Jenoptik AG (JEN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Jenoptik conference call regarding the results of the first 9 months 2024. [Operator Instructions] Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Dr. Stefan Traeger.

Thank you very much, and a very warm welcome from Jena. Thanks for being with us today to our Q3 Earnings Call. With me, as always, is Prisca Havranek-Kosicek, our CFO. Prisca is going to dwell on the numbers in a bit more detail later in the call. Before we go there, let me just summarize what we have seen in our business and in the market lately and just point to some developments that we have seen in the marketplace. Firstly, the -- let me just to reiterate that we have seen invoiced sales and operating profit developing very nicely in this year thus far and really in line with our expectations. Based on the still strong order backlog that we have, we confirm our revenue and our sales and profit targets for this fiscal year. Order intake has been slightly below prior year's figure primarily driven by a decline in NPC order intake, in other words, in the automotive market environments. Our semiconductor business has seen a stable demand development. In other words, we're not falling off a cliff in any way, shape or form. However, we also have not seen and do not expect any more for this fiscal year, a huge growth in order intake in the semiconductor market, as originally anticipated. And I don't think that comes as any surprise to any one of you following us more closely, given recent communications by major customers of ours. As a result of that, again, we fully reconfirm our guidance in sales and profit, operating profit for 2024. However, we have postponed our fiscal targets, midterm strategic targets of EUR 1.2 billion in sales and 21% to 22% of that in EBITDA by 1 year. We postponed that. We've transitioned over from 2024 to 2026, essentially. That's another way of saying we do see 2025 as a bit of a transition year. We're not giving guidance at this point for 2025. We will guide 2025, as always, at the beginning of the new year. But we wanted to be clear that we postponed or moved, transitioned, those strategic targets essentially by 1 year. And again, let me again reiterate, we have not seen orders falling off a cliff here in any way, shape or form in the semi area, but we also haven't seen the originally anticipated growth. And given our customers' communications, again, shouldn't be coming as a surprise to any one of you that we do not foresee that huge order intake growth we originally anticipated for the remainder of the year. The long-term trends and long-term growth perspective for Jenoptik, we do believe remain intact. And we transitioned over to 2026 with our financial strategic targets. With that said, I would hand over to Prisca. And Prisca is going through the financial numbers in more detail for the group. Prisca?

