ACM Research - Q1 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ACM Research First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press Star 101 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press Star 101 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I will now like to hand the conference over to speakers today, Steve Pelayo, Managing Director of The Blueshirt Group. Please go ahead.

Steven Pelayo (Managing Director)

Good day, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss First Quarter 2024 results, which we released before the U.S. market opened today. The release is available on our website as well as from Newswire Services. There is also a supplemental slide deck posted on the investor section of our website that we will reference during our prepared remarks. On the call with me today are CEO, Dr. David Wang, our CFO, Mark McKechnie, and Lisa Fang, our CFO of our operating subsidiary, ACM Shanghai. Before we continue, please turn to Slide two. Let me remind you that remarks made during this call may include predictions, estimates, or other information that might be considered forward-looking. These forward-looking statements represent ACM's current judgment for the future. However, they are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.

Those risks are described under risk factors and elsewhere in ACM filings with the SEC. Please do not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect ACM's opinions only as of the date of this call. ACM is not obliged to update you on any revisions to these forward-looking statements. Certain of the financial results that we provide on this call will be on a non-GAAP basis, which excludes stock-based compensation and an unrealized gain and loss short-term investment. For our GAAP results and reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP amounts, you should refer to our earnings release, which is posted on the IR section of our website, and to Slide 12. Let me turn the call over to David Wang, who will begin with Slide three. David?

David Wang (CEO)

Thanks, Steven. Hello, everyone, and welcome to ACM Research, the First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Please turn to Slide three. I'm pleased with our results. A solid start to the year for the first quarter. Revenue was $252.2 million, up 105%. Profitability was good with a gross margin of 52.5% and operating margin of 26.2%. We ended the quarter with just over $288 million of cash and time deposit. Shipments for the first quarter were $245 million, up 175%. As expected, first quarter shipments were higher due to delivery of finished goods that were not shipped in the fourth quarter of last year. We also had an acceleration from our production team during the Lunar New Year holiday period. I will now provide details on products. Please turn to Slide four.

Revenue from single wafer cleaning, Tahoe, and semi-critical cleaning product grew 199% in Q1 and represented 72% of total revenue. ACM offers what we believe is an industry's most comprehensive cleaning portfolio. We support near 90% of all cleaning process steps for memory analog devices. At the high end, we believe our flagship SAPS, Tahoe, and Ultra single wafer cleaning products deliver the technical features not available from any of our competitors. At the lower end, our semi-critical tools, including Auto Bench, have driven incremental growth for our cleaning category over the past two years. We have recently made progress in the SPM market, which we believe will result in share gain and growth in our cleaning business starting this year. Let me provide more detail. SPM stands for Sulfuric Acid Peroxide Mix. These steps are normally used to clean wafers after photoresist removal process and post-CMP cleaning.

We estimate the total available market for the TAM for SPM tools is 25%-30% of the total front-end cleaning market. Today, SPM has been a small contribution to our business. Our SPM tools, including Tahoe, low-temperature single-wafer SPM, and now our high-temperature single-wafer SPM tool. Until now, we believe there has been only one major supplier of high-temperature single-wafer SPM tools. Our engineering team has recently made greater technical progress with our high-temperature tool, and we believe ACM can now participate as an alternative supplier. This is especially important as we believe our customers generally prefer one-stop shop for all their SPM cleaning steps. With the high-temperature SPM tool, we believe ACM now has a full product line to meet our customer requirements.

Ultra C Tahoe has been qualified for production by multiple customers and is beginning a ramping pace, with a substantial number of orders planned for delivery in 2024. Enhancements have been made to its performance, allowing the tool to match particle removal efficiency comparable to the single wafer process, while reducing sulfuric usage by 50%-70%. We now expect a meaningful ramp of SPM tools this year as we begin volume delivery across the number of key customers. Finishing up on cleaning, we also expect our bevel etcher cleaning tool to contribute meaningful revenue in 2024, and we are on track to complete evaluation of a supercritical CO2 dry cleaning tool this year for revenue in 2025. Revenue from ECP furnace and other technology declined 3% in Q1 and represented 70% of total revenue.

As mentioned last quarter, we hit an important milestone for this category in 2023 with more than $100 million in revenue. The year-over-year revenue decline is primarily due to quarterly fluctuation. In fact, we shipped 3x more ECP tools in Q1 2024 versus the same period last year, and we expect revenue growth for this category for the full year. As noted in a prior call, we believe the furnace product cycle is perhaps a year or so behind ECP. We have a broader footprint of customer activities, with more than a handful of furnace tools currently under evaluation and multiple customers. We are optimistic this will result in qualification and follow-on orders in the coming quarters. Revenue from advanced packaging, which excludes ECP but includes SAPS, bevel etch, grew 53.2% in Q1 and represented 11% of total revenue.

