STMicroelectronics N.V. (STM) Q3 2025 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the STMicroelectronics Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Release Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Myra, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Jerome Ramel, EVP, Corporate Development and Integrated External Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Myra. Thank you, everyone, for joining our third quarter 2025 financial result call. Hosting the call today is Jean-Marc Chery, ST President and Chief Executive Officer. Joining Jean-Marc on the call today are Lorenzo Grandi, Creditor and CFO; and Marco Cassis, President, Analog, Power & Discrete, MEMS and Sensor Group and Head of ST Microelectronics Strategy, System Research and Application and Innovation Office. This live webcast and presentation materials can be accessed on ST Investor Relations website. A replay will be available shortly after the conclusion of this call. This call will include forward-looking statements that involve risk factors that could cause ST result to differ materially from management expectations and plans. We encourage you to review the safe harbor statement contained in the press release that was issued with the results this morning and also in ST's most recent regulatory filings for a full description of these risk factors. Also to ensure all participants have an opportunity to ask questions during the Q&A session, please limit yourself to 1 question and a brief follow-up. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Jean-Marc Chery, ST's President and CEO.

Thank you, Jerome. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining ST for our Q3 2025 earnings conference call. I will start with an overview of the third quarter including business dynamics. I will then hand over to Lorenzo for the detailed financial overview, and we'll then comment on the outlook and conclude before answering your questions. So starting with Q3. We delivered revenues at $3.19 billion $17 million above the midpoint of our business outlook range with higher revenues in Personal Electronics while Automotive and Industrial performed as anticipated, and CCP was broadly in line with expectations. All end markets, but Automotive are now back to year-on-year growth. Gross margin of 33.2% was slightly below the midpoint of our business outlook range, reflecting product mix within Automotive and within Industrial. Excluding impairments, gross recurring charges and other related phase on costs, diluted earnings per share was $0.29. During the quarter, we managed to work down inventories, both in our balance sheet and in distribution and we generated a positive $130 million free cash flow. Let's now discuss our business dynamics during Q3. In Automotive, during the quarter, we grew revenues about 10% sequentially, in line with expectations, driven by all regions, except Americas. Our book-to-bill came above 1. We expect to grow mid-single digits in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter, which would be the third consecutive quarter of second During the quarter, we continued to execute our strategy for car electrification. We had with both silicon and silicon carbide devices for electrical vehicle applications, such as traction inverter and onboard charger designs. On new application where we see silicon carbide being used is investors for full active suspension. Here, we have a design win with a module solution for our key Chinese electrical vehicle maker. Another key event is a switch to electronic fuses to support the land and domain architectures, both in 12 volts and 48 volts. Here, we added to our pipeline of designs for our IFUs controller with leading electrical vehicle makers and qualified our products for volume ramp up. Other wins in the quarter included microcontrollers for DC/DC management in electrical vehicle powertrain, body control modules and HVAC systems across multiple vehicle models. In car digitalization, we are executing our micro color product road map with a strong lineup of new solutions across both our Airbus Stellar and STM32 product families. Design-in activity continues globally with engagement from both large-scale automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers. In legacy application, we have several significant wins based on our smart power technologies in application where we lead such as airbags, Steele and braking solutions. With our automotive brake sensors, we continue to see strong designing momentum and growing opportunities. Wins in the quarter included MEMS sensors for road noise constellation and door control and both MEMS and imaging sensors for in-cabin monitoring. Shortly after our results announcement in July, we announced that we entered in a definitive transaction agreement for the acquisition of NXP's MEMS sensor business, for a purchase price of up to $950 million in cash, complementing and expanding our current leading MEMS sensor technology and product portfolio. The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals and is on track to close in H1 2026. In Industrial, revenues were in line with expectations, showing increase of 8% sequentially and 13% year-over-year, back to year-on-year growth for the first time since the third quarter of 2023. Importantly, inventories in distribution further decreased. In Q4, we expect to grow value low single digits sequentially, as we continue to decrease inventories in distribution. During the quarter, we saw strong designing activity for our Power and Analog portfolio across a range of applications. These included factory automation over system medical equipment, motor control, white goods, solar inverters and metering. We also continue to expand the use of our industrial sensors in robotics, including robots and cobots and robots, an area where we see demand for significant number of sensors. We also had wins in medical devices like insulin pumps and full detectors. In Embedded Processing, we continue to win designs with our STM32 microcontrollers for a wide range of industrial applications with products from all parts of the portfolio from high end to wireless to specialized functions. This included power supply and optical modules for AI servers, industry automation and robotics, energy storage, metering and goods. We have a full pipeline of new products and software coming to market in the next quarters, and you will hear more about this during our STM32 summit in November. For general purpose microcontroller, we grew revenues both sequentially and year-on-year and we are on the right trajectory to return to our historical market share of about 20% -- 23%, sorry. For Personal Electronics, third quarter revenues were above our expectations, up 40% sequentially, reflecting the seasonality of our engaged customer programs, but also increased silicon campaigns, which also translated into year-over-year growth. Further strengthening of our unique position as a sensor supplier with both MEMS and optical sensing solutions, we signed a new license agreement with This new agreement broadens our capability to produce advanced meter leveraging ST's 300-millimeter semiconductor and optics manufacturing capabilities. This opened up new opportunities from smartphone application like biometrics, LiDAR and camera acids, robotic, jester recognition and object detection. Revenues for communication equipment and computer peripherals were broadly in line with expectations and up 4% sequentially. For AI data centers, we had multiple wins with silicon and silicon carbide devices for high-power solution. Although last quarter, we announced that we are working closely with NVIDIA, a new architecture for 800-volt DC AI data center, leveraging our power By combining silicon care, guided nitride and silicon-based technologies with advanced custom design at both chip and package level. I am pleased to underline that we recently completed the full power testing on a prototype social successfully demonstrating over 98% efficiency. Silicon photonics is another key technology for future data center and AI factories. ST now has the collaborative R&D programs across the full value chain with key suppliers and customers to develop high-speed optical solutions for data center, AI, telecommunication and automotive, from the substrate to the final product. During Q3, we have seen an increased demand for photonics IC prototypes to be launched in the next quarter and beyond in our 300-millimeter wafer fab. This confirms that photonic ICs will be a revenue growth driver for ST in the detail. In low earth orbit satellites. We have further strengthened our leadership position in the rapidly growing low broadband market by beginning shipment to a second global customer, leveraging our combination of biosimilars technology for front-end modules and paddle level packaging for user terminals. Our business in this segment is well positioned for steady growth delivered by several satellite constellations. Now over to Lorenzo, who will present our key financial figures.

