INFICON Holding AG ($IFCN)

Good morning, and welcome, everyone. My name is Bernhard Schweizer, Investor Relations contact at INFICON. I have the pleasure of hosting this Microsoft Teams webcast. Thank you for joining INFICON's conference on its fourth quarter 2025 results. With us today are Oliver Wyrsch, CEO of INFICON, and Matthias Troendle, CFO of INFICON. The management team will first present the results and then take your questions. [Operator Instructions] You should have received by now the press release on the Q4 and full year results, together with the links to the accompanying presentation for this conference as well as the annual report 2025 and the invitation to the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders. All these documents are also available for download in the Investors section of the INFICON website at www.inficon.com. [Operator Instructions] I would also like to inform you that we are recording this web conference in order to archive the audio file later on, on the INFICON website. The oral statements made by INFICON during this MS Teams session may contain forward-looking statements that do not relate solely to historical or current facts. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of our management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect our plans and expectations as well as future results of operation and financial condition. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Having said that, I would now like to hand over to Oliver Wyrsch. Oli, please.

Thank you very much, Bernhard, for the introduction. Welcome, everybody, to our earnings release conference call Q4 2025, full year 2025. It's great to have you all here. First, quickly about our agenda. I will first talk about the markets, the general developments of the quarter, the year and our full year expectations. And after me, I'll hand over to our CFO, Matthias Troendle, for more details on the financials. Let's dive right in. Many of you know us already quite well. But for those that know us a bit less, a quick summary of who INFICON is and what our strengths are our positioning. We are around USD 674 million revenue, 1,730 employees. We are a world leader in most of the markets. We are focusing on measuring and data analytics and data science for smart manufacturing in semiconductor, but also other high-tech markets that we select based on attractive growth and profitability profiles. We try to constantly evolve. We have a long pipeline on organic growth opportunities and can, therefore, innovate close together with our customers constantly on new measurement opportunities, new data analytics opportunities to push smart manufacturing forward. You see this also in the result where the markets have most recently gone flat or down. And the general CAGR of semiconductor is around 5% to 10%. We have been able to overachieve on that with an annual compound growth rate for the last 5 years of 11%. This comes mainly from this innovation drive together with our customers to find constantly new products, new applications to measure and to add additional services with measurement of data analytics software and to push smart manufacturing forward. With this, I jump in one quick picture on the semiconductor industry, which I find quite relevant. Yes, so far, the semiconductor industry was in the average growing 5% to 10% per year, but something has significantly changed in the last 6 to 12 months. We believe this is based obviously on available research from different sources, and we picked one of the ones that is quite well known here from McKinsey. We believe that the semiconductor industry is not going to grow to $1 trillion by 2030, but quite significantly above that. We might even reach that goal already this year or next year, and we are rather looking at an opportunity of $1.6 trillion by 2030, which then changes also the growth rate. So we would think that there is going to be an acceleration of the market itself above 10% growth per year. So we will, of course, also continue to operate the same way and look forward to also be able to overachieve on this new market growth. With this, I jump into the results of 2025 full year. We have achieved a new record sales. It's [indiscernible], a small step up. But what is important is that we have been continuously growing in a time where the last 2, 3 years, in particular, the main markets that we have, semiconductor was actually slowing down, but we could still show growth, whereas the market in some areas significantly contracted. And that is through our diversification across different semiconductor and other high-tech markets. We have also been able to see the book-to-bill growing last year, full year, and this is continuing into this year. Sales and operating margin were hit last year by different trade disputes effects, but we delivered the full year in line with the communicated guidance with a significant improvement in Q4. When we look at the markets, I will go into this a bit more detail in a minute. Semiconductor is roughly stable. This is driven through large expansion projects that on the time line move back and forth. So that is a roughly flat development, I would say. While, of course, under the hood, there were quite a good number of movements between the different geographies and accounts depending on their expansion plans. We see in that, and I'll get back to this, a significant acceleration that already started last year after there was because of trade disputes, a slowdown first and then an acceleration, which continues this year. The General Vacuum end market has been showing a strong growth of 12% year-over-year in all regions except Americas. RAC/Auto showed a continued growth over many years now. It is a bit slower, 2%. I'll get into that in a couple of the subsegments. They are a little bit slower. Security & Energy developed depending on the timing of the government programs, a little slower last year, and we also don't expect this year a significant acceleration yet. However, you see in Q4, there was a significant other rollout phase. This is the typical chunkiness that we see in this business. Long term, we are very optimistic in this area as well. Operating result, we have been able to achieve 16.7%. There's some lingering temporary impact still of the trade disputes, the capacity duplication from moving production around globally, then negative foreign exchange and the effect of the tariffs. The efficiency measures that we have started last year have shown traction and have continuously improved after a difficult second and third quarter. We have been able to deliver robust cash flow of USD 90 million in 2025 and propose a dividend of CHF 2. This is a balance between the pressure on the profitability last year and that we further continue to invest in R&D and also CapEx. We have also recently announced a land purchase here in Balzers and do also expansion in all different locations. So this is taking all of this in account at the same time, shows a really high payout ratio. Regarding organization, we have the reconfiguration largely concluded. This avoids the substantial trade dispute impact. And now we feel very well positioned for future geopolitical uncertainties. When we look at R&D, we continue to invest there. There's a lot of high dynamics going on with our key account and a lot of exciting new technologies developed jointly. So we continue with 8% of sales there for 2025. The full year CapEx was at USD 22 million. For this year, we expect this to be quite a step higher. There's land purchase in there, but there's also further capacity expansion going to be needed, especially for semiconductor. If I then look at the geographic overview, you can see that we have significant gains in Asia Pacific and in China, Europe and Americas slower. I think Asia Pacific, the main drivers there was due to AI, first, high-performance computing and more and more now also high-bandwidth memory. And then we have seen slowdown and re-acceleration in China last year with growing China in the last quarter again. The impacts on Europe and Americas are largely the U.S. trade restrictions in semiconductor and the timing of the security and energy orders. If you now jump into the different markets. Semiconductor and Vacuum Coating, we have a very strong position. We keep that strong position. We build it out further. You can also see this strong multiyear performance in quite a challenging environment that I mentioned earlier already. You can see that we have had a nearly 12% CAGR over the last 5 years without actually showing any slowdown as