Amkor Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMKR) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Amkor Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMKR) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 5, 2024

Amkor Technology, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Amkor Technology Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Diego and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Jennifer Jue, Head of Investor Relations. Ms. Jue, please go ahead.

Jennifer Jue: Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Amkor’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today are Giel Rutten, our Chief Executive Officer; and Megan Faust, our Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings press release was filed with the SEC this afternoon and is available on the Investor Relations page of our website, along with the presentation slides that accompany today’s call. During this presentation, we will use non-GAAP financial measures. And you can find the reconciliation to the U.S. GAAP equivalent on our website. We will make forward-looking statements about our expectations for Amkor’s future performance based on the environment as we currently see it.

Of course, actual results could differ. Please refer to our press release and SEC filings for information on risk factors, uncertainties, and exceptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from these expectations. Please note that the financial results discussed today are preliminary and final data will be included in our Form 10-K. And now I would like to turn the call over to Giel.

Giel Rutten: Thank you, Jennifer. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining the call today. After a strong third quarter, Amkor delivered a solid fourth-quarter performance with revenue of $1.75 billion and EPS of $0.48, both at or above the high-end of guidance. For full-year 2023 revenue of $6.5 billion was down 8% from prior year, better than the double-digit semi-market decline. Weak macroeconomic conditions, excess inventory, and growing geopolitical tensions made 2023 a challenging year for Amkor, but several highlights also made it an exciting year. We celebrated our 55th anniversary and our 25th anniversary as a U.S.-listed public company. We had a grand opening of our new Vietnam factory, and we announced our plan for an advanced packaging and test facility in the United States.

In this challenging business environment, Amkor elevated its leadership position by maintaining focus on its three strategic pillars. Our technology leadership in advanced packaging enabled us to gain market share in premium tier smartphones and grow in 2.5D technology for AI products and in ADAS and power solutions for automotive. Our continued investments in a global manufacturing footprint offers our customers a secure and reliable semiconductor manufacturing supply chain. And our engagements in the secular growth markets strengthened by longstanding partnerships with lead customers in key markets like AI, high-performance, computing, and automotive. Now let me review the dynamics in each of our end-markets. Revenue on our communication markets increased 4% for full year 2023, setting a new annual record.

This record was achieved despite overall smartphone units declining for the second year in a row. Market share gains within the iOS ecosystem drove this increase by utilizing our advanced SiP technology. Amkor holds a leading position throughout premium tier smartphones built on our technology expertise and our proven track record as a trusted partner for co-developing innovative solutions and delivering operational excellence. For 2024, we expect a modest low-single-digit increase in the phone units with further improvement in the Android supply chain during the year. Revenue in our automotive and industrial business declined 4% for full year 2023. Advanced packaging revenue increased 6% year-on-year, driven by ADAS and industrial applications.

We continue to see growth in high-power silicon carbide solutions for electrical vehicles, utilizing our unique package capability in our Japan factory. Our qualified manufacturing lines in multiple geographies such as Korea, Japan, and Portugal, and our broad technology portfolio ranging from advanced packaging, wire bond, and power are important differentiators. In 2023, we continue to invest in capacity and capability in this market, specifically for silicon carbide in our Japan and Portugal factories. Revenue from the computing end-market decreased 11% year-on-year. The robust demand for leading-edge advanced packaging supporting AI and HPC applications partly offset the decreases in PC and storage applications. Amkor leads the OSAT supply chain in 2.5D technology for AI devices, integrating high-bandwidth memory and ASIC on interposers, combined with module attach on substrates.

To support the strong demand for AI devices we doubled capacity exiting 2023 and with our planned investments coming online in the second quarter of 2024, we will have more than tripled our capacity compared to the second quarter of 2023. We expect the 2.5D demand will continue to increase in 2024, and we plan to support our customers in line with market growth. The consumer end-market declined 38% for the full year. Multiple headwinds including reduced consumer spending, excess inventory, and product changeovers in the IoT wearable market and drove the decline. Within consumer, we support a broad portfolio of solutions for IoT wearables, as well as the traditional consumer products. We are engaged in the next-generation products with our lead customers that will ramp production in the course of 2024.

