ACM Research - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 revenue of $215.4m rose 6.4% Y/Y but came in below consensus ($223.4m), while non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.54 beat consensus ($0.5025); GAAP diluted EPS was $0.44. Revenue Consensus Mean: $223.4m*; Primary EPS Consensus Mean: $0.5025*.
• Gross margin remained strong at 48.5% (48.7% non-GAAP), above the long-term model range (42–48%), with mix and volume noted as drivers of variability.
• FY25 revenue guidance was maintained at $850–$950m; CFO guided FY25 effective tax rate ~10% and raised planned FY25 R&D intensity to 14–16% (from 13–14% prior), signaling investment behind new platforms (Track, PECVD, PLP).
• Management raised long-term China revenue target and reiterated global expansion (several tools slated for U.S. delivery in Q3) and multi-sourcing to mitigate export control risk; shipments were $206.4m (+1.9% Y/Y).

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Non-GAAP EPS beat and margin resilience: non-GAAP diluted EPS $0.54 vs $0.5025 consensus*, gross margin 48.5% (48.7% non-GAAP) above model high end. Primary EPS Consensus Mean: $0.5025*.
  • Product momentum and innovation: repeat orders for upgraded Ultra C wb wet bench with patent-pending N₂ bubbling; momentum in SPM, Tahoe, plating and furnace; Track/PECVD and panel-level packaging progressing.
  • Long-term growth positioning: FY25 guide maintained; raised long-term China revenue target; deliveries to U.S. planned in Q3; CSRC approval to raise up to ~$620m for ACM Shanghai to accelerate growth.

• What Went Wrong

  • Top-line miss and operating deleverage: revenue of $215.4m missed consensus ($223.4m*), operating income fell Y/Y ($31.7m vs $37.6m), and GAAP operating margin compressed to 14.7% (non-GAAP 19.3%) amid higher opex. Revenue Consensus Mean: $223.4m*.
  • Opex intensity rose: GAAP opex +22.9% Y/Y to $72.8m; non-GAAP opex +38.8% Y/Y to $63.4m; CFO also lifted FY25 R&D plan to 14–16% of sales vs 13–14% prior, reflecting heavier spend.
  • Macro/policy overhang persists: export restrictions require multi-sourcing and strategic component purchases; management noted further strategic buys potentially in Q3 to mitigate risks.

Transcript

Speaker 4

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by and welcome to the ACM Research Q2 2025 earnings conference call. Currently, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, we're recording today's call. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Now I will turn the call over to Mr. Steven Pelayo, Managing Director of the Blue Shirt Group. Please, Steven, please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Yeah, good day, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss Q2 2025 results, which we released before the U.S. market opened today. The release is available on our website as well as from our newswire services. There is also a supplemental slide deck posted in the Investors section of our website that we will reference during our prepared remarks today. On the call with me today are our CEO, 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 the remarks made during this call may include predictions, estimates, or other information that might be considered forward-looking. These forward-looking statements represent ACM Research'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 Research's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please do not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect ACM Research's opinions only as of the date of this call. ACM Research 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 unrealized gain and loss on short-term investments. For our GAAP results and reconciliation 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 13. Also, unless otherwise noted, the following figures refer to the second quarter of 2025, and comparisons are with the second quarter of 2024.

I will now turn the call over to David Wang. David?

Speaker 0

Thanks, Stephen. Hello, everyone, and welcome to ACM Research Q2 early conference call. We delivered another quarter of good results with strong sequential growth in both revenue and achievement, reflecting continued progress across our expanding product portfolio. We saw momentum from our SPM, Tahoe, Plating, and Furnace Tool, which are helping expand our addressable market and gain market share. We also continue to make progress with new platforms, including TRACK, PECVD, and panel-level packaging tools, which represent important long-term growth drivers. We recently announced a major upgrade to our Ultra C WD wet bench cleaning tool. The technology integrates ACM's patent-pending nitrogen bubbling technology to generate a large-sized bubble with good bubble density uniformity and enhance the etching rate uniformity in a 3D structure across the wafer.

I'm happy to announce that we have received repeat orders for the new Ultra C WD wet bench tool with our proprietary N2 bubbling technology. We expect good achievements for this tool this year and the next. The technology is also adaptable to our Ultra C Tahoe platform, with significant application potential for manufacturing advanced 3D NAND, 3D DRAM, 3D logic devices. We believe this new technology is another example of ACM's leadership in cleaning tools that will be good for our customers and support our growth initiatives. Our nitrogen bubbling technology tool adds to early breakthrough for Tahoe and other recent product launches, such as our high temperature SPM tool and panel-level packaging tool for flux clean and bevel etcher. Together, these developments reinforce ACM's differentiated leadership in wafer cleaning and give us confidence that we will continue to gain share in a critical segment.