the general industry had in large parts of it. Now it's already a changing momentum for some time. The industry up cycle has started. It gained momentum. We have seen a higher order intake in Q4, and we continue to see this developing positively and expect a significant acceleration through 2026 and from there onwards. Though trade tensions and the geopolitical risks are significant and they remain in place. We expect for this year, strong growth due to the ramp. When we look at the performance, strong sequential growth of plus 21% compared to Q3. That's a slight decrease full year. But again, that's a bit the timing of the expansion projects. The orders that's significant there are really accelerating significantly. We have further expanded our position also with further applications working together with our key accounts. The positive dynamics around AI investments that have been relatively narrow last year have intensified and broadened and go now beyond logic clearly. And especially memory has a very strong dynamic, but it also goes already beyond into other sectors. So we really see this as a broader ramp now. The investment in leading -edge nodes continue as they have, and this also drives the increased use of our sensors and also an increased use of higher-value sensors. The strong pipeline with INFICON that develops further. I'm really proud of what we have achieved together with our partners, our customers in terms of new product developments and what is coming now in terms of new tech nodes, we are well prepared for and already have completed the R&D. When we then jump over to our second end market, Automotive, Refrigeration, Air Conditioning, we remain in a very strong position. You also here see the continued multiyear growth in a quite difficult environment with some of the markets contracting. We have a strong development in Asia, Americas, Europe is slower. If you look at the growth, you see a full year plus 2%. We have a strong order intake in this challenging market. Q4 was a slower sales of minus 2%. We expect for the year flat to growth. This depends much on how the markets develop here. EV, one of the key markets here is temporary still in slowdown. I believe the energy transition was in parts even going backwards for some time. I believe this is again moving forward, but the transition is slow and the market itself is also still slow, while of course, we see now some recovery signs in all geographies. The consumer battery sector is a bit more resilient. Midterm, we see very, very strong growth opportunities driven by the energy transition, also by new refrigerant regulations and a new important topic that emerged recently, the data center build-out. If we look at that sector, RAC was already a strong market for us, steady growing, not high numbers, but steadily growing, specifically in the aftersales service, the service tool business, but also beyond that and what is most exciting now that the data center build-out seems to be creating a whole new HVAC market that has a totally new interesting dynamic. New products are required for that, that we already have in development. And I believe that is going to be an interesting additional drive now that this data center are built out with new semiconductors, but also with entirely new infrastructure. Also here, I believe we have a very strong R&D pipeline that we work on together with our customers. If you look at ELT, Stratus, all the different product lines here, also LDS, right all at the forefront of the market. Then we jump over to General Vacuum. After 2024 was slower, we remember 2023 was really high sales because of catch-up of the COVID shutdown, in particular in China. Now we're back into growth for 2025 with a full year growth of plus 12%. We have a broad industrial market that we address here. We have also a number of private label partners. It's a multi-brand strategy with long-term channel partners. We have a strong position in all of these submarkets. Generally, we have seen positive development, in particular, in China and Europe last year. There's also a couple of smaller markets that are exciting, developing well, fit right into our growth profile and profitability profile like Big Science, Space and Robotics. But there's also in particular one market that still is slow and in consolidation, the solar market. We believe this is not going to go recover earlier than 2027. With that, I conclude and move on to our last market, Security & Energy. We are in a very strong position there with leading products. However, this market has entirely different development, a bit independent from the general economic development and is dependent on government programs and relative long qualification cycles. So the recent order activity is high. I think there's a lot of interest. There's a lot of dynamics, specifically in Europe with the increased defense budgets, and we are seeing also this additional tenders. We had a first interesting chunk that we delivered in Q4. That's why you see this 116% quarter-on-quarter increase. In general, it's still in a slower cycle, which will continue this year, but the order activities, as mentioned, are very encouraging. We also opened up new applications. And in general, the defense market is growing significantly. So we look very optimistic into the future on this market as well. And with that, I come to a couple of product highlights for 2025. As mentioned a couple of times, we are not a company that works on one big product with one big bang. We believe in constant iterative innovation close together with our top customers, our innovation partners. So there's a constant product launch, a string of product launch ongoing. And here, a couple of highlights of 2025. You see the Ultra Clean Porter for gas supply, high-purity. You see another generation of Transpector APX. This is our mass spec for all the new HPC and HBM application, Impact Manager for analysis on the different tools, the health of the tool and the health of the of the wafer. You see Gemini for Big Science application with new magnets. Then on Electrolyte, the leading -- also leading edge product for electrolyte leak detection, the D-TEK Pro ultra-sensitive, definitely a big step ahead in a market where we are leading already, Zevision on thin film measurement and then also another AI product that we launched, it's called Ask INFICON, where you can talk to our software about the numbers that you measure with our instruments and of a tool to understand what is going on and create custom statistics. All of these products are industry-leading by quite a bit, and we wanted to share some of them with you. There will be more updates of this, of course. On sustainability, a quick word. We have been continuously working on this, in spite of all the distractions most recently geopolitically, and we have achieved a continuous reduction of absolute greenhouse gas emissions despite nearly 70% sales growth when you compare 5 years, and we'll continue to do that. Now I come to the expectation 2026. Again, I mentioned, orders are very strong and they accelerate in the semiconductor market. The up cycle is clearly gaining momentum. It's broadening, it's deepening. It's really exciting what's happening. We have a number of new products out there for the next tech nodes. So we believe this is going to be a very strong positive dynamic. At the same time, geopolitics and trade disputes really add more uncertainty than we have seen in prior years. So this will also be hard to understand what exactly the timing of the economical development will be. Generally, we remain confident. We have seen these positive signals. We see also orders incoming, and we see this acceleration specifically in the semiconductor. And with the new configuration that INFICON set up last year, globally, we are set up also for absorbing new trade war shocks if there was any coming in the near future. The efficiency measure, as you can see from the improved Q4 profitability of 17.5% have been taking effect. They will be ongoing for the rest of the year. There's going to be some back and forth as we work this out of the system and go back to the 20-plus percent EBIT as we have been before. If you want to stay in touch with us and understand what's going on, please check out our online channels. There is always news where you see new factories opening, new repair centers, new innovations or any kind of culture development or otherwise when we interact with the public. And with that, I conclude my part and would like to hand over to our CFO, Matthias Troendle, for more details on the financials.