Thank you, Jean-Marc, and good morning, everyone. Let's start with a detailed review of the third quarter, starting with the revenues on a year-over-year basis. By reportable segment, Analog Products, MEMS and Sensors was up 7.0%, mainly due to imaging. Power & Discrete products decreased 34.3%. Embedded Processing revenues grew 8.7%, mainly due to general Marconi. RF and optical communication declined 3.4%. By end market, Industrial increased by about 13%; Personal Electronic by about 11%; Communication Equipment and Computer Peripheral by about 7%. Automotive was still decreasing by about 70% and by showing some improvement in respect to the 24% decline recorded in the second quarter. Year-over-year sales to OEMs decreased 5.1% while revenues from distribution increased 7.6% back to year-over-year growth for the first time since the third quarter 2023. On a sequential basis, Power & Discrete was the only segment to decrease by 4.3%. All the other segment grew led by analog products, MEMS and sensor up 26.6% with Embedded Processing up 15.3% and RF and Optical Communication, up 2.4%. All our end markets grew, led by Personal Electronics, up by about 40%, followed by Automotive, up by about 10%. With Industrial and Communication Equipment and Computer and Peripheral up, respectively, by about 8% and 4%. Turning now on profitability. Gross profit in the third quarter was $1.06 billion, decreasing 13.7% on a year-over-year basis. Gross margin was 33.2%, decreasing 460 basis points on a year-over-year, mainly due to lower manufacturing efficiencies, negative currency effect lower level of capacity reservation fees and to a lesser extent, the combination of sales price and product mix. Total net operating expenses excluding restructuring, amounted to $842 million in the third quarter, broadly stable on a year-over-year. They were better than expected. Preferably, notably our continued cost discipline with the first benefits of the resizing of our global cost base. For the fourth quarter of 2025, we expect to stand at about $950 million, increasing quarter-on-quarter due notably to calendar base effect. This will lead the net OpEx for the full year 2025 to decline by 2.5% compared to 2024 despite unfavorable currency effect. As a reminder, these amounts are net of other income and expenses and exclude restructuring. In the third quarter, we reported $180 million operating income, which included $37 million for impairment restructuring charges and other related phase-out costs. This reflects impairment of assets and the restructuring charges predominantly associated with the previously announced company-wide program to reshape our manufacturing footprint and resize our global cost base. Excluding this not recurring item, which is partially not cash, Q3, non-U.S. GAAP operating margin was 6.8%, with Analog Products, MEMS and Sensor at 15.4%. Power & Discrete at minus 15.6%. Embedded Processing at 16.5%, and the RF Optical Communication at 16.6%. This quarter, to 2025, the net income was $237 million compared to $351 million in the year ago quarter. Diluted earnings per share were $0.26 compared to $0.37. Excluding the previously mentioned nonrecurring items, non-U.S. GAAP net income and diluted earnings per share were respectively, $267 million and $0.29. Net cash from operating activity decreased 24.1% on a year-over-year basis in the third quarter to $549 million. Third quarter net CapEx was $401 million compared to the $565 million in Q3 2024. Free cash flow was a positive $130 million in the third quarter compared to the $136 million in the year ago quarter. Inventory, at the end of the third quarter, was $3.17 billion, a reduction of about $100 million compared to the end of the second quarter. These sales of inventory at the quarter end were 135 days, slightly better than our expectation and compared to 166 days for the previous quarter and 130 days in the year ago quarter. Cash dividends paid to stockholders in the third quarter totaled $81 million. In addition, ST executed share buybacks of $91 million. ST maintained its financial strength with a net financial position that remained solid at $2.61 billion as of the end of September 2025, reflecting total liquidity of $4.78 billion and total financial debt of $2.17 billion. It is worth to mention that in the course of the third quarter, we repaid fully in cash, $750 million for the first tranche of our 2020 convertible bond. Now back to Jean-Marc, who will comment on our outlook.

