KLA Corporation (KLAC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
September 4, 2024
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Atif Malik
analystGood morning. Welcome to day 1 of Citi Global TMT Conference. My name is Atif Malik. I cover U.S. semiconductor, semiconductor equipment and networking equipment stocks here at Citi. It's my pleasure to welcome Bren Higgins, EVP, CFO, KLA; as well Oreste Donzella, Chief Strategy Officer. Bren is going to open up with a few remarks, then I'll ask my questions first. I'll open it up to the audience questions a bit later. And if you have a question, please raise your hand, and the mic will come to you. Bren?
Bren Higgins
executiveSure. Thanks, Atif, for having us. Good to be here in New York. I just want to take a minute and introduce Oreste Donzella, who a lot of you know, Oreste is transitioning into this Chief Strategy role for KLA from running our EPC group, which is our [ northern ] more part of KLA. One thing that's happened, and I know investors like to talk a lot about it, but we've certainly seen a transition for our customers where the back end starts to look a lot like the front end in terms of how our customers are managing their packaging activities. Obviously, they are parts of the end markets that are driving that, and it's an area of growth for the company, but it's also driving organizations in terms of how we go to market, how we interface with customers, how customers want to interface with KLA. So as we're starting to see that transition and how it affects our specialty semiconductor business, which has a lot of exposure to advanced packaging from a process point of view, it made sense for us to do some reorganizing. Oreste is an expert on KLA, a long-standing KLA leader. So brings a lot of insight to not only KLA products, technology road map, customer process and customers' customers. So I'll rely on Oreste a little bit today to provide some of his insights, and I'm happy to have him with us today. In terms of just where things are just level setting some messages out of earnings is 2024 is a transition year with WFE levels in the mid-$90 billion range from -- which is maybe up a little bit from where we ended up last year. We think the company is performing at a pretty high level. We're excited in terms of corporate priorities around not only supporting customers, which is what we always do, but also driving the product road maps and then preparing for ramping of the leading edge. And so I think we've done a pretty good job over the last couple of years where you've seen a lot of legacy and mature investment, which tends to be a little less process control intensive, but leading edge tends to be the biggest driver of KLA's business. And we're seeing some strength in the second half of this year related to some of our customers' investments around with Intel and with TSMC and N3 and would expect, as we move into next year, to see a ramp in that investment. So that's a big driver. China has continued to be strong for us and would expect that half-to-half overall, that's about flattish for us and seems to be reasonably stable as we move forward into next year, but most of, certainly the growth coming from investments at the leading edge, I talked about logic/foundry, but also would expect to see recovery in memory spend as we move into next year as well. So we think that overall that the industry this year is mostly foundry logic, probably 70% to 75%. Next year, you'll see some memory growth, which tends to be a little less process control intensive, but at the same time, we think we're pretty well positioned in terms of inflecting products, particularly around wafer inspection where new supplies come online, and we think that, that will drive a continuation and relative performance for KLA in terms of share of market as we move into next year. Our service business continues to grow solidly. We'll be up at the high end of our target range of 12% to 14%. We've had 48 quarters in a row of year-over-year growth in our service business. Our service business is a little bit unique in the industry in terms of its subscription-like contracts, about 75% plus of the revenue stream is subscription. And we're seeing a lot of dynamics in terms of extendability of platforms and useful or average life of tools increasing and total revenue capture on tools growing over time. And so all those are really good drivers for our service business as well. So profitability model is working, gross margins in the mid-60s, would expect operating margins based on consensus views into the fourth quarter. We talked about sequential growth. We talked about in March and reiterated again in July about sequential growth through this year, which should translate into high end of our target model in terms of incremental operating margin leverage on the revenue growth that we expect this year. We raised the dividend aftermarket yesterday, which is our 15th consecutive dividend increase, annual dividend increase, about 17% increase to $1.70 a share per quarter, which is just a continuation of not only our confidence in the business our view of asserted capital allocation. And in a business like ours that has the service business I mentioned, but also generally asset-light in terms of how we're able to run it that we can pay out a meaningful dividend that we can grow in line with our long-term growth rate expectations for earnings and cash of the company. So I think that's where we stand right now and going on a shift and happy to take your questions.
