AXT - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 revenue was $19.4m, down 22.9% sequentially and 14.7% year over year, while gross margin collapsed to -6.4% GAAP (-6.1% non-GAAP) on yield issues in semi-insulating GaAs, a 58% Q/Q drop in InP sales due to China export restrictions, and under-absorbed overhead; non-GAAP EPS was -$0.19 and GAAP EPS -$0.20.
• Versus S&P Global consensus, revenue was slightly above ($18.94m* estimate vs $19.36m actual), but EPS missed (Primary EPS -$0.138* estimate vs -$0.19 actual), and EBITDA was materially below (estimate -$4.17m* vs actual -$8.05m*).
• Management guided Q2 2025 revenue to $20–$22m and expects gross margin to recover to ~10%, excluding any InP shipments outside China until permits are received; non-GAAP loss per share guided to -$0.12 to -$0.14, GAAP -$0.14 to -$0.16.
• Near-term stock narrative hinges on permit timing for InP exports (initial responses typically ~45 business days), sequential revenue growth in China data center and lidar demand, and measured execution in GaAs HBT to restore yields and margins; management expects margin improvement beginning in Q2 and continuing through 2025.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• China data center connectivity and domestic innovation efforts are creating incremental InP opportunities; management expects healthy double-digit Q2 growth from China data center applications off Q1 levels.
• Raw material JVs remained strong at $8.3m revenue in Q1, providing diversification and strategic supply chain benefits; JV portfolio spans gallium, arsenic, PBN crucibles, quartz, indium, and germanium.
• OpEx discipline: non-GAAP opex fell to $8.5m vs $10.5m in Q4, reflecting cost control amid revenue pressure.

What Went Wrong

• Gross margin severely disappointed due to three factors: 58% Q/Q reduction in InP sales (China restrictions), significant yield reduction in semi-insulating GaAs wafers for wireless HBT, and under-absorbed overhead on lower substrate sales.
• EPS and profitability deteriorated: GAAP net loss widened to -$8.8m (-$0.20/sh) and non-GAAP net loss to -$8.2m (-$0.19/sh), vs Q4 GAAP -$5.1m and non-GAAP -$4.3m.
• Geopolitical/tariff uncertainty: exports of InP require permits; shipments to the U.S. likely face tariffs (historically ~25% Section 301 in January), with cost sharing nuanced and evolving case-by-case.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to AXT's First Quarter 2025 Financial Conference Call. Leading the call today is Dr. Morris Young, Chief Executive Officer, and Gary Fischer, Chief Financial Officer. In addition, Tim Bettles, VP of Business Development, will be participating in the Q&A portion of the call. My name is John, and I will be your coordinator today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers march, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Leslie Green, Investor Relations for AXT. Please go ahead.

Leslie Green (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, John, and good afternoon, everyone. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that during the course of this conference call, including comments made in response to your questions, we will provide projections or make other forward-looking statements regarding, among other things, the future financial performance of the company, market conditions and trends, emerging applications using chips or devices fabricated on our substrates, our product mix, global economic and political conditions, including trade tariffs and export and import restrictions, our ability to increase orders in succeeding quarters, to control costs and expenses, to improve manufacturing yields and efficiencies, or to utilize our manufacturing capacity. We wish to caution you that such statements deal with future events, are based on management's current expectations, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or result different materially.

In addition to the matters just listed, these uncertainties and risks include, but are not limited to, the financial performance of our partially owned supply chain companies, increased environmental regulations in China, and COVID-19 and other outbreaks of contagious disease. In addition to the factors just mentioned or that may be discussed in this call, we refer you to the company's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These are available online by link from our website and contain additional information on risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. This conference call will be on our website through May 1, 2026. I also want to note that shortly following the close of market today, we issued a press release reporting financial results for the first quarter and fiscal year 2025.

This information is also available on the Investor Relations portion of our website. I would now like to turn the call over to Gary Fischer for a review of our first quarter 2025 results. Gary.