This category includes a range of packaging tools such as coater, developer, scrubber, PR stripper, and wet etchers, and also service and spare parts. We continue to explore new products and technology to participate in the next generation of advanced packaging. We believe ACM is one of the only companies that offers a full set of wet tools, copper polishing tools, and copper plating tools for advanced packaging. In Q1, we delivered an Ultra C Vac vacuum cleaning tool to a major customer to meet the flux removal requirement for chiplet and other advanced 3D packaging structures. Today, we also introduced the Frame Wafer Cleaning Tool. This tool is designed for post-debonding wafer cleaning that enables nearly 100% recycled solvent and filtration. We have successfully completed the installation and the qualification of the first tool with a key customer.

Finishing up on product, we are making good progress with our Track and PECVD platform. We believe our proprietary technology presents both tools for success for mainland China and also global customers. We are engaged with multiple customers that we expect substantial growth progress in product development and evaluation this year with revenue in 2025 and beyond. Now, move on to our customer. Please turn to Slide seven. In China, we believe we have a leading position in cleaning. We have become a multiple product company with a competitive product in the market for plating and furnace, and we have a solid evaluation pipeline for Track and PECVD. Our sales and service team are now driving deeper adoption of our product across our customer base. Our growth is also being driven by new entrants.

On the international front, we plan to deliver Ultra C b backside cleaning and Bevel Etcher tool in the second quarter of 2024 to a large U.S. manufacturer that qualified as the first SAP cleaning tool for revenue last year. This demonstrates a deepening relationship, which we believe can lead to production orders across multiple product lines. Moreover, ACM's brand and reputation are gaining recognition among other U.S. chipmakers, with new engagement and potential opportunity to penetrate their global manufacturer site. We recently hired additional senior marketing and sales professionals who bring established relationships with key U.S. semiconductor players. In Europe, we installed our first tool for evaluation, the Ultra C SAPS V cleaning tool, at a major global semiconductor manufacturer in the fourth quarter last year. The initial feedback has been positive, and we are optimistic that the volume production orders are possible by middle of the year. We think Korea.

We see opportunity with SK Hynix high-bandwidth memory HBM product. We see potential gain with our SAPS cleaning tool for high-aspect-ratio via cleaning as well as Ultra ECP for TSV applications. To support growth, we made progress in our facility expanding in China and other regions. Please turn to Slide eight. In China, construction of our Lingang production R&D center is nearly complete. We expect initial production later this year. In Korea, we are making progress with a key customer. We believe a strong commitment to Korea can improve our relationship with key Korean customers. Our resources in Korea can also provide another basis to support international customers in the U.S., Europe, and other parts of Asia. We recently hired a new leader to run our Korea operation, DJ Kim. He is a long-time veteran of SK Hynix.

We are optimistic his experience and relationship will help adopt our technology and accelerate our business in the region. We continue to invest in our Oregon site to add to our service support and demonstration capability for R&D and customer activity in the U.S. and Europe. I will now provide our outlook. Please turn to Slide 9. We believe WFE spending in China will remain solid as the country continues on its goal to match its production capacity with end-market consumption. We are focused on gaining market share in China, new product introduction, and expanding our business to new customers in the USA, Korea, Europe, and other Asian markets. We are reaffirming our 2024 revenue outlook to be in the range of $650 million-$725 million. This implies 23% year-over-year growth at the middle point.

We expect our full-year revenue growth for 2024 to outpace both China and global WFE growth rates. Now, let me turn the call over to our CFO, Mark, who will reveal details of our first quarter results. Mark, please.

Mark McKechnie (CFO)

Thank you, David. Good day, everyone. Please turn to Slide 11. Unless I note otherwise, I'll refer to non-GAAP financial measures, which exclude stock-based compensation and unrealized gain or loss on short-term investments. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures comparable to GAAP measures is included in our earnings release. Unless otherwise noted, the following figures refer to the first quarter of 2024, and comparisons are with the first quarter of 2023. I will now provide financial highlights for the first quarter of 2024. Revenue was $152.2 million for the first quarter, up 105%. Revenue for single wafer cleaning, Tahoe, and semi-critical cleaning was $109.5 million, up 199%.