Thank you, Lorenzo. Let's move to our business outlook for Q4 2025. So we are expecting revenues at $3.28 billion, an increase of 2.9% sequentially, plus or minus 350 basis points. We expect our gross margin to be about 35%, plus or minus 200 basis points, including about 290 basis points of unused capacity charges. This business outlook does not include any impact for potential further changes to global trade tariffs compared to the current situation. The midpoint of this outlook translates in full year 2025 revenues of about $11.75 million. This represents a 22.4% growth in the second half compared to the first half, confirming signs of market recovery. Gross margin for the full year is expected to be about 33.8%. Finally, to optimize our investments in the current market conditions, we have reduced our net CapEx plan, now slightly below $2 billion for full year 2025 compared to a range of $2 billion to $2.3 billion previously. To conclude, in the fourth quarter, we expect to report further sequential revenue improvement. With revenues now broadly stabilized on a year-over-year basis as well as an increased gross margin while continuing to decrease inventories in distribution. We are on the right path to improve our gross margin in the medium term through the reduction of unused capacity charges, the reshaping of our manufacturing footprint and definitively our product mix improvement. In a context marked by signs of market recovery, our strategic priorities remain clear, accelerating innovation executing our copay program to reshape our manufacturing footprint and resize of our global cost base, which remain on schedule to deliver the targeted savings, and strengthening free cash flow generation. Thank you, and we are now ready to answer your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Francois Bouvignies from UBS.

My first question is on the top line. I mean, you guided plus 3% quarter-on-quarter, 2.9% to be precise. It seems to be below your seasonal at plus 7% quarter-on-quarter, if I'm not wrong. I mean you can remind us maybe the seasonality. Can you explain us as to why you are a bit below seasonal in Q4 for the top line and the drivers? And then secondly, on the gross margin, I mean, it's nice to see this improvement of 180 basis points quarter-on-quarter, how sustainable it is this gross margin? I mean, if you have any seasonality, product mix, should we extrapolate this dynamic of 35% into the first half of '26? Just trying to understand the work you have done on gross margin, how sustainable it is at least in the first half of '26 would be great.