We remain committed to delivering innovative new products such as this to enable our customers to meet the next generation of semiconductor manufacturing challenges as demanded by the artificial intelligence transformation. Now, on to our business results. Please turn to slide three. For the second quarter of 2025, we delivered revenue of $215 million, up 25% sequential and 6% year-over-year. Achievement was $206 million, up 32% sequential, up 2% year-over-year. Gross margin was 48.7%, exceeding our target range of 42 to 48%. We ended the quarter with a net cash of $206 million. Now I will provide a detail on product. Please turn to slide four. Revenue from single wafer cleaning, Tahoe, and semi-critical cleaning tools grew 1% and represents 74.2% of total revenue. We believe our top-to-bottom cleaning portfolio puts us in a strong position. We continue to make technical improvements and customer progress with our SPM tool.

Our high-temperature SPM system features ACM's proprietary nozzle design, which prevents both liquid SPM and acid mist spat out of the chamber during the SPM process. This improves particle performance, reduces chamber preventative maintenance cleaning frequency, and enhances system uptime. We have achieved better particle control over average particle count, less than 10 at the 26-nanoparticle size. We also believe it will show better performance than competitors' offerings at particle sizes more than 17 and 15 nanometers. In Q2, we delivered SPM and Tahoe tools to several more customers as we continue to gain market share in the SPM space. Revenue from ECP, furnace, and other technologies grew 23% and represents 22% of total revenue. ACM recently delivered an ECP tool to a customer, which included the company's 1,500 electric plating chambers shipped.

We are seeing a strong momentum for our ECP tool in advanced packaging, driven by demand for both front and back-end plating systems. We are also seeing growth interest in our new Ultra ECP APP panel-level horizontal plating system, as the industry shifts from wafer to panel-level packaging. To support the next-generation AI chips, our unique horizontal plating approach, which delivers superior uniformity than vertical panel plating solutions, has attracted attention from the major players. Our furnace products are building momentum, supported by strong customer interest and an expanded pipeline of evaluation and engagement. We see good demand across multiple applications, including high-temperature NEO, especially our 1,250°C version, high-temperature NEO furnace, and also LPCVD oxidation and ALD. We believe ACM's differentiated design positions us to capture meaningful market share. Revenue from advanced packaging, which excludes ECP but includes service and spell, was up 20% and represents 6% of revenue.

We are making good progress with our new TRACK and PECVD platform. Our proprietary PECVD platform with three chunks per chamber gives us flexibility to support a wide range of processes with the same hardware. We feel good about our positioning, with a plan to deliver a more better tool to a handful of customers this year and look for revenue contribution in 2026 and beyond. For TRACK, we're in the final development phase of our 300-wafer-per-hour inline KF tool, and we expect to deliver the beta tool to a key customer in the current quarter. To close on product, our roadmap, including incremental contributions from Tahoe SPM and furnace tool in 2025, with the panel-level packaging, TRACK, and PECVD tool, is expected to drive growth in 2026 and beyond. Please turn to slide six. Our first half results reflect solid execution across our product portfolio.

We remain confident in the year and our long-term opportunity in China. As a result, we have increased our long-term revenue target for mainland China to $2.5 billion versus our previous target of $1.5 billion. The increase is based on two main factors. First, we're now assuming a long-term China WFE market size of $40 billion versus our prior assumption of $30 billion. This is based on updates by third-party global market forecasts and also on our view of the China semiconductor industry. Second, we have adjusted our market share targets for product group as follows. We have raised our market share target for both cleaning and plating to 60% versus 55% prior. This is a result of our current assessment of customer traction and increased confidence for share gain for new products. For furnace, PECVD, and TRACK, however, we're keeping our target at the 15%, 15%, and 10% level.

Of course, we aspire to achieve better results, but needed more time in the market before we were formally adjusted the target. Moving to the bottom of the chart, we maintain our revenue target for the rest of the world at $1.5 billion. We believe ACM Research's focus on differentiated, world-class products combines our global sales and service team, will deliver results with our global customers. As an example, we have a plan to deliver a server tool to the U.S. in the third quarter. We remain engaged with our major U.S. customers with active evaluation across a range of the cleaning process steps as we continue to work towards our goal for production orders. Bottom line, we have raised our long-term revenue target to $4 billion versus our prior target of $3 billion. Now, I will provide an update on ACM Shanghai's proposed capital raise in China.

ACM Shanghai recently received approval from the CSRC to proceed with its proposed follow-on offering on the stock market to raise up to $620 million by selling less than 10% of your total share. The capital raising leadership is intended to help accelerate our updated revenue target and add to the long-term foundation to support our effort to scale our product to major global customers. As the majority shareholder, we view the proposed transaction as an important step in strengthening our position in the China market, and it demonstrates the long-term value of our ownership stakes. Next, let me provide an update on our production facility. First is Lingan. Please turn to slide eight. As I discussed last quarter, our state-of-the-art Lingan production and R&D center is nearly completed. The site includes two production buildings, with the first now in production and the second available for future expansion.