Gary Fischer (VP and CFO)

Thank you, Leslie, and good afternoon to everyone. Revenue for the first quarter of 2025 was slightly above the midpoint of our guidance at $19.4 million, compared with $25.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, and $22.7 million in the first quarter of last year, 2024. To break down our Q1 2025 revenue for you by product category, Indium Phosphide was $3.8 million, primarily from PON and data center applications. Gallium Arsenide was $6.7 million. Germanium substrates were $0.6 million. Finally, revenue from our consolidated raw material joint venture companies in Q1 was $8.3 million, based on continued healthy demand. In the first quarter of 2025, revenue from the Asia-Pacific region was 83%, Europe was 11%, and North America was 6%. The top five customers generated approximately 35.9% of total revenue, and no customer was over the 10% level.

Non-GAAP gross margin in the first quarter was a negative 6.1%, compared with 17.9% in Q4 2024 and 27.3% in Q1 of 2024. For those who prefer to track results on a GAAP basis, gross margin in the first quarter was negative 6.4%, compared with 17.6% in Q4 and 26.9% in Q1 of 2024. The magnitude of the decline in gross margin was a disappointment in the quarter, and primarily the result of three factors. First, we had significant yield issues in our semi-insulating gallium arsenide wafers as we worked quickly to scale our output for sizable wireless opportunity. I think the lesson for us is that while the opportunity is compelling, the sophistication of the product specs requires us to move in a more measured way to ensure that we can execute cost-efficiently. Revenue mix also played a role in our gross margin deficit.

Due to the current trade restrictions, substrate sales were down meaningfully in the quarter, and our joint venture sales were higher than normal as a % of our revenue. As a manufacturing company, this resulted in under-absorbed factory overhead that was greater than expected. Finally, we were expecting to see a little bit higher gross margins across the board from our joint ventures, from gallium arsenide, and from germanium sales. Morris will talk more about gross margins and our plans for improvement shortly. Moving to operating expenses, we did better than expected in holding OpEx down in Q1. Total non-GAAP operating expense in Q1 was $8.5 million, compared with $10.5 million in Q4 of 2024 and $8.7 million in Q1 of 2024. On a GAAP basis, total operating expense in Q1 was $9.0 million, compared with $10.6 million in Q4 of 2024 and $9.4 million in Q1 of 2024.

Our non-GAAP operating loss for the first quarter of 2025 was $9.6 million, compared with the non-GAAP operating loss in Q4 of 2024 of $5.4 million, and a non-GAAP operating loss of $2.5 million in Q1 of 2024. For reference, our GAAP operating line for the first quarter of 2025 was a loss of $10.3 million, compared with an operating loss of $6.2 million in Q4 of 2024 and an operating loss of $3.3 million in Q1 of 2024. Non-operating other income and expense and other items below the operating line for the first quarter was a net gain of $0.4 million. The details can be seen in the P&L included in our press release today.

For Q1 of 2025, we had a non-GAAP net loss of $8.2 million, or $0.19 per share, compared with a non-GAAP net loss of $4.3 million, or $0.10 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2024. Non-GAAP net loss in Q1 of 2024 was $1.3 million, or $0.03 per share. On a GAAP basis, net loss in Q1 was $8.8 million, or $0.20 per share. By comparison, net loss was $5.1 million, or $0.12 per share in the fourth quarter, and GAAP net loss in Q1 of 2024 was $2.1 million, or $0.05 per share. The weighted average basic shares outstanding in Q1 of 2025 was 43.6 million. Cash and cash equivalents and investments increased by $4.4 million to $38.2 million as of March 31st. By comparison, at December 31st, it was $33.8 million. Depreciation and amortization in the first quarter was $2.2 million. Total stock comp was $0.6 million.

