Infineon Technologies AG (IFX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the conference call of Infineon Technologies AG on the publication of its Q3 2023 figures. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand over to Mr. Bernd Hops. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much. Good day, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to welcome you to our conference call on the results of the third quarter of fiscal 2023. On behalf of the Board of Infineon, Jochen Hanebeck CEO; and Sven Schneider, CFO, are attending. Right. Dear participants, as usual, Mr. Hanebeck will start by giving you an overview of the business performance of Infineon, after which [ Mr. Sven ] will give you some insight into the strategic alignment of the company, which we announced earlier this morning. After that, Mr. Hanebeck and Mr. Schneider will be happy to field any questions you may have. So I'd like to hand the floor to Mr. Hanebeck.

Thank you, Mr. Hops. Good morning. Welcome, listeners. Three quarters of our fiscal year 2023 are behind us, and now I can report again some very good results. Apart from the good figures in the third quarter, we've recently achieved some particularly important design wins for our company. In addition, this morning, you've probably already read that we are planning further substantial investments in additional manufacturing capacities. In the second part of my statement, I'll deal with that announcement, but first of all, the development of business. The development of the semiconductor market today is a mixed picture with a lot of light but also some shade. First of all is electromobility and renewable energies and the applications linked to that. These ensure lasting strong demand. These divisions remains very dynamic. In addition, some product sectors where, as expected, we find the market environment normalizing. And they remain good. These include classic automotive components, industrial drives. Other fields such as consumer applications and personal computers and smartphones, the demand remains weak. We find a reduction in inventories in these sectors and the demand among end users needs to recover. In this very challenging environment, Infineon has done very well in the past quarter. Thanks to our consistent orientation to the structural growth drivers for green digital change, we've been successful. In third quarter, the Infineon achieved revenue of EUR 4.089 billion. And compared to the previous quarter, this is a decline of 1%, which comes from a negative effect of the somewhat weaker U.S. dollar. The second result was EUR 1.067 billion, and segment result margin was 26.1% following 28.6% in the previous quarter. This strong result is fully in line with our guidance for the quarter. Various effects which weighed on the margin were expected. There's a good -- certain degree of capacity underutilization and additional costs for ramping up our manufacturing, also currency effects. Our order backlog, which consists of confirmed and unconfirmed orders, still indicates a trend to modernization, which is in line with the developments in our core markets. With a volume of EUR 36 billion at the end of March, the order backlog at the end of June was EUR 32 billion, which still corresponds to double our annual revenue. The free cash flow improved in the third quarter to EUR 326 million, following EUR 193 million in the previous quarter. In the course of this positive event, inventories have increased overall slightly in our own balance sheet. Now the results of the 4 divisions in the third quarter. The Automotive segment achieved revenue of EUR 2.129 billion. After in the second quarter, the division broke the EUR 2 billion mark for the first time. It increased even further. This was supported, above all, by the business, micro controllers leading to an increase in revenue of 2%. However, the segment result declined to EUR 583 million, and the margin was there for 27.4%, falling 31.1% in the previous quarter. This decline is due to the nonrecurrence of certain price markups for expedited deliveries and then also additional costs from some of our suppliers. Overall, the Automotive business was very good. There were strong margins with a considerably higher level than the previous year. In some categories, such as micro controllers and high-voltage ships, the supply situation remains tight. On the other hand, we see the classic automotive business normalizing. For 2023, the information service, S&P Global has slightly improved its forecast for the global car production. They now expect 86.7 million vehicles, which tallies with our own estimate, according to which customer interest and certain pent-up demand means the production will now grow moderately. At the same time, the number of semiconductors in the vehicle, which is one of the many important growth drivers for Infineon, with our leading product portfolio of electromobility and driver assistance systems, we're confident that our Automotive business will be expanded next year and in the years to come. One of the strongest growth markets is China. It is by far the biggest car market and the biggest market for electric vehicles. According to calculation by [indiscernible], Infineon is the leading supplier of auto and semiconductors in China. State subsidies for electrical vehicles in China have been extended to 2027 now. That is probably going to continue to support demand. At the same time, Chinese manufacturers are exporting more and more vehicles to other markets. We are again very successful with our customers, as shown by recent design wins. One example, a North American manufacturer has decided to use several versions of our high-voltage -- high-performance memories in this future platform of software-defined vehicles. More than 20 of our NOR flash chips on average used per vehicle. They store code and conversion data, for example, in the central computer and vehicle communication and in the infotainment