Tokyo Electron Limited (8035) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

May 11, 2023

Tokyo Stock Exchange JP Information Technology Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment earnings 57 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#1

Now it's time for us to start Tokyo Electron financial announcement for the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2023. Thank you very much for joining us today despite your busy schedule. I am Yatsuda of IR department acting as a moderator for today's session.. I would now like to introduce today's attendees Mr. Toshiki Kawai, Representative Director, President and CEO.

Toshiki Kawai

executive
#2

I am Kawai. Nice to meet you everybody.

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#3

Next, Mr. Hiroshi Kawamoto, Vice President and General Manager of Business Platform Division Finance Unit.

Hiroshi Kawamoto

executive
#4

I'm Kawamoto.

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#5

Prior to the presentation, let me explain the flow of today's conference. First of all, Mr. Kawamoto and Mr. Kawai will make presentations. After the -- until 6:30 Japan time, we will have a question-and-answer session, where we take questions from the audience. This meeting uses 2 channels of Webex for simultaneous interpretation between Japanese and English. [Operator Instructions] In addition, since this conference is intended for institutional investors and analysts, we appreciate understanding that we receive questions only from institutional investors and analysts. We will post the audio content of this conference in Japanese and English on our website within a couple of days, and it would be high appreciated if you could also visit our website. Now Mr. Kawamoto, Vice President and General Manager, will present the consolidated financial summary. Mr. Kawamoto, please.

Hiroshi Kawamoto

executive
#6

Good afternoon. I'm Kawamoto. I'd like to present the consolidated financial summary of fiscal year ending in March 2023. First of all, I will present the financial highlights for fiscal year ending in March 2023. On this slide, as you can see from the left, net sales, operating income and net income are presented in chronological order. Therefore, net sales on the left, we generated record net sales of JPY 2,209.0 billion, delivering 10.2% year-on-year increase. Though memory spending decelerated in the second half of the year, logic/foundry maintained the investment in the broad range of technology node from leading edge to mature node. We delivered operating income of JPY 617.7 billion and net income of JPY 471.5 billion, both of which also hit record high. ROE was 32.3%, as you can see on the right. Being kept at 30% or more, which is the goal in our midterm management plan. This shows financial summary. For net sales, as I reported earlier, we landed fiscal 2023 at JPY 2,209.0 billion, 10.2% year-on-year increase, surpassing financial estimate we announced on February 9 shown on the far right. By segment, SPE net sales were JPY 2,155.2 billion, 10.9% year-on-year increase, while FPD net sales were up JPY 53.6 billion, 10.3% down from previous fiscal year. Gross profit margin in the middle was 44.6%, 0.9 percentage point decline from the previous fiscal year due to solid material costs and inflation impact. Operating margin was 28.0%, declined by 1.9 percentage points from the previous fiscal year, partly because of rising R&D expenses for future growth. On the bottom, earnings per share were JPY 1,007. Next, this slide shows quarterly-based financial summary. In the fourth quarter, we generated net sales of JPY 558.2 billion, 19.3% increase from the third quarter. By segment, SPE net sales were JPY 543.3 billion and FPD net sales were JPY 14.9 billion. We delivered gross profit of JPY 251.6 billion and operating income was JPY 152.7 billion. Gross profit margin was 45.1% and operating margin was 27.4%, increased by 1.5 percentage point and 2.9 percentage points, respectively, from the third quarter. These results are attributed to a decline in manufacturing cost to sales ratio and SG&A sales ratio due to the net sales growth from the third quarter. Meanwhile, on the bottom, capital expenditures increased from the third quarter because internal evaluation tools and construction progress were accounted for. Next, this slide shows the segment information. For SPE, we delivered net sales of JPY 2,155.2 billion segment income of JPY 696.3 billion and segment profit margin of 32.3%. For FPD, we generated net sales of JPY 53.6 billion and segment income of JPY 1 billion. FPD segment profit margin declined by 4.5 percentage points to 2.0% as valuation loss was accounted for, along with the suspension of inkjet printing system development projects. For composition of net sales, SPE sales accounted for 98%, while FPD sales accounted for 2%, as you can see on the right-hand side. This shows a SPE new equipment sales by product. SPE new equipment sales in fiscal 2023 amounted to JPY 1,692.7 billion, 12.9% increase on a year-on-year basis, while the sales composition by product slightly changed due to the change in customers' investment mix. Now this shows SPE new equipment sales by application. As you can see here, the pink portion, the sales to logic/foundry showed a significant increase because of the active investment. On the other hand, the proportion of the sales to memory manufacturer decreased as the adjusted investment were rebalancing their inventories. This slide shows field solutions sales. In fiscal 2023, the field solutions sales amounted to JPY 474.0 billion, increasing by 4.0% on a year-on-year basis, driven by growing installed base, our parts and service sales maintained a strong growth following the previous fiscal year. This shows balance sheet. The total assets as of the end of fiscal 2023 were JPY 2,311.5 billion. Cash and cash equivalents were JPY 473.1 billion, increased by JPY 85.6 billion from the previous quarter. Accounts receivable and contract assets were JPY 464.8 billion. Inventories were JPY 652.2 billion. Lower left, investment and other assets were JPY 282.9 billion, increased by JPY 58.4 billion from the third quarter, partly because of growing value of the stocks we own. Liabilities shown on the right was JPY 712.0 billion, increased by JPY 53.7 billion due to the increase of accrued employee bonus income tax payable at [indiscernible]. Net assets were JPY 1,599.5 billion. The equity ratio was 68.7%, remaining high level. My last slide shows the cash flow. In the fourth quarter, cash flow from operating activity was JPY 109.6 billion, mainly due to profit posted along with the increase of net sales. The cash flow from investing activities was minus JPY 23.1 billion due to the expenditure for capital. As a result, the free cash flow was JPY 86.5 billion. This concludes my presentation about the consolidated financial summary of fiscal year ending March 2023.