So we'll take the revenue seasonality and Lorenzo, the gross margin. No, on the revenue seasonality of Q4, basically, there is 2 effects. The first effect is on automotive. Because in automotive, even if we will grow on a quarter-over-quarter, but year-on-year, it is still minus 12%. And why? Because, okay, 80% of this performance gap is explained by 2 reasons. It is a decrease of our capacity reservation fees compared to last year. And you know it is overall volume of one important customer of ST in the field of electrical vehicle. So this is what is explaining why in Q4, we are below the seasonality. The second explanation to be below the seasonality in Q4 is because in Industrial, we continue to decrease inventory in distribution. So our POP revenue recognition is significantly below the POS. However, on the other, let's say, verticals like Personal Electronics, Communication Equipment, Computer Peripheral and other legacy on Automotive or Industrial in the field of power, energy; basically, okay, we are at the seasonality we expect.

About gross margin. In Q4, the gross margin, the main positive driver, let's say, when we look at the sequential increase of our gross margin moving from the result of Q3 and the expectation of Q4 is clearly improved manufacturing efficiency. That is -- if you remember, let's say, in the first half and also in Q3, we were impacted by a significant negative impact on the efficiency -- manufacturing efficiencies that was due to the very low level of production that we have, especially in the first half of the year. There is also some improvement in terms of new charges. When we look, let's say, to how we will move moving in the first half of next year, but we have to remind that clearly, there are negative effect that we will impact moving forward. One effect is related to the fact that there will be some reduction entering 2026 of capacity reservation fees. And definitely, you know that in the first half of the year, there is some seasonality in terms of our revenues, let's say, in respect to the second part of the year. And then don't forget that there is also the negotiation of the pricing that will impact even if we see to a significant drop. We think that it will be something in the range of low single digit, mid-single-digit decline. On the positive side, we will have, let's say, still continued positive impact on manufacturing and reduce -- continue to reduce level of saturation. At this stage, it's a little bit to difficult to size, let's say, the level of gross margin because it will depend also on the level of the revenues. But this is directionally the trend that we will have moving -- entering in the next year.

The next question comes from the line of Joshua Buchalter from TD Cowen.

Maybe to follow up on that last one. Could you maybe spend a couple of minutes talking about how you're thinking about managing utilization rates right now? It seems like you're taking things back up. Are you at the point where you feel comfortable building a little bit of inventory downstream and/or on your balance sheet given the comments. You mentioned you're going into some negative seasonality into 1Q, but it sounds like utilization rates are going to be up in the fourth quarter and the first quarter. Could you maybe just spend a couple of minutes talking about what you're seeing there?

Now for the inventory, clearly, let's say, as you have seen, we try to keep control on the level of inventory in the current quarter, we think to stay substantially stable in number of days. This is our expectation in respect to Q3. But the positive point is that entering in the next year, clearly, let's say, as I said, there is our seasonality, the normal seasonality that means that, in general, the inventory in the first half of the year is a little bit higher also in number of days in respect to the second part of the year. Then you have to consider that entering next year, let's say, we start to have some decrease in terms of overall capacity, linked to the fact that we started to have some benefit coming from our reshaping of the manufacturing infrastructure. This will somehow mitigate the level of unused moving in 2026. This is, let's say, one of the drivers that we see in terms of progressively improve in terms of the utilization rate, together, of course, with some growth in

I was hoping to ask about the Industrial segment. So it looks like book-to-bill went back to parity. Anything major going on there? Any geographies that are better or worse? And maybe how would you categorize the health of the general purpose microcontroller business underneath there? Basically, should we assume sort of shipping back to normal now?

No. In industrial, we see a different dynamic when we grow on some segments. We see a growth and dynamic more pronounced for power energy, basically all subsegments, okay, of this one are growing. And it is growing more definitively than the smart industrial, it means the factory automation. We can say that robotics is so far good, but overall, the factory automation is really, really soft. More than all the industrial, which are volume-driven, means consumer-driven, the hub cycle is pretty soft. So the takeaway we can have on the Industrial is what is related power energy infrastructure and robotics is now upcycle pretty solid. What is related volume and consumer is a very soft upcycle. It looks like inventory are digested, but the visibility is pretty short, it's pretty low. So that's the reason why the customers are still putting order on short term. But here, our decision is to continue to manage the distribution very closely and continue to adjust our POP below their POS forecast to continue to decrease inventory. Inventory and general purpose microcontroller came back what we classified normal, means a level of months of inventory that enable short-term business. Well, we have still some pockets of other inventory on some specific products like Power & Discrete or sometimes general purpose microcontroller, but we are going in the right direction. So this is a dynamic, okay, we are seeing on the industrial market.