Thank you, Stefan, and good morning to all of you on the call. I would like to now cover our performance of the first 9 months in greater detail, as always, starting with order intake and order backlog on Page 6. So far in 2024, we have seen quite some volatility on order intake. Following very positive dynamics in the second quarter as we reported 3 months back, we saw a greater level of overall market uncertainty in the third quarter. So 9 months order intake came in at EUR 782 million, down by some 6% year-over-year with the main divisional trends being as follows. Demand from the semi equipment end market has been largely stable in the first 3 quarters. Stefan just mentioned this, and Stefan will also talk a little bit more in detail on our expectations here going forward. Demand in our Optical Test & Measurement area was basically unchanged in Q3 compared to the first half of 2024, while demand in certain life sciences and medical applications overall remains subdued. As for NPCs. Actually here, there are 2 effects playing out. Firstly, overall demand was weak driven by structural issues both in the German and the North American automotive industry. And secondly, the last year's figure included a major order in Q3 which we haven't seen this year. As a result, our book-to-bill ratio on group level has reduced to slightly below 1 with our NPCs here being the main driver. As a consequence, our order backlog reduced somewhat by about 5% year-over-year, however, still remaining at a robust level overall. I would like to note here that the reduction in order backlog is solely attributable to the situation of the NPCs, as mentioned before. For the remainder of this year, we anticipate to convert around 35% to 40% of this backlog into revenue. Now turning to revenue and profit development on Page 7. I think overall execution in the first 9 months continued to be very strong, considerable notable growth in sales and in earnings. Looking at the left graph, you can see that top line development remained very good and in line with our expectations. Revenue was up by around 6% without any effects from portfolio changes. Hence, this growth is purely organic. The main growth drivers in this period were once again our Advanced Photonic Solutions division as well as our NPC segment. Moving on to profitability on the right side. As you can see, we again have grown our EBITDA substantially and well above the top line growth, which resulted in a further improvement of our margin. Group EBITDA came in at around EUR 161 million with the respective margin being up by a little over 100 bps mainly driven by scale effects. From a divisional perspective, the main contributor in absolute terms were the NPC, but also our APS division performed at a robust level. Now we reiterate here some statement of cautiousness as I did at the first half stage when it comes to full year expectations. We continue to expect margins to be largely flat year-over-year for 3 main reasons. Firstly, the EBITDA margins of our NPCs in the fourth quarter of last year was very strong. So we do not expect a positive year-over-year margin effect from this business in the final quarter. Secondly, we expect some tailwinds from the next step of the union tariff agreement, driving our personnel expenses in the remainder of the year. And finally, we expect some extra costs relating to the move of operations to our new fab in Dresden as we have indicated before. So moving on to Page 8. Here, I would like to give you a little bit more color on the drivers behind the evolution of our margins. In the first 9 months, we saw gross margin approximately 80 bps down year-over-year, which from a line item perspective, was influenced by higher depreciation. On the functional cost side, we continue to be very disciplined on spending. And despite some general labor cost inflation impact and also our continuous investment into R&D, our functional costs were growing at a lower rate than revenue. Our other operating results improved year-over-year primarily as we recognized an impairment charge in the prior year relating to the sale of our equity stake in TELSTAR-HOMMEL as we reported last year. In addition, we recognized lower FX losses this year compared to the same period last year. Moving on to the EBIT line. We see a marked increase both in absolute terms as well as margin line. Further down the line, our financial result was at minus EUR 12.4 million compared to minus EUR 11.5 million in the prior year primarily due to net-net impact of exchange rates. Finally, earnings per share reached EUR 1.15, up around 22% year-over-year. So overall, as I mentioned before, strong execution on the first 9 months with a very solid set of revenue and earnings. Now looking on to Page 9, the cash flow and balance sheet data. Starting with cash flow. You can see that operating cash flow pretax was broadly in line with EBITDA accretion. Overall, our net working capital intensity reduced slightly year-over-year but increased slightly versus the fiscal year-end 2023, given the typical seasonal development pattern of net working capital. Moving on to CapEx. We are continuing to invest into our capacities as planned, and as you know, with our new semi fab in Dresden being our most important project. As indicated on our last call, we were expecting some catch-up of our cash CapEx in the second half, and this is what you see now in the 9-month stage. So overall, investing cash flow now up year-over-year, in line with our expectations. Finally, net debt position was broadly at the same level as we reported for the end of last year, reflecting our investment program as well as our dividend payment earlier this year. So leverage was at 1.9x, slightly improved from fiscal year-end 2023 at 2x. So overall, you can see our financial position and balance sheet remains very strong. And with that, let me turn back to Stefan to cover our divisions and our outlook.

