Ramakumar Mayampurath
Analyst · Matthew Prisco of Cantor Fitzgerald
Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. We delivered an excellent first quarter. We are seeing increased demand across our key end markets, and we remain focused on disciplined execution and driving profitable growth. Let me begin by reviewing Q1 results in detail. MKS reported a revenue of $1.08 billion, up 4% sequentially and 15% year-over-year. First quarter semiconductor revenue was $466 million, up 7% sequentially and 13% year-over-year. The result was driven by strengthening demand, especially in DRAM and logic and foundry applications. The sequential increase was led by our vacuum products and plasma and reactive gases offerings. We also saw an uptick in revenue related to NAND upgrade activity, which benefits our RF power business. Year-over-year comparisons reflect broad-based strength across many product categories, consistent with an improving semi demand environment. First quarter Electronics & Packaging revenue was $321 million, an increase of 6% quarter-over-quarter and 27% year-over-year. This sequential improvement reflected higher flexible PCB drilling and chemistry sales even with the seasonal impact of the Lunar New Year. The compelling year-over-year comparison was driven by healthy underlying growth across chemistry, flexible PCB drilling equipment and chemistry equipment. Chemistry sales in the quarter were up 22% year-over-year, excluding the impact of FX and palladium pass-through, underscoring the accelerating demand from AI-related applications. In our Specialty Industrial market, first quarter revenue was $291 million, a decrease of 2% sequentially, reflecting Lunar New Year seasonality. Revenue was up 8% on a year-over-year basis, supported by modest improvements across several of our key market categories. Turning to gross margin. We reported first quarter gross margin of 47%, which is the high end of our guidance. As a reminder, Q1 2025 did not include incremental tariff impacts. We're seeing benefits from higher volume and favorable mix, including higher chemistry revenue, which more than offset the impact of higher palladium prices, which are passed through at 0 margin. First quarter operating income was approximately $235 million, yielding an operating margin of 21.8%, which is well above our guidance midpoint. Operating expenses of $271 million included higher R&D investments and a seasonal increase in stock-based compensation. First quarter adjusted EBITDA was $277 million, yielding a 25.7% margin and also at the high end of our guidance. Net interest expenses was $37 million compared with $45 million in the first quarter of 2025, reflecting the benefits of the financing transactions we closed in the first quarter as well as continued proactive principal prepayments. Our first quarter effective tax rate was 20.9% and in line with our guidance. We started the year strong with first quarter net earnings of $157 million or $2.30 per diluted share, which is above the high end of our guidance. Let me now turn to cash flow and balance sheet. We closed the quarter with $1.5 billion of liquidity comprised of cash and cash equivalents of $569 million and our undrawn revolving credit facility of $1 billion. Free cash flow was $29 million. As a reminder, Q1 is typically the low point of the year due to timing of variable compensation payments. In addition to this, we are also seeing an increase in working capital related to the ramp in demand. As we have said before, our first capital allocation priority is to make the investments needed to support business growth. Additionally, we continue to focus on proactive deleveraging, including another payment of $100 million on our term loan earlier this week. Net debt at quarter end was $3.6 billion. That combined with trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA of over $1 billion resulted in a net leverage ratio of 3.5x. Finally, during the first quarter, we increased our dividend by 14% to $0.25 per share or $17 million. Let me now turn to second quarter outlook. We expect revenue of $1.2 billion, plus or minus $40 million. By end market, our second quarter outlook is as follows: revenue from our semiconductor market is expected to be $550 million, plus or minus $15 million. Revenue from our electronics and packaging market is expected to be $350 million, plus or minus $15 million, and revenue from our specialty industrial market is expected to be $300 million, plus or minus $10 million. Based on anticipated revenue levels and product mix, we estimate second quarter gross margin of 47%, plus or minus 100 basis points. We expect second quarter operating expenses of $275 million, plus or minus $5 million. We estimate second quarter adjusted EBITDA of $328 million, plus or minus $26 million. CapEx for the year is expected to be in the range of 4% to 5% of revenue. We expect a tax rate of approximately 20% in the second quarter and our full year tax rate to remain in the 18% to 20% range. Based on these assumptions, we expect second quarter net earnings per diluted share of $2.90, plus or minus $0.30. Wrapping up, we are very excited to see the growth opportunities ahead for MKS. We continue to execute at a high level, and we are in a strong position with our manufacturing capacity and capabilities. We have continued to strengthen our balance sheet with a clear and disciplined capital allocation strategy, and we remain focused on driving profitability, cash flow and improving EPS to create value for our shareholders. Thank you for joining today. And with that, I'd like to turn the call back over to John. John?