest next quarter. Bye.

This call discussed

For developers and AI pipelines

Programmatic access to ams-OSRAM AG earnings transcripts and 32,000+ others is available through the EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments, full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.