Net inventory was down by approximately $4.7 million in the first quarter to $80.4 million. This continues to be a focus for us, and we expect to bring it down further in quarters to come. Okay, this concludes the brief discussion of quarterly financial results. Turning to our plan to list the subsidiary in China, Tongmei, on the STAR Market, we continue to keep our IPO application current. Tongmei remains in the in-process category as part of a much more selective and smaller group of prospective listings than a few years ago. While we're not insensitive to the current geopolitical environment, Tongmei is considered a Chinese company and continues to be regarded in China as a good IPO candidate. We will keep you informed of any updates. Okay, with that, I'll now turn the call over to Dr. Morris Young for a review of our business and markets. Morris.

Morris Young (CEO)

Thank you, Gary. I want to begin with an update on export restrictions because I know that is top of mind for many of you. Then I will discuss current market opportunities and our plan for growth margin improvement. As many of you know, on February the 4th, the China government imposed trade restrictions on the export of Indium Phosphide material, similar to 2023 restrictions on gallium arsenide substrates. These regulations explicitly seek to restrict the export of material used for military applications. Therefore, we are now undertaking an export permit process for Indium Phosphide, similar to what we have done for gallium arsenide over the last two years. We were disappointed that the portal to accept export applications did not open until April.

That said, we were well prepared when it did open, and we have submitted comprehensive applications on behalf of all major Indium Phosphide customers outside of China. In our experience, we typically hear back on initial applications within 45 business days, and repeat applications are often processed faster. As such, we do not expect to be able to ship Indium Phosphide to customers outside of China before mid-June at earliest. As we have mentioned previously, we do not believe that any of our Indium Phosphide sales go to military applications, so we feel that we are in a good position to realize a backlog of sales once we can navigate the permit process. While the current geopolitical environment presents a near-term headwind for our business, we are also discovering some unique opportunities. The cloud and data center connectivity market in China is accelerating.

In an effort to promote innovation and reduce dependency on foreign suppliers, we are seeing a significant effort to develop domestic sources of EML and silicon photonics-based lasers. We estimated that the Chinese data center optical interconnect market is currently around one-third of the global market. However, most of the optical devices for these interconnects are sourced from outside of China, and applications for Indium Phosphide within China remain focused on PON today. Further, laser manufacturers in China are developing an appreciation for the critical benefit of very low EPD material in high-speed interconnect devices, both in the traditional PON market and in the new data center market. As a result, our sales of Indium Phosphide within China are increasing.

The TAM for data center market remains small at this moment, but we do expect to see significant growth over the next few years as the PON laser providers expand their portfolio of market to include EML and silicon photonics solutions. That said, in Q2, we expect healthy double-digit growth for our revenue from data center applications in China off a Q1 level. We also have significant indium phosphide backlog from customers outside of China that is ready to ship. We are working diligently to support the needs of our customers globally, and we are hopeful that Tongmei can begin to secure permits for initial geography soon. Turning to gallium arsenide, we continue to see recovery, particularly in China and Taiwan, across a number of applications like high-power industrial lasers, wireless routers, and Wi-Fi.

We believe there is a sizable opportunity for our gallium arsenide substrates in HBT devices for the wireless market. This represents exciting potential for which we believe our technology and product are well suited for. With the cost of performance breakthroughs we achieved on our product, as well as strong relationship building with one of our largest Asian-based API providers, we're in a great position for growth. This is a competitive and sophisticated market. We were excited in Q1 to have the opportunity to compete for a large share, but we stumbled in trying to scale too quickly. We continue to view this as an exciting space, but are taking a more measured approach to this market share expansion to ensure that we can execute effectively as we increase our production levels.

We're also seeing a notable increase in design activities and qualification for gallium arsenide-based LiDAR for the autonomous vehicle market in China. With the growing adoption of autonomous vehicles and high-precision sensing technologies, gallium arsenide has become a critical material due to its superior electronic properties and ability to operate effectively in high-frequency applications. Chinese manufacturers are increasingly investing in the development of LiDAR systems for the EV market that leverage gallium arsenide, recognizing their potential to enhance resolution and accuracy in object detection and navigation over the competing camera-based solutions. Similar to what we are seeing in the data center market, there seems to be a push in China towards reducing dependency on foreign suppliers and fostering domestic innovation.