Yes. Thanks, Prisca. And as always, I'll start with our APS, our Advanced Photonic Solutions business, comprising, obviously, our semicon businesses and our activities in life science and health care and the optical metrology and electronics piece. As you can see on Page 11 of the deck, order intake is essentially flat, EUR 625 million orders booked this year thus far. We see a stable demand in our marketplaces. At the same time, we managed to ramp up our sales. We managed to ramp up our operations, leading to a book-to-bill ratio of slightly below 1 and revenue growth of 7.2%, which is a strong result for the business here and leads -- and that strong result volume impact, in particular, leads to EBITDA numbers rising. We have a further increase in the profitability of APS. And we do see that we have 21.4% EBITDA margin. Slightly below last year in terms of margins, but essentially at the same level basically. But an overall increase in EBITDA in absolute numbers. So we're very happy with the development of APS thus far when it comes to sales and profit. And again, order intake is flat and we believe will remain that way roughly for the remainder of the year. So you will not see the original anticipated upswing in semicon, but we also have not seen a huge decline here in any way, shape or form, back to what I said earlier at the beginning of the call. Let's move over to Smart Mobility. Smart Mobility, as you know, we do invest in our own sales channels. In North America, we do invest in updating our product portfolio at the moment, putting pressure on EBITDA margins. EBITDA is about EUR 500,000 below last year's level despite essentially a flat sales development. The good news in this business is basically the increase in order intake. We booked about EUR 90 million fresh orders this year thus far. Let's not forget the order intake in our Smart Mobility business is very lumpy and it's subject to project business, as we always have. We have ups and downs, huge swings in order intake. It's a lumpy business, and sometimes we get large orders, sometimes we don't. So we have seen, again, first 9 months, stable development here. Order intake is slightly up to EUR 90 million for the first 9 months of the year. Revenue is stable, and EBITDA margins declined by EUR 500,000 due to the investment in our own sales force in North America, where we, by the way, have seen some nice orders, some nice project wins already, but we expect more, and the additional R&D spend on updating our product portfolio. If we turn the page to Page 13 in the deck, our non-portfolio companies. And here, you see quite some swings. Order intake is, how to put that, declining big time in the first 9 months of this year. We have 2 effects, essentially. One effect is in North America affecting and impacting Prodomax order intake. We have seen big project delays in the first quarter this year already for Prodomax. Second quarter has been strong. The third quarter has been weak again. We have seen postponements and delays in projects in the North American automotive industry. To what extent political uncertainties, instabilities play a role there, it's hard to say for us, obviously. But we still do believe that projects are going to come back, particularly in the first quarter of next year. At least that's what our customers are telling us at the moment. And of course, we have to see if that sort of really materializes. All we can say thus far is projects are delayed in North America, the North American automotive industry from this year into next year, impacting Prodomax order intake. We have another effect, and that's the high uncertainty in the German automotive market, predominantly impacting HOMMEL. Here, I have a hard time to say it's delayed, to be honest. The German automotive industry is in huge turmoil as we all can see in the news if we tune into that. And it's the uncertainty really that makes the difference. So HOMMEL is impacted by that uncertainty [indiscernible] by quite a bit. Revenues are up this year. Sales are up by almost 5%. And that's, in particular, in Prodomax, particularly in North America. Prodomax performance, operating performance is very, very strong, driving profitability big time. We do see that probability is up significantly. The margin of our NPC companies in an average is now at 18% of sales. And I don't think it's a surprise to anyone if I'm saying this is predominantly driven by Prodomax. Margin at HOMMEL is stable, is positive. But the driver for the upswing in the EBITDA and the operating profit margin really is our Prodomax business, which, yes, as I say, from an operating perspective, performing very nicely but has its challenges and delays in projects. Okay. With that said, again, to the outlook for the remainder of the year and for the midterm future. For the remainder of the year, we iterate our guidance. We do believe that revenues will grow in mid-single-digit -- in the mid-single-digit percentage range, as always anticipated for this year. We do believe that EBITDA margins will be somewhere between 19.5% and 20%, including expected negative impact of approximately 0.5 percentage points due to our Dresden move. Order intake is slightly -- is expected to be slightly below prior year's figures. And we do believe that capital expenditure might be slightly higher than prior year, but we -- yes, slightly higher, I'd say, is the right term to be used. In particular, due to the expected delay in the upturn in the semiconductor equipment industry, our original midterm guidance for around EUR 1.2 billion in sales and an EBITDA margin of 21% to 22%, we're now transitioning over to 2026. 2025 for us, all we can tell thus far, will be a transition year. We do not anticipate a significant decline here. We do not see our business falling off a cliff in any way, shape or form. We also cannot expect any more a huge uptake in the semiconductor industry as originally anticipated. And therefore, we have to postpone our guidance and transition it from 2025 to 2026. So with that, thank you very much for being with us today. And let me hand it back to the operator for any questions you might have.