Atif Malik
analystThat's great. Bren, a lot of our investors have tried to simplify things by looking at end markets and associating a particular equipment maker with that end market and its growth. And so when we look at your outperformance this year, I feel like you guys have been like a silent outperformer. And can you walk us through the drivers in terms of end markets, DRAM has been a strong growth this year when foundry logic was probably down from last year. Can you help us understand what has driven your outperformance? And as we look into second half, you have indicated that you're still going to outperform WFE and also into next year, like what are the drivers of outperformance historically? And how does it look like in the next 6 months to next year?
Bren Higgins
executiveYes. So this year, I think logic/foundry overall is probably flattish for the year, although there is a switch between lower legacy investment and more leading-edge investment. And so that tends to be more process control intensive, as I said earlier. And so that's a good driver for the company. Most of that is N3-centric, but would expect to start to see some N2 investment as you move into particularly from our largest customer in the fourth quarter and into next year. So that certainly is an area of strength for the company and a driver, and the end market drivers around high-performance computers is driving the incremental strength that we're seeing there. On the memory side, I've been pretty consistent that I thought that this year was much more a year of device market, device company improvement, right, the pricing was improving that would improve -- drive profitability and ultimately, cash flow. And so our customers' utilization rates were lower. They're able to utilize more capacity. Now we're seeing utilization rates increase across all our customer segments. And so that's the first thing you see. You'll see tech investment, too, in terms of incremental shrink investment, but that memory recovery is more of a bigger driver into next year. As I said, China has been relatively consistent year-to-year. So I think that, that continues to be -- when I mentioned legacy, it's more the non-China legacy dropping off this year given some of the corrections in industrial and in automotive. So I think from just a broader point of view, I think the leading edge strength that we're seeing is probably the biggest driver and certainly the strongest part of our market, process control intensity tends to be very high in that part of the market. And so that's good for us. And then I think the service strength both from higher utilization rates, but also from a lot of tools coming off of warranty going into contract that we shipped in '21 and '22, early '23 is also driving, and we've had very good visibility to that driving the incremental growth in service. So I think that, that has been pretty predictable, as it generally is, and the leading edge opportunities are encouraging, particularly what we're seeing now, but also as that moves into more into centric investments moving into next year.
Atif Malik
analystJust staying on the leading edge in 2-nanometer, I feel like historically, when there is a wavelength change in the industry, for example, EUV adoption, you guys kind of benefit along with that way, but in the last -- in the 3, 4 quarters, I would say, you guys are starting to separate yourself from the lithography company in terms of maybe you're shipping more equipment for 2-nanometer qualification, but it's not tracking as closely as it has in, I would say, last couple of years in terms of lithography, adoption and you had print check and all that. So are there timing differences in terms of your equipment going into the 2-nanometer foundries right now for troubleshooting the gate all around and you guys being kind of early beneficiaries of spending?