Revenue for ECP furnace and other technologies was $25.8 million, down 3%. As David noted, we anticipate good growth for the full year 2024 in this category. Revenue for advanced packaging, excluding ECP services and spares, was $16.9 million, up 53.2%. Total shipments were $245 million for the first quarter, up 175%. Gross margin was 52.5% versus 54%. This exceeded our normal expected range of 40%-45%. For the full year, we now expect gross margins to fall in the upper end of our target range. We do continue to expect gross margin to vary from period to period due to a variety of factors such as sales volume, product mix, and currency impacts. Operating expenses were $40.1 million for the first quarter, up from $29.2 million. R&D was $19.4 million versus $13.3 million. The year-over-year increase reflects additional personnel and other expenses to support our product development pipeline.

The decline versus Q4 2023 was primarily due to reduced spending on internal R&D development tools. Sales and marketing was $11.1 million versus $8.9 million, and G&A was $9.5 million versus $6.9 million. For 2024, we plan for R&D expenses in the 13%-15% range, sales and marketing in the 7%-8% range, and G&A in the 5%-6% range. Operating income was $39.8 million for the first quarter, up from $10.9 million. Operating margin was 26.2%, up from 14.7%. We recorded a realized gain of $0.3 million for the first quarter from the sale of short-term investments. Recall that realized gains are included in non-GAAP earnings. Income tax expense was $4.4 million for the first quarter versus $2.9 million. For the full year, we plan for an effective tax rate on non-GAAP pre-tax income in the 15%-20% range.

Net income attributable to ACM Research was $34.6 million for the first quarter, up from $9.9 million. Net income for diluted share was $0.52, sorry, net income for diluted share was $0.52 for the first quarter versus $0.15. Our non-GAAP net income excludes $14.6 million or $0.22 per share in stock-based compensation expense. This reflects a full-quarter impact of the significant grant of ACM Shanghai shares made in the third quarter of last year, in addition to our normal ACM Research grants. This was the first major grant by our subsidiary since the 2021 Star Market IPO. Our management team considers the grant as a critical differentiator to attract new talent for new product development and to retain key employees. I will now review selected balance sheet items. Cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and time deposits were $288.3 million versus $304.5 million at the end of the last quarter.

Total inventory was $581.1 million versus $545.4 million at the end of last quarter. This includes raw materials and work in progress, which totals $318.2 million, and finished goods inventory of $262.9 million. Finished goods inventory mainly includes first tools and evaluation tools at our customers, and it also includes finished goods at ACM's facilities. Capital expenditures were $25.4 million. For the full year, we expect to spend about $100 million in capital expenditures. This primarily includes continued investments in our Lingang facilities, remodeling for our new headquarters for ACM Shanghai, and our investments in Korea and the U.S., and some fixed asset expenditures. That concludes our prepared remarks. Now, let's open the call for any questions that you may have. Operator, please go ahead.

Operator (participant)

Thank you.

And as a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for a name to be announced. And to withdraw your question, just press the star 11 again. Once again, please stand by. We'll compile the Q&A roster. One moment for our first question. Our first question will come from the line of Suji Desilva from Roth. You're now connected.

Suji Desilva (Managing Director and Snr Research Analyst)

Hi, David. Hi, Mark. Congratulations on the progress here. Just a couple—Hi, David. Hey, guys. So maybe some high-level questions. So outside of the core SAPS products, which of the new product categories is going to help drive the highest growth in 2024? Just to understand how you're diversifying the product categories.

David Wang (CEO)

Yeah. Good. And obviously, as I mentioned here, cleaning tool has continued our major portion of the revenue.

We see that there—this, as I mentioned, is SPM tool, which covers middle and lower temperature by Tahoe and also single wafer. We are also making a breakthrough in high-temperature SPM tool, and that's going to be also another driving factor. Plus, also we have our Bevel Etcher, and also continues where we're growing our AutoBench for the mature nodes. Then looking at the real next year, we're looking for probably our supercritical CO2 will start contributing on our revenue too. So that's the one on the cleaning side. Then looking at the ECP, we'll continue to see that growth, both in the front end and also on the advanced packaging side. We have quite a good backlog in ECP. Also, we see the furnaces will start contributing for our revenue too this year and also continue next year.

We have basically all the LPCVD and ALD start evaluation, and all this vacuum anneal versus atmospheric furnace anneal continue getting in the market. So that's the major driving force this year for our revenue contribution. Mark, anything you want to add on that?

