Mary Puma
Analyst · Stifel. Your line is now open
Thank you, Daniel. With me today is Kevin Brewer, Executive Vice President and CFO; and Doug Lawson, Executive Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Strategy. If you have not seen a copy of our press release issued last night, it is available on our website. Playback service will also be available on our website as described in our press release. Please note that comments made today about our expectations for future revenues, profits, and other results are forward-looking statements under the SEC's Safe Harbor provision. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to the risks inherent in our business. These risks are described in detail in our Form 10-K annual report and other SEC filings which we urge you to review. Our actual results may differ materially from our current expectations. We do not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. 2019 was a challenging year for the industry with memory spending remaining low throughout the year. But the year also showcased a very healthy Axcelis. A focused strategy on ion implant, combined with the hard work and dedication of our employees and the encouragement and support of our customers and suppliers enabled us to achieve several critical milestones in our drive to market leadership. In 2019, we continued to expand the Purion installed base, growing our large and diverse group of customers. We also sharpened our focus on key market segments in the mature process technology area such as image sensors, power devices, and mature foundry and logic. And finally, we grew our family of Purion product extensions with the launch of four new Purion implanters, specifically targeted at these segments. These new products are built on the common Purion platform and designed with our new concurrent product development methodology. This approach enables new products to come to market with higher quality and lower initial costs. Additionally, the new products all target high-value implant challenges for our customers and as a result deliver higher margins than our base Purion products. These four new Purion products are designed to create a sustainable competitive differentiation to support our customers' technology and manufacturing needs for critical implant steps. The Purion Dragon and the Purion XE silicon carbide are at customer sites while the first Purion H200 and Purion XEmax systems are currently running demos for multiple customers in our advanced technology center. We made this investment in R&D, while maintaining a vigilant eye on operating expenses. This allowed us to remain profitable through the cycle, while in 2019 delivering annual gross margins of 42%, sustaining a healthy balance sheet, and instituting a share repurchase program. Our Q4 financial performance resulted in a positive ending to this critical year. I'd like to highlight a few Q4 and full year financial results and provide Q1 guidance. Revenue for the fourth quarter was $107.7 million, a 55.1% increase over Q3. Earnings per share of $0.29 was well above guidance and consensus. Our strong Q4 financial performance was driven by a 94% increase in systems revenue, better-than-forecasted gross margins of 41.1%, and improving CS&I revenue. In 2019, revenue was $343 million with earnings per share of $0.50. During the fourth quarter, memory accounted for 39% of our shipments split evenly between DRAM and NAND. The majority of Q4 shipments, 61% went to mature foundry logic customers. For the year, memory accounted for just 29% of our shipments with 71% going to mature foundry logic customers. The geographic mix of our systems shipments in the fourth quarter was China 42%, Korea 31%, Taiwan 11%, and the rest of the world 16%. This breakout is reflective of a strong mature foundry logic mix in all of these regions, as well as improving memory shipments. Before turning to our guidance for the first quarter, I'd like to briefly touch on the coronavirus. We have put policies in place to safeguard our employees while continuing to serve our customers. It is a rapidly changing situation. And we will continue to monitor it closely. In the first quarter we are forecasting revenue of approximately $115 million. We expect gross margins of around 37%. Gross margins will be impacted by the expected closure of three Purion evaluation systems in the quarter, including the first Purion Dragon. We expect operating profit of approximately $9.5 million and EPS of about $0.21. We expect the memory segment to account for approximately 50% of our Q1 shipments, with DRAM representing about 60%, in non-volatile memory, which includes NAND and 3D cross point accounting for the remaining 40%. In 2020, we expect the mature process technology segment to remain strong, especially in image sensors and power devices. The memory segment will remain active with incremental capacity additions and technology advances, throughout the year. We currently expect memory to account for approximately 35% of revenues, in 2020. However, we are currently seeing some increased quote activity for DRAM that could materialize in the second half of the year. We still expect a more significant recovery for the overall memory segment to occur in 2021. The industry is beginning what will likely be an extended growth cycle driven by the new communication capabilities of 5G technology. The 5G infrastructure build has begun. And will accelerate in 2020. As the infrastructure expands, new 5G-capable phones and other devices will drive a strong memory cycle beginning in 2021. Following this and beginning in 2022, there will be another cycle of industrial IoT applications, even bigger than the last, which will drive strong growth in the mature process technology segment. As a result of our market segmentation approach and focused Purion product family offerings, Axcelis is extremely well positioned for strong growth, during the upcoming 5G driven cycle. Now I'd like to turn it over to Kevin, to discuss our financials.