Each of the two production buildings can support up to $1.5 billion of annual production capacity combined. We believe we can eventually support $3 billion of production at Lingan from the two manufacturing buildings. Next, our Oregon facility. Please turn to slide nine. Recall we purchased a 40,000 square feet facility last year. We made good progress during the second quarter, and we have begun an upgrade on our customer demo R&D lab. We believe this will help our effort with the customer in the region as we will let them test wafers locally on the ACM tool. We also are moving forward with a plan to add production capacity to the Oregon facility. We target the middle of 2026 with a demo lab and production to commercial operations.

Our investments in Lingan and Oregon are key enablers of our growth strategy, expanding our capacity, strengthening customer support, and preparing us to scale globally. Now I will provide our outlook for the full year 2025. Please turn to slide 10. We are maintaining our 2025 revenue outlook in the range of $850 million to $950 million. This implies 15% year-over-year growth at the middle point. Enclosed, our focus remains on delivering differentiated, enabling technology that solves our global customers' most critical process challenges. Now, let me turn the call over to our CFO, Mark, who will reveal the details of our second quarter results. Mark, please.

Speaker 1

Yeah, thanks, David. Good day, everybody. 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 and loss on short-term investments. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures is included in our earnings release. Also, unless otherwise noted, the following figures refer to the second quarter of 2025. Comparisons are with the second quarter of 2024. I'll now provide the financial highlights. Revenue was $215.4 million, up 6.4%. Total shipments were $206 million versus $202 million in Q2 of 2024 and $157 million in Q1 of 2025. Strong sequential rebound in Q2 shipments led to a return of positive year-over-year shipment growth for the quarter. Gross margin was 48.7% versus 48.2%. This exceeded our long-term business model target range of 42% to 48%.

We expect gross margin to vary from period to period due to a variety of factors, including sales volume, product mix, and currency impacts. Operating expenses were $63.4 million, up 38.8%. R&D was 14.5% of sales. Sales and marketing was 9.3% of sales, and G&A was 5.6% of sales. For 2025, we now plan for R&D in the 14% to 16% range. This is an increase versus last quarter's plan due to ACM Research's continued focus on proprietary R&D programs. We plan for sales and marketing in the 8% range and G&A in the 5% to 6% range. Operating income was $41.5 million, down 20.2%. Operating margin was 19.3% versus 25.6%. Income tax expense was $1.9 million versus $9.3 million. For 2025, we expect our effective tax rate in the 10% range. Net income attributable to ACM Research was $36.8 million versus $37.5 million.

Net income per diluted share was $0.54 versus $0.55. Our non-GAAP net income excluded $9.8 million in stock-based compensation expense for the second quarter. I will now review selected balance sheet and cash flow items. Cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and time deposits were $483.9 million at quarter end versus $498.4 million at the end of the first quarter. Net cash, which excludes short-term and long-term debt, was $205.8 million versus $271.0 million at the end of the first quarter. Total inventory net was $648.3 million versus $609.6 million at the end of the first quarter. Raw materials was $285.6 million, up $45.7 million quarter on quarter. We made strategic purchases to support production plans and to mitigate any potential supply chain risks. Work in progress was $60.7 million, down $10.2 million quarter on quarter. Finished goods inventory was $302 million, up $2.2 million quarter on quarter.

Finished goods inventory primarily consists of first tools under evaluation at our customer sites, along with finished goods located at ACM facilities. Cash flow used by operations for the first half of 2025 was $39.6 million versus $51.9 million cash flow provided by operations in the year-ago period. Capital expenditures were $32.2 million for the first half of 2025 versus $39.7 million in the year-ago period. For the full year of 2025, we expect to spend about $70 million in capital expenditures. That includes our prepared remarks. Now let's open the call for any questions that you may have. Operator, please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Thank you. To ask a question, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile our Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Charles Shi with Needham & Company. Your line is now open.

Evening, David, Mark. First question on shipment. I noticed that the shipment was up, but only up slightly on a year-on-year basis. I recall you guys previously said the full year 2025 shipment should be, I mean, should grow. Maybe not necessarily growing faster than revenue this year, but that should grow. It looks to me that in the second half of the year, you have a good amount of catch-up to do for shipment to be flattish versus last year's level. Is it still the right target to think about shipment, or maybe the full year number may actually come down a little bit on a year-to-year basis? Thank you.