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#7

Next, Mr. Kawai will present business environment and financial estimates. Mr. Kawai, please?

Toshiki Kawai

executive
#8

Good afternoon, everybody. I am Kawai. Now let me talk about the business environment and financial estimates. First of all, let me start with full year business highlights for fiscal year ending in March 2023. As Mr. Kawamoto reported before, in fiscal 2023, we renewed record high both in net sales and income. I mean, these circumstances, in order to prepare for the future growth, we made record high R&D investment of JPY 191.1 billion. For our business performance by leveraging our high value-added strategy products, we successfully won PORs and customer adoptions, making steady progress towards achievement of midterm management plan that we established last June. In the HARC edging, which is the strategic process with special focus placed, we won development PORs from multiple customers. Also for the film deposition tools, we won development POR with new materials for NAND. In addition, for the single wafer cleaning tools, processes for customer adoption are steadily expanding. We established a new business unit of DSS or Diverse Systems & Solutions last month to intensify our activities that is MAGIC market, which has high potential for further growth, MAGIC stands for Metaverse, Autonomous mobility, Green energy, IoT & Information and Communications. This started in April this year. As we celebrate our 60th anniversary this year, we have established a vision, a company filled with dream and vitality that contributed technological innovation in semiconductors. As it becomes the common global goal to drive both digitalization and decarbonization for global environmental conservation, semiconductor technology innovation plays a very important role. By leveraging our professional expertise that we accumulated as a leading company in the industry and continuously creating high value-added advanced equipment and technological services, Tokyo Electron aims to increase medium - to long-term profits and enhance our corporate value in a sustained manner. As a milestone, we set the financial goals and announced our net 0 initiative as shown here on this slide. While semiconductors further gain importance as an essential contributor to develop society full of dreams, Tokyo Electron will promote our business activities based on sales shared value, our guiding principles to contribute to technology innovation of semiconductors. Next, I will talk about current business environment. For the semiconductor market, according to the general view of various market research companies, around minus 10% growth is expected in 2023 compared with 2022. But the semiconductor market is expected to recover in 2024, and the market size in 2024 is expected to exceed that in 2022. As for the WFE market this year, because the policy interest rate keeps rising along with the current trend of inflation and because memory manufacturers are rebalancing their inventories, we have revised our outlook slightly downward from that in February 2023 and now expect around $70 billion to $75 billion in market site. However, our prospective that WFE market will strongly grow in 2024 and beyond remains unchanged. Various applications and technologies to drive the strong growth, as shown here in the slide. Growing investment to data centers, recovery of smartphone demand, PC replacement demand triggered by new OS introduction, spread of EV and autonomous driving and adoption of generative AI such as ChatGPT, which is what they covered these days. Driven by these trends and factors, we expect the WFE market keeps growing significantly toward the future. And accordingly, semiconductor technology innovation will be further promoted. For logic to achieve low power consumption in the 2-nanometer node and address high-speed CPUs, gate all around GAA nanosheet and backside PDN structure will play central role in the technology inflection. For DRAM in order to address DDR5, high-speed working memory, chip