system. This design win shows how Infineon is benefiting from the development of electric/electronic architecture in cars with a total volume of about EUR 800 million, it is the biggest order so far that we have achieved with our NOR flash memories. We can also be pleased about the progress in our cooperation with our suppliers for silicon carbide basic materials. In a quarterly communication at the beginning of May, we announced 2 new delivery agreements with the Chinese companies, SiC and TanKeBlue. And we've been able to finish qualifying the suppliers of the automotive industry ahead of schedule. And now we're supplying products to our customers all over the world. In the past quarter, the share of silicon carbide material that we obtained from Chinese suppliers amounted to 20% approximately. And that would double in the next quarters. This means that we can satisfy local demand locally. And we are confident that the -- we have the most reliable geographically diversified supply network for silicon carbide, particularly in the industry. And I'd add, it is very cost-efficient, too. As far as the change of the 200-millimeter wafers is concerned, we have obtained test [indiscernible] from 5 suppliers and we're contiuing our processes and are preparing for the change as soon as it makes sense in terms of costs. For fiscal 2023, we are right on track to achieve our target of EUR 500 million revenue with silicon carbide products. Green Industrial Power. The division again recorded an excellent quarter with revenue of EUR 565 million, which was just up by 1%, compared to the March quarter, which was a record revenue figure. The fields of application, transport and renewables energies and energy infrastructure were the important growth drivers. The segment result was EUR 171 million with a segment result margin of 30.3%, compared to 32.4% in the previous quarter. We see lasting strong demand for our core application decarbonization and the growth in the field of automation and industrial drives is moderate. But for the field of transport, we think that the potential will recover in the near future to the level before the pandemic or higher. With the eased back module for power inverters, we achieved a major design win from Delta Electronics in the low 3-figure million range. Our modules will be used in AC/DC converters and onboard chargers in electric vehicles. Customers are impressed by Infineon's ability to provide tailor-made solutions for their demands with the necessary delivery security. And we've seen good momentum in industrial business with silicon carbide products, where revenues increased by more than 60% than the previous quarter. Our customers are supporting the expansion of our silicon carbide manufacturing capacities with design wins and financial commitments. We'll come back to in a minute. In Power & Sensor Systems, revenue in the third quarter was EUR 917 million, which is more or less stable. It's certainly 1% lower, which was expected. Whereas demand for solutions for power supplies was weak, the sensor business has recovered considerably from a very low level. Segment result [ margin ] was EUR 191 million and the segment result margin of 20.8% following 21.3% of previous quarter. And the division is controlling the manufacturing capacities and order books with the necessary idle costs very closely in order to compensate for customer demands and industrial margins. Demand for smartphones and retail applications remain weak, whereas -- as a result, inventories are also being digested here. Therefore, we don't expect a short-term recovery in the PSS business. Special applications such as charging station, electric vehicles and solar panels for private households do have and remain important growth drivers. One way of light in the past quarter was a major design win from a North American electric vehicle manufacturer, where we are successful with our silicon carbide power transistor for onboard charging for an electric pickup truck. Another important field, which is -- for Infineon is artificial intelligence. The discussion of ChatGPT over the last months has shown that the large language models have the potential to raise digitalization to a whole new level. The division of PSS will benefit considerably in the course of time from this structural growth driver because training artificial intelligence has a great deal of computing power and requires a massive expansion of high-performance computer centers. This is only possible by highly efficient, specialized power band solutions, which Infineon offers all the leading manufacturers. Now the Connected Secure Systems segment. Revenue in the third quarter was EUR 474 million, which is a decline of 14%, compared to the record March quarter. This is due to a weaker development in Wi-Fi components, micro controllers, whereas the demand for ID documents and payments remained strong. The segment result declined to EUR 119 million and segment result margin was 25.1%, following 28.2% in the previous quarter. The margin level was supported despite the decline in revenue by structural improvements and efficient management and the available above capacities with our contract manufacturers. Considering markets in the field of consumer electronics, Internet of Things and computing, this was weaker as expected when recovery is not in sight as of yet. But we see that the order backlog in the field of CSS is returning to normal, showing that the market environment is improving overall. One of the many interesting design wins, which we achieved in the course of the quarter, was the use of our Wi-Fi components for the next generation of single-board computers. In addition, we've got the recent acquisition of an artificial intelligence with the start-up of Imagimob with headquarters in Stockholm. It's a leading platform supplier for machine learning solutions for energy-efficient edge devices. And since 2013, it's been supplying customers in the world of