Speaker 0

Hey, Charles. Our 2024 shipment was very strong, right? You recall over 2023, it's 63% of the increased rate. We also have a lot of new products, and this year we're contributing to the shipment this year. I want to say the second half of the year is obviously much stronger than the first half of the year. We're expecting still growing for 2025, I mean, 2025, and growing is still achievable.

Got it. Relative to, let's say, 90 days ago, the expectation for shipment for this year, do you see actually if shipment growth may be stronger than you thought 90 days ago, or flattish or weaker? Any direction or color you can provide? The reason why I ask this, maybe it's good to get your thoughts as well. Your U.S. peers who have reported so far ahead of you have been seeing China WFE upside, especially for the second half of the year. Wonder if you're seeing the same thing or not. Thank you.

Yeah, I should say our Q3 is very strong, right? We see the Q4, and there's still some slot we're going to fill in. I still see the very good and the outlook for Q4. I want to compare, like you said, you know, 90 days ago, we see that the market situation is going to improve.

Got it. Lastly, I think, Mark, you mentioned some strategic purchase you made over the last quarter. I think the news flow did suggest that the U.S. may be working on something in terms of export control at the subsystem level. Wonder what's the ACM assessment on, let's say, supply chain risks, maybe for the reasons of potential new export controls and how the product company has prepared to mitigate that risk. Any thoughts on that front would be great. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Yeah, David, do you want to take that first and I can add, or do you want me to go ahead? Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 0

Obviously, you know, now we are doing the multi-source of the components, right? We're definitely looking for the new components and suppliers in other countries than the U.S., and we're also looking for the local suppliers in mainland China. I want to say there's a certain, you know, challenge. However, I think we can overcome that with the multi-source, alternative source supplier for our key components in the tool. Mark, you want to add on that?

Speaker 1

Yeah, Charlie, the only thing I'd add, I think it's a good question. It's something that we look at a lot. I mean, we have a pretty good solid balance sheet. We have a good forecast for our shipments. We thought it was the right thing to do to kind of increase some of our strategic supplies of some key components. We might even do a little bit more here in the second quarter. Sorry, I'm sorry, in the third quarter.

Yeah, maybe just a quick follow-up. It's because the strategic purchase, it could be for preparing for a higher demand in the coming quarters, or it can be more for mitigating supply chain risks, especially that, let's say, maybe some of the components you are sourcing currently from the U.S. Which one is it that more for you to motivate you to do that?

Yeah, I mean, as of January 1, you can't get parts from the U.S., right? These are strategic purchases probably from other regions. I won't really break out how much of it is to mitigate the risk or just kind of based on our forecast, but it's a combination of those, Charlie.

Thank you, Mark. I really appreciate the insights. Thanks.

You bet. You bet.

Thank you, John. Charles?

Speaker 4

Thank you. Your next question comes to the line of Mark Miller with The Benchmark Company. Your line is now open.

Speaker 3

I had a question about long-term borrowings. They're up significantly over the last six months. I'm just wondering what's going on there.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I can hit on that a bit, and then we got Lisa here in the background. Long-term borrowing, we did step things up a bit. You know, there's controls over how we can use some of our capital from the China capital raise and what have you. Of course, we have that coming along. We did step up our long-term borrowing a bit here in the first half of the year. Lisa, did you want to add something?

Speaker 3

Yeah, in addition to that, the interest rate for deposit is much higher than borrowing in China. We're trying to use that kind of leverage to maximize the return.

Speaker 1

Good opportunity to kind of take the lower interest rate down. Thanks, Mark. Yep.

Speaker 3

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 1

Next question, please, operator.

Speaker 4

Yes, thank you. The next question comes from Suji Da Silva with Roth Capital. Your line is now open.

Hi, David, Mark, Lisa. Coming back to the practice here. Milestone-wise, can you talk about the customer traction outside China and what some of the milestones we would look for here? Update on those on the customer base across different parts of the world?

Speaker 0

Outside China, right? Yeah. Yes, hey, Suji, I think we're continuing to work with the key customers in Korea and also in the U.S. At this moment, I want to say it's taking a little bit more time. However, we're really working closely with the key customers to evaluate our differentiated cleaning technology and our Maxonic cleaning. We are reaching a very encouraging result. Also, we're working with a Korean customer for the copper plating product, and that also made progress, right? Continually, we're also exploring new customers in both the U.S. and Taiwan. I think especially all, I want to say, our panel-level packaging tools made a very strong attraction from Taiwan customers too. I want to say with our continued innovation and technology we're providing the market, we're going to expand our sales revenue outside China.

Especially, we're now building our R&D center in Oregon and also there, you know, manufacturing. This R&D center will really make it easier for our cleaning copper plating demo and for the customers outside China. Also, manufacturing we're doing right now prepares for Oregon. That really gives us a strong position to really minimize the impact of any tariff situation. We believe our strategy, building our R&D manufacturing center in China, in Korea, and the U.S., will further strengthen our position in the global market. We're fully confident with our new differential product. Also, I want to say a lot of new future AI chips require a lot of new technology, which is, even today, nobody offers in the market. Those new demands for the technology driving will really put ACM Research's product in the differential or the position.