As a result, we believe that the demand for LiDAR is poised to grow, and that this is a market in which our low EPD gallium arsenide substrates are showing tremendous value in device performance. Over the last 12 months, we have aggressively advanced the technical capability of our material to help our global customer base solve complex next-generation challenges. The material we supply is being used in highly sophisticated applications, such as the ones that we have mentioned today, where our breakthroughs in delivering extremely low EPD give us a distinct competitive advantage in both indium phosphide and gallium arsenide. I'm extremely proud of our team for the rapid progress we have made. For that reason, I cannot allow gross margin setbacks in our substrate business to cloud the achievement that we're making in our technology.

We strongly believe over the coming quarters, we can drive meaningful improvement in our gross margin. In the near term, we're taking a more measured approach in the HBT market to ensure that our gallium arsenide production and yield can right themselves. This is now our highest priority here in China and the top priority for our manufacturing leadership. We expect to see improvement beginning this quarter and continue throughout the balance of 2025. This is an issue that is very much in our control, and we are laser-focused on fixing it. It is also worth noting that the decrease in substrate sales as a result of trade restrictions has also impacted our gross margin performance, as Gary noted.

We feel good about our ability to begin secure Indium Phosphide permits, which should help our overall sales volume in the back half of the year and contribute to a healthy revenue and product mix. Both of these will help us in a gross margin lift for our business. Before I conclude, I want to say a few words about our raw material joint ventures. Sales in Q1 were strong, and we have been trending up over the past year. We continue to invest in expanding our capability and have built an impressive portfolio, which today includes gallium, arsenic, PBN crucibles, quartz, indium, and germanium.

The strategic value of these materials is not only that we can more cost-effectively supply all of our critical materials needed to manufacture our products, but we also benefit from the additional revenue stream generated by our joint ventures through sales of these products on the open market. The asset value of this portfolio has grown substantially over the last 20 years, and we will continue to expand our opportunity in 2025 through the development of new markets. There is a new and greater awareness of the importance of Earth's material, and we are ahead of the curve in developing this unique integrated supply chain. In summary, while the geopolitical environment is creating undeniable challenges, we are focusing our energies where we can drive positive return today.

We're uniquely positioned to optimize growth opportunities in China, such as high-speed data center connectivity and sensors for autonomous driving, and we're pursuing these and then other opportunities with success across key markets for Indium Phosphide, gallium arsenide, and germanium substrates. We're also working tirelessly on behalf of our global customer base to ensure that we can continue to support their needs across all our products. We recognize this is a challenging time for our customers, our investors, and our employees, and we are deeply committed to working diligently on your behalf. With that, I will turn the call back to Gary for our second quarter guidance. Gary.

Gary Fischer (VP and CFO)

Thank you, Morris. In keeping with our comments today, we believe Q2 revenue will be in the range of $20.0 million-$22.0 million. This guidance range excludes any contribution from Indium Phosphide for our customers outside of China in Q2.

Once we do receive permits, we have several million dollars of Indium Phosphide backlog that we would be able to ship, most likely in Q3. We do feel encouraged that even without these shipments, we are in a good position to grow our business sequentially. As Morris mentioned, this is due to our success in optimizing emerging opportunities to grow our business in China across all of our product categories. While we do not normally give gross margin guidance, we do believe that we can see a recovery on our gross margin to around 10% in Q2 based on manufacturing improvements. We also believe that production volume growth in the second half, coupled with continued yield improvements this year, will allow us to drive continued gross margin recovery for the rest of the year.

Based on our revenue range, we believe our non-GAAP net loss will be in the range of $0.12-$0.14 in Q3, and GAAP net loss will be in the range in Q2, and GAAP will be a loss in the range of $0.14-$0.16. Share count will be approximately 43.7 million shares. Okay, this concludes our prepared comments, and we'd be glad to answer your questions now. John, operator.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, as a reminder, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again.