Thank you, Oliver, and good morning, everyone. This time, I will cover financials Q4, but also as well, I will comment quickly the 2025 results in addition to the normal set, also the dividend and of course, some comments on the outlook for 2026. So let me start with the highlights for Q4. As already mentioned, book-to-bill ratio was above 1, fourth time in a row, which is good. We saw a substantial and strong increase versus previous year, but also versus previous quarter. Sales did grow by 3.7% and reached a new record level with $184 million. The gross margin still under pressure with 44.4% drop versus last year, but showed some good improvement versus the previous 2 quarters. As a result, our operating income ended at $32.2 million or 17.5% of sales. From a balance sheet point of view, equity ratio, very strong 74%. Operating cash flow with a solid number of $26 million. Net cash improved clearly against Q3, but also against the previous year by $6 million. And CapEx was at a, I would say, medium level at $5.7 million for the quarter. From a fiscal year point of view, we have a similar picture for the highlights. Sales at $673.7 million, slightly up. The book-to-bill also for the full year above 1. And the gross margin ended at 44.9% and operating income at 16.7% of sales or $112 million. The CapEx was with $21.8 million lower than in 2024, and we generated cash flow from operation of nearly $90 million. From a sustainability point of view, we ended -- or in average, we ended the year with 1,731 people. Energy, we have a level of 90% certified green electricity, what we use and the CO2 emissions ended at 2,053 tons, which is roughly 20% below the reference period of 2020, despite -- which is good, I think, despite a revenue increase in the same comparison period of nearly 70%. Now let me go a little bit into the details. As communicated this morning, and just mentioned, we achieved revenue of $184.2 million, which compares to $177.5 million last year, and this is an increase of 3.7%. Oliver did already comment the market developments compared to last year. Q4 sales to the General Vacuum market increased by 27% and delivered another strong quarter. Sales to the Security & Energy end markets surged by 53%, mainly driven by sales into the Americas. Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Automotive sales were nearly flat with minus 2% and Semiconductor and Vacuum Coating market declined by 7% versus last year, but recovered strongly with a plus 21% and growth in all regions against previous quarter Q3. Let's take a look at the regional distribution. Good news is all regions did grow. That's very positive. Europe was the strongest year-over-year contributor with 8%. China and Asia Pacific did grow by 4%, respectively, 2% and Americas was mainly flat. Let's go to the expense. R&D costs did increase by 16.6%, driven by continued focus on development activities and related investments as well as some -- we also had some favorable impacts in Q4 last year, which drives this strong increase of 16.6%. SG&A costs increased by 3.6%. If we exclude the currency impact -- the negative currency impact, SG&A are actually decreasing. Now let's take a look to the margin situation. Q4 margins have been under pressure and declined compared to previous year Q4. Gross profit reached 44.4%, which is 2 percentage points lower than last year, but we could improve the margin by 1.3 percentage points compared to previous quarter Q3. The operating profit margin for the fourth quarter reached 17.5% compared to 20.3% a year ago, a reduction of 2 percentage points. What were the main reasons for that? We had several temporary impacts, negative impacts direct and indirect coming from trade-related disputes, which were tariff impacts due to increased base level base tariff levels. We had additional costs due to strategic capacity applications and reconfiguration of our production and also negative foreign currency impacts on gross margin and OpEx from the headwinds of the exchange rates. All impacts account for around 3 percentage points compared to the previous -- preceding to the 2 preceding quarters, Q2 and Q3, we saw a gradual improvement in Q4 across these metrics. Income tax and net income. Income tax expense for the third quarter was at $6.6 million, which represents a tax rate of 20.7%. This is clearly higher than Q4 last year, where we had some favorable impacts from U.S. tax regulations in our books. The net profit is at $25.3 million or 13.7% and of course, lower due to lower operating income and the higher tax rate. Let's move on to the balance sheet highlights. Net cash ended at $81.2 million in Q4, which is about $6 million higher than end of last year and is about $21 million higher than previous quarter Q3. The turns for inventory is stable at 2.4. DSO, days sales outstanding is at a good solid level at 48.5 days. The working capital ended at $229 million. And with that at 31% of sales and about $14 million higher than end of last year. The