We believe with our innovation continuously going on, we'll continue to gain attraction from the key customers in cleaning, in copper plating, and panel, and also other new products we're planning too. We still have very strong confidence, right? We're getting into the global market. I still want to say every customer in the world demands the best technology, right? As we, this meeting announced, we have an N2 bubbling technology. We generate a large-sized N2 bubble with uniformity across the entire wafer in the bath. We believe that's what really drives the innovation requirements for both 3D NAND and 3D DRAM in the future, probably also the 3D logic down the road. That's another word I look at our innovation technology we're bringing to the market. Okay, Mark, you want anything to add on that?

Speaker 1

Yeah, no, David, I think that was a good answer. I mean, we're working really hard with our big U.S. customers. We got some additional tools that are going to different organizations here in Q3 to the U.S. Our team is pretty active in Oregon. We're pretty focused on getting our demo room up and running and being ready to produce tools in the U.S.

Hi, Suji.

Speaker 4

Yes, thank you. The next question comes from Edison Lee with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Hey, David and Mark, how are you? Can I maybe ask you two questions? Number one is for the 2Q growth at the revenue level is 6%, which is actually below the growth rate that you are guiding for the full year. What was actually driving that slower growth in the second quarter? For 3Q, you said that the outlook is very strong. Can you share the growth drivers coming from logic, memory, power, and advanced packaging? Which areas actually you are seeing the strongest growth and which area you are seeing the slowest growth? Thank you.

Speaker 0

Yeah, revenue can be lumpy, right? We're still expecting 15% of middle point growth for the year. Also, for the Q3 driving force, I want to say still our cleaning and the copper plating is still the major driving there. Also, certain products, customer requests where shipping turned to Q2 or Q3, right? I want to say over the year, we still have a whole year we're expecting growth better than the Q2.

Right. In China, can you talk about the growth that you're seeing from memory versus logic?

I would say we both are to sell to the memory and the logic customer, right? You would say which is growing faster. I don't have a real number right now, put it in my hand. I want to say both, you know, if we look in the long run, I want to say memory is still very strong, both the 3D NAND and also, you know, this DRAM business. Of course, this is the logic and the people are still building, you know, fabs and both for mature nodes and advanced nodes. I want to say that looking at the next really few years, those markets are very solid still there.

Okay, great. Thanks, David.

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Edison. Yeah.

Speaker 4

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes to the line of Matt Cook with Pretendo. Your line is now open.

Hey, David. Hey, Mark. How's it going? Can you hear me okay?

Speaker 1

Hey, Matt. Yes.

Great. I just wanted to ask, ACM Shanghai reported its results about 60 minutes ago. I know that there are different accounting standards, but their numbers look a lot better than yours. The difference is bigger than what we're kind of used to. Revenue was $270 million compared to $215 million. For ACM Research, adjusted net income was $62 million compared to about $37 million that you just reported. Mark, could you just help understand what's caused the difference? I know there are different recognitions on revenue and timing. That's the first question, why the results are so much better there and if there could be some kind of, you know, if that could swing the other way in Q3. The second question is, are shipment numbers different for ACM Shanghai? If so, what are they in dollars? That would be great. Thank you.

Yeah, David, I can go ahead and hit that and you can add if you want. In reverse order, yeah, I mean, simply the shipments are the same for both. They're measured the same. The difference is RevREC. Under China GAAP, the China organization recognizes revenue upon installations. Of course, U.S. GAAP is 606, right, where we take revenue on repeat shipments or upon acceptance when it's a first tool shipment. It's just a timing difference in the RevREC standards. This quarter was a little bigger than it had been in the past. I think it could be kind of a result of some of the bigger shipments that we had last year that it took a little longer, you know, the timing of the installations here in Shanghai. We won't literally guide how that's going to change for the back half of the year, you know, Q3 and Q4.

I don't think we're going to give any specific details on that.

Speaker 0

Yeah, I want to add on that. You're looking at the long run, this number should be matched, right? Looking at quarterly-quarterly basis, you get sometimes U.S. is higher, sometimes, you know, Shanghai is higher. That's, as I, you know, Mark mentioned, different recognition of the revenue. I want to say overall, like you said, the Shanghai number looks good. That's only quarterly-quarterly basis, right? I want to say a whole year, I mean, or long run, this number is very matching.

Speaker 1

Hey, Matt. One other thing I could bring out that I think will be important is that the U.S. GAAP and the R&D side, we don't capitalize anything, right? It's all expense. There is some capitalization of R&D. I don't know if they give out the exact mix, but that's the big differences on the operating expenses. That's one. Of course, ACM Research, the global operation, we've got our cost of, you know, public company, and then we also have our sales and marketing efforts that are incremental expenses. Yeah.