The next question comes from Tristan Gerra from Baird..

I wanted to see how linear is the reduction in capacity reservation fees that you expect in '26 from the $150 million, $200 million reduction that you're looking at for this year. Is there a big drop in Q1? Or is it going to be pretty linear throughout all of next year?

In terms of capacity reservation fees, it works in this way, let's say, substantially, the capacity reservation fees that are ruled by contract with the carmakers quite constant over year the in term of million dollars. But yes, you can have a little bit higher, a little bit lower during the various quarter of the year, but they are not linearly going down. Let's say, they are substantially quite flattish, I would say, quarter after quarter. Clearly, when the contract expires, that is, at the end, for instance, of 2025, many of these contracts are expiring. But then, yes, you have a decline. And then the decline remains the level that you get in the first quarter will remain substantially similar all over the other quarters. So this is the way that it works. So what we will see in Q1 will be this reduction? And then that after that, we will stay stable, more or less stable during the course of 2026 at the level of capacity reservation.

Just a quick follow-up. Of course, it's going to depend on end demand, but any sense of -- or when you think POP can get back in line with point of sales in Industrial next year?

Globally, POP will be aligned with the POS each time our product line reach the target of inventory, we didn't want to exceed. This is okay, a lesson we learned from the past. And now, we are really disciplined on this point. So you cannot see the POP overall. We have to look the POP in detail by product line. And I repeat our microcontroller is pretty well aligned. So our POP is really driven by the end demand POS and by region, I have to say. While China, APAC, America are pretty okay, but Europe is still soft. And for the other product line, okay, we are still in a mode where the POP is below the POS; however, we expect to go back normal in H1 2026, most likely Q2.

Next question comes from Stephane Houri from ODDO BHF.

Yes. I have a first question about the CapEx budget because you're adjusting downward the CapEx for the end of this year. I guess this is in the course of managing your capacity by the end of the year and so an expectation of 2026. But what are you reducing at the moment? And how do you look at 2026 in terms of CapEx at the moment where you're transforming your tool from 200-millimeter to 300-millimeter?

We reduced the CapEx. In fact, there is 2 dynamics. There is a dynamic driven by where you know we want to close the 200-millimeter, so And of course, okay, we need to put the CapEx to increase the capacity at the right level in 300 and in coal 200. But here, we have not especially limited the dynamic because the demand is pretty solid. But then the other main important action is the CapEx for 200-millimeter conversion on silicon carbide because we will close the 150-millimeter. But here, we have limited the CapEx delivered by the demand, which is below what was -- we expected 1 year ago. So the main impact of the capacity limitation is on, let's say, silicon carbide. But then after it's more spread across test assembly, where we clearly adjust the capacity of what we need and no more. And generally speaking, is more adaptation to mix rather than volume increase.

Just to ask you, with the Nexperia situation, you do receive phone calls or kind of rush orders from your customer? Or you see nothing for the moment?

No, I mean, we are sure that the carmaker and the Tier 1 of the automotive industry have clearly taken the lesson of the previous shorter period, and they have enabled many source to prevent such issues. And of course, okay, as the other semiconductor player, STMicro is part of this process. More than that, I have no comment.

Next question comes from Didier Scemama from Bank of America.

I have first question maybe on your inventory and related to that. on what you're thinking about in terms of factory loadings for the first half, I think, one of your U.S. peer already announced last week or earlier this week that they would reduce factory loadings to reduce inventory, especially in the context of a shallow recovery? So I think it looks like your inventory are tracking about 30, 40, 50 days above where they used to be. So are you thinking about taking down further factory utilization in the first half, I guess.

In terms of inventory, I would say that, yes, you're right, it's a little bit higher in respect to what was our historical ending of the year, that is a little bit higher. But at the end, I think that when we look next year, I think the dynamic of our -- we will continue to keep under controlling that. The dynamic of the inventory will, let's say, be, as usual, a little bit increasing during the first half of the year to go back and to decrease in the second part of the year. In terms of that, let's say, unloading factory utilization I think that moving in 2026, there will be an improvement. Notwithstanding, we will continue to keep the control our inventory. This improvement that I was saying before is due to the fact that we do expect some, let's say, increase in terms of our revenues, so looking at the evolution of the market. And the other element is that we start to, let's say, reduce capacity in some of our fabs. The one that we aim, let's say, to progressively close in the course of the -- by the end of 2027. So we will start, of course, to move out some equipment, and this will reduce the capacity, and this will reduce the level of unused then.