increase is driven by -- mainly by the changes in inventory and accounts receivables. The accounts receivables increased, thanks to the record high Q4 sales level. And in the inventories, we also had some negative impact from foreign currency. The operating cash flow is $26.1 million and slightly lower than Q4 last year. The balance sheet, as already mentioned, showed a strong equity ratio of 74%. That was my comment on the balance sheet in Q4, now we -- the fiscal year did finish, a few comments on the full year results. On that one, revenue ended at $673.7 million, a new record level. It only beat the previous record level by $2,000, but it's something, I would say, right? And the previous record was 2023. So basically, we had 3 years at a relatively high level, no major dip in there. As you can see in the chart, we were able to grow in the General Vacuum market by roughly 12% and in the RAC market by 2%. Semi decreased slightly by 3%. And as expected, Security & Energy ended lower in 2024. From a regional point of view, China, our largest sales region did grow by 1.2%, reaching $191 million or about 28% of our global sales. While sales to the Semi & Vacuum Coating market did decline in China, all other 3 end markets showed a strong double-digit growth rates. Asia Pacific surged with a plus of 19%, which was mainly driven by strong sales into the Semi and Vacuum Coating market and General Vacuum market sales. North America with a 23% share of global sales did decrease by 12%, mainly driven by the low Security & Energy sales. And Europe had also a share of 23% and did drop by 3%. Here, we see a mixed picture of General Vacuum and Security & Energy growing, while Semi and Vacuum Coating and RAC was a little bit lower. Turning to the cost for the full year. We spent $55.4 million on R&D for the full year, an increase of 7.4%. The ratio of -- this is a ratio of 8.2% of sales after 7.7% of sales last year. In SG&A, costs increased by 4.7%, mainly driven by unfavorable foreign currency impacts, while we keep our cost control tight. Margins, also here, we have a similar picture. The gross margin clearly decreased and reached 44.9% for the full year, showing a reduction of 2.2 percentage points compared to previous year. After a strong start in the first quarter, Liberation Day came early April and our second and third quarters were significantly impacted by the negative effects of trade conflicts, tariffs, exchange rates fluctuations and excess capacity. Q4 then improved slightly by -- or improved then by 1.3 percentage points. Operating profit thus reached $112.3 million or 16.7% of sales. This compares to the $136 million record level from previous year with 20.3% of sales. Year-on-year tax rate -- tax expense decreased by approximately 10% to $21.1 million, which gave us a tax rate of 19.7%, which compares to 17.3% in the last year, which was, as already mentioned, a little bit impacted by changes in the U.S. tax legislation. The net profit reached $85.8 million or 12.7%. This compares to $112.8 million or 16.8% in the previous year, a decrease of 24%. Also here, a few key balance sheet data. Operating cash flow for the full year was at close to $90 million and about 23% lower than previous year, mainly driven by the lower net income level. Capital expenditure decreased by 23% to close to $22 million and the working capital equity ratio I already commented. Now let me close with the outlook. During 2025, the order intake continuously exceeded sales and thus improved a solid or provides a solid base for the upcoming months. In addition, we expect an upturn in the semiconductor market for the current year and beyond. Certain risks and uncertainties connected to the ongoing trade disputes and unfavorable effects from foreign currency remain. Profitability expected to strengthen gradually, while some pressure on operating income margin might remain. Based on that, we expect sales for the current year in the range of $680 million to $720 million with an operating profit margin of 17% to 19%. And now my final -- nearly final slide. The dividend once a year, we talk dividend. Based on the performance of 2025 and the consideration of future investments and growth plans, the Board of Directors has decided to propose to the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders scheduled for April 22, a distribution of an ordinary dividend of CHF 2. This is a 4.8% decrease compared to last year, but represents a clearly increased payout margin with 73%. This also means we will return approximately $63 million to our shareholders. The payout is expected to be -- to take place on April 28. With that, I would like to close the presentation. Next event, this is really the last slide is our AGM in Rapperswil-Jona, April 22. And then 2 days later, we see us again with the Q1 results on April 24. The next analyst visit here in Balzers in Liechtenstein and this is on May 27 schedule. So now this was really the last slide. Now we are ready to take your questions.