Bren Higgins
executiveYes. So I'll weigh in, and then I'll let Oreste add as we go here. But it doesn't always line up perfectly, right? I think one of the drivers that we've seen in terms of incremental growth this year has been, frankly, adding additional supply around wafer inspection, which has been a nice driver for us this year, where we just had a lot of pent-up demand. So that's been a factor. Most of what we've seen so far has been more incremental and 3, of course, packaging has been a big driver, as I mentioned earlier, where we've actually upticked our business expectations for advanced packaging from about $300 million earlier in the year to about $500 million and an expectation of, I'll call it, a multiple point sort of long-term growth rate expectation versus WFE over the long run. We'll see N2 pilot line investment that will happen towards the end of this year. But the bulk of the N2 investment will happen as we move into next year. So typically, early in the development cycle, they buy the -- customers manage and sample very tightly. Manage the process. And so they buy the fleet of systems that we -- as a portfolio company, we offer a comprehensive set of solutions across inspection and across metrology. So customers will buy everything where they're really trying to qualify the process. So we tend to participate at higher sampling levels earlier in the process. And then as we go to then introduce the element of volume and ramp, then we also participate pretty heavily. As they go into production and mature their processes, they tend to historically have invested less but we're seeing that start to change in that: a, because of the design environment, there is less reuse of old capacity. So that tends to be a driver. And you've got technical drivers of more advanced design rules require more capability. So that's -- so that happens. And then they're also managing a very robust design environment and those designs can test design rules in different ways. And so you tend to see higher sampling rates in production today. So while we're absolutely leveraged to kind of development and ramp, we are seeing our participation in volume production with higher level systems, more capable systems increasing over time. N2 is unique in that you have a transistor architecture change. And so that will drive new defect mechanisms. Lithography could be relatively constant in terms of EUV layers, but those are complicated layers and smaller defects are continuing to be a challenge for our customers, but the architecture change will drive different materials, different processing steps, and that will create new defect mechanisms, certainly new metrology requirements, which should be an incremental driver for the architecture. And if you go back to the last local high that we achieved in terms of process control intensity, and the FinFET transition was pretty high as well. So we think that there's a pattern recognition relative to what's expected to head into and early indications are pretty positive.
Atif Malik
analystGreat. Let me come back to the...
Oreste Donzella
executiveLet me chime on this because this is an important observation between KLA and the process equipment companies. So when you have a big inflection, like, for example, a change in wavelength going to EUV, the photolithography company leverages this inflection. When you have a giggle around, probably we are not scaling lithography almost at all, and who is going to leverage the masses, the process tools like the position and edge, here they can leverage them all. Because we leverage either if the inflection is in lithography, the inflection is a transistor architecture, the inflection is in backside power distribution network or even packaging. So the beauty of KLA, probably the diversification of KLA versus all the other companies in the world, supplying a kit of a semiconductor is how much we are exposed to every single inflection in the semiconductor industry that is quite unique. That's the reason why maybe you see mismatch between lithography and KLA, but now probably we are developing tools and selling tools, not for lithography in the 2-nanometer but for giggle around. And then you see KLA participates in all.
Atif Malik
analystYes, that makes a lot of sense. Oreste, just sticking with you, first congratulations on your new role, it makes a lot of sense. You've seen both sides, EPC. And like Bren pointed out, the back end is a new front end, there's definitely a rerating going on in terms of packaging and when we talk to some of your peers, the small-cap metrology inspection companies, they have a view that there are a lot of opportunities in the back end. And so can you just help us understand where are you going to be focused near term, longer term in terms of taking advantage of some of these challenges on the back end using your front-end portfolio?