automotive, industrial production, health and lifestyle. And with the takeover, we're improving our position and our offer for machine learning and artificial intelligence solutions, which means that there's possibilities of machine learning can be transferred to our own microphone -- micro controllers when they were previously based on server farms. These strategic step combines 2 of important aspects, namely artificial intelligence and software. With the combination of system solutions, we can offer our customers a great benefit. And so ladies and gentlemen, I come to the outlook. The trends to decarbonization and digitalization are healthy, and they're driving Infineon's business. We shall conclude our fiscal year much better than expected in November last year. We are well on the way to achieving guidance, which has been raised twice in the course of the year. And that margin range remains characterized by different patterns of demand. There are some areas of structural growth and others with robust demand, increased normalized market environment and others where the weakness continues in the field of consumer applications. In the fourth quarter, we expect revenue of about EUR 4 million, in other words, basically stable even compared to the past quarter. This forecast is based on a change of the U.S. dollar to the euro of EUR 1.10 unchanged. With the forecast revenue, the segment result margin is likely to be about 25%. This figure reflects the need to maintain -- to accept certain idle costs. The incremental ramp-up of manufacturing is an important factor. On the base of the expected revenue, we can see that we should achieve revenue of EUR 16.2 billion for fiscal '23, which corresponds our existing guidance, also reflects the segment result margin of about 27%, which is again unchanged, compared to guidance at the beginning of May. Also forecast current investments in property, plant and equipment and intangibles assets and capitalized development costs remains constant at EUR 3 billion. The free cash flow is likely to come to EUR 1.2 billion, and the adjusted free cash flow is expected to come in at about EUR 1.7 billion, which corresponds to more than 10% of the forecast. Now I come to the plans to accelerate manufacturing capacities in silicon carbide. As you probably saw in the press release this morning, we intend to build, by far, the biggest silicon carbide power semiconductor fab in Kulim based on 200-millimeters technology. Driven by decarbonization, the market for power semiconductors is growing rapidly. And within this market, we are recording impressive growth for silicon carbide, just by both in the automotive industry understand a wide range of applications such as solar panels, energy storage systems and charging stations for electrical vehicles. These will be followed by further applications. Growth is accelerating. It is well above the forecast of many market researchers, and also it's exceeding our own expectations so far. Different customers have indicated that the long-term the silicon carbide chips will be greater than expected so far. Therefore, we decided to increase the scope of ongoing expansion at the Kulim site. We intend to increase the capacity with which we hope to achieve annual revenue with silicon carbide products of about EUR 7 billion by the end of the decade. Expanding the module at the Kulim side has advantages because we have infrastructure in existence, highly qualified employees on the spot, and we benefit from the economies of scale. And therefore, we are confident that Kulim, together with a competence center for power semiconductors in Villach, Austria gives us a very competitive fab on a global scale. Our decision to invest was supported by long-term customer agreements, about EUR 5 billion of additional design wins and the prepayments related to them amounting to about EUR 1 billion show that our customers have great confidence in Infineon relying on us as reliable partners and innovation drivers. And also, we have got new customers in the field of automotive, including 6 OEMs, 3 from China. And among the customers are Ford, is SAIC and Chery. And I would stress that all these long-term agreements are based on OEMs. It's those who ultimately are the decisive players on the market. In the field of renewable energies, the customers include SolarEdge and 3 leading Chinese companies in the field of photovoltaics and energy storage systems. In addition, with Schneider Electric, we have agreed a capacity reservation, including prepayments for power products based both on silicon and on silicon carbide. Other details will be announced in separate agreements with the various customers in the near future. Our customers' prepayments will make a positive contribution to the free cash flow next year. And we expect that the amounts will be completely repaid by 2030 at the latest. With the second phase of cost expansion in Kulim, we should invest an additional EUR 5 billion over 5 years, [indiscernible] a cumulative investment demand for front-end buildings, but EUR 4.5 billion over the next 5 years. Together with the planned changeover to our 200-millimeter production lines in Villach and Kulim to silicon carbide, the investment will make the additional revenue potential of about EUR 7 billion by the end of the decade possible. Our target to achieve a market share of 30% in silicon carbide is coming much closer. It's a major step to achieve. And the aim in fiscal 2025 is to expect revenue volume of more than EUR 1 billion with silicon carbide products. The production start of a newly announced capacities in Phase 2 of the projects planned for 2027, and we are making good progress with completing the first building section. That part will probably be finished in the second half of [ 2021 ], we can begin production. So listeners, with that, I complete my comments. Together with Sven Schneider, we'd be happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the DPA representative.