Thank you, gentlemen. We have a couple of people wanting to ask questions. The first questions come from [indiscernible] Laura, please.

I actually have one question. I would like to -- can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Great. First, I would like to understand the building blocks to your $680 million to $720 million top line guidance, particularly to the lower end. I mean that's a 1% to 7% local currency growth. And to me, it just seems rather conservative. I mean if we look -- if we simply look at the semi segment, right, in the past, the end market was growing, what, 5% to 7%, as you said it yourself, and your Semi market -- your Semi segment was growing 11-plus percent. So there was already an outperformance there. And now the addressable market for semi is growing 13% a year. So if I assume that you will grow at least in line with the market, then you're saying that on the lower end of your guidance, you're expecting a double-digit percentage -- a low double-digit percentage decline in your other segments, which I don't know, it doesn't seem very aligned to what you say in your slides. And also on the higher end, there will be only a 1% growth. I mean, to be honest, I think all of the guidance is conservative, the lower and the higher end. So just trying to understand what have you considered in either case.

Yes. Thank you, Laura. I mean, we, of course, expected this question. Look, last year, at this point of time, there wasn't a Liberation Day yet. We delivered 20% [indiscernible]. And we saw an acceleration for the semiconductor ramp, not as steep as we see it now, but we saw these indicators. And then the following 2 quarters, we all know what happened. Q2, Q3 was very difficult for INFICON and for many in the industry and beyond the industry, obviously, right, because of this trade dispute escalation. So I guess where we are at is we're just trying to be a little bit cautious and understand these risks well and these uncertainties, and I believe they are significant. I mean, we started the year already with a number of negative surprises. We do not know how the year is going to develop. But of course, if you would take out uncertainties and risks, there is a significant upside potential, of course. We could imagine much higher numbers. But I believe where we are at this point in March this year, that is how we see the corridor with taking also significant risks and uncertainties into account. I hope this answers the question. Naturally, we are very optimistic around the semiconductor ramp. But the timing maybe is already one of the uncertainties that is not so clear. Again, it's much stronger than last year. That's for sure. Also, the order increase is significant. The projections of our customers are significantly higher. So that is all good reasons for very high optimism.

Okay. And then if I may, just one more. Just looking for some comments regarding supply chain availability, also regarding freight rates and so on. Like how ready are you guys and how ready is the supply chain? Or should we expect any hiccups?

Yes. We have done significant work on our supply chain since the last large crisis 3 years ago and have reconfigured our supply chains globally and also the manufacturing footprint. And as we talked a lot last year, specifically in Q2, Q3, we accelerated all of these programs. So I believe we have a very strong setup. But again, I will say the same thing that there's so much uncertainty these days. It's hard to see. Nobody would have seen this Middle Eastern escalation as we have seen. Maybe we're just about to take an off-ramp there, that will be very positive. But there is also negative scenarios there, which will impact global logistics quite significantly. I think we remain optimistic, and we are also confident about our position and how we can develop this year, while at the same time, also make sure we can go and respond to difficult scenarios. And I believe we have, again, significantly strengthened supply chain and global footprint. Not to forget that we really changed our strategy the last 5, 10 years from innovating in 3 main competency centers, that being Lichtenstein, Germany and U.S., we now innovate much closer with our customers and much more in Asia. And the same goes through then the whole company, right, as I mentioned, down to production and supply chain. We have worked on all of these pieces to be ready for the future, but not only to respond to trade uncertainties, but mainly actually to be at the forefront of innovation and really drive this forward. That is about this exceptional customer intimacy we have, and we want to further use that and strengthen that with innovating in Taiwan, in China, in Korea, in Japan and so on as well as we do already in the U.S. and in Germany and Switzerland and Europe for a very long time.

Next question comes from Michael Foeth.

Two questions from my side. The first one is regarding the opportunity you mentioned around data center build-out in HVAC. It's obviously happening already in 2025 and 2026, there is massive CapEx on data centers and yet you are guiding only for flat to growth. So it somehow can't really connect the dots and try to understand where the opportunity really lies for you unless there is a massive decline in the rest of the business. So if you can comment on that. And the second question would be to Matthias, if you could please provide some sort of bridge for the EBIT margin from 2025 to 2026 along the points that impacted the margin in 2025 to understand how it's developing and how we should interpret the path back to 20% plus margins.