If you are called upon to ask your question and are listening via loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. Thank you. We will pause for a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Ross Cole with Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Ross Cole (Equity Research Associate)

Hi, and thank you for taking my question on behalf of Charles Sheet. I was wondering if you could maybe dive a little deeper into the yield issues you are seeing for the semi-insulating gallium arsenide, and maybe when do you expect to see these yield issues resolved, and is there any change to your market opportunity as a result of this? Thank you.

Morris Young (CEO)

Sure. As we said, I think we were excited about the opportunity for HBT market for wireless because it's an existing market, and we have a good relationship with good customers in Asia. We thought we could penetrate their market with the Indium Phosphide permit restriction on our revenue, so we were taking on that market a bit too aggressively. We encountered a yield problem, but we think that is solvable, and we have been in manufacturing business for years, and we have a yield glitch, and we already find the source of the problem. As Gary mentioned, that although this quarter's margin was negative 6%, we do expect a very quick recovery to about 10% next quarter. That is a good sign.

I think we're getting to this market a little bit more too aggressive, so that hurts our ability to achieve a good margin, but we think we have the solution in hand. We will take a more measured approach to this market. This market is there, so we will just approach it more carefully, but we think the opportunity is there for us to get into once we get our yielding order and our manufacturing line more effectively producing this product.

Ross Cole (Equity Research Associate)

Great. Thank you. That was very helpful.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from the line of Richard Shannon with Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.

Richard Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)

Hi guys. Thanks for letting me ask a question here as well. Since we just talked about yields, why don't I ask another question on this topic here?

I guess, Morris, I guess I'm curious why it's going to take more than a quarter or two to fix the yields here. I mean, is this an entirely new product? I guess I thought this was kind of an existing product that you could just go back to the way you were doing it before, maybe just at a slower pace, so you could get back there fairly quickly. Am I misunderstanding the situation?

Morris Young (CEO)

Richard, you're correct. I mean, it is a product that we have worked on for many years, but as you know, when you are dealing with a commercial volume of tens of thousands—I mean, thousands of wafers per month—and the customer specification from time to time will change. If you're not laser-focused into supplying them consistently, any little change can require a recalibration of our production line without our customers' need.

I think that is perhaps one of the reasons which hit our yield, and it's that we thought we're delivering this product to them for many years before we can re-enter this market so we can quickly change our manufacturing slightly. Manufacturing is something which you don't change very quickly. I think we want to make sure that we are approaching this problem more measuredly so that we can protect our gross margin and our profitability, and so we can get back to the 10% gross margin from negative 6% in the next quarter, in Q2. Also, as Gary mentioned, the gross margin hit not only coming from this manufacturing yield loss, yield lower, but also it's coming from the product mix, as well as there was a third point. Gary, remind me what was the third one?

It's a mixed product of, for instance, Indium Phosphide. For the first quarter, we had one month of Indium Phosphide revenue of January. The restriction was coming on February 4, and we cannot deliver any after that. The Q2 guidance is taking into account that we do not have any outside of China Indium Phosphide permit, and that will hit our margins as well compared to Q1. If we can secure any permit on Indium Phosphide, then that can improve our gross margin. We are taking a more conservative view of making that estimate of what our product mix will be in Q2.

Richard Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Fair enough for that, Morris. Maybe let's touch on Indium Phosphide here.

I guess, as you said, last quarter with this permitting process, since you've already done it with gallium arsenide and it's been, other than the delay factor you had initially, seemed like it was mostly seamless here. Have you been given any assurances that you're expecting a similar process here? Do you have any worries that we're going to have a delay beyond what I think you said as a mid-June timeframe to hopefully start shipping to the backlog you have there?

Morris Young (CEO)

To getting a permit, it's dealing with bureaucrats, and bureaucracy is always very difficult to predict. Given that China announced that they want to make sure these are not for military applications, and none of our customers, we believe, are using indium phosphide for military applications. We think that a permit should have no restriction for our customers to get permits.