makers will introduce EUV lithographies and high-k/metal gate. For NAND, to realize larger storage initiatives to deliver high stacking structure of 300 layers finally will start. In addition, the NAND manufacturing process is the expected to adopt multi-tier stacking and bonding technology to bond memory cells and peripheral circuit fabricated in different wafers. Our company offers a broad product portfolio coping such future technology inflection, we believe the area indicated in both phase, in particular, will provide us with great business opportunities. We aim to expand the share in those high value-added areas. Next, I will present the financial estimate for fiscal year ending in March 2024. As I described earlier, due to such factors as concern for deceleration of macroeconomy, chip makers currently differ and trim their capital investment. I mean those business circumstances in this fiscal year, while curtailing fixed costs, we plan to make record high R&D investment of JPY 200 billion to fund future growth. Taking account of these factors, in fiscal 2024 on the full year basis, we expect net sales of JPY 1,700 billion, gross profit of JPY 741 billion, operating income of JPY 393 billion and net income of JPY 300 billion. The semiconductor technology innovation is expected to play an important role towards the future, driven by migration to data-driven society through the spread of ICT, an initiative to build decarbonation society due to the importance of high speed, high capacity, high liability and low part consumption, the WFE market is expected to grow furthermore. We expect the market will recover significantly in fiscal 2025. This slide shows SPE new equipment sales forecasting FY -- fiscal 2024. As shown here, SPE new equipment sales expected to be JPY 573 billion in the first half and JPY 690 billion in the second half of fiscal 2024. We expect that net sales will bottom out in the first half of fiscal 2024 and start recovering in the second half and beyond. This shows our plan for R&D expenses and CapEx. In fiscal 2024, we plan to spend R&D expenses of JPY 200 billion and capital investment of JPY 124 billion, both of which are expected to hit the record high. And we project depreciation expenses were JPY 57 billion. The capital investments are expected to increase in this fiscal year. As shown here, R&D buildings and distribution center in Yamanashi, Iwate, Kumamoto and Miyagi are planned to be prepared for further business expansion. We will accelerate proactive R&D and capital investment to corporates growing market and meet ever diversified needs for leading-edge technologies. Next, this slide shows the dividend forecast. The fiscal 2023 full year dividend per share is JPY 1,711 which includes the 60th anniversary commemorative dividend of JPY 200. Effective on April 1, 2023, Tokyo Electron split the shares of common stock in proportion of 1 share into 3 shares. As for dividend in fiscal year ending in March 2024, since value after stock split applies, we plan to pay a full year dividend per share of JPY 320. Just for information, the full year dividend per share, which does not take account for stock split is JPY 960. In the Board of the Directors meeting held today, it was decided that we will purchase shares up to JPY 120 billion. In accordance with our capital policy, we made this decision by comprehensively considering investment for future growth to pursue long-term profit increase and current cash position. We will continuously make an agile and flexible balance sheet management. Here, you can see the total return amount fluctuation. When the share repurchases completed as planned, total return amount in this fiscal year is expected to be JPY 270.3 billion, including the dividend payment based on the payout ratio of 50%. We will keep working to enhance shareholders' value. Thank you very much for your kind attention. This concludes my presentation.

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#9

[Operator Instructions] So first question is from Mr. Shibano of Citigroup Global Market Japan.