Oreste Donzella
executiveAbsolutely. So let me say, first of all, that we are very happy, as Bren has said, to see now we estimate the revenue this year for a packaging business to be pretty like $500 million plus. And this is a big, big step up from last year, but also it's a big step up where we started. So if you look at 5 years ago before the Orbotech SPTS acquisition, our prices in the packaging market was only limited to component inspection. It was probably in the $100 million range. So in the 5 years, you can say 5x this number. And the reason is because of the complexity that the packaging technology roadmap is bringing to really this introduce integration of 2.5D or 3D integration of multiple devices and also the way our some other packaging architectures like fan-out is shrinking the critical geometry. So this is mostly driven, of course, by AI and data. So we are in the AI and data years right now, and everybody is trying to accelerate the scaling of the semiconductor road map and front end can bring you to a certain level. I mean people are telling me, I've been in this industry for 32 years. And it is more low that, of course, it's not whenever we can go to the next transistor architecture to deliver on the excited from the wafer -- deliver the power from backside of the wafer or going to the next level of NA in the EUV lithography, we are scaling the technology business more low, but it's not enough anymore. So packaging is complementing the advancement in semiconductor road map in a very, very cost-effective way. And I explained 1 time, I said we are moving from SoC, system on a chip to SoC system of chips, because everything in advance pain is starting from disaggregation of the functions that in the past were developing a single chip. Now, it's not cost effective anymore. So you disaggregate the function, and then you aggregate the function in packaging and through either 2.5D, 2D or 3D heterogeneous integration. And this is adding a huge complexity to the packaging industry that the customers in packaging couldn't really bear in the past. So without the investment of the top semiconductor companies in packaging, the package order couldn't exist. So that is how we see the TSMC of the war, Intel assumption and the other memories heavily investing in packaging because we need this kind of complexity. We need this kind of budget in packaging now that the all doorsteps couldn't real import. So where do we play? We play everywhere that there is complexity. So I'll give you an example. When you look at 2.5D calls, for example, now, of course, almost all the GPU are made on co-assess, that is based on silicon interposer that provides a very stable platform of the further integration of the chips. And on the silicon interpose is extremely, extremely precious part of the final package of a GPU. And in this case, you need the most advanced inspection capability and highest possible sample. And this is important because generally, we have not seen 100% sampling on inspection. That means every single unit is expected since a long, long time, but now we're seeing the silicon interpose. People are -- because this part of the part is so expensive, so important that our customers need to be 100% sure, there is no difference, okay? So we see every time that is a shrinking geometric or complexity in the integration of the packages, we see KLA participating, we'd want with the semiconductor front end cap because we have inspection metrology tools already serving the front-end wafer fabs. We need to customize them because there is no like 100% transition from a tooling front end to package. So we need to do some customization, but at the end of the day, you get the basic technology that works in front end at 3-nanometer and then you customize for the most aggressive challenges in packaging. So another example is hybrid bonding, 3D hybrid bonding. So when you stack die on top of each other without bumps, so the complexity of inspection, metrology and given process because with SPTS now, we also have a process division, we see opportunities for us to provide unique value. Or other area where we don't participate is bump inspection because we believe bump inspection is not high end and it's very well served anyway. It's not the high end enough for us to provide unique value. Remember, KLA always search for opportunities where we can be highly differentiated. Otherwise, if the market is already served by the people, and we don't provide unique value, there is no point for us to enter. And actually, going back to my new role, that's exactly where I'm going to focus the most of my time thinking about what are the strategic opportunities for us to provide extra growth to the company and have Bren, Rick and my colleagues in the executive staff focused on this.
Atif Malik
analystI understand it's early days, but have you done an exercise in terms of incremental TAM that the back end can open up for you given your leadership on the front end?
Oreste Donzella
executiveWell, as you know, I mean, putting numbers is not easy all the time. But I would expect, for example, we see this year, a continued demand of tools in terms of our book is very, very strong in packaging. So I expect, for example, next year, to have other big growth in the packaging because the bookings is very, very solid this year. And the opportunity -- for example, hybrid bond, I cannot quantify to you. But hybrid bonding is -- right now is only pretty much on a couple of devices, but when hybrid bond is going to be established, so you will see more and more inspection metrology from our tool, more and more plasma dicing and silicon etching from SPTS and the market is going to open up even bigger.
Bren Higgins
executiveYes, that's some work that we have to do. I mean, we expect the market to grow faster. And to Oreste's earlier point, as you shrink the lines of spaces, so the pitch starts to shrink in these connecting layers. It drives a need for more capability. And there's always a trade-off in our business between the sensitivity of the system and the speed in which we're running. So if you're running at very high sampling rates, then there's a driver for more capability, which tends to be a higher-end system, tends to carry higher prices, higher margins, but also to maintain the same sampling rate, then you need more systems. So right now, our quantification has been more about just where we see the trends today in terms of overall momentum and our views of the long-term growth rate. But I think there's more work we can do there.