During the fourth quarter, our manufacturing organization focused on optimizing capacity for 2.5D technology in Korea, and on qualifying advanced SiP and memory technology in Vietnam. Geopolitical dynamics continue to impact the semiconductor supply chain. Globally, our customers are evaluating their supply-chain strategies to reduce risk and to secure a resilient and cost-effective manufacturing base. Amkor’s broad geographic footprint is a key differentiator and positions us uniquely to support our customers and to benefit from this shift in global supply chains. In Asia, we recently opened our new Vietnam manufacturing campus. In Japan, we are expanding R&D and manufacturing capability to offer a secure supply chain for automotive semiconductors, including silicon carbide.

In Europe, we are partnering with lead customers and foundries to support a seamless European automotive supply chain with investments in technology for MEMS, wafer-level fan-out, flip chip, and silicon carbide powered devices in our Portugal factory. In the U.S. with support of major customers and partners, we recently announced our plans to build an advanced packaging and test facility in Arizona. We are in discussion with the CHIPS Program Office on funding and continue to work on establishing a facility to provide high-volume, leading-edge technologies to support critical markets such as high-performance computing, automotive, and communications. Now let me turn to our first-quarter outlook. We expect the first quarter to be impacted by two main factors.

First, after a record 2023, we expect a more than seasonal decline in our iOS-related business. Secondly, we observed continued weakness in the automotive and industrial end-market due to inventory corrections, specifically for microcontrollers and ADAS applications. We expect first-quarter revenue of $1.35 billion. This represents a year-on-year decline of 8%. For the full year of 2024, we foresee the first half of the year to remain muted but anticipate a strong second-half recovery with growth higher than typical seasonality. Second-half accelerated growth is supported by additional 2.5D capacity coming online mid-year, a meaningful ramp of a new consumer wearable program, and further rebalancing of inventories within Android, automotive, memory, and PCs. We believe that the secular growth drivers for the semiconductor industry remain in place.

And with our leading technology portfolio, scale, and global footprints we are confident to accelerate as the industry exits the current cycle. With that, I will now turn the call over to Megan to provide more detailed financial information.

Megan Faust: Thank you, Giel, and good afternoon, everyone. Fourth quarter revenue of $1.75 billion was down 4% sequentially. This was slightly softer than historical seasonality and was driven by customer inventory control, particularly within the automotive and industrial, and computing end markets. Although revenue declined sequentially, gross margin for the fourth quarter improved 40 basis points to 15.9%, as a result of continued disciplined cost management. Fourth quarter gross profit was $279 million. Operating expenses for this quarter came in as expected at $120 million, and includes onboarding costs to prepare our new Vietnam facility for high-volume manufacturing later this year. Operating income was $159 million and operating income margin remained flat sequentially at 9.1%.

Net income for the fourth quarter was $118 million, resulting in EPS of $0.48. Fourth quarter EBITDA was $326 million and EBITDA margin was 18.6%. Now let’s turn to our full-year 2023 performance. Revenue of $6.5 billion was down 8% year-on-year. While a down year, this is an outperformance compared to the semiconductor industry. Gross margin for the year was 14.5% and gross profit was $943 million. During times of lower utilization, it is critical to manage our manufacturing costs to preserve profitability. Our disciplined approach resulted in a 10% reduction in both labor and other manufacturing costs. Net income for the year was $360 million, resulting in EPS of $1.46. EBITDA was $1.13 billion, and EBITDA margin was 17.4%. CapEx for 2023 was $749 million and 11.5% capital intensity.

We reduced our equipment spend by approximately 45% from 2022, while continuing to invest in our global manufacturing footprint by completing construction of our new Vietnam facility. Our financial performance showed great resilience in 2023. We achieved a record free cash flow of $534 million reflecting efficient operations. Our financial strength allows us to continue to invest in our future growth, both in technology development to support leading-edge advanced packaging solutions, as well as our manufacturing footprint. Our geographically diversified portfolio of factories has proven to be a key differentiator in supporting regionalization of supply chains. We ended the year with $1.6 billion of cash and short-term investments and total liquidity of $2.3 billion.