Masahiro Shibano

analyst
#10

I am Shibano from Citigroup Global Markets. I hope you can hear me. So as for new fiscal year, SPE business environment, I'd like to ask a question about the business environment for SPE. I have a question on Page 31. You can see the SPE sales by region. As when you look at China in fiscal 2023, JPY 496.7 billion and no changes from the fiscal 2022. Towards 2024, the new fiscal year, what sort of plans do you have for the Chinese market? So as for the background, the Chinese local customers, there are some customers who are working on the leading-edge devices or matured device nodes. So there might be some expansion in the demand. So as far as your company is concerned, could you share the current status of your company in China market, please?

Toshiki Kawai

executive
#11

So let me answer to your question. I am Kawai. The proportion in China market for fiscal 2022 was about 26%. The market size was about 30%. In fiscal 2023 to about 24%, so slightly declined in terms of our proportion in Chinese market. For this fiscal year, probably maybe 30% or a little bit more than 30% will be achievable for fiscal 2024 according to our expectations. So because of the geopolitical environment and market conditions, so legacy matured of semiconductors are expected to grow. And quite a few customers are there in China. So that market is expected to grow -- another factor is leading-edge technology nodes. Especially in the first half of this fiscal year, there is some suppressed investment and WFE market gets smaller, but legacy nodes investment is more active. Therefore, about 30% is the kind of level of our position in China for this fiscal year.

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#12

Next question is from Mr. Hirakawa of BoA.

Mikio Hirakawa

analyst
#13

I am Hirakawa from BofA Securities. I have a related question. So fiscal 2024, the SPE sales, you said in the second half of the fiscal year, logic/foundry is expected to grow. That's your plan. And when you look at current inquiries, the logic/foundry, the investment from the first to second half of this year, what is the driver, the leading-edge technology node or matured technology node. And could you just know the drivers of the growth of logic foundry throughout this fiscal year?

Unknown Executive

executive
#14

Right. For example, on Slide 20, a little by little, memory spendings are expected to increase in terms of absolute value toward the second half of this year. Pink color accounts for 69%; about 70%, which is logic. And as you can see, that from logic starts recovering first ahead of the memory. The primary factor or driver is the demand for legacy nodes for IoT device applications. So the growth in that area is getting larger with a MAGIC market, M-A-G-I-C. DSS business unit was established last month. And those areas, MAGIC area, of course, Chinese markets are growing in terms of MAGIC market. Similarly, the foundry taking care of commodity devices are now growing all over the world. This is how I would view to understand the trend for this fiscal year.

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#15

Next question is from Mr. Nakamura of Goldman Sachs, Japan.

Shuhei Nakamura

analyst
#16

I am Nakamura of Goldman Sachs, Japan. So the semiconductor device market 2024 should be almost the same size or larger than the market size of 2022. That's what you said earlier, for WFE, I think you said 3 months ago, but at present do you have a very similar trend for WFE market as the semiconductor market? Were there any difference in the recovery between semiconductor market and WFE market?

Unknown Executive

executive
#17

In principle, semiconductor and WFE markets, those 2 markets are now in line with each other to some extent. Each company toward 2024, about 10% increase from this fiscal year, and bigger than 2022. And 2025 market will be larger than 2024. That's how quite a few companies are expecting for the future. Second half of this fiscal year, the recovery will start gradually and market grow more in 2024 and 2025. So the MAGIC market -- the volatility is limited. So the MAGIC market expected to grow steadily and stably. So about JPY 500 billion, DSS business unit sales. And we have a plan for JPY 850 billion towards the 2027. So we can expect linear increase to 2024 and '25 because of new CPU, server replacement will be accelerated with higher performance and lower power consumption. Accordingly, DDR5 will be another driver and smartphone ever since COVID-19, they purchased smartphone, and there is a replacement demand for smartphone along with the future recovery of the macro economy. Then high-speed or high-end device will be sold, higher or more and PC. Now you can see the steady decrease in inventory and also PC replacement demand is expected along with the introduction of new OS, operating system. So now you can see well balanced condition, 6:4 ratio between logic and memory. Maybe little by little, we can -- coming back to the previous proportion, 2025, maybe the ratio between logic and memory should be almost the same as 2020 or 2021.

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#18

Next question is from Mr. Thong of Macquarie Capital Securities.

Damian Thong

analyst
#19

I'm Damian Thong from Macquarie Capital Securities. On Page 20 and DRAM by application, you can see the composition. DRAM sales is expected to grow. And what is the reason for that? Please explain the reason why DRAM sales will be increasing?