[Operator Instructions] So the first question is from Craig Abbott from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Yes. Yes, Stefan, I mean, you've -- yes, we appreciate you're not going to give us guidance '25. I understand that. And you've given us some color already, thank you for that. We understand you've got a lot of moving parts here. But I just wonder if you could share a little bit more color on your thoughts at this stage. I mean, on the one hand, you have now guided down significantly for '25, but you're still looking for mid-teens growth next year. We see smartphone end markets gradually recovering thanks to next-generation AI models. Your dental surgery business, I think, continues to perform well. And then, of course, on the other hand, we got the problems at HOMMEL. And we appreciate that the originally anticipated pickup in orders in your semi business not coming through. But you made it very clear, they're not falling off a cliff either. So would I be right in assuming you might still see a flattish-type top line or even slight growth next year, but clearly, below what you originally expect? I mean, would that line of thinking be completely misguided?

Again, Craig, firstly, thanks very much for your question. Let me, I would like, as a disclaimer, reiterate. We're not going to give a guidance at this point. We'll be very careful and weigh our words very carefully here at this point. But you're right, we did say we're not falling off a cliff. So if we would have anticipated double-digit decline for next year, we would have placed our words differently. You have mentioned a couple of points that could see more positive development. We have some points with potentially more difficult developments. And that basically indicates, give or take, plus or minus, again, some sort of transitioning over, if that's the right term. And I would leave it there really because at this moment, we have too many moving parts. And that's to do with semi. But more than with semi, it's actually to do with political developments in North America. To what extent that has an impact on Prodomax. Are we going to see tariffs for the automotive industry big time or not? Remember Prodomax is in Canada, not in the United States of America. So to what extent those might or might not be coming into place is hard to see at this moment. Too many uncertainties to really give a clear guidance. But by and large, I think you're your anticipation is not completely off.

That's very helpful. And just one quick follow-up from my side. Just in general, you've got the transition over to your new plant in Dresden, I guess, taking place now as we speak. And you've been very clear all year long about this temporary effect of about 50 basis points. I mean, could we kind of like expect that in Q1 at least, maybe Q2 as well next year? Could you maybe just give an update there? And that's it from my side.

When it comes to that transition in Dresden, so the move into the new factory, there's a couple of funny effects here to do with how we revenue recognize, in particular, in the micro-optic semi business. And so if we pre-produce, basically, we would see that as a POC sales figure already, though there is -- and I think maybe Prisca can share a bit more light on that, how that work from an accounting perspective. But we will see the costs for this move this year Q4 and next year Q1, I think. But again, we have some moving parts here also from an accounting perspective which Prisca can explain it in more detail.

Yes. I mean, I think we shouldn't -- the perspective is pretty simple. We have large parts that we recognize on POC for our micro-optic business. But having said that, I think you are -- you're right, Stefan. We have, of course, some cost impact this year from the move. We have some double costs because of the rented facilities, overall cost. This is a complex move. So we anticipate to see these mainly in Q4. But having said that, of course, big moves always have a certain degree of uncertainty. So there could also cause some shifts into the next quarter. The construction and the moving plan, maybe to also mention that, we are fully on time plan and also on budget on that. I think that's an important thing. And maybe, Craig, last comment. Outlook on a sort of part of the business for the quarter, Q1 and Q2, if I understood your correction -- question correctly. Having said what Stefan said, we have too many moving parts, so I can't really give you much guidance as to that impact in the first half of the year. But I would see definitely a profitability impact from the move in Q4 this year. Hopefully, that has helped a little bit on your question.

The next question is from Michael Kuhn, Deutsche Bank.

First one would be on Prodomax and a topic you just briefly touched upon, potential tariffs. I mean, let's assume a scenario where the U.S. would enact tariffs on imported cars. Could that be maybe a significant business opportunity for Prodomax as OEMs would be forced to ramp up capacity in the U.S.? Maybe just some thoughts on that and maybe some scenario analysis, as far as you can share that with us.