The market wasn't that enthusiastic about your news this morning. So the question that this bags is whether you may not be too optimistic with respect to the big system expansion project. You can see that there was an exception. You didn't raise your forecast. On top of that, inventories are depleting quite quickly, and that doesn't seem to match your revenue. Did you really not receive that many orders in that quarter? Is that cause for concern? Or is everything okay?

Well, First of all, I'd like to clarify one thing. The forecast that we issued in May was confirmed today, and we believe that we are very comfortable with it and that we can comply with it for the entire financial year. Now making big announcements is something that always moves the market. It is definitely easier to do this in a boom phase. However, we are convinced that silicon carbide is a very special, very strong growth driver and that the time is now ripe and this is supported by customer prepayments to continue investing in this field. And not to stop at the first phase of Kulim 3, if I can put it in those terms. This is definitely a bold move. But as I said before, we've done something similar with [indiscernible]. And at the end of the day, we proved to be absolutely on the money. And when the market starts booming again, it will be easier for everyone to understand our rationale. With respect to inventory, I think that you're talking about order backlog, aren't you?

Yes, of course, I am.

Yes, that's what I thought you said or meant. Well, it dropped from EUR 36 billion to EUR 32 billion. Indeed, that's true. But this doesn't correlate perfectly to revenue, because these order backlogs are very dynamic. They shift and roll forward into the future. There are structural reasons for this. This means that we have already received some orders, albeit fewer than in past quarters. But once again, EUR 32 billion is a figure that, we believe, may be a little high. We're talking about revenue of EUR 16 billion. We have a 2-year order reach, and this indicates that there will have to be some corrections. I'm not at all unsettled by this, and it doesn't make me doubt that the company can continue growing. This is just a typical cyclical effect. Basically, we just need to monitor how these orders on hand change over time. But as I said before, everything is absolutely fine.

The next question comes from Agatha Cantrill from Bloomberg.

