Equipment and Materials ♦ news digest
the same period last year and 14 percent down on the previous quarter (Q4/2013: €51.1 million).
The company’s gross profit increased significantly year-on-year from €-47.7 million to €10.8 million, as no significant unusual items occurred in Q1/2014 (Q1/2013: €43.0 million inventory write-downs). Sequentially, gross profit was 38 percent lower than in the previous quarter, mainly due to a less favourable product mix (Q4/2013: €17.4 million).
Operating expenses reduced significantly both sequentially and year-on-year to €21.7 million (Q1/2013: €28.6 million; Q4/2013: €30.0 million). This reduction was partially due to restructuring charges included in the previous years’ figure and reflects the company’s ongoing focus on cost management.
Consequently, EBIT for Q1/2013 also improved both year-on- year and sequentially and came in at €10.9 million (Q1/2013: €76.3 million). The net result for Q1/2014 amounted to €11.8 million compared to the same €76.0 million quarter last year.
Aixtron’s equipment order intake, still at low levels, was up year-on-year and at €37.7 million showed an increase of €7.8 million from the €29.9 million in Q1/2013.
Martin Goetzeler, President & Chief Executive Officer of Aixtron SE said, “We do sense that sentiment among customers is improving as the growth in the LED market drives the customers’ profitability. According to leading market research firms, the LED market demand will continue to grow. This positive outlook in combination with our new MOCVD tool to be launched in the second half of this year underlines our confidence in our future development.”
Goetzeler continued, by reiterating the importance of consistent R&D investments. He says, “Independent of current market developments, we continue to maintain a strong focus on R&D, providing for a competitive technology portfolio and supporting future business development. We will continue to monitor these investments very closely - in line with our ongoing focus on cost management and the improvement of processes which are amongst others central elements of our 5-Point-Program.”
Guidance
Management reiterates its guidance made at the end of February for 2014, for this year’s revenues to be in line with those of last year. Concurrently, the company is not expected to be profitable on an EBIT basis over the course of this year. Nevertheless, Management expects a year-on-year improvement in earnings due to progress made in cost savings and restructuring.
Emcore launches two- channel portable terahertz spectrometer
The new tool expands tetrahertz systems capabilities to include two-channels enabling simultaneous transmission and reflection measurements
The total equipment order backlog of €64.2 million as at March 31st, 2014 was 10 percent higher than the 2014 opening backlog of €58.1m, revalued as of January 1st, 2014, at the US-Dollar exchange rate of 1.35 USD/EUR valid at that time. Compared to the same time in the previous year, it was 18 percent lower (March 31st, 2013: €78.4 million).
Research and development costs in Q1/2014 decreased year-on-year by 17 percent to €13.7 million (Q1/2013: €16.6 million ; Q4/2013: €15.8 million) but at 31 percent of revenues still remained at a relatively high level. This underlines the important strategic significance of Aixtron’s internal R&D capabilities.
Incurred losses and tax payments meant that free cash flow dropped to €13.8 million in Q1/2014 (Q1/2013: €9.3 million). Cash and cash equivalents (including bank deposits with a maturity of more than three months) as of March 31st, 2014 amounted to €292.0 million (December 31st, 2013: €306.3 million).
Management Review June 2014
www.compoundsemiconductor.net 105
Emcore Corporation has announced its latest breakthrough in terahertz technology with the release of the new PB7220-2000- T/R two-channel portable frequency domain Terahertz (THz) spectrometer.
PB7220-2000-T/R
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