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Operator: Good morning, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to Besi's quarterly conference call and audio webcast to discuss the company's 2025 fourth quarter and full year results. You can register for the conference call or log into the audio webcast via Besi's website, www.besi.com. Joining us today are Mr. Richard Blickman, Chief Executive Officer; and Mrs. Andrea Kopp, Senior Vice President, Finance. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded and cannot be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the company. I'd like to remind everyone that on today's call, we'll be making -- management will be making forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts maybe forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements reflect Besi's current views and assumptions regarding future events, many of which are, by nature, inherently uncertain and beyond Besi's control. Actual results may vary materially from those in the forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to factors that are discussed in the company's most recent periodic and current reports filed with the AFM. Such forward-looking statements, including guidance provided during today's call speak only as of this date, and Besi does not intend to update them in light of new information or future developments nor does Besi undertake any obligation to update the forward-looking statements. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Richard Blickman. Please go ahead.
Richard Blickman: Thank you. For today's call, we'd like to review the key highlights for our fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2025, and update you on the market, our strategy and outlook. First, some overall thoughts on the fourth quarter. Besi's revenue, gross margin and operating expense development in the fourth quarter '25 exceeded the favorable end of prior guidance. Revenue of EUR 166.4 million and orders of EUR 250.4 million, increased by 25.4% and 43.3% versus the third quarter of '25, due principally to a broad-based increase in demand by Asian subcontractors for 2.5D data center applications, renewed capacity purchases for photonics applications and a significant increase in hybrid bonding orders. Net income of EUR 42.8 million increased by 69.2% versus the third quarter of '25 due to higher revenue, increased gross margins from a more favorable product mix and lower-than-anticipated operating expense growth. Besi's progress in 2025 reflected the favorable influence of increased AI infrastructure spending on our business development. Orders of EUR 685 million increased by 16.8% versus 2024 due to strength in AI-related 2.5D demand for data center applications by Asian subcontractors and renewed capacity purchases for photonics applications. Growth accelerated in the second half of the year, with orders increasing 63.6% versus the first half of '25. Orders for AI applications represented approximately 50% of our total orders in '25 and revenue from Besi's computing end user market grew by approximately 40% of revenue in 2024 to 50% in 2025. For the year, revenue of EUR 591.3 million decreased by 2.7% versus 2024 due to lower shipments for mobile, automotive and industrial end user markets as a result of ongoing weakness in overall assembly markets. We continued to maintain attractive levels of profitability with gross operating and net margins realized of 63.3%, 29.3% and 22.3%, respectively. Given profits earned in 2025 and our solid liquidity position, we will propose a cash dividend of EUR 1.58 per share for approval at Besi's April AGM, which represents a 95% payout ratio. Liquidity remained strong at year-end with cash and deposits of EUR 543 million and net cash of EUR 36 million, increasing by EUR 24.4 million and EUR 43.8 million, respectively, versus September 30, '25. We distributed EUR 254.8 million in the form of dividends and share repurchases in 2025, roughly equal to levels of 2024. Next, I'd like to discuss the current market environment and our strategy. Tech insights currently forecast relatively flat assembly market growth between '24 and '25 driven by a push out of the anticipated assembly upturn from '25 to '26. However, they expect growth of 74% between '25 and 2030. Based on increased AI use cases and infrastructure spending, new product introductions, new fabs coming online and a recovery in mainstream assembly applications, we expect to significantly exceed such projected growth rates given our leadership position in advanced packaging. We are pleased with our operational progress in 2025 as we completed a comprehensive strategic plan review with enhanced revenue and profit targets and organized additional production capacity and infrastructure to help support that growth. We also experienced progress on our wafer level assembly agenda as hybrid bonding adoption expanded to 18 customers cumulative order grew to 150-plus systems and new use cases were identified for cold package optics, ASICs and consumer applications. In addition, 6 integrated hybrid bonding production lines were installed at a leading logic customer incorporating 30 Besi-hybrid bonders in collaboration with Applied Materials. The first 15-nanometer placement accuracy prototype system was also completed and available for customer qualification. Our position in the TC market was further enhanced as Besi's TC NXT adoption expanded to five customers for logic, memory and photonics applications. In addition, our Flip Chip and multi module die attach systems gained significant share in the market for AI-related 2.5D assembly structures addressing the