Unknown Executive

executive
#20

So again, the memory market is expected to recover little by little. So that's one of the reasons quantitatively. So as you can see, figures are shown here on the slide for DRAM, there are about 4 customers buy a large. All of those 4 customers, they don't have the uniform investment increase, but now they are bottoming out. DRAM adjustments started from the first half of fiscal 2023. It's been about 1 year since they started adjustments. So maybe you can see some trend or symptom of recovery. So we are now building this focus based on customers capital investment plan. So you expect the gradual increase of customer investment from the first half of this fiscal year. So this year, for NAND Flash, also from the second half of this year, start recovering, and that will grow in next fiscal year. For memory as a whole, we'll start to recover from the second half of this fiscal year. As for the order, as I said, the logics for commodity first to start recovering, which is the large portion and high-end logic and DRAM are almost comparable with each other and NAND comes last. That's our forecast for the recovery of different applications.

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#21

Next question is from Mr. Ishino of Tokai Tokyo Research Center.

Masahiko Ishino

analyst
#22

So on Page 20, once again. So first half of this fiscal year, the 38% decline in second half declined by 11% according to your forecast. And so calendar year, about 20% to 25% reduction is expected in memory. That's what Mr. Kawai said earlier. So it just presented now. As we discussed earlier, the legacy nodes demand increased in China. So there are some positive symptoms appearing in the market. So Mr. Kawai, so first half, there might be little -- limited possibility for the upturn revision. But are there any possibility of the upturn revision? So for example, generative AI might be the driver for upward revision or how do you view the trend of memory demand -- demand from memory customers?

Toshiki Kawai

executive
#23

So according to my understanding, last year, JPY 99 billion, about JPY 100 billion last year. So JPY 70 billion to JPY 75 billion for this year. So about 25% to 30% decline is expected for this year according to our forecast. In our company, relatively speaking, we fulfilled our delivery schedule to meet customer orders. But depending on the type of the product or materials required, some of the shipment are pushed out to this fiscal year from previous fiscal year. Because of that, several billion fluctuation is expected. Against that, we try -- we can outperform the WFE market, although the WFE market is expected to decline in terms of sites. As for the growth potential, of course, it depends on the timing of the recovery. For 1 thing, the macroeconomy inflation and relative increase of the interest rate. So macroeconomics environment is 1 thing. And also memory, especially how well the NAND inventory can be rebalanced. So depending on those factors, to some extent, macroeconomy, high-end logic/foundry may conduct some adjustments. So just you said against the plan, about 50% in the first quarter. The first half of next year will be affected by this year's business environment and memory inventory adjustment. The first quarter of next fiscal year might be pulling forward or might be pushed out because of that. So when you think everything comprehensively, those figures are achievable. But then needless to say, we are now thinking the growing trend on a year-on-year basis, so we can have some expectation of upward revision of this forecast. So your company inventories are rather high according to some information. So even if there are some demand increase, you don't have to worry about the inventory. You don't have any concern about your inventory level. So as Mr. Kawamoto will explain more, but conclusion is our inventory level is appropriate. So for all of certain start-up or recovery of the market in the second half of this fiscal year, that we are prepared to increase the capacity all of certain to the cope with the market trend, therefore, our current level of inventories is appropriate.

Hiroshi Kawamoto

executive
#24

So I am Kawamoto. I want to add some comments. As you said, the invent -- high level of inventories, as I said earlier in my presentation, compared with 2 years ago, the inventories are more than 2 years ago. As Mr. Kawai said now, the factories, our main factories or plants do have the strategic procurement increase. There is some inventory turnover ratio decline, but we're trying to be prepared for a certain upward swing of the market trend.

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#25

Next question is from Mr. Yamamoto of Mizuho Securities.

Yoshitsugu Yamamoto

analyst
#26

I am Yamamoto from Mizuho Securities. Again, on Page 20, the new equipment sales forecast for DRAM again. So I'm sure you are very clear, certain about the first half of this year. But I don't have such kind of sentiment that the market comes back this way. So I wonder to tell share increasing is that because of this strength? So -- or do you think customers' investment recovered fully. Because of that, -- you can see increase in DRAM, and you don't do much impact of the retails market share increased slightly from both elements. So customer mix is another factor according to my understanding.