This is Agatha Cantrill from Bloomberg. I have a couple of questions. First of all, you say that one reason for the forecast group revenue is the segment result margin. And you say it will be roughly 25%. Now you say a reason for that 25% is -- no, I'm sorry. One reason is essentially the rise in idle costs in the preceding quarters. Could you perhaps give us some more information on what exactly the idle costs consist of? Because this is something that I've also read from the analysts. So perhaps you can give me some more insight into what idle costs actually are? How important for the factory is the role that China plays and the Chinese auto manufacturers, such as SAIC and Chery? Is it right to work so closely together in this field with Chinese players?

Sven Schneider here. Thank you very much Mrs. Cantrill for the questions. I'll address the first part with the idle cost and Mr. Hanebeck will then address the role of China and Kulim. If you take a look at the development of margins in Q3, the past quarter, they amounted to 26%. And now in Q4, we are guiding 25%. The question is what is the 1 percentage point drop comes from on basically unchanged revenue? There are 3 major reasons for this, the first being the dollar. In the past quarter, we had an exchange rate of EUR 1.09 of the euro to the dollar. We are planning for EUR 1.10. Now for Infineon, if the dollar is weak, we lose revenue. If the dollar is strong, we gain results and revenue. So we have a similar effect that we have to consider in the margin. Secondly, we are undertaking major investment projects module 4 in Dresden, the first module in Kulim, and of course, the costs are now weighing on us. Now the third reason, the idle costs. We are building factories, which in terms of space and also equipment, are designed for a certain volume structure and capacity. As a company, of course, you want to meet your forecast as best as possible. But of course, that's not always entirely possible. So we have structural idle costs, because the factories capacity utilization isn't at 100%. So they are to the tune of EUR 100 million to EUR 150 million per annum. Anything above that weighs on the margin, the idle costs, given the weakness in the consumer market, lead to a situation where the loading for consumer-relevant products in Q4 is reduced more, so that the factories are a little more empty and this drives up the idle costs a little. This is a very detailed response. So it's FX, idle costs, ramp-up costs for new projects.

I'll be happy to fill the second part of the question, how important the role of China is in relation to Kulim. Well, China has the greatest automotive market in the world. And therefore, it is also -- or on top of that, it is also a big driver for renewable energy. We want to participate in this market and we want to continue to partake of it in the future as well. Generally speaking, it can only be in the interest of everyone on the planet. If China continues to decarbonize, be it through our silicon carbide chips for autos or for industrial applications. So having said that, yes, there is a certain degree of dependency. Part of the factory is dependent on China. We also saw substrates, which is the starting material from China to a certain degree, and we tend to do that from our Chinese customers. But beyond China, we also have a very wide business, which stretches over Japan, Korea, Europe, North America. So on -- in total, Infineon is quite well diversified. But yes, indeed, automotive has a very strong market in China.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Ilka Kopplin from FAZ.

I have 2 questions, just to make sure that I've understood everything properly. Mr. Hanebeck, you spoke of how much silicon carbide in the past quarter you obtained from China. I think you spoke of 20% roughly. And the future development, you said that you wanted to be especially cost-efficient. Could you give me some more explanations on that? And then towards the end, you said that production would start at the beginning of 2024, et cetera, and that the euro would actually play a big role in the second half of the year. I believe that you were referring to the new factory in Kulim, am I right?

Yes. Mrs. Kopplin. Indeed, you understood that quite well. We sourced the starting material, silicon and silicon carbide, these are our wafers from external suppliers. In silicon carbide, 20% have already been procured. You may know that other competitors want to manufacture everything themselves. We believe that the silicon carbide market will develop similarly to the substrates for the silicon market. And therefore, it's better to buy the starting materials. And this is increasingly crystallizing to be true. The market is extremely hotly contested, and this is quite beneficial to us. We are increasing the share of Chinese substrate. We intend to actually double it over the next quarters. And that will put us in the ballpark of the products that we sell to the Chinese market that are based on silicon carbide. Now we have a Japanese supplier and 2 U.S. suppliers in addition to our Chinese suppliers. So we have wonderful global diversification in this area. Therefore, I don't believe that there is any critical dependency here.