Got it. And then I think last quarter, you said that the gross margins were impacted by, if I remember correctly, roughly 70 basis points of the 140, at 70 basis points of FX headwinds on and 70 basis points of related basically the manufacturing transition from 6 to 8 and 8 to 12. Is there any of that in Q4?

No, no. Let's say, moving from Q2 to Q3, let's say, the FX was overall an impact of 140 basis points. Q2, Q3, let's say, related to the combination of these 2 effects, but very different. Let's say, something in the range of 120 basis points was the FX and around 20 basis points was the impact of these extra costs, let's say, related to our programs. Now, let's say, in this quarter, clearly, the FX is a minor impact. This is quite stable. It's a little bit negative because we moved from 114 to 115 is ranging in the range of 20 basis points negative impact. It's not so material, while these extra costs related to the activity to reduce the capacity and to start to move products from one side to the other is impacting our gross margin expected for Q4 between 30 to 40 basis points. This is -- so the turnkey impacted by something ranging between 30 to 40 basis points of extra cost.

Understood. And just a clarification, because it wasn't clear, your OpEx guide for Q4 is 915, right? It's not 950?

No, no. It's 915. And this is driven by the fact that we have a negative calendar days impact for 2 reasons. The calendar is longer. And the vacation in Europe is, let's say, less than what we benefit in the course of the previous quarter. On the other side, we will continue with our, let's say program to reduce account in expenses, and this will bring us some benefit.

The next question comes from Sandeep Deshpande from JPMorgan.

My question is regarding the trends into the first quarter. I mean, you normally have a weaker first quarter. And thus would you expect the utilization rate to go down? And given all the other factors you've talked about in the earlier factors, which are there, there is a downtick associated with the capacity reservation fees. Should we expect that your gross margin in the first half of the year to be weaker than where it is at the moment? And I have a quick follow-up after that.

Yes. In terms of gross margin, it's true that in the first half, the seasonality is not favorable. And yes, there are the lower capacity reservation fees. On the other side, in respect to where we stand today, our expectation is that the level of a new budget will decrease. The decrease is not due to the fact that we aim to increase our inventory. There is some seasonality in our inventory, but the decrease, as I was trying to explain before, it's mainly driven by the fact that we start to reduce the capacity. So it means that we will start to some transfer of equipment. And this or, let's say, not utilization of equipment due to the fact that we progressively in some fab, we started to reduce the capacity aimed, at the end, let's say, to move to close the spec. So we will start, and this will progressively impact our capacity and, for some extent, our unused capacity.

I mean, a follow-up to that essentially -- quickly on that would be, is the number of days in Q1 [Technical Difficulty] you have any new engaged programs with your customers, which will improve revenue significantly either in first half or into the second half, particularly?

No, I confirm, Sandeep, that in Q1, Q1 will be shorter in terms of number of days, than Q4, Q4 is longer in terms of days than normal 91. And the calendar next year, Q1 will be shorter than the normal 91. It's a little bit the same trend that we have seen this year, let's say, in terms of calendar. So yes, I confirm that there is a shorter calendar in Q1.

Well, first of all, okay, about next year 2026, Q1. With the current visibility, we have for the loading of the backlog we have seen in Q3 and we are seeing today. But we don't see a specific reason why we will not be at the usual seasonality of Q1 revenue versus Q4. This is generally speaking, really slightly above minus 10%. Well, then moving forward, of course, we will -- but it's depends on the market dynamic. But I would like to say that for 2026 Well, first of all, okay, in the second half, we will clearly see the normalization of inventory everywhere. We really expect that in H2 2026, we will have no other inventory, point number one. Point number two, next year compared to 2025, the silicon carbide will be a year of growth because 2025 is a year of transition where basically, okay, we have cumulative headwinds related to one specific customer, some program not going at the expected speed in Europe. And you know we are not specially still present in China. But next year will be a -- but then after we have our exposure to fast-growing segment. Clearly, that already give us a sign of growth like ADAS with our main customers that already provided some let's classify upside and MEMS as well. And definitively, one point is our increasing content in terms of value and silicon in our main customer. So all in all, we do believe that Q1, we have no sign that the seasonality will be impacted by other factors that we do not control. And in H2, we will be as well as the usual seasonality of growth H2 versus H1. Do we grow more like here because this year, we grow at 23% and the usual seasonality, 15% H2 versus H1. Well, here, we need to have a little bit more booking in Q1 and in Q2 to confirm. So my takeaway is, yes, we will have, let's say, idiosyncratic growth driver on top of the, let's say, up cycle of the market that we are seeing today even if this up-cycle market of automotive and industrial should be classified at this stage, soft, okay? And with subsegment pretty dynamic like the one related to infrastructure.