Yes. Thank you, Michael. Yes, your question on RAC/Auto market, right? Yes, you could be significantly more optimistic there. That's true. The data center is a new segment, and it's a growing segment. It's an exciting segment. And we have developed the first products last year that we launched for this totally different dimension and performance of this new HVAC systems. That is still relatively early. I mean there's all the reason there for optimism, but the significant growth still has to come, right? The whole industry has to -- is turned on its head. Old players struggle to catch up. Some new players enter. Everybody needs to innovate at a whole different pace for that industry. Semiconductor has a different pace than HVAC industry, and that is kind of now injected into this market, certainly exciting. Yes. And this RAC/Auto end market breaks down in other segments. That's why it's, of course, in between, there is a battery in there, which I commented on the EV transition. It's going forward again. And I believe the midterm development will be strong. There's some policy issues there in all the regions, as we all know, that's public knowledge. And the auto market itself is struggling specifically in Europe and in the U.S., but also now in China a bit. So there is some positive signals there, but there's no reason for extreme optimism in that segment. I believe then the new refrigerant business, that is a steady growing one, right? That's all about climate change and adapting to the new regulations where we are at the forefront with our product, and that will continue to grow. So you've got a mixed bag there of a little bit of everything, I think. The data center is the exciting new thing. And then there is some things that are a bit still in the rebound starting phase, and then there is the steady growing one in the middle. Again, to your question, is that too conservative or not? Yes, you could maybe think that. And yes, we have, of course, scenarios where we see this grow more or much more. But I think we -- it's just also a good time to be a little bit cautious with where we're going. We're certainly ready for ramps, specifically in the semiconductor area, we are ready with our supply chain and our manufacturing. We're definitely pushing on innovation. But at the same time, you need to also manage the expectations and the scenarios in a realistic fashion, right? We need to see a few more signals maybe on the geopolitical side for easing of tensions that would really give then room for a very positive outlook. I hope that helps, Michael. And now you had a second question on the...

Let me try to explain a little bit, Michael. We -- as we commented, I think there were 3 main items in there putting pressure on our margin, the tariffs the capacity, duplication and the FX as 3 big points, I would say, and as I said, it was around 3% in Q4 and a little bit higher for the full year. So can we work on FX? No, not really. There are limitations in there. What we can do. Of course, we have this topic on our list to limit and ideally optimize a little bit the exposure. But then we have the tariffs, and yes, we worked on that. Therefore, we had a few transfers and relocation of products as well to minimize these impacts. But also here, it's somehow limited what we can do. We can work on capacity, on capacity duplication, on efficiency on top of other topics like pricing and really working more efficient. And these are the -- this is, I would say, the main topic where we need to emphasize and ialso optimize our workforce and where we are and how we do things. That's the main focus. And yes, the guidance we gave was 17% to 19%. And if you take the average, it's 18%. We closed the year with 16.7% and Q4, 17.5%. So there's, I believe, a good chance, right, to reach it and to work on the projects and topics I just mentioned. Some of them are worked to a huge degree concluded and finished, but there is still some work to do and to optimize.

Yes. And I would just like to emphasize that when you reconfigure globally innovation and also manufacturing supply chain, that also means reducing headcounts in some areas, reducing headcount we do this in a human-centric in a legal way. So that is connected with plans, agreements and severance. So this takes a little bit of time, right? So there is -- this is not fully done yet. I think we show very positive development in Q4. But this year, there will be still some left to do. But we see the path to this 20% already now when we take out this special effect. So we are confident on the one side that we are on the right track, but we also see that there is some more to be done. And then again, I reemphasize there have been multiple shocks in the last 12 months that were very unexpected and very painful. So we're a little bit cautious on that end as well on the bottom line of what might come and what might cost us, right? There's also good reasons for some inflation, some economic slowdown. You all are very strong in analytics. So you know that as good as we know, what is potential risks that will emerge. I hope that helps, Michael. We hope that it's going to be a fantastic year and will be a lot of fun. We could certainly -- we could use it after all this extra work with not so much extra fun on the top and bottom line last year, right? That is certainly what we would hope for and I think it's a good chance to also materialize.

Next questions come from Jörn Iffert.

The first one would be pleased to follow up on the margin topic. Can you please tell us, I mean, in this 300 basis points, or if I compare Q4 with 2024 average, it's still a 250 basis points impact on the gross margin. What here really is FX, which is likely staying? And what is the duplication costs, full-time employees, which will be reduced, which can be offset. So I want to figure out if the revenues would remain flattish, what is the margin support at the end of the day incrementally in 2026 versus 2025, [indiscernible] to better get a crap on this one. Maybe to start with this, if it's okay.

Yes. I mean I can start and maybe you want to add some. Yes, we have these 3 buckets, as Matthias outlined, as we outlined also in prior calls of tariffs, capacity and FX. I think the capacity is the biggest bucket of those. If you look at full year, just because we opened up new locations and then needed to ramp up and down the old ones, and there was a time overlap. And this is now happening. I believe there, we can largely reduce at the same time, it's also a ramping coming for some of the product lines. This will all be buoying anyway then. But the tariffs we had at one point of time, I think a 2 percentage point impact and that went down to about half. I think there is some more room there for improvement through further configuration, also some paperwork, some approvals, some things like that, which just take a little bit longer, but are less high impact. And then FX, yes, there is another percentage point in there, I think roughly right, maybe a little bit less depending. And -- but that one, yes, we have to take it to some degree. But at the same time, we also take measures on this as part of our long-term strategy that we now accelerated. And what that just factually means is, of course, going to be in this FX disadvantaged region, we rather reduce headcount where we rather add them in new locations. This is a lot about building up our Asian footprint as well, which serves different goals, right? The main goal is innovation and collaboration with our customers, as I mentioned earlier. And some of it is local for local production and sourcing. And -- but then, of course, also rebalance a little bit our footprint. Maybe you want to add some more color on...

