John Lee
Analyst · Citi. Your line is now open
Thanks David. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us today. We delivered exceptional results in the second quarter with record revenue of $765 million and strong profitability with net earnings per diluted share of $2.59. Both metrics exceeded the high end of our guidance range as we manage through continued supply chain constraints and inflationary pressures. These results are a testament to our ability to execute by managing costs and factory efficiency, while continuing to invest in our ambitious R&D plans for the future. This performance is also the result of the hard work, dedication and ingenuity of our employees, as well as the collaboration with our valued supply chain partners and customers who continue to place their trust in MKS. Now, I'd like to provide more detail on our second quarter results and my thoughts on current demand trends. We delivered record revenue from our semiconductor market in the second quarter, increasing 6% sequentially and exceeding our expectations. While there's clearly a lot of focus on the current macro environment, our business levels remained strong in the second quarter. Our operations and engineering teams executed extremely well, navigating industry-wide supply chain constraints to deliver to our customers. Availability of certain components somewhat improved in the second quarter but we continue to remain supply constrained in our ability to fully meet customer demand. Our strong performance in the semiconductor market was the result of broad-based success across our portfolio with record semiconductor revenue for both our vacuum and Photonics Solutions divisions. These results highlight the value of our deep customer relationships and the engineering and development investments we've made to help solve their most complex problems at the most advanced technology nodes. A good example of the return on our R&D investments is the strong demand for our market-leading RF power supplies, which is a critical enabler of vertical scaling in the semiconductor industry. Our market share gain has been primarily driven by dielectric etch applications for 3D NAND. We are also continuing to gain traction in conductor etch solutions where we see an attractive market share gain opportunity. In addition, we see increasing opportunities in advanced deposition applications. For example, we displaced the incumbent for leading-edge foundry deposition process because of our dual level pulsing capability. As reported by tech insights, we have taken market share leadership in our power supplies over the past year. We continue to see an attractive opportunity for further growth given the continued trend of vertical scaling in semiconductor structures. We also saw a strong demand across our market leading plasma and reactive gas portfolio where we delivered record revenue in the quarter. We received significant follow-on orders for our dissolved ozone solutions from a large foundry for wet clean applications. Our customers are increasing their use of our dissolved ozone solutions, as an environmentally sustainable alternative to traditional wet clean chemistries. While traditional solutions use toxic chemicals that require careful disposal, our ozone solutions naturally break down to oxygen and water, after the cleaning process. We believe we are well positioned to benefit not only from leading-edge foundry fab expansions, but also from the semiconductor industry's grown need for green solutions. We also delivered record revenue from the pressure, valves and analytic control products in our vacuum portfolio, which is yet another proof point of our leadership in critical vacuum subsystems, over an unmatched breadth of solutions. Our solutions play a critical enabling role in the products that our customers provide to the marketplace. Take for example our flagship pressure measurement solutions. We were able to measure gas pressure in the chamber with extreme precision, which is critical to quality and yield across deposition and etch applications. Our market-leading Baratron capacitance manometer enables unprecedented sensitivity and accuracy, akin to detecting a millimeter of movement from more than one kilometer away. It's important to underscore that our strategy as a technology enabler in the semiconductor market, extended beyond the vacuum chamber. And I'm pleased with the growing traction of our Photonics solutions division, in lithography, metrology and inspection applications. In the second quarter, our Photonics solutions revenue to the semiconductor market reached another record, growing considerably on a year-over-year basis. We saw a particular strength in our optical solutions and motion products. Our Precision Motion Solutions are worth highlighting, as we have seen an acceleration in business levels and design win activity from our semiconductor customers over the past few quarters. In advanced packaging, metrology and inspection applications, customers are using our Motion Solutions to enable rapid movement and precise placement of the wafer to win -- to within the accuracy of a few atoms which is critical to process performance and throughput. As we look to the third quarter, demand trends in our semiconductor market remains strong across our vacuum and photonics portfolios that serve deposition, etch, lithography, metrology, inspection and wet clean applications. While our demand outlook is healthy, we remain impacted by supply chain constraints and as such, we expect revenue to be consistent with second quarter levels. In short, we are executing well across our semiconductor business as a leading, critical subsystem technology provider. We believe that nearly every chip manufacturer in the world today is made using MKS Technology. And we are well positioned to capitalize on the long-term secular growth in the semiconductor market. We have the number one or number two positions in nearly all of our major product categories in the semiconductor market. We intend to grow even further and extend our lead in this space as we have done for more than 50 years. Moving to our advanced electronics market, revenue in the second quarter declined 6% sequentially. Consistent with our expectations and as discussed in our Q1 earnings call, industry demand for flexible PCB via drilling has continued to soften, as customers have temporarily slowed capacity expansions due in part to softness in smartphone demand. In addition to the flexible PCB market, we've also seen softness in other applications tied to consumer electronics. While our advanced electronics market is soft right now, we believe this is transitory. And we remain very excited about the long-term secular opportunity, for laser-based manufacturing and electronics applications. The same trends that drive our semiconductor business, miniaturization and complexity are key drivers for advanced electronics, as customers demand more processing power, more features and new form factors for their devices. We believe our flexible PCB, HDI PCB and IC substrate via drilling solutions are all well positioned for the years ahead. In the third quarter we expect PCB industry demand to remain muted. As such, we expect revenue from our Advanced Electronics market to remain consistent with second quarter levels. Turning to our specialty industrial market, revenue grew 1% sequentially consistent with our expectations. We saw steady demand across Industrial, Life and Health Sciences and Research and Defense applications. As a reminder, our Specialty Industrial market provides a more stable revenue stream comprised of a broad array of applications with good margins and cash flow. For the third quarter we expect revenue from our Specialty Industrial Market to remain consistent with second quarter levels. Moving to our pending acquisition of Atotech, we remain very excited and look forward to combining our capabilities in lasers, optics, motion and process chemistry, to drive faster solutions and new innovations for our customers. We expect that our adjacent expertise will uniquely position MKS to optimize the interconnect, which is a significant, enabling point of next-generation Advanced Electronics. As for the status of the transaction, I'm pleased to announce that today we received unconditional merger approval from China's State Administration for Market Regulation. The acquisition is anticipated to close on August 17th, subject to obtaining the required section by the Royal Court of Jersey and the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. As many of you know MKS has a long-standing track record of technology leadership and operational excellence and we continue to execute well in today's challenging environment has clearly demonstrated in our second quarter results. While we are closely monitoring the macroeconomic landscape and supply chain impacts on our business, our overall demand environment is healthy and we are in an outstanding position to continue delivering for our customers. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Seth.