Our total debt as of the end of the year is $1.2 billion and our debt-to-EBITDA ratio is 1.1 times. Moving on to our first-quarter outlook, we expect Q1 revenue of around $1.35 billion, representing a year-on-year decline of 8%. With the continued industry cycle and Q1 being the seasonally lowest quarter, profitability will be constrained given underutilization. And we expect gross margin to be between 11.5% and 14%. We expect Q1 operating expenses of around $130 million, which includes an annual reset of employee compensation levels as well as cost to support the onboarding of our new Vietnam factory. We anticipate a higher level of operating expense in the first half of 2024 until we begin high-volume manufacturing in Vietnam, projected for the second half of this year.

We expect our full-year effective tax rate to be around 18%. First quarter net income is expected to be between $8 million and $48 million, resulting in EPS of $0.03 to $0.19. Our CapEx forecast for 2024 is around $750 million. Our investments will focus on key advanced packaging technology solutions, specifically 2.5D in the computing market and advanced SiP supporting the consumer market, as well as expansion of certain factories. We recently announced our plans to build an advanced packaging and test facility in the United States. We are in the early planning stages and do not expect a material CapEx spend for this project in 2024. We have a target to be ready for high-volume manufacturing in approximately two to three years. We are excited to see the technology advancements in the industry and believe the secular growth drivers are intact.

Amkor is a technology leader with decades of experience. Our culture of operational excellence coupled with the broadest geographic footprint of all OSATs positions us well to support the world’s leading semiconductor companies. With that, we will now open the call up for your questions. Operator?

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Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you. And at this time we’ll conduct our question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Craig Ellis with B. Riley Securities. Please state your question.

Craig Ellis: Yeah. Thanks so much for taking the question. And Giel and Megan congratulations on calendar ’23s year of accomplishment. The first thing I wanted to do is just follow up on some of the communications comments regarding the above seasonal first-quarter decline. So, I think a lot of us have seen data points that the Android market is starting to recover, obviously, the iOS market faces significant calendar 1Q seasonality every year. Can you just go into a little bit more detail on what some of the puts and takes are inside of that segment and help us understand what’s leading to the above seasonal decline?

Giel Rutten: Hello, Craig. Yes, let me start doing that and Megan can later on give some more details. What we see in the first quarter are a couple of dynamics here. First of all, the first quarter comes on the back of a record 2023 and actually a record fourth quarter in 2023. We see a seasonal correction in the first quarter, that is higher-than-normal but is at the same order of magnitude as what we have seen in 2023. If we take iOS and Android, I mean, both ecosystem — revenue from both ecosystems is down. Android in line with expectation with some uptick in Q4, but still a decline in Q1. In the iOS ecosystem, we see an above seasonal correction. There are couple of elements that are resulting in that above seasonal correction in the iOS ecosystem.

First of all, we have accelerated bills in the fourth quarter for some specific SiP programs. And that’s is corrected in the fourth — in the first quarter. And we see some forecast corrections for system and package programs and that results from product mix and some operational yield improvements on existing products. All-in-all I think that results in an above average correction for communication in the first quarter.

Craig Ellis: That’s very helpful, Giel.

Giel Rutten: Okay.

Craig Ellis: If I could move on and ask a longer-term question on the broader business, encouraging to hear the team’s view for the second half of 2024 being above seasonal but in light of what we’re hearing from some analog bellwethers about murky visibility in areas like auto and industrial. Can you just list the three or four things that are giving you confidence that the second half can be above seasonal? And are you saying that your businesses across the different end markets will be out of the cyclical correction by then? Thank you.

Giel Rutten: Yeah. First, let me refer to your first part of the question, is the industrial and automotive corrections that we have indeed seen starting Q4 and moving further into Q1. We expect that these corrections related to specifically these two market segments, industrial and automotive, and then very specifically also for the microcontroller segments in both markets. We expect that to continue certainly in the first quarter and going into the second quarter. However, after conversations with key customers on Amkor’s side, we expect a more balanced inventory situation going into the second half of the year. And with that balanced inventory, we expect the recovery of these businesses. Now we are not exposed to some of the shared — the more commoditized markets. So we are only exposed for our wire bond and lead frame business to — mostly to automotive microcontrollers.