On the other hand, there are geopolitical struggles between countries. It's hard to say, but I think in our prediction, we think we can get our permits soon. I mean, the normal 45 days once we submit the application into the Commerce Department of China.

Richard Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Playing this forward here, I think you said, assuming you get the permits here by the middle of June, you can ship out, I think your words were several million dollars. I guess if we—I guess maybe give us a little bit better quantification of what exactly that means. Is there any timing dynamics here would prevent all that "several million dollars" being able to be shipped and recognized in the second quarter?

Morris Young (CEO)

Yes. We are actually making especially large customer orders that we're making them in our production line just ready for shipment.

Some of them, we make it into stages that we can finish up by the final clean or the final polish so that we do not lose the freshness of these wafers to our customers. We do believe if we can get the permits, we can ship these very quickly. Honestly, our customers are waiting patiently for this product to be delivered to them too. They are giving us orders. I think we are confident we should be able to ship them within, let's say, a week to 10 days after we get the permits.

Richard Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Again, related to Indium Phosphide, but stretching out the timeframe to calendar 2025 here, going back to your last call, and I cannot remember if it was you, Morris, that said this or maybe it was Tim, there is a question asked about what kind of growth do you expect from Indium Phosphide.

The answer given was something in the 20% growth range. Let's assume that the permitting process isn't onerous enough such that you can't get anything done this year, which hopefully will be the case, or we've got real big problems. Is that growth outlook still roughly intact here?

Maybe I can give this question to Tim. Maybe Tim, answer that 20%. Tim?

Tim Bettles (VP of Business Development)

Yeah. I think that growth outlook is still there. The market dynamics are still pushing towards what we would see as a growth of 20%, given that obviously we can ship wafers outside of China. I just want to make a quick comment about that too. As I said, and Morris commented, we feel like we're in a good position to get permits to ship outside of China, Indium Phosphide, that is, outside of China.

From a timing perspective, we see that the first permits come through end of Q2, as we've said. From a guidance perspective, we haven't included Indium Phosphide shipment outside of China in our Q2 numbers. We believe it's better to be conservative until we have more clarity on this timing. What you'll see is you'll see we still see that market trend going, increasing to about 20%. We believe we'll be able to capture that fully in 2026.

Richard Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)

In 2026? I think last conference call that was related to 2025. I just want to make sure that we're citing the correct year here. Is that what you mean, Tim, 2026?

Tim Bettles (VP of Business Development)

Yes. We're being more conservative on 2026 or 2025, sorry, just because of a timing perspective on these permits. What we're looking at here is, as I say, Q2 numbers.

We believe we've not included any of the permits. We still believe this market is growing at 20% in terms of Indium Phosphide, and we'll be able to capture that beyond Q2 in 2025, beyond Q2, second half, and then into 2026.

Richard Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Perfect. I think that's all the questions I have for now. I will jump out of the line, guys. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Bryson with Wedbush Securities. Please go ahead.

Matt Bryson (Managing Director)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I'm going to kind of follow on Richard's line of questioning with Indium Phosphide. Is there any risk at all that you're not being able to ship to customers and end up with customers going with another supplier? Or some of this business doesn't come back to you?

Morris Young (CEO)

That's a good question. I think we are a major Indium Phosphide supplier.

We believe we have perhaps between 40-50% worldwide market. And Indium Phosphide material is not the easiest material to make. We believe there are only two major—I mean, two major competitors worldwide. And getting Indium Phosphide material to be qualified with a customer takes a very long time because they are lasers, they are the device increasing in terms of current density as well as the size of the lasers. All that requires very careful qualification of the good low EPD material. We believe that those shoes are not very easily refilled. Of course, I mean, with this market demand out there, we believe it's everybody wants to get more Indium Phosphide. Tim, maybe you can help. What do we hear from the marketplace? Is any of our lost order being taken by our competitors?