Helpful. Thanks very much.

All right, you bet. Thanks, Matt.

Yeah.

Speaker 0

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Next question, operator, please. Operator, next question, please. I think we lost the operator here. Charles, are you able to, do you have a live line, Charles? I think Charles Shi is live as a Q&A.

Speaker 4

Excuse me.

Yeah, thank you.

Your next question comes to the line of Charles Shi with Needham & Company. Your line is now open.

Yeah.

Speaker 0

Hey, can you hear me?

Yes, Charles. I can hear you.

Yeah, I feel obligated to ask a question about the long-term target. I think it's an important update. I have a question on the mainland China portion of the long-term projection there. I think one key change versus your prior target was the mainland China WFE market size. You kind of raised it around $30 billion to $40 billion. It does match with where China WFE numbers were trending over the last couple of years. Last year, I believe it's slightly above $40 billion. This year, maybe around $40 billion. I think that my question is, would there be any concern, I mean, by the team? Maybe you are a little bit extrapolating the peak China WFE number there from last year's peak run rate level into the future, or with the confidence on China WFE maintaining at this $40 billion level over the long term? Thank you. Okay, Charles.

Obviously, you know, year over year can be kind of a change, right? Maybe 5%, 10% up and down. I want to say our long-term revenue is not for next year, right? It's like a five-year timeline. We're talking about OBM. We believe that the year China WFE market will be $40 billion. That's what we talk about our long run of the goal. You look in the expanding in China of either memory or the logic, or including IGBT, it's a lot of demand here. That's our confidence. We believe that the market $40 billion, you know, you look in the five-year down the road, should be the number. Of course, there's global market growth too. There's a $40 billion we think is a reasonable target we put there.

The second one I want to see is we do have also a new product coming in, and we are through the last three, four years R&D, our furnace, PECVD, and the TRACK, including our latest panel-level packaging tool, getting into the market and or start to generate revenue either this year and also next year. Our second I want to mention is we just got approved, right, from CSRC, and we're going to have a second fund raising more than $600 million. Those fund raisings definitely help ACM Research to accelerate the target R&D. That will be another big factor. Third, what I want to mention is ACM Research has been really in the China market, insists on all the differentiation, innovative technology, and to the market. I believe Chinese investors, the customers still like the best technology with IP protection.

That really puts ACM Research in a very unique position. At this moment, we have not found any local Chinese company that copies our IP or infringes our IP. We are very confident ACM Research can maintain our differential product margin. As I said, customers locally will design the best technology, which is what we are providing—a differential solution. We are much better than those people providing a similar product. As I said, we are providing differentiation. That's what's solving the future needs for the customer. With all three I mentioned, we are very confident. That's why we are raising this China market fund, $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion. Thanks.

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the wonderful color. Glad I asked.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Jimmy Hang with JP Morgan. Your line is now open.

Yeah. Hi, David. Mark, can you hear me? Yes, please. Thank you. I want to ask about whether you have any source for the WFE into 2026. Can you also share about your estimate on the China WFE for 2025 and 2026, either FW number or YY comparison? Thank you.

Speaker 0

Yeah, I mean, looking at 2025, there are obviously different reports, right, show different results. Looking at Gartner, they're pretty like in lower. You have another IC Semi, they're trying to show they're very, I want to say, different results. In other words, it's better than the, you know, the Gartner. You look in 2025, 2026, I'm still hard to predict there, maybe, I mean, 10% up and down, right? For our feeling, it doesn't matter. As I said, the China market still exists. They already reach about either 30%, 35% of the global number, really. With our differential technology, with a new product coming out, and even the flat of the revenue or the WFE spend in China, we're still expecting our growth and also high growth. As I said, our new product, PECVD, and we have a few customers, hands-on customers coming to their evaluation this year.

We also put our 300 WFE wafer per hour KF line, which is in line with the scanner we'll ship out very soon, probably in Q3. Also added a new technology, as I mentioned, our panel-level packaging, as an attraction. Plus, we have this high-temperature anneal, 1,250 degrees C. That really can really shorten the anneal time for the IGBT, also other critical applications. As I said, all this new product we put in the market really gives us a strong confidence where we have a growing fast, even with the flat or, you know, Chinese WFE market. As I mentioned, just, I asked Charles Shi, is we offer a China market with a real differential product. We feel confident we can protect our IP. Therefore, we can, you know, have our, I want to say, margin maintained and give the customer the best of the choice.

We're not getting into that kind of similar product in price competition. As I said, the Chinese customers still demand for the best of their performance. If they're choosing performance versus price, of course, they're choosing performance. That's why our differential product can offer such a superior, better result than those people providing a similar product, right? We think that will be our strong point.