I think the numbers. What I said previously and Oliver just commented, I think this is correct. We have these 3 buckets. And when we take a look to the full year, right, you can -- we can say that this amounts -- these 3 items to roughly 3.2 to 3.5 percentage points of impact, right, of course, in different quarters with different values, but for the full year around that. Big influence is, as mentioned already, capacity application, shifting -- shifting production, looking at efficiency at people at overcapacity and so on and reduce it. And this is where we can work on tariffs a little bit and FX also a little bit because, as Oliver just explained, right, due to the shift, we might be in a better position and a little bit better hedged. But that's the main explanation, I would say, I can.

And then the second out of the 3 questions, if I may, on the semiconductor end market, what do you currently see between OEMs and end users? And what do you see in the sub-technologies, lithography etch deposition and vacuum intensity developments incrementally here for your business?

I would say now it's really pretty much across the board acceleration. And it has accelerated last year. I think we mentioned something 10%, 20% year-on-year, '25 on '24. And then it has really further accelerated and it is accelerating as we speak. It's chip makers and tool makers for us. There are some individual dynamics, honestly, right? So some need to catch up, maybe they invest extra, some catch up unsuccessfully and they can't invest that much and then some are just on fire. I think we know all these names. This is pretty much in line with what their CapEx announcements are. We are entrenched in all these top players for a long time. So we supply directly. And memory has now exact the same sensor density as logic, leading logic, honestly. There is so much dynamic there. They buy the same tools. I mentioned earlier, the product launch of the next generation of the APX that is the product that goes in both sides. And there is also a dynamic on litho and there is also a lot of dynamic in China, which is also in part a replacement of the U.S. OEMs, we believe. So there's different dynamics, but it's really quite pretty much across the board, I would say. What we see now is in the second tier market is maybe the one that you could exclude a little bit from being that exciting just yet, but they get pulled in because power communication, analog chips, this is all getting pulled with a little bit, let's say, on the time line, probably a little bit placed a little further behind as the leading logic came before memory and then memory had next to the general DRAM cycle on top also the HBM cycle. So that is a bit different. It's extra hot. But then the other semiconductor markets also accelerate now. It's quite exciting to see. It could be a super exciting couple of years coming. Definitely, this and next year could be extremely exciting.

And then the last question, maybe a shortcut question for the guidance. With these potential risks which might come up and geopolitical uncertainties, understanding that the guidance is conservative, but what does it mean for Q1? For Q1, with the order intake being pretty strong book-to-bill above 1, it should be a pretty strong start to the year on sales. Is it fair to assume?

Yes. I think -- I mean, generally, we don't give guidance on quarters, but you have the benefit of getting a guidance for the year, which, of course, in the beginning of the year, that's what we're all contemplating here. Yes, it should it be higher or should it not be higher? It will get better over the year. And it will definitely be very good at the very end of the year. Sorry, jokes aside. But yes, Q1 starts out with good order entry, but there is also all kind of timing issues there. It's a seasonality in there. I believe it will be good. But if it's exceptional, if it's accelerated, this is not the point of time to go and talk about that. I think we talk about that in about the month. Again, there's also going to be lingering effects of supply chain of cost of severance and all kind of -- we need to see how it really puts itself together, right? So we don't have that yet. We can talk about it. Again, I would say quarter 1 or not, the year is going to be a good year. We're going to go back to significant growth. I want to reemphasize that Q4 was a record quarter of all times. I think hardly anybody in this space had that. And the whole year was also a record. I know it's razor thin, but it is 1. So that means we are just building on where we are, and we will build quite a bit further this and next year. I'm pretty sure that we're going to go and create quite some excitement as the year goes on. But that will be another call.

We've received some questions in writing. The first 2 questions come from Craig Abbott. And he asked, how confident are you on still getting back to the 20% operating profit margin and in what time line?

I would say we are 100% confident that we get back there because we can track what the pieces are and what the growth trajectory is. Midterm, it's really logical and easy also go beyond. What the timing exactly is that refers back to what I said earlier with all these uncertainties. It's -- we know better how geopolitics develop and global economy than you that we don't. We work in different scenarios as we have last year. And there is very optimistic and exciting scenarios in there where this is very soon because if you have this ramp coming and a couple of other markets on top of that also ramp, this is a no-brainer, right? And then it is very good. But we don't know if that is really going to materialize like this. I think we have to watch a bit the dynamics of the next months and quarters of how geopolitics develop. And is there going to be another stopper like last year? -- in the semi ramp. I believe it's less likely. But again, we are in March. So I don't know how the full year will unfold. Maybe, Matthias, if you want to.

No, nothing to add. I think that's exactly the situation.

Great. Second question blends into this as well. The question is the guidance includes a cautionary statement that some margin pressure continues. Where in particular, are you seeing this pressure? Is it more a cost issue or a pricing pressure?