Mark McKechnie (CFO)

Yeah. No. Thanks, David. And thanks, Suji. Yeah. I think one of the things we wanted to stress on this call is within cleaning, even though we've been doing cleaning for a while, we have a few pretty strong product cycles underneath that that can drive additional growth. And then when we start looking internationally, it's hard to say how our mix is going to play out between products as we go on late this year and into 2025 because it seems like a lot of our new customers might be starting with cleaning as well. So I'll leave it at that, Suji.

Suji Desilva (Managing Director and Snr Research Analyst)

Okay. Great.

Yeah. No. My second question was going to be similar on the geographic diversification. Maybe I can hone in on the U.S. customer, and perhaps you can give a sense of what some of the next milestones or steps are as you seem to be making good progress there.

David Wang (CEO)

Yeah. As I mentioned, we're continually marketing and expanding our customer base in the U.S. And we have our one key customer who's going to be shipping our second tool, second type of tool, which is Bevel and Backside, to this key customer. Meanwhile, we're also talking, discussing multiple customers in the U.S., both for their front end and also for their packaging side. So we see their big potential and their growth in the U.S. market. And meanwhile, we also access the market in Singapore and also Europe, right? Our first tool has been delivered to the one key U.S.

I mean, European customer, and we think there'll be in the qualification phase now. We're expecting this first tool will result in their second repeat order. I think that's it, right? Hey, Mark, anything you want to add?

Mark McKechnie (CFO)

Yeah. Yeah. So no, thanks. International, I think when we talked about our guidance when we first presented it last quarter, we got asked a lot about how much we'd contribute from international. This year is still a build year. We're hopeful that we can get following the qualification of the U.S. customer, we're hoping that we can get some orders here soon. We're not certain how much will fall into this year versus next, and that's always been the plan. And even for the European, so we'd probably expect some contribution, but really, this would be a build year, and any significant orders would probably be for shipments next year.

Suji Desilva (Managing Director and Snr Research Analyst)

Okay.

Thanks, David. Thanks, Mark. I'll pass it along.

David Wang (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Christian Schwab from Craig-Hallum. Your line is open.

Christian Schwab (Senior Research Analyst)

Hey. Great. Thanks for taking my question. I just have one follow-up to the earlier conversation. Now that you're seeing broadening potential success in the international market, it seems that on a bigger picture, multiyear area, I know you've outlined $1 billion in sales in China, and the market outside of China for your products is materially greater. On a multiyear outlook, do you have increased conviction now that this business can be much bigger than $1 billion?

David Wang (CEO)

Yeah. Actually, in our layout, we're pretty confident we're going to reach even a billion-dollar market by only the China market.

And obviously, at the same time, we penetrate or explore the international market with our differential technology. So we see that the trend continues accelerating. So as I said, we're looking at the key customer, U.S., and probably their manufacturing in Singapore. And also, we're looking with the Taiwan customer too. And plus recent, right, we hired our key—I call it key top manager—in the Korean operation, which is DJ Kim. He's a real veteran of SK Hynix. And so we're really putting effort and marketing and selling our product globally. So we'll say, obviously, their international revenue and their contribution will get into our total growth. As I said, in the long term, we want half of our revenue to come from China and half of them from outside China. So that's a goal still in our—it's to continue our goal here.

Christian Schwab (Senior Research Analyst)

Fantastic. No other questions. Thanks. Thank you.

David Wang (CEO)

Thanks, Christian.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for our next question. As a reminder, that's star 11 for questions. Our next question will come from the line of Ross Cole from Needham. Your line is open.

Ross Cole (Equity Research Associate)

Great. Thank you, guys, for taking my question on behalf of Charles Shi today. So shipments in the first quarter were pretty high. And I know you don't typically guide shipments, but do you have any thoughts on the rest of the year? Do you expect the Q1 shipment level to sustain through a similar level or possibly go higher or lower in the next three quarters?

David Wang (CEO)

Yeah. Okay. Let me answer. Maybe Mark can follow. Obviously, first quarter shipment higher is partially contributed by our delayed shipment in Q4 of last year, right? So that's part of the reason. Plus, also, our manufacturing also did a good job in the Lunar New Year.

So we'll say probably Q2 was slightly lower than Q1, but also continue to see that growth in Q2 and Q3 and Q4. So Mark, anything you want to comment?

Mark McKechnie (CFO)

Yeah. No. Thanks. And Ross, I appreciate the question. Yeah. So we certainly expect shipments to grow to be higher than our revenue growth for the year. I mean, it's a pretty solid shipment year. But yeah, as David noted, Q2, they probably normalized a bit relative to that inventory piece, but we'd expect it to kind of shift back up in Q3 and Q4.