Yeah, thank you, Dr. Wang.

Speaker 1

Yeah, if you don't mind, I might just add a few things on that. Obviously, we're not going to, we don't give our guidance for 2026 until early in the year. You probably noticed our OpEx was pretty strong this year relative to our revenue. Even if we do the midpoint, it's still kind of a, we're growing our OpEx this year. A big reason is we're spending into the market opportunity, right? I mean, David mentioned a lot of the new R&D projects. We're also spending more on sales and marketing. Clearly, that spending is kind of anticipating good growth ahead.

Speaker 0

Yeah, I want to add on that, you know, compared to the first-tier guy, their R&D is probably 10% to 12%, right? We're spending 14% to 16%. That really shows our, you know, having invested R&D. Also, with our new product coming out in a speed, we have more, you know, I call the product, you know, a new product coming out ratio compared to the, you know, first-tier global guy. That's why it shows that our spend is higher. That's why we're spending, investing in R&D and also sales marketing. That's really supporting our next five-year growth. We believe we spend this, I mean, we spend this operation spending, it's very important and also supporting our long-run growth.

Thank you, Dr. Wang and Mark. I also want to ask about the cleaning equipment market share target you led to 50% in the long run in China. Do you think in that case, what will be the split of the remaining 40% share between other Chinese peers and international suppliers? Can you get 50% market share in China?

It's hard to, you know, divide who is the second, who is the third, right? I mean, again, we're trying to be number one in China, of course, right? Why I say that is our now product portfolio really almost can match 95% of our cleaning process staff. We are probably the widest product in the world compared to even the 3B guy in the global international, right? Also, as I said, our product has a lot of differentiation in Tahoe tool and SAPS, you know, Maxonic, Tebow, and the non-violation or non-damaging, you know, Maxonic technology. Also, continue adding this recently announced N2 bubbling, right, with a special proprietary design, generating a large bubble size with uniformity. We're continuing really not just our product widespread, also have a lot of innovative approach and better than those, you know, top tier in the world.

Especially I want to mention also SPM. Our SPM, as I mentioned, we have new proprietary nozzle design that can really limit all the liquid splash or, you know, acid mist out of the chamber. That really can improve the small particle performance. Today, as I said, 26 nanometers, we're reaching average almost a five, you know, in the particle. We believe with improving the chamber environment, we should get a better result in the 50 nanometers, 70 nanometers, which is a real advanced, you know, next step. Particle. Anyway, I want to say, you know, we're doing our, you know, again, differential approach with IP protection. That's the strong point. We are saying we're expanding the China market. Also, we're not facing any, as I said, again, you know, we've got a very strong IP portfolio in China and globally.

Also, we do not expect any local Chinese people can copy our tool. That's a real strong confidence. We see that we're expanding in the China market. Of course, with those differential product tests in the China market, we'll push it to the global, right? As you know, the cleaning has been more and more important for the future AI chip manufacturing because of the yield suffering. This cleaning becomes more and more challenging for 3D NAND, 3D, you know, I mean, DRAM down the road, and also 3D logic. Eventually, people will see that. All the 3D cleaning, we do have a product, you know, technology ready for that. We're very, you know, we're very excited. We're very, you know, and kind of see our technology, you know, going to spread out in all the global market.

Yeah, I think thank you, Dr. Wang. Maybe I have my next question. Can you talk more about your progress in Taiwan and Southeast Asia region? Also, for the POP testing, because I think the industry now thinks that net production of Taiwan on this FOPOP or we call co-op will wait until 2029 or even 2030. I think the development time for test and manufacturing will be longer than expected. How do you think about the mass production time of the FOPOP or co-op with the fine light phase? Not the large light phase for the done by the panel makers, I mean, for the advanced process.

Sure. Actually, POP, this is in a panel-level packaging, we believe is ready to go for the, you know, large size of the AI chip packaging, right? As the people lay down and the panel is 310 by 310 square versus the, you know, circle, their effective area increases more than 60%, 60%, right? It's a bigger gain for the customer, especially for a large chip. Obviously, other people, I mean, getting now to 310 by 310, we're probably very soon moving to a large-sized panel. We believe that's really a strategic step and the Taiwan customer taking that direction. As to the ACM, I feel we have a very good product, ready for that product. We're already putting in the market for the, you know, low-pressure cleaning, bevel cleaning. Also, I want to mention that is our horizontal and rotational electroplating.