Atif Malik
analystGreat. Then a segment of memory, we didn't talk about NAND, which has been fairly dormant for the last few quarters. I mean, what are your expectations in terms of NAND recovery?
Bren Higgins
executiveYou're right. It's very low, right? Very low mid-single-digit type WFE levels this year and so I would expect we'll start, as you move into next year off the low base and the improvement, I think, in the business, financial fundamentals of those companies that we'll see more investment into next year off a low base. But still, I think that the mix of investment next year is probably more DRAM weighted, but -- or incremental investment, but I think we would expect NAND to grow as well.
Atif Malik
analystAnd then on China, it has -- it was more than 40% for the first few quarters of the year and you're expecting it to come down in the back of this year. Can you just talk about what you're seeing in China and how your China customers are looking at investments second half into next year?
Bren Higgins
executiveYes, it's been pretty broad-based and stable. We made some comments about half to half. And I've looked at China and halves generally because you have a lot of greenfield projects. And so greenfield projects can be impacted by construction issues and so on. So trying to identify exactly which quarter that you'll revenue, particularly if you have a new customer and if you look at a revenue recognition policy with new customers, we tend to have a longer cycle of acceptance for rev rec. So half to half, roughly on an absolute value basis, about even. I think that as you look at right now, it feels like Q3 is probably a little bit stronger and then it drops off into Q4. But we'll see how that actually plays out. So what's driving the percent coming down is growth from our non-China customers in the second half of this year. And then I think as we move into next year, I expect it to be -- I'm using the word stable. It could be up a little bit, it could be down a little bit. I think it falls off all that much. And so likely then given expectations of growth from other non-China customers that we'd see that percentage drop into the high 20s or so. So again, across a number of legacy projects around the country and you're seeing just, again, back to my earlier comment about how customers buy typically that they'll buy the whole portfolio, they'll work a process, they'll try to do R&D, try to be credible when demonstrating that ability to customers. And so you see this sort of continual sort of cycle of investment and maybe smaller increments versus some of our process peers, which it could be more lumpy, big investments and then back off that provides, I think, some consistency to our business expectations from China. We also have wafer and reticle infrastructure investments for wafer houses when their manufacturing wafers or manufacturing reticles in the country. And so those were choke points in terms of supply back in the '21-'22 time frame. And so there's been domestic investment in those areas, and that's an area we participate that a lot of our process peers do not. So you've got a few vectors that are there that are driving that outlook.
Atif Malik
analystGreat. Can you stop here to see if there any questions in the audience? If you have a question, please raise your hand.
Unknown Analyst
analystI'm just curious, should tax rates go up significantly in a new administration? Would that affect your capital allocation policies in any material way?
Bren Higgins
executiveI don't think so. I mean, certainly, maybe paying higher taxes, but I think in terms of how we think about allocation of capital, it's about what's required to execute our business and have, in terms of the process we run through, in terms of working capital requirements, strategic capital and so on. Our philosophy is around allocating every dollar productively. We don't have excess cash at KLA in terms of how we think about it. So we'll continue to be assertive in that way. So I'd have to understand all the details of the ins and outs, but generally, our policy should be consistent. The fundamentals of our business are not changing in that environment. And so we'll continue to deploy capital aggressively and we like the fact that, look, our business generates cash that we don't have to reinvest. And so we'll put every dollar to work.
Unknown Analyst
analystQuestion regarding, you said that N2 is in the pilot phase. Just wondering qualitatively or quantitatively, how at this process compares to your prior experience at the prior nodes at N3 and N5 and N7, just trying to get a gauge of the magnitude, the materiality, just any insight or color on that.
Bren Higgins
executiveYes. So we're very early. I mean the general sense from our customer is -- our primary customer is a lot of customer interest and an expectation perhaps of a faster ramp over the first few years of a node. And so that's typically how we look at it. So I don't want to comment on progress yet, but at the same time, our expectations are pretty strong. And we've seen those expectations increase over the course of this year in terms of the pace of that ramp. And more products driving it where it isn't necessarily a mobile device that debugs the process, but you could have multiple devices that are driving the node earlier in the node ramp, which can create opportunities from a yield point of view, which translates into opportunities for KLA.