Yes. That's a very good question. And that -- that's exactly the uncertainty we have. It could be a significant positive, but it also could be a significant negative impact. Nobody really knows at this point in time. I think that's the real big challenge we have. Why do I say that? Firstly, the question, of course, is how big tariffs are going to come and to what jurisdictions they're going to be imposed. And again, Prodomax is on the Canadian side of the border. It's not Detroit, it's in Ontario, which is Canada. Now I didn't think former and maybe future -- or actually, I think the right term is President-elect Trump, is eyeing towards Canada much. I think he's more likely to eye towards the south of the United States of America. But who knows at this point? Yes, we do believe that it will or might have the impact that OEMs try to enlarge their capacity in North America. Now Prodomax sells to the tier -- mainly to the Tier 1 supplier universe. And mainly those Tier 1s are actually in Ontario, around Toronto. Prodomax also sells in Detroit and to some extent also in Carolina. But predominantly, those Tier 1s are located in the Canadian side of the border in Detroit, and therefore all these uncertainties. So there could be significant positive, but there also could be significant negative impact. Nobody really knows at this point in time, I think. What we do see at the moment is, again, projects being shifted and delayed, projects being delayed into the beginning of next year, Q1 for now. And if that materializes, then we have a more positive situation. And really please do understand. I would tell you if I knew more, but I don't.

Right. No. I fully understood. But let's say, with uncertainty likely lasting also into Q1, I think it's realistic that we might see some further delays, let's say, into later next year once, let's say, the situation is like entirely clear.

I don't know. Sorry. Nobody knows the development...

Yes, fair enough. And then one on Smart Mobility. I think some further headcount increased over the course of the quarter, I think up like 5% year-to-date. Question one would be, is that all attached to the U.S. sales organization? And second question would be, you mentioned some -- and you reported some bigger orders already earlier this year in terms of what bidding contests you're currently involved in. When could we potentially expect further news on order wins?

So no, the increase in headcount is not all North America. It's also in our R&D functions at the moment where we're staffing for the transition to the new technologies. And by the way, it's basically all done. There is not -- don't expect any more headcount increase at SMS. We're through that and done with that by now. When it comes to sales in North America, yes, we have seen some tenders. We won some tenders. We're very proud of that. We have focused on going after mid-sized and smaller tenders. Until now, we have intentionally been very careful in bidding for large tenders because we wanted to make sure that our organization in North America is becoming stable first. We're not basically biting too big a bite at this point. That changes now. So we think that we have a more stable team there now, and we will try to go after bigger deals as well. There are some big ones in the making in North America. To what extent we have a chance of winning is a different matter. There is competition for it, so we have to see. But we now feel that we have a stable organization there by now which is certainly capable of doing more than it does at the moment.

Next question is from Lasse Stueben, Berenberg.

Two questions, please. The first one, again, just coming back to Dresden. I understand you'll have some ramp-up costs there spilling into Q1. But more generally, just given the environment, how are you thinking about kind of utilization rates and what that means for profitability? Because, I guess, you've committed a certain level of CapEx for a certain level of production output. So I just wonder how you're thinking about that for next year. And then again, on Prodomax, just given the market environment, has this changed any of your thinking on, I guess, a general timing of a potential divestment? Or is your view here still unchanged?

On Prodomax, it's the easy one. No changes there. View is still the same as before. And on Dresden, I mean, we always anticipated a ramp-up over time. We are now slowing down somewhat on the hiring side. Originally, we wanted to hire more people for the Dresden facility. We're slowing down on that. We're not slowing down on the capital expenditure. We will buy the equipment that we need to buy, but actually, these are long-term items and the contracts are signed anyway. So we will build up the capacity there. We're slowing down on the hiring. We don't think that we're going to get into any big problems in terms of like utilization. But yes, I think...