It's really a solution for this panel level, right? Why is, you know, looking at a 20-millimeter packaging, you know, used to be vertical, and you go 300-millimeter wafer, everybody turned to horizontal. Now you can see our, you know, panel level, we are probably the only guy providing this horizontal solution because of our proprietary IP design. As this year, you know, March, we got the reward, I get the technical award from the 3D IC Insight USA. We believe, you know, our strong position in this horizontal plating will position ACM in a very strong position for this future AI, you know, POP market. We're, you know, we see that as recently we reach our horizontal plating uniformity less than 5%. I want to say we're trying to next go to less than 3%. We'll maintain equal performance panel square plating versus a circle, same level.

That's really driving to the panel. As you mentioned about 2029 or timing, I think that that's really dependent on technology driving, right? If a customer can solve the whole issue, they can speed up. If they cannot solve it, maybe delay. Really, this is a, you know, market driven by two manufacturer technologies combined together. I mean, with our copper plating, we definitely believe that's what we speed up, right, in the copper plating process, which is one of the major blocks for the people moving from 300-millimeter wafer to the panel level. We're glad, you know, this technology offers to the customer, enabling their production line, and hopefully speed up their production. That's our confidence. Also, we're engaging with the customer in Taiwan.

Yeah, I know that you have technology leadership. You have real product and IP. I feel like the issue is that the ecosystem is not ready. The customer might need to delay the co-op mass production timeline. Meanwhile, do you think that their plating tool supplier from co-op to co-op, will they still stick to the original Japanese and American supplier, or they could adopt new suppliers for co-op?

I want to see for the plating. I want to say, I mean, wafer level, we're engaging, right? Then you're looking at this panel level, I think we have a much better, superior product, right? Wafer level probably will offer equal. At this moment, I want to say that. For the real panel level, as I mentioned, looking at the last 10 years, nobody can do horizontal plating, right? We're the first guy to announce the product. We can do horizontal, as I said, even today, we're about 5% uniformity. Our next goal is to go 3%. I believe with a strong IP position, we should offer the best panel plating tool in the world. That's really exciting for our, I call the penetration in the global market. It's one of the key products we offer to enable the technology for the customer.

We're very, I call it, to put effort on those product development. Plus, we also prepare additional other differential products and also enable the panel level. We're going to announce probably at the end of this year, we'll come out with a new product too to further get into this market. We're very excited about this panel level, right? It's the way to go because all AI chips get the size bigger and bigger. We're going to invest a lot in this product.

I see. Thank you so much. Sorry, I may have occupied too much time, but thank you so much for the details.

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Your next question comes to the line of Yang Wei Lei with UBS. Your line is now open.

Speaker 3

Hi, David. Can you hear us? Can you hear me?

Yes, please.

Thanks for taking my question. Just one quick one. It seems like your Q2 year-over-year growth, even for Asia, is still underperforming other, like, China peers. Any reason behind, and probably, like, due to different customer exposure? Thanks.

Speaker 1

David, I think the question was the growth maybe of ACM Shanghai's revenue or even ours versus some of the China peers. Maybe, you know, what's the reason for the difference?

Speaker 0

Between China or between the U.S. or between with our whole, with other peers?

Speaker 3

Maybe between ACM Research, both U.S. and China, and Shanghai versus other, like, China WFE peers. Thanks.

Oak Ridge versus China peers.

Speaker 0

Oh, okay. I didn't see the other result come out, you know, China peer. Obviously, looking at Shanghai, our revenue growth still looks good, right? I want to say we're confident. Also this year, as I said, you know, we're coming to the moment of the multi-product. The revenue will not much contribute this year, but with next year, we see our furnace, PECVD, TRACK, that contribution, right? Also, we have a new product with the cleaning and, you know, continue expanding copper plating. I want to say we still have a very good, you know, confidence and also outlook for 2026. This year, we're Q3 very, very busy, and Q4, we have a couple of slots open. We think it will be also, you know, filled out soon. In general, we still have a good confidence, you know, we'll have a, you know, good growth still this year.

Speaker 3

Thanks. Pretty clear. Thanks.

Speaker 0

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Seeing no more questions in the queue, let me turn the call back to David Wang for closing remarks.

Speaker 0

Okay, thanks, operator. Thank you for all the participating on today's call and for your support. Before we close, Stephen is going to mention our upcoming investor relations event. Stephen, please.

Speaker 2

Thanks. Thanks, David. Before we conclude, I just want to give everyone a quick reminder of our upcoming investor conferences. On October 21, we're going to present at the sixth annual Needham Virtual Semiconductor and Semicap One-on-One Conference. On August 25, we will present at the Jefferies Semiconductor IT Hardware and Communications Technology Summit at the Four Seasons Hotel, Chicago. On September 3, we'll present at the Benchmark 2025 TMT Conference in New York City. On October 7, we'll present at the 17th annual CEO Summit in Phoenix, Arizona. Attendance at the conferences 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 the call, and you may now disconnect. Take care.

Speaker 4

Yes, thank you.