Unknown Analyst
analystApologies if you've already answered this, please discard that, I was about 5 minutes late, because it took me forever to get an elevator. But there's been -- some of the foundries recently have announced various like CapEx cuts or at least intention to maybe shift how they're doing their spending. How would you expect that to impact your business?
Bren Higgins
executiveMost of what I've said today, we stay very close to our customers. And so I think it will -- by the time, sometimes things make announcements happen, we tend to, I think, because of the engagement, have a pretty good view of our expectations given our lead times. So I don't have any changes to the outlook I provided today. I haven't quantified next year's WFE levels other than our expectations of growth with leading edge.
Unknown Analyst
analystCan we just go back to the advanced packaging side? You mentioned pump inspection or metrology is probably not something that you think is high value. Can you just maybe help us understand what you consider higher value? Is it like the RDL layer and maybe why that is more high value than, say, measuring the bumps?
Oreste Donzella
executiveWell, first of all, the bump inspection is a very, very important application or question about, especially in memory when you do HBM, all the HBM stacking now is through microbumps and thermal compression bonding. But the bump's geometry is not scaling to the extent where we can produce unique value. So today, the most advanced bump pitch size is around the 25-micron probably. And this is not even today, it's a next-generation HBM, for example, for DRAM. So in this range of sizing, we believe the market is already well served. When you look at what is happening silicon interposer, silicon interposer is providing interconnect at the size of 0.5-micron -- 0.4-micron. So you have a 0.4-micron line of space in the interposer where the challenge is to find a very, very small defects are way, way higher than the bump inspection to measure coplanarity or bump defects. So this is a classic example. The fan-out wafer level packaging, for example, is moving to 2-micron line of space or even 1.4, 1.4. The heterogeneous integration also is providing us opportunities to differentiate not only different inspection, but also in metrology. I'll give you an example. Whenever you do die-to-wafer bonding in hybrid bonding, you need to make sure that you place the die in the current pad size because otherwise, you have misalignment of the chip on the pad and they create, of course, a short or other electrical failures. So this is an opportunity for us to leverage our overlay metrology from front end to become really the tool to use in packaging as well. So that's what I feel. So whatever inspection of metrology application is already established and we don't see technology road map in terms of sizing or complexity of the process integration, we prefer not to participate. We prefer to participate in other areas where we can provide extra value. Did I answer your question?
Bren Higgins
executiveSo Atif, you had a question earlier, you were about patterning versus inspection just in terms of just performance overall, I wanted to make sure I covered that. I mean, certainly, what we've seen our inspection business has had more strength over the course of this year and understanding how we break up the business, I think it's important to understand some of the drivers. So inspection, when you look at patterning, you have patterning tends to be metrology. It tends to be film metrology, critical dimension metrology, overlay metrology and reticle inspection. So the metrology tools tend to scale with process tools because you need to measure the films that are being deposited or etched away by our customers. So it's a business that tends to carry a little bit more cyclicality. It ramps and grows very fast. It's also a shorter lead time business and expansion environments, and then it corrects a little bit more in more contraction or stable environments. And so inspection has been a bigger driver over the course of this year, and I would expect to start to see the patterning part as it relates to metrology, grow more into next year. Reticle inspection is also part of that reporting and covers from the mash-up where you manufacture reticles all the way to the fab where you're validating quality and doing quality control steps and different products serve different parts of that market. Parts of that market can have very high integers in terms of the ASPs of the system so it can create some lumpiness. In the EUV world, most of reticles in EUV are moving through our Teron optical system, but as you haven't seen a lot of expansion so far, it's been a little bit slower part of the business. You're seeing plans around the fabs and that should drive more of the fab investment, both for print check, but also reticle systems that are for the fab. There's also part of the market that's what we call the pathfinding part