Yes. Maybe let me -- thank you, Stefan. Maybe to build on what Stefan said. So the way I would portray it is you know that there is a delay in, let's say, the up cycle in the semi equipment space, which is -- Stefan talked about that. And I think that will, of course, also to a certain extent, change the phasing of our growth in the Dresden because that's part of our semi business. But I would like to reiterate that the investment is for Dresden is, of course, a long-term case, and we are very well underway with that project. So nothing -- no question around the fundamentals of that business or the investment case, just maybe a certain shift within the year 2025 of the growth pattern. That -- and then I think maybe on the earlier question, yes, there will, of course, be some transition costs mainly this year as we -- as far as we see it right now. Of course, it's a bigger facility, so we lose some rents, for example, of the rent of the space that we have right now, that goes into depreciation. As it's a bigger facility, I would anticipate from an operating cost of that facility net-net a slightly higher operating cost base. I think that's pretty natural if you move into a bigger building. But as I said before, no changed view on the merit of that investment or its return.

Okay. So we will see maybe a little bit of, I guess, operating or negative operating leverage in the first few quarters of next year.

Yes.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Malte Schaumann, Warburg Research.

First one is also a follow-up on Dresden. I mean, you just touched upon that referring to the near-term shifts and capacity ramp, et cetera. Do you expect that the facility will be more or less fully ramp within your initial schedules, so customers sticking to their projections they made earlier? Or would you expect the full ramp also to be delayed by a year or so?

So I think in line -- maybe if I go first, and Stefan, if you would like to add. I think reiterating what we said before, right? We expect the growth in demand that we anticipated more for '25 now for '26 based on the dynamics that we've discussed. And of course, that also means that there will be less growth, meaning a slower ramp as we anticipated before for all, I would say, sides of our semi business, and micro-optics on Dresden being one of them. So I think it's a fair conclusion that we have that. That could also mean that our ramping up to full capacity, which, of course, always comes with a certain uncertainty, will be delayed sort of the same way that we see the delay in '25. So I think that's a natural consequence. But I don't want to speculate about the years beyond that because visibility is just not big enough for us to speculate here.

Yes. Fair enough. Then also on semiconductors, maybe you touched on that. I was a few minutes late, so I apologize for that if I ask the same question again. On semiconductors, given the current environment, do you still -- I mean, your biggest customer is still growing quite significantly despite the guidance cut next year. So do you expect your semiconductor business to grow next year? Or would you refrain from commenting on that?

We would refrain from commenting on that. We do see -- I think, Malte, what I said at the beginning of the call has basically been we see a stable demand in order intake thus far and year-to-date and probably until the end of the year. Again, nothing falling off a cliff here. But what we don't see is a huge upswing that we originally anticipated to make the EUR 1.2 billion and 21% to 22% strategic or midterm guidance. Therefore, we postponed or transitioned, I think, is the word I used. We transitioned that over to 2026 using terminology that, I guess, our customers have used lately. And that's -- again, that's essentially how we see it as well.

Yes. Okay. Good -- well, not good. So understood. Then on Prodomax. Is the current environment affecting the status of negotiations? So is there a delay due to the less visibility of tariffs, whether there will be tariffs or not, et cetera?

When it comes to Prodomax, I think we would use the same language that we used in the last few calls. There is nothing that causes us to report Prodomax as IFRS 5. And however, we still have the strategic intent to sell Prodomax. And we did say we would like to conclude that by 2025, and we would leave it there.

Okay. Okay. Then last one on AR/VR TRIOPTICS. There had been during summertime at least one player indicating that it attempted to step out of their VR glass production. I was wondering whether that was a project associated with you guys, so that you potentially lost an opportunity? So maybe you can comment on that and your general view on that prospect going forward.

Somebody has intend or has communicated to step out of it? I'm not even aware of that.

Microsoft. Microsoft abandoned the production of their HoloLens device and...

Well, given that I don't -- I haven't even heard about that indicates [indiscernible].

The next question is from Peter Rothenaicher, Baader Bank.