Tim Bettles (VP of Business Development)

Yeah. Thanks, Morris. Yeah, I agree.

We do not believe that it is the case so far. We are still seeing orders coming in from all of our customers. We are building up a backlog within those orders or from those orders. If we can begin to see permits late this quarter, early next, we are pretty much ready to ship through Q3, Q4. This market is growing too fast. As Morris said, we are a major supplier into this market. The other players both cannot keep up with capacity, nor can they meet our quality performance that our customers are starting to demand from us now. At the moment, we are really not seeing people move away, but we are seeing people kind of hang in there, continue to place orders, and wait for permits to get approved.

Matt Bryson (Managing Director)

Got it.

Then best guess is that once you get your permits approved, that your customers end up resuming orders, there's inventory refill, and you possibly see almost a period of overshipment versus end demand just as customers catch back up. Is that fair?

Tim Bettles (VP of Business Development)

That's absolutely fair. Yes. We would see a rebuild of inventory as those permits come through. We should see a pretty healthy bump, yes.

Matt Bryson (Managing Director)

Got it. Next question. I think, Gary, when you were talking about the factors weighing on gross margin, it was lower Indium Phosphide shipments, problems with the HBT. I think the third factor was just lower gross margins on a couple of products. Can you just—

Gary Fischer (VP and CFO)

When we made our plan for the—once we learned about the February 4th announcement from China, we knew that that was going to hurt both our top line and our gross margin line.

We had expected maybe that the rest of the product lines, including raw materials, would have some at least mitigating lifting effect. It had a little bit of that, but probably was not quite as robust as I had hoped. That was the third factor.

Matt Bryson (Managing Director)

Got it. It is more you did not see a lift as opposed to there was lower pricing or anything else going on in the other product line.

Gary Fischer (VP and CFO)

Yeah. No, there is not really an ASP issue in this story. The real story is Indium Phosphide dropped in revenue. At the same time, we were trying to make up for that revenue drop by accelerating in some gallium arsenide work. As Morris said, maybe we were a little bit too aggressive there. That is our understanding, yeah.

Matt Bryson (Managing Director)

Yeah. There is nothing going on with pricing across other markets. There was no.

Gary Fischer (VP and CFO)

No. There's always price.

Matt Bryson (Managing Director)

Just with the—Go ahead. Sorry. Okay. Just with the material shipping to China, if there's more material shipping to China, does that have any impact on pricing at all?

Gary Fischer (VP and CFO)

I'll let Tim take that one.

Tim Bettles (VP of Business Development)

Some of the—

Gary Fischer (VP and CFO)

Tim?

Tim Bettles (VP of Business Development)

Some of the traditional PON markets are seeing some price pressures as we go into that. We see some growth this year into those markets. Generally, as we look at other markets, of course, we're always under some kind of price pressure, but we're not seeing anything out of the ordinary that I would say at this moment in time.

Matt Bryson (Managing Director)

Got it. Last one for me.

I don't think you ship a lot of product to North America, but can you just talk to any ramifications from the substantial tariffs that the U.S. is placing on China? Is it affecting your business at all?

Morris Young (CEO)

You can go ahead, Tim.

Tim Bettles (VP of Business Development)

Yep. For context, revenues to the U.S. in 2024 were about 8%. They'll probably be less in 2025 as a result of these trade restrictions and the timing of the permitting process. Anything that we ship to the U.S. will likely have a tariff on it. The amount of this tariff is still a little unclear, and it still seems to be under discussion between the U.S. and China. Yes, we expect that we're going to have to deal with this tariff. Again, revenues in 2024 were about 8%. It's not something that gives us real great heartburn at the moment.

Matt Bryson (Managing Director)

Got it.

Thank you so much.

Morris Young (CEO)

Thanks, Matt.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from the line of Dave Kang with B. Riley. Please go ahead.

Dave Kang (Senior Analyst)

Yes. Thank you. Good afternoon. My question is regarding that last statement about your sales to the U.S. My understanding is that semis are exempt, so your products, would not they be exempt as well?