of the market, which is being -- is what customers will ultimately need a higher-end capability for inspection post patterning, but after you write the pattern in the mash-up. And so we've talked a lot about that market. We talk about the Tenoch market, which is in the EUV-based inspector, which we are targeting to intercept the market we've been investing for a long time to intercept the market opportunity there, which we don't think really becomes a production requirement until you get to high NA. So we've been investing there. We've recently solidified a formal relationship with Carl Zeiss, who's a strategic supplier of KLA in the wafer inspection side for many decades, but also now to support our reticle efforts moving forward in terms of aligning the road map, for inspection and the NA requirements within lithography and having sort of a synergistic alignment between what's going on in terms of litho roadmap relative to the inspection road map. So this is a more formal relationship than what we've had, and we're looking forward to really leverage their clear expertise and optics instead of supplier of optics for the lithography and also our expertise around the inspectors. So we think that, that road map will provide our customers a clear plan and view not just through high NA, but also Hyper NA and beyond. So we think that there's an opportunity in this market. We believe it happens with high NA, which is likely in that it feels like it's shifting a bit and maybe 27%, 28% in terms of high-volume production. And the ability to ensure that we have a differentiated system that can solve our customers' problems.
Atif Malik
analystThat's super helpful putting the context on metrology as we move to get all around as well as on a clinic inspection longer term. A couple of areas we didn't talk about, services. What's driving it towards the high end of the 12% to 14% growth, how sustainable that is?
Bren Higgins
executiveSo I think it's pretty sustainable. There's a couple of things that -- I'd mentioned utilization rates improving, that's a driver. Tools coming off of warranty is another driver. The average life of a system, if you go back to 20 years ago, 5-ish years, right? 50% of the install base today has an average life of over 20 years. So we're seeing, as you see more demand in the legacy nodes that our tools are living longer and our customers are continuing to use them. There are a number of tools we shipped in the '90s that are still in service. And so that creates a unique opportunity for us to capture more by providing that service expertise to capture more value. If you would have asked me when I first became CFO back in 2013, 2014, how much of an ASP value of a system we capture in service stream, I would have said 40% to 50%. Today, it's over 100%. So it gives you a sense of as the lifetime of the tools is increasing and the percent of the contract value, the percent of customer pays as a percent of ASP is increasing, that it's creating this very strong revenue stream. Because we have contracts, we can optimize the cost structure and release to deliver to the entitlement that we establish with our customers. And so that helps us be pretty efficient in terms of how we deliver. And so over time, we got the question earlier about capital structure over time, we thought when you have a service business like ours, it can give you the confidence to very predictably pay a consistent dividend over time and be pretty explicit about it, given the fact that it's had 1 down year in '24 or '25. But now you can look at it and say, you can pay a dividend, you can pay the debt service to the company, too. So in terms of the profitability, accounting can be a little bit arbitrary in terms of how you do accounting. But in terms of how we look at it, that's generally a factor in how we think about some of those decisions. So I think that these drivers are pretty consistent here moving forward. And we don't have anything to announce in terms of a long-term growth rate, but we think that we're trending towards the higher end. And if we can continue to deliver value to our customers here, I think that there's opportunities for us to continue to drive that growth. We're also trying to then take some of the capability to some of the other acquired businesses. And that will take longer. We can leverage infrastructure first. Go to markets can always be a little bit different. But to try to bring -- I think one of the challenges of small companies always have a hard time of optimizing service because you just don't have the infrastructure for it. So as we have acquired companies, we've been able to bring our service expertise and infrastructure to play. And it's -- I think it's another factor of growth moving forward.
Atif Malik
analystGreat. We'll wrap it up here, Bren and Oreste, really appreciate your insights today.
Bren Higgins
executiveThank you for having us.
Oreste Donzella
executiveThank you.
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