Yes. I would like to come back to Dresden. So in the past, I remember in your micro-optics business, you always had capacity restraints. So with the somewhat weaker market now, do you see here perhaps for some compensation via new product you could take up or to increase value creation? Is there something possible to compensate for that?

That's a complicated question. But maybe it's important to point out again we're not seeing huge declines either, yes? Let's be clear. We have been very much capacity-limited in the past. We still are, by the way, because we're still in the old facility. But so we're limited by capacity. We do not see huge declines in demand. We will fill the new factory over the next years. We never anticipated -- I mean, this is not a step function, right? I mean, we never anticipated the factory in Dresden to be like at 100% capacity at day 1. I mean, it's just physically not possible, and we never anticipated that. So we always anticipated that a ramp up in the new factory, at the same time, a ramp down at the old place. So that was always the anticipation, that it's sort of a growth vector over the next 12 to 24 months. And that is what moves to the right basically in terms of timelines, given what we learned from our customer, single here actually, from our customers. But -- so we will hopefully need the capacity, we just ramp it up slower than originally anticipated.

So in terms of product value creation ramping up, so nothing new.

Dresden is basically entirely for what we call micro-optics, nano structures on glass for a very -- for some very particular applications at a technology level of precision where at least I have a hard time to imagine who else could need that, if that makes sense. So at least not that we can sell to them so -- or would sell to them. No, I think we need the capacity in Dresden going forward to fulfill the demand in semi, in particular for optical lithography.

Okay. Then coming back to TRIOPTICS. Perhaps can you comment a little bit more on what is going on at TRIOPTICS? So we had a question regarding AR/VR. And I think there's still nothing new that this technology is quickly ramping up. But how it is doing, TRIOPTICS? Is there a need for structural adjustments? And what do you expect here in terms of revenues and profitability going forward?

Yes. Structural adjustments, we initiated already some times back. They are underway, and they should be done by the end of this year. In terms of sales, it's by and large flat. TRIOPTICS has a number of different parts of the business. There is the classical optics business, where optics manufacturers like us or other people doing optics buy machines from TRIOPTICS to safeguard the -- or to measure -- or to do metrology on optics. That's a stable business, and that's a traditional sort of legacy business of TRIOPTICS. And then we have the business in the smartphone area which has been flattish lately. We always anticipated it to be flat. Yes, there are interesting new developments coming up in terms of cameras on mobile phones, but it's not going to be a huge growth driver anymore as it used to be in the past for TRIOPTICS. Then there is AR/VR, which has been a huge growth driver for TRIOPTICS in the years '22 and '23. It's not a growth driver at the moment as we all know. But yes. Full stop. And then there are some new developments, interesting developments for TRIOPTICS also in terms of advanced driver assistance systems for modern cars. If you take a modern car and there are a huge amount of cameras, and they all need to be aligned and tested and stuff, and that's another part of TRIOPTICS business, basically, at the moment, more or less compensating the missing orders from the AR/VR industry. And as a result, TRIOPTICS top line-wise, is fairly flat. We have ramped up costs in the past to accommodate for the anticipated increase in AR/VR. And when it turned out that, that's not going to happen as far, we have taken measures to take these costs back out. And we will be done with that by the end of the year.

Okay. So with that, no reason for big worries for 2025. So it seems to be largely stable, TRIOPTICS.

I think stable is the right word to use.

And last question is just housekeeping. Perhaps Prisca, can you give us some numbers on PPA in Q3, 9 months? And for 2024, what you expect?

You mean about -- in CapEx, we expect, as we guided, slightly above previous year...

No, purchase price allocation.

Okay. Sorry. Yes. Okay. I think we -- I don't have that at hand right now. Obviously, our amortization is going down as we amortize our intangible assets. But if you want any details, then I would refer you back to the IR team if that's okay.

And the next question is from Pal Skirta, Bankhaus Metzler.