Ross Cole (Equity Research Associate)

Great. Thank you. That was my only question. Great.

David Wang (CEO)

Thanks, Ross.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Charlie Chan from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Charlie Chan (Research Analyst)

Hi, David. Mark, thanks for taking my question. And also, congrats for very good results at Fusion, etc.

So I'm not sure, but I feel like this time around, you are more open to talk about SK Hynix, HBM, business nowadays, cleaning, or the ECP business opportunity. May I know if you have a significant breakthrough there? I remember you kind of had some demo tool there, but is that now a customer project wins or in the recurring order? May I confirm that?

David Wang (CEO)

Yeah. Actually, SK Hynix is one of our key customers, right? And they also are a real long-term customer too. Then now we add more of a obviously, our flagship SAPS megasonic cleaning can offer much uniform megasonical energy contribution. So therefore, you can almost clean every via of the wafer, which is very important for TSV and their process. And the second one is real copper plating, right? It's really in their packaging, 3D, 2.5D, 3D, and also in their TSV.

So we're engaging with the customer, and we think our differential product definitely can be their potential choice for them to take. So we're still in the process right now. Okay. Okay. May I know those kind of key technologies, right, can be used in advanced packaging, for example, CoWoS, right, or TSMC's SoIC? So just my understanding, I think it's not just TSMC can provide the CoWoS or 2.5D advanced packaging. I think Intel, even Amkor, may have those advanced packaging stuff, right? So are you guys going to supply tools to those opportunities? Yeah. Obviously, like you said, definitely, our copper plating can be used for their other customer, right, for their advanced packaging process. And so we're approaching multiple other customers right now. And I think this market, obviously, only a few players, and we can be the alternative choice for them to take.

Also, we do have some differential technology or differential outperformance with other guys. So we're very confident we can get it in the market and for their outside China market.

Charlie Chan (Research Analyst)

Okay. Yeah. And actually, my second question is about also international markets, right? I remember four years ago when I started to cover the stock, always I asked this question, "When are we going to get in TSMC?" Right? And four years later, I feel like TSMC remains to be a very, very important target. They continue to open new fabs, not just the U.S., but also Japan, and next will be Germany, including both the mature nodes and the leading edge. So my question is that what do you need to do, right, to really win this customer? Yeah. Can you give us some color, whether it's a technology or kind of production location or pricing, whatever?

What's the issue right now?

David Wang (CEO)

Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, like you said, TSMC is one of our key customer targets, and we're working with them multiple years. And we're still engaged with them, by the way. And so we're in a still evaluation, talking process right now, right? As I said, our cleaning, also our copper plating, definitely is one of the key products, right, differentiating with the other players. So we have confidence, right? And anyway, probably I cannot tell you now what's going on, but we're fully engaged with TSMC. It's our potential target, obviously.

Charlie Chan (Research Analyst)

Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's the only question I have. Thanks for your time. Thank you.

David Wang (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question will come from the line of Mark Miller from The Benchmark Company. Your line is open.

Mark Miller (Analyst)

Congratulations on another upside report.

I was just wondering if you're seeing any impacts such as pushouts from the slowing of EV demand in China.

David Wang (CEO)

Okay. That's a good question. Actually, we see there a few. I mean, quite a bit of customer focus on their IGBT production line. And we see that's continuing to grow because anyway, IGBT production in China is still early stage, right? So we see their customers continue expanding for this IGBT investment. And also, we do have a very good product in cleaning and also in the furnaces, right, supporting this IGBT market.

Mark Miller (Analyst)

Just wondering how cash flow went during the quarter. Did you consume cash?

Mark McKechnie (CFO)

Yeah. Hey, Mark. I'll take that. And it'll show up in our queue, but cash flow from operations was 9.6. We used about $9.6 million. Yep.

Mark Miller (Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. And I'm not showing any further questions in the queue.

I'd like to turn the call back over to Steve for any closing remarks.

Steven Pelayo (Managing Director)

Okay. Thank you, operator, and thank you all for participating in today's call and for your support. Before we close, let me just mention a couple of upcoming investor relations events. On May 29th, we will present at Craig-Hallum's 21st Annual Institutional Investor Conference in Minneapolis. From June 25th to 26th, we will present at the 10th Annual Roth London Conference at the Four Seasons Park Lane, London. Attendance at the conference is by invitation only. For interested investors, please contact your respective sales representatives to register and schedule one-on-one meetings with the management team. This concludes today's call, and you may now disconnect.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.