I apologize, just to add on. You're at 20% right now supplies from China for silicon carbide. This is a share that you want to increase and actually double in the future?

Yes, exactly. And this will roughly correspond to the percentage of silicon carbide products from our stage of the value-added chain that will be sold to China. Otherwise, we have a Japanese supplier, 2 U.S. suppliers. And I believe that this number of suppliers will actually increase. So we are very well diversified. However, now this is the picture that we paint specifically for silicon carbide. There are other trends as well and tendencies in other markets where customers of ours are shifting production. Especially in the consumer segment, they're shifting it away from China. This, of course, has ramifications on our revenue. And as you know, our total Chinese revenue is about 30%. But I don't believe that it will increase due to silicon carbide actually. It may actually account for less of total group revenue in the future. Now as far as things being contemporaneous, you're right. We're talking about Kulim 3 Phase I. This is something we announced in February of last year. Here, production will start in the fall of 2024. And what we announced on top of that today is another EUR 5 billion. And this will become effective in the middle of 2027 when production begins. So these are 2 steps, which will happen one after the other. So given the market development, we decided to take the second step, and this is supported by customer orders and commitments.

The next question comes from [ Georg Mueller ] from the TV Media Group.

I just heard that the silicon carbide share is becoming more important with respect to power semiconductor production. Now over the long term, what does that mean for the silicon-based factories such as Dresden? The second question is because of the TSMC factory issue, how far have discussions come with Infineon for taking a stake? Perhaps are you considering a joint venture or a different solution?

Well, with respect to the latter question, I'd like to say that we do not contribute to any speculation on the market. With respect to the first part of your question, Dresden, Dresden indeed is a 300-millimeter power semiconductor factory based on silicon. But we also have the analog mixed signal products that we have announced. These are going to be built in a new factory. So we're going to have 2 pillars here. So we're going to have very highly differentiated products, and the silicon power semiconductors have a very bright future from where we stand. The entire semiconductor market is growing, including that for silicon power semiconductors. And in this area, we have a very good competitive position with respect to economies of scale, with respect to manufacturing and our product portfolio as well. And we expect that beyond market growth, we will be able to claim additional market share. With respect to the investment in Kulim 3, we want to achieve similarly good economies of scale in silicon carbide as well. So these 2 dovetail each other quite well. Neither of them are detrimental to the other, but rather they supplement each other perfectly.

There are no further questions. And therefore, I would like to hand the floor back to Bernd Hops.

Thank you very much. I hereby close the Q&A session, therefore. But before handing the floor back to Mr. Hanebeck for his concluding remarks, I would like to say a couple of things. I would like to express my gratitude for the interest everyone has shown in the past years. As you may have realized or heard, I'm going to leave Infineon in a couple of weeks. So therefore, I'd like to thank you all. And I look forward to or at least hope that I'll be able to deal with some of you in the future either by phone or face-to-face. So thank you very much. And having said that, Mr. Hanebeck, your concluding remarks.

Yes, Bernd. Thank you very much, and thank you for the time together at Infineon. Listeners, finally, I will sum up. Infineon has again recorded a strong quarter. We are fully on track to achieve upgraded targets for fiscal 2023. The picture on the different markets is varied. In some areas, demand remains high; in others, we see a normalizing market environment with robust demand; other areas going through a weaker market phase. But thanks to our strong portfolio, which is oriented for long-term in terms of decarbonization and digitalization, we're continuing our profitable growth cost despite short-term cyclical fluctuations. With recent decision to increase our production commodities for silicon carbide considerably, we are strengthening our leading role in the power systems. We're going to continue down our path with determination because we know that our solutions will advance green digital transformation and will offer our customers great benefits. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]