I would not say that's a pricing. I think pricing, we're working through that. I made a couple of statements last year about that, that we are taking a partnership approach there. So we work together long term with the key accounts that we work with, the large semi players, and they also want us to be successful. So there's always solutions that we work out and they work itself through the system. So that will help also over time more and more anyway. I don't think there is anything that we should consider sticks around forever. I believe when we look at the numbers I just mentioned, and Matthias can add some also. tariffs, we reduced, we halved it and we're further trying to reduce capacity will definitely reduce. There's a ramp where there's a high volume where we now, of course, in some places, carry extra capacity that is ready for the ramp. And in other places, we have it in the wrong place. So that's this kind of working it out of the system, the efficiency measures. And then the FX will stay around for probably some time because of the -- how the currencies have developed, specifically U.S. dollars versus Swiss francs and versus euro to some degree. But we're also working on that because they expect this to be long term and have respective measures. Those take a little longer, right? So because then you really need to go and reduce your cost base in one currency and transform it somewhere else. That's a renegotiation of contracts, changing organizational headcounts, that's this kind of thing, which is just legally not even possible to do immediately, right? So that needs to be step by step.

Yes. I agree that the pressure will not -- most likely not come from pricing issues. It's more around these 3 blocks or at least 2 blocks, right, capacity tariffs, one thing, we need to work on it and what we do with regards to efficiency and people and other people and so on, this might create some pressure on that one and tariff on FX, we already mentioned now 2, 3 times. There were limits, but still, they -- of course, they give some pressure on our result and prevent us for bigger numbers and better numbers to a certain degree and for a certain period of time. So it's more this capacity efficiency and maybe also digitalization topics where we want to use for efficiency gains as well.

Thank you. Morowitz has the following question for you. How did the start of the year go? Has the momentum in orders continued and has profitability also improved?

Yes. I mean that is maybe the same answer as for Jorn. We don't guide on the first quarter. Again, in a month, we'll give you the exact numbers. What I also mentioned before already, we see the orders accelerated last year. Throughout the year, accelerated in the second half of last year, and they continue to accelerate. That means book-to-bill is actually going higher. And I think the projection is interesting. What we talk about now is with customers about our build-out of capacity and where and for what product lines, that is extremely encouraging. I believe also there, we have made big steps from reliability of -- and also the collaboration closeness that we have with these big players to be more assured of what then truly happens and what needs to happen. And it's in a very collaborative approach where we build out together with them on the joint plans and joint decisions. And we have taken a few already I mentioned earlier, the CapEx will certainly be quite a bit higher this year. Last year was just $22 million. This year will be, for sure, over $30 million. It might be even $40 million. So we'll see how this is going to go, but that is still a bit earlier in -- for affecting the immediate quarter. But the preparations, they're running hot already. So in some product lines, this has really accelerated the last couple of months. I would say, the last 6 months, we have seen a continuous acceleration. To the degree that you could say and maybe that's the reason why I showed this slide at the beginning of the $1.6 trillion Semi market in 2030, that might be really a step change. We have been in a good market with ups and downs, but a good average growth, but that would be that step change. We could actually -- from all the indicators we have, we probably say that is exactly what we see as well. But again, right, so that is part of scenario planning. I hope that helps.

Thank you. [indiscernible] also has a question that looks kind of into the future. He would like to know, could you give more detail on the growth for each segment you're expecting to reach your top line guidance of plus 1% to plus 7% in local currency?

I mean we don't guide in percentages there. We mentioned strong growth in Semi. I believe I gave quite some color on this. There could be a lot of upside potential, specifically if you look at the horizon of 6 to 24 months. The timing is a bit the question, right? And is there another stumble stone or slowdown or something. And then when you look at Gen Vac and RAC/Auto, I believe I also gave some colors, right? There's submarkets there that have different dynamics that you need to add up. So we believe they will all they will both be able to grow. But we don't know if there are slowdowns, stumble blocks, and that is where this flat comes in, right? So we would, of course, in a realistic scenario, say they grow. But they're obviously not going to grow 20% plus. That would not be an expectation we would have. But as you've seen also Gen Vac has grown last year 12% full year. So that's possible. And I believe RAC/Auto has been growing every single year, even though it's been very difficult 2 to 3 years in many of the submarkets it. So we'll continue to develop like that. Security & Energy, it's heating up. The pipeline is filling. Again, the defense budgets are increasing. There could be other chunks like we just saw in Q4 happening, and then it's all quick, quick as soon as we win such a rollout phase. But it's just not a year yet where we see the very big programs rolling as we know from the past. And they will come, but they're not here yet. Hence, we're a bit cautious there in giving you a growth outlook. And that's why we called it decrease. I hope that helps. We don't give more detailed numbers. It's also not necessarily an accuracy we would have, right, that we can give you exact percentage numbers.

Thank you, Oliver. There are no further questions at this time. So Oli and Matthias, any closing remarks?

Yes. Thank you very much. Thanks, everybody, for tuning in today and for the good questions. Look, it's been a tough year 2025. I think 2026 has all the hallmarks to be a super exciting year. So we look forward to that. We have a very strong position in innovation with leading products. I mentioned a few. So let's see how it goes. It will be certainly quite interesting, I believe. Stay tuned. And we talk again soon. As I mentioned, there's AGM upcoming, there's analysts upcoming, and there is a Q1 earnings release upcoming shortly. Thank you very much, and have a wonderful day.

Yes. Thank you very much.