Unknown Executive

executive
#27

Right, correct. So slight gradually for DRAM, you can see the trend of recovery in the DRAM market. And also, our penetration ratio, our share increase is also achieved. So there are 2 reasons. So for next fiscal year, -- so I just wonder about the share for each application. Maybe next fiscal year, you can see some positive growth of your market share on right. As I said in the beginning. So we have won the PORs very steadily, and that trend is really on track. So we expect the increase of our share in the market. So not only next fiscal year, in order for us to achieve the midterm management plan, our progress is on course.

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#28

Next question is from Mr. Yoshida of CLSA Securities, Japan.

Yu Yoshida

analyst
#29

I am Yoshida of CLSA Securities, Japan. I have a question regarding the WFE market. So you said JPY 70 billion to JPY 75 billion. I think those figures are almost comparable with your American competitors. Last year, JPY 99 billion wafer-level packaging is included. And when you look at the large proliferation, I think the decline ratio is more significant than your American competitor. But what is reason for that gap or difference. That's 1 question. And also you said in the previous meeting, JPY 80 billion. And the change here is due to certain applications. Could you give us the potential applications, which have the impact on your downward revision of the trend from JPY 80 billion to JPY 70 billion to JPY 25 billion?

Unknown Executive

executive
#30

So macroeconomy impact is 1 thing. And in that sense, 2 things. Number 1, high-end foundry/logic. Investment was reviewed and revised to some extent. That's one thing. And second, each company quite recently, for memory, relevant memory spending was announced, and that was revised in downward especially for NAND. So they are now rebalancing their inventory that has the impact on our figures. High-end NAND and foundry -- high-end foundry business. Those figures were incorporated that we say JPY 70 billion to JPY 75 billion this time. We have almost the same overall picture with our competitors. But for our presentation, timing is behind other competitors, maybe because of that, we have being able to incorporate changes in customer investment plan. But basically, there is no difference between us and other competitors.

Yu Yoshida

analyst
#31

As for 2024, you said the recovery trend is detected for 2024. In each company about 10% increase from this year to next year is expected by various companies. For this year, decline ratio is rather big. So 2024, 10% improvement, then you cannot achieve the level of 2022. So could you just let us know the growth rate expected in 2024, please?

Unknown Executive

executive
#32

So now you can see semiconductor market, device market forecast. As you can see here, 2023, about 10% decline is expected by 2024 and '25. You can see increasing trend expected. For this, our company has no disagreement against those forecasts. So the tool, WFE, is expected to grow by 10% almost the same level of 2022. So the macroeconomy condition and inventory condition have some impacts. So I hope the WFE market becomes comparable with semiconductor market. But the one quarter shift might take place. And depending on the 1 quarter shift and these condition, our figures might be affected.

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#33

Next question is from Mr. Wadaki of Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.

Tetsuya Wadaki

analyst
#34

I have a question regarding the trend by product. I also interviewed the past supplier, your competitors, and there is some different view -- for example, [ Sparta and hedger ] is 1 thing and co-development and cleaning is rather good in progress. So what is the difference in the business outlook by product?

Unknown Executive

executive
#35

So the difference in our business outlook by equipment is your question. In the case quota developer, 89% is our market share. Therefore, there is some investment that we can catch up quite certainly. As for the amount in, etching market is biggest in size. But when it comes to share, the other day, Gartner give us the news announcement. For etching, last year, because of the in-depreciation by 20%, our share was affected last year. For film deposition, actually, the batch deposition system is the main product. When memory customer stops or defer the investment, then our deposition business is affected. For probers so it depends on product mix or customer mix. So I hope I answered to your question. Did I answer your question?

Tetsuya Wadaki

analyst
#36

So why cleaning system is doing so good? That's my main question. Why cleaning systems is so good?

Unknown Executive

executive
#37

One of the reason is supercritical dry to prevent the patent clouds. That's 1 contributor. And SPM, the market. So in the past Tokyo Electron purchase FSI, and now we have TMEA, TEL Manufacturing and Engineering of America, T-M-E-A. So TMEA is the new mobile company, and they have unique technology. And Tokyo Electron also has unique technology. To come up with the differentiated technology to increase our share in SPM market. So there are implications for cleaning system, so supercritical dry and SPM market, we increased the share. As you know, the SPM market enlarge in size.

