Timothy Stultz
Analyst · D.A. Davidson. Your line is now open
Thank you, Claire. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us on our call. Today, I will speak to recent highlights of our business and financial performance, which set the stage for continued revenue growth and operating leverage in the forthcoming year. I will conclude with our specific guidance for the June quarter. Following my prepared remarks, Jeff will provide additional details on our financial results, after which we will open the lines for Q&A. The first quarter of 2016 marks an inflection point in our financial performance, the solid revenue growth over Q4, a significant increase in profitability and incremental margins well in excess of our target model. It is also the quarter, during which we launched the newest addition to our flagship Atlas product family, the Atlas III. The customer response to this new product launch has exceeded our expectations. Multiple systems have already been shipped to our launch partner in the memory market, with whom we work closely on performance specifications and the feature-set. Additional tools will be shipped in the second quarter to several other key customers, addressing every device type of the most advanced technology nodes, including 1X DRAM, third-generation 3D NAND, and 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer foundry devices. Follow-on shipments in addition to those already mentioned are scheduled for later in the year. Our flagship Atlas platform combined with our diffract modeling and analytical software has been the linchpin of our success in winning share and maintaining market leadership in the Optical Critical Dimension or OCD market. We are off to a strong start with this latest introduction, which offers significant performance improvements needed by our customers for the most demanding applications on their leading edge devices. For the performance improvements in the Atlas III, we also have the opportunity to expand our position and increase our share of the thin films market, which in aggregate is even larger than the OCD market. The first quarter was actually a record high for our thin film sales. We see growth in this segment as a significant opportunity for incremental revenues in the near future and will aggressively pursue it with the Atlas III. 3D NAND was a big part of our story in 2015 and clearly continues to be so in 2016. We started the year with a record quarter for both 3D NAND orders and revenue, both of which exceeded our previous quarter records by more than 70%. While we don’t typically announce bookings, this past quarter’s 3D NAND bookings of over $38 million was a stand-out. Both in the magnitude of orders received with Q1 orders nearly as high as 3D NAND revenues for all of 2015 as well as being a record 3D NAND bookings quarter with each of three individual customers. Our participation in this growth market fueled by strong investments by five major customers includes our flagship Atlas platform and a significant deployment of our integrated systems. These tools are being used for both OCD as well as films application. Turning to our other key end-markets, we expect foundry spending to continue to be a strong contributor to our 2016 revenues, driven by capacity investments of the 10-nanometer node and development spending on 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer devices. Due to the timing of customer investments, we expect this business will be weighted for the second half of the year. DRAM also continues to be a strong market for us. Sales were up significantly in Q1 versus Q4. We expect spending in this market to strengthen in the latter part of the year as the balance between demand and capacity improves and next-generation devices are brought to market. Finally, we do not see a significant resumption of IDM advanced logic spending until the end of 2016 or early 2017. Looking at our big key business drivers, demand for OCD metrology solutions is continuing to increase at each technology node, across all device types, with investments occurring at a growth rate greater than most other areas of WFE. In addition, advanced process control strategies, user metrology and data analytics are playing an ever-expanding role in accelerating fab ramps and yield improvements. These industry trends are in turn increasing demand for both our automated and integrated solutions and our unique ability to offer both platforms from a system solution perspective. Summing it up, 3D NAND ramps and investment are clearly driving the strength in our near-term outlook. We continue to expect a stronger second-half of 2016 compared to the first-half, fueled by increased contributions from foundry and DRAM, and possible upside in advanced logic. With the market dynamics, investment plans of our key customers and our leadership position in tool-of-record selections across all device types, our confidence in revenue growth and outperformance versus overall wafer fab equipment spending have strengthened since this time last quarter. And finally, our operational execution in near-term is of key importance as we respond to the growth in our business. Our longer-term strategic focus continues to be on further expanding our fair footprint at key accounts. Expanding our served markets through the development of new end-use applications and the development of disruptive technologies and platforms, each of which help set the stage for continued growth and outperformance into 2017 and beyond. Now, turning to our financial performance, our first quarter results clearly demonstrate that our business is at a major performance inflection. With revenues up 11%, our incremental gross margin was 76%, and incremental operating margin was 71%. Total gross margin improved by 265 basis points and operating margin by 700 basis points. This performance is once again above our model targets, as we continue to make progress on improving operational efficiencies and we benefited from strong upgrade sales in the quarter. The key takeaway here is that we are delivering significant operating leverage on incremental revenues, while our revenue growth is outpaced in the industry. With sequential revenue growth expected for the second quarter, as well as for the second-half, in combination with the ongoing improvements we are making through our business operations, we are well on track to delivering significant earnings growth and solid bottom-line performance in 2016. With that our guidance for the June quarter is as follows: revenues up 9% to 20% to between $52 million and $57 million; and on a non-GAAP basis gross margin of 51.5% to 53%; operating expenses of $20.6 million to $21.2 million, and earnings of $0.21 to $0.30 per share. I will now turn the call over to Jeff for a detailed review of our financial performance and outlook. Jeff?