Martin B. Anstice
Analyst · the Stifel, Nicolaus
It's a tough question. I would say, first of all, I don't think anything happens kind of anytime soon. I think consistent with comments from other equipment companies, we're certainly in a lull in December and probably in a lull in March as well, and we'll see when we get to the June quarter. But relative to confidence, I don't think we have an extravagant characterization of bit growth in calendar '13. We're assuming 50%. 50% is the lowest percentage of bit growth in any of the last 4 years. That's kind of statement #1. Statement #2, at least to our analytics, there's only 20,000 wafer starts globally of unqualified, unused capacity. Unbelievably low. And so any demand that comes in is going to be a catalyst for spending. Now the spending can come in many forms, to your point. But at least to date, we have not learned anything from customers that would cause us to model the outlook differently. Obviously, if we do and when we do, we'll share that perspective with you. And at the end of the day, the NAND investment, and like any segment, frankly, is all about demand and supply, but it's also about the availability to upgrade the existing installed base. And in calendar 2012, we probably have seen 70,000 wafer starts of new capacity added by the end of this year in support of a 65% bit growth. And we're assuming about 150,000 wafer starts of addition next year, with about 100,000 wafer starts of less conversion in '13 than occurred in '12. So that mix has the potential to change the answer to the question. We've done our best to tell you what we think the outlook is, and our best estimate is 150,000 wafer starts of addition next year and 450,000 wafer starts of conversion. And the additions will cost about $280 million, $285 million, $290 million per 10,000 wafer starts and the conversions we think cost about $50 million to $60 million per 10,000 wafer starts next year.