Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And just in general, if we go up to 100,000 feet on this question, for equipment like that that’s being installed in China, our view is that it’s not incremental if it weren’t allowed to be shipped there, that it would be shipped somewhere else in the world for production. So, we just view it as mainly location and we triangulate the amount of equipment we’re selling against the overall demand function. So, we view it as location, not incremental.

Timothy Arcuri: Okay, Brice. Thank you so much.

Brice Hill: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joe Quatrochi of Wells Fargo.

Joe Quatrochi: Yeah, thanks for taking the question. When we look at your ICAPS portfolio, how do we think about your technology leadership over some of the emerging competitors, and specifically in China, just given some of the comments around their efforts to localize their supply chain? I guess what other certain markets where you have broader leadership or more competitive advantage? I guess how do we think about that competition?

Gary Dickerson: Yeah, thanks for the question, Joe. So I would say we’re always focused on competition, even in non-critical process steps. And the main focus for us at Applied is to keep innovating in all areas of our portfolio and create deeper strategic relationships with the leaders in all device segments. In ICAPS, as we’ve talked about, four years ago, we formed that group, and this has paid off with share gains, helped us build deep strategic relationships with all the leading customers. And I’d say that those strategic relationships begin with the integration teams, whether it’s in the leading edge or in ICAPS is super important, because those technologies are always moving very quickly and learning faster than others is really important.

We’ve talked about in ICAPS, since we formed this group, we launched 20 major new ICAPS products. And I would tell you that we also have a strong pipeline of new innovations that will continue to strengthen our positions. The last thing I’d say in ICAPS is there are still — again, we have the strongest strategic position, broadest portfolio. We’re working with those integration teams on their next-generation technologies. But we also have room to grow in certain segments like etch and PDC. We have momentum in those segments, and that certainly is going to help us continue to gain share in the coming years.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question, please standby. Our next question comes from the line of Joseph Moore of Morgan Stanley.

Joseph Moore: Great. Thank you. I was surprised to see Services at a record level given the utilization issues in memory. Can you talk about that? And I mean, are you still — are you seeing headwinds from the memory side that are incremental and you’re just offsetting that with strength elsewhere? And kind of what does that tell us about where that business can go when utilizations come back up?

Brice Hill: Okay. Thanks, Joe. This is Brice. So yes, the Services business, 16 consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth. It was a record this quarter. And yes, the puts and takes there are that the transactional spares and the transactional activities that sort of are associated with utilization are significantly lower in the quarter. And then what we see that’s higher in the quarter that drove that growth was really the 200-millimeter equipment. So, we talk about ICAPS growth and the strength of those markets. And the 200-millimeter equipment is really what’s driving the significant upside in the Services business for the quarter. And then, on the second part of the question, incremental headwinds for memory. When we think about the memory market, there’s been discussion of when will it be turning around and when will we see upside.