Tetsuya Wadaki

analyst
#38

That's very clear explanation. I have 1 additional comment. So could you refer to Page 8. Once a year, we announced the sales composition by products.

Unknown Executive

executive
#39

I think you are -- your question is right on this slide. The etching growth is a bit weaker than others. Maybe you area of interest. So at present, NAND market is under adjustment that has the quite big impact. Actually, the etching and film deposition, -- so actually etching sales is rather big in NAND market. So when NAND market do adjustment, then our etching growth is a bit limited.

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#40

Next Question is from Mr. Yoshikawa of Morgan Stanley, MUFG Research, Japan.

Kazuo Yoshikawa

analyst
#41

I am Yoshikawa from Morgan Stanley. My first question, now you have the single segment disclosure. FPD sales is not disclosed, but for new equipment sales are disclosed. And also maybe the difference from the total sales should be composed of the field solutions sales and FPD sales and the difference is about 15% decline from the previous fiscal year according to your forecast. So because FPD investment adjustment is major reason. And how do you see the market trend of the field solutions business?

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#42

So let me -- I am Yatsuda, let me answer your question. As for the field solution quite recently, the part sales are now increasing rapidly. But now customers have -- utilization rate is declining. Therefore, now we have some conservative forecast for this fiscal year because of that. So for a few years, the parts service has been increasing steadily. But for this fiscal year, I think the part service hit the plateau because of the decline, the utilization rate of customer is fast.

Kazuo Yoshikawa

analyst
#43

Another question I want to ask is about logic/foundry. You said the investment in the mature node is rather strong. In the previous fiscal year, logic/foundry, the leading edge and mature node, 20-nanometer or bigger. That proportion is about 60% to 40%, according to your information. That's 60% to 40%. That proportion remained unchanged? And what is your expectation for this fiscal year?

Unknown Executive

executive
#44

So for this calendar year, matured node accounts for about 40%. 2022, just for information, our expectation was the mature node accounted for 30%, including memory.

Operator

operator
#45

Next question is from Mr. Yasui of UBS Securities.

Kenji Yasui

analyst
#46

I have a question regarding 2024. How do you view the fluctuation of gross profit margin. So when you said utilization rate is declining, but could you share your forecast for the gross profit margin, please?

Unknown Executive

executive
#47

So maybe your question is about the gross profit margin forecast. And you said probably you can expect higher gross profit margin than presented here.

Kenji Yasui

analyst
#48

Yes, exactly. That's what I asked.

Unknown Executive

executive
#49

As you pointed out, the previous year, gross profit margin is 44.6% as of, today 43.6%, expectation -- 1 percentage point decline is expected. As of now, so the sales -- net sales declined significantly by 23%, specifically, and that has the impact on the gross profit margin. This is how I'd like you to understand. So ultimately, we try to catch up, and we are making effort to catch up. But as of today, because of the significant decline in the net sales, we expect 1 percentage point decrease in the gross profit margin.

Koichi Yatsuda

executive
#50

So since there is no more questions, we'd like to conclude this meeting. That is -- before we close this session, I'd like to make 1 announcement. SEMICON West be held in San Francisco for 3 days from July 11 to July 13. On day 1, Mr. Kawai, our CEO, will make a keener presentation on future technology outlook, starting at 8:55 in the morning in the main hall. Also at St. Regis hotel near venue of SEMICON West, we will organize fireside chart from 1:00 to 2:00 in the afternoon where Mr. Kawai, CEO, Mr. [ Washino ] EVP and GM; and Dr. Sekiguchi our fellow will give follow-up talks of the keener presentation and discuss our long-term growth opportunity. If you go to the coming SEMICON West, please join us in those events. We will send you the details about fireside chat. Lastly, we'd like to continually improve our IR activities based on your previous feedback. So we would appreciate your kind corporation in filling out the questionnaire before you exit the Webex. Thank you very much for taking time to join this event despite your very scheduled today. Thank you very much. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

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