Megan Faust: So Craig, just to build on your second part of the question, as far as what gives us confidence for that higher-than-second-half growth, we are going to have incremental capacity online to support the 2.5D business. So we’re anticipating further growth there as well as ramping a consumer IoT product in the second half. So those are two other factors, that I would say coupled with Giel’s comments. As far as our anticipation that we’ll probably start to see further inventory balancing, within memory and PC. And just to kind of give some context on the shape of 2024, we’re expecting the second half could be as strong or stronger than 2022. So back in our peak 2022 growth year, the second half had 30% growth over the first half. And given the dynamics, we’re seeing with the muted first half, we see the second half could be as strong or stronger.

Craig Ellis: That’s a really helpful color. If I could sneak in one more. Appreciated the additional disclosure in the press release regarding cost of sales breakout with respect to gross margin and how we get to levels over the last couple of quarters and last couple of years. Megan is that a disclosure plan to continue to provide? And as we think about those inputs, any change to how we think about the revenue upside and downside fall through versus prior plus and minus 40% commentary. Thank you.

Megan Faust: Sure. Yeah. The disclosures we’ve included in our press release, we would expect to continue that going forward, Craig. And I would say, no change in our expectations in the financial model for generally an incremental flow-through of around 40%. And looking at full-year ’23, this was a bit higher on a down year. We were under pressure with increasing material content and that’s what caused that flow through to be different. I would point too there was still a healthy reduction in manufacturing costs, which we would characterize as cost-of-goods-sold, less — excuse me, materials, reducing 6.6% on a decrease in revenue of 8%. And looking at Q1, very good flow-through, less than 40% on the down revenue which does demonstrate disciplined cost management.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question comes from Randy Abrams with UBS. Please state your question.

Randy Abrams: Okay. Yes. Thank you. The first question I wanted to follow up, it was good color to Craig’s question on the second half, half-on-half. I was curious just between the second quarter, I think one, gets the communications coming off below seasonal if you expect correction to extend in the second quarter or that starts to pick up. And then maybe just broadly on the second quarter, if you could remind us what a normal — I think there is always a range what a normal Q2 looks like, and if you see a seasonal pickup off for lower first quarter.

Giel Rutten: Okay, Randy. Let me try to give some color on these elements. First of all, related to the second-half communication business, there were identifiable — let’s say, reasons for higher than seasonal correction in the first quarter. We expect that our overall position in the market is strong, we have a very strong product pipeline and deep engagements with lead customers. So in the second half of this year which — the new phone range is coming online there. We expect an above-average growth rate because we also see that the Android market will continue to recover in the course of this year. So overall, we are very confident with the second half of this year ramp for communications.

Megan Faust: And Randy, just as a reminder, what our typical second-quarter seasonality would be that can range anywhere from flattish to up — low-single digits. I would say it’s pretty difficult to give that level of precision for Q2. At this time, we’re not guiding second quarter, so that’s why we gave the commentary on the first half, second half shape.

Randy Abrams: Okay. Yeah. It sounds like, still conservative given auto industrial, and usually we get the flagship in the second half, so it’s more second-half weighted, okay. The question, I had — okay, the second question I had just on the CapEx where it looks similar levels and remaining lower capital-intensive than the historical. The equipment ramp quite a bit in 2023, would — how was the mix shift between equipment versus construction? Do you still have ongoing Vietnam or other buildouts or does the shift continue to be a growth in equipment within that $750 million mix?

Giel Rutten: Yeah, that’s a good observation, Randy. So for this year, CapEx spend, we see a shift from the initial profile that we have in 2023 with a large part of our CapEx related to facilities. And the — let’s say building of our Vietnam factory, in 2024 it will be reversed. We will significantly increase our CapEx for equipment and reduce the CapEx for buildings and facilities. So the second half, our CapEx will increase for equipment about 50% on a year-on-year basis, based on opportunities that we see in the market. Megan, any details…

Megan Faust: Yeah. Randy, so hopefully that explains that the equipment portion of our CapEx spend is going to increase to approximately 50% in 2024. We do have some I would say facility expansions that are more localized to Portugal, as well as Taiwan, and also expanding — planning to expand the Vietnam and an additional module. But generally, the shift, as Giel mentioned will move more towards machinery and equipment, that will primarily be focused on advanced packaging. As we’ve mentioned our 2.5D capacity coming online mid-year, as well as advanced SiP.