Tim Bettles (VP of Business Development)

Yeah. They are exempt from the reciprocal tariff, but they are not fully exempt from all tariffs at the moment. As we say, this tariff situation is still under discussion. There still seems to be some negotiation going on between the U.S. and China. I think once the permit process opens up and we start shipping again, we will get a clearer understanding of what our position is in terms of tariffs.

Dave Kang (Senior Analyst)

What happened in the first quarter? I mean, can you just tell us the facts, like how much if you can quantify tariffs?

You did not mention that in your three factors regarding gross margin, but then tariffs did not impact your gross margin as well?

Tim Bettles (VP of Business Development)

Again, Morris, did you want to comment?

Morris Young (CEO)

Yeah. I think perhaps Dave's question is our gross margin impact from tariffs. Since in Q1, we have shipped at least one month in January. I think our product shipped in January did pay tariff, okay? That was the old tariff. What was the %, Tim? I think it is around 25%, correct?

Tim Bettles (VP of Business Development)

Yeah, correct. The Section 201 tariff is 25%.

Morris Young (CEO)

Now it has changed. What % of tariff is it going to be? I think we are watching very intensely how it is going to be resolved. As you mentioned, it could be exempt.

I also heard China on the web, actually, China is going to exempt some of the imports from the United States of certain material that China wants to import from the United States, such as semiconductors. Could that play into reciprocal tariffs from the United States? Because these Indium Phosphide products, none of them can be made in the United States anyway. Our customers in the United States need this material. We do not know at this point. I mean, let's get the permit problem solved first. We believe that the tariff issue can be navigated. We have a plan to resolve this tariff issue, right, Tim?

Tim Bettles (VP of Business Development)

Correct. We do have some plans to navigate around this. It's too early to say anything about them yet, though.

Dave Kang (Senior Analyst)

Some of the component vendors told me that their customers, not all, but some customers are willing to pick up tariffs at least temporarily. I mean, but it sounds like you guys are paying the tariffs, not your customers.

Tim Bettles (VP of Business Development)

We have been faced with this situation before, and there is no easy answer to it, right? Some customers will pick up the tariff. Some customers will pick up some of the tariff. We have dealt with it with gallium arsenide for the past 18 months, and we will deal with the tariffs as we go case by case. I'm sorry. We have dealt with it with indium phosphide for the past 18 months. We will deal with this as a case-by-case basis as we move forward. We have to get a better understanding of what this tariff really means.

Dave Kang (Senior Analyst)

Got it.

My last question is regarding the wireless HBT, the one with yield issues. Just wondering if you've got that business. I mean, can you kind of quantify as far as the revenue? Is it because of your stumble, is it a lost opportunity, or are you still in the derby, I guess? Is it just one customer or multiple customers?

Morris Young (CEO)

It is one specific customer. It is a fairly large customer. I think we have not lost the opportunity. I mean, we're still working on it. As I said, we will take a little bit more measured approach to trying to gain more market share. I mean, once we got our—actually, it is not a yield issue per se, but it is a matching of specification from what we can make and the customer demand.

Once we got it sorted out, I think we should be able to get back to it.

Dave Kang (Senior Analyst)

As I said, Morris, can you kind of quantify?

Morris Young (CEO)

Let's see. It's probably around $2 million.

Dave Kang (Senior Analyst)

Per quarter?

Morris Young (CEO)

No. A little bit more than $1 million per quarter. Yeah, for the quarter.

Dave Kang (Senior Analyst)

Okay. Got it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

It seems that we have no further questions today. I would now like to turn the call over back to Dr. Morris Young for closing remarks.

Morris Young (CEO)

Thank you for participating in our conference call. Later this month, we will be participating in the BYD Securities 2025 Annual Investor Conference. As always, please feel free to contact me, Gary Fischer, or Leslie Green, if you would like to set up a call. We do look forward to speaking with you in the near future.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.