The next question comes from the line of Janardan Menon from Jefferies.

I just wanted to go back -- go to the Power & Discrete business where your margins are still very weak at minus 15% in the third quarter. So what can be the drivers to improve that? You talked about silicon carbide improving in Q3 -- I'm sorry, in 2026. But would that revenue come mainly from your Sanan JV to Chinese customers? And will that help your overall profitability given low utilizations in Europe? And do you need to take any further action to try and improve the profitability there Power & Discrete, given the kind of competitive environment in that industry? And then my follow-up is just a small clarification on a previous answer. Your 30 to 40 basis points of manufacturing inefficiency from the conversion and shutting down, et cetera, does that continue until you reach the end of that journey, which is when you fully close down your 200-millimeter transition to 300 millimeter? Or does that drop off before that?

So Lorenzo will comment about the improvement driver on Power & Discrete profitability. While Marco will comment on the dynamic of Power & Discrete revenue because as I have already anticipated, in my last answer, clearly, silicon carbide for us in '25 is a transition period. And Lorenzo, on

Yes, I can take it. Clearly, well, I will let Marco to explain what are the drivers. But at the end, let's say, clearly next year, we do expect a recovery in terms of the top line that is this year, we were impacted by a significant inefficiency in our manufacturing environment for the Power & Discrete in general and for the silicon carbide, in particular, due to the fact that we were working a very old level of saturation for these steps. Clearly, there are the following drivers that we expect to recover in term of profitability. Having a higher level of revenues clearly will help to better load our infrastructure. Then don't forget that silicon carbide, it will be the first to move, let's say, in the course of next year from the 6-inch to the 200-millimeter to the 8-inch, and this will bring clearly, let's say, some positive in the medium term in terms of profitability. Moving up in terms of revenues will improve significantly our expense to sales ratio that today clearly has been impacted by the fact that revenue are quite depressed. So at the end, these are the main drivers that we see together with the fact that we are improving, and we are moving to the next generation of silicon carbide that give also some benefit in terms of performance for what concerns, let's say, the profitability. Before to give the -- to pass to Marco, I just clarify the point of this extra 30 basis points on gross margin. Yes, this is mainly related to the duplication of mask related to the, let's say, qualification of processes. But this will continue, the amount will be more or less this range over, for sure, the next part of 2026 and probably also in the second part because we will continue with this program. This will be probably peaking in the first half 2026 then it will go down. But yes, this is something that we need to expect to have -- as we have this activity, let's say, to migrate our products from one fab that is going to be close to another fab.

Okay. So we take on the dynamics. So we'll have basically 2 dynamics in 2026 that will help to start to grow. First of all, well, as Jean-Marc said, during the first half of 2026, we will keep reducing and will be clean in terms of inventory in Power & Discrete; here, speaking mainly about the noncedarbide portion. And this will allow the market dynamics next year to restart having year-over-year growth. Specifically, on season carbide as Jean-Marc has already anticipated, 2025 is a transition year, meaning is that we are experiencing lower volumes and inventory collection from our main customers. I would like to underline, this is happening while we still are maintaining stable our commercial contractual level of market share. This is happening since the beginning of 2025. And during 2025, we are -- this dynamic is not yet offset by Europe and China. So there is yet no strong contribution from the rectification programs in Europe and China. During the next year, we will start seeing growth in these 2 regions that will help the 2026 overall growth of the silicon carbide versus 2025. I hope that this answers your question.

Thank you, everyone. This is ending our call for this quarter. So thank you for being us today, and we remain here at your disposal should you need any follow-up questions. Sorry for the one that you don't have time to ask a question there. Thank you very much.

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