I have 2 questions left on your Smart Mobility Solutions business because you already commented on NPC business. So I know it may be a bit early to set expectations, but could you share any thoughts on how the U.S. elections might impact Smart Mobility order intake? How sensitive is your Smart Mobility business, like traffic law enforcement, civil security in the U.S., directly or indirectly to changes in the political landscape and the government spending? And then the second question, if I may. When we met in Berlin at the CMD last year, you mentioned that roughly 40% of Smart Mobility revenues came from recurring software and service-based revenues, if I recall correctly. Could you maybe provide us with an update on that figure, given that it's been a year since then?

Yes. The second part of the question is the easier one. You are right. We generate a bit less than half of the sales in Smart Mobility from software and services. That's still the case, and we're -- if anything, that's growing at the moment. Our TSP business is actually growing at the moment. And we originally intended to achieve about 50% of sales from recurring revenue, and I think we're well on the way to achieve that. So yes, that part is growing to about almost by half of the business being software services, TSP business by next year. The first part of your question is much harder to answer. I mean, at the end of the day, I would think that whoever is running the administration in the United States of America, traffic law enforcement is a local thing. And obviously, the legal jurisdictions are local. And by and large, I would hope and think that saving lives, making sure that people don't speed, in particular, in front of schools should be a priority for everyone on whichever side of the aisle one is sitting in, in North America. Let me maybe point out that for many of our customers, traffic law enforcement is actually more a source of revenue than spending. You know what I mean? I mean, jurisdictions actually make money from that. We may or may not like it. We may or may not think that's an ethical thing, but fact of the matter is that lots of municipals and jurisdictions actually see speed law enforcement as a source of revenue more than a source of spending.

We have a follow-up question by Craig Abbott, Kepler Cheuvreux.

Yes. Just one more from my side. I just wonder if you could maybe provide us an update on how your dental surgery optics business has been performing year-to-date. It's a business that unfortunately often, I think, gets overlooked.

I think you've got a good point there. Our customer in dental is now one of our really largest customers for the whole group actually. And it performs very nicely, where we have more demand than we can fulfill at the moment. So that business performs very, very nicely. You're right. It's -- we're not talking about it enough. Actually, we should make an effort in pointing out our medical activities a bit more in the future. But yes, performing very nicely. Our customer, Dentsply Sirona here, is becoming really in the top 5 of our customer list here in terms of volume. And we're trying to support their ramp-up of the new products, but with more capacity at the moment.

When you say performed really well, I mean, just to give us a ballpark figure. Are we talking about high single-digit consistent growth or low double-digit? Or...

A lot of growth.

Okay.

No, seriously. To be honest, I would speculate. I don't know, I really don't. In terms of like percentage-wise, I don't. But all I can tell is that we just recently had a meeting with the management there and management has been with us, and they're reiterating the demand and saying, "Can you please help us with growing faster?" So it seems to be good.

And the last question in the queue is Malte Schaumann, Warburg Research.

Quick follow-up from my side on HOMMEL again. I mean, you talked about a pretty slow demand at the moment. I mean, there's reintegration -- kind of reintegration upcoming. So what are your thoughts about timing of potential measures you have to implement? Is that something one should expect for the near term? So maybe your thoughts about that topic.

Yes. We have restructured HOMMEL big time already in the past, which led to it being at least profitable. Not at group average yet, but being profitable. The order decline that we see this year is significant. Let's be clear. There's nothing to sweeten that. The order decline in HOMMEL is significant this year. Sales are still okay because of the backlog that we have. Don't anticipate any more huge measures at the moment because we have restructured HOMMEL quite a lot already in the last year and the year before. Okay. If there aren't any further questions, then, again, let me thank you all for being with us today. Year is not over yet, obviously. The last couple of weeks have been pretty turbulent, I would say, for us and for everyone. Nevertheless, I wish all of you a good remainder of 2024. We go back working on sales and profit. We reiterate that. We believe we can fulfill our guidance for 2024 and transition our midterm guidance over to 2026. And we'll come back to you with more detailed guidance for 2025, beginning of next year. Thank you very much.