rapid growth in demand for data center and photonics capacity. Further, we successfully introduced a variety of next-generation die bonding and packaging systems for each of our traditional mainstream markets as we prepare for the next market upturn. We see market conditions improving in overall mainstream assembly markets based on favorable semiconductor unit growth trends and a significant reduction of excess semiconductor inventory. Green shoots are appearing after an extended downturn of nearly 4 years in each of our principal end user markets. Customer road maps also point to expanded adoption of wafer-level assembly over the next 2 years related to hybrid bonding and TC NXT adoption in HBM 4, 4E, co-package optics, ASICs and new high-performance computing and mobile introductions. In addition, recent announcements of substantial AI-related infrastructure investments are expected to increase demand for advanced packaging. Increased AI investment has created capacity shortages for 2.5D packaging which has caused producers to secure increased production for many Asian subcontractors. Further, many new advanced packaging fabs are planned globally which should increase demand for our advanced packaging portfolio. Now a few words about our guidance. We entered '26 with increased optimism based on strong order momentum experienced in the second half of '25, which has continued to date in the first quarter of 2026. Our current optimism is based on anticipated growth in 3 promising Besi revenue streams, 3D wafer level assembly, AI-related to 2.5D capacity and more traditional mainstream assembly applications. Our optimism also relates to the significant increase in demand from Chinese subcontractors as the country builds out its AI infrastructure. For the first quarter '26, we anticipate that revenue will increase between 5% and 15% versus the fourth quarter of last year with gross margins ranging between 63% and 65%, aided by improved revenue and a more favorable advanced packaging product mix. Operating expenses are anticipated to increase by 10% to 15% as we maintain discipline in overhead growth while continuing to increase development spending to support long-term growth opportunities. That ends my prepared remarks. I would like to open the call for some questions. Operator?
Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Madeleine Jenkins from UBS.
Madeleine Jenkins: My first one is just, Samsung has publicly said that they'll be dual tracking hybrid bonding and TCB 4E in HBM and the samples are being sent to customers. I was just wondering if you could kind of help us understand from a customer's perspective, what would make them choose the hybrid bonding version versus the TCB and vice versa? And then on that, just generally, when are you expecting the first high-volume orders to come through for hybrid bonding for HBM?
Richard Blickman: Well, excellent, Madeleine, happy to share some more background. 2026 will be a very important year to understand the adoption of hybrid bonding for HBM stacking. As is publicly shared by Samsung in particular, keynote speech last week in Korea at the SEMICON is a very clear road map to adopt hybrid bonding for very important reasons and that is performance and also heat. And that, with all kinds of tests in previous years should be superior to using a reflow process to build these stacks. We are currently in the evaluation process, customer sample and qualification process. And as was published by that customer in the course of this year, early Q2, maybe Q2, May, June time frame, it should become clear how that inroad of hybrid bonding stacked in HBM 4, but also in the previous three, the 12 stack should find its way into the end markets. That is Samsung. As we all know, our other memory customer started already much earlier in testing and sampling hybrid bonded stacks and they are ready as soon as the market demands these technologies used for either HBM 4E or other stack devices. Also the 12 supposedly shows much better performance using a hybrid process than a refill process. And last but not least, the #3, the largest of all the memory -- the three memory producers, has also announced that it will start qualification of the hybrid bonding process in the second quarter of this year to also come towards the end of this year to the conclusion whether this is a technology used for high-volume mainstream in the generation of HBM 4 or whether that is in preparation of the next generation, the 20 stack. So all these tests, we will update you every quarter on the progress. Also, there's a lot of press coverage and those companies share that with the community also in conferences. So a very important year for hybrid adoption in the memory space.
Madeleine Jenkins: That's very helpful. And then just my second question is on China. They're clearly adding a lot of AI capacity. Kind of how sustainable do you see this demand as being? Is it multiple customers? And also how high is your market share in this region for the AI bit?
Richard Blickman: The market share is very high. To our surprise, we would have expected and, let's say, solid market share as we have with mass reflow for a long time, but our share has gone up significantly also among the Chinese. How sustainable that is? Well, the answer is that the world expects an enormous increase in building data centers. So for that 2.5D, some qualified that we are only at the beginning. Our position, as I said earlier, is very strong with a very solid market share. And that you can also derive from our margin, our ongoing margin, gross margin but also net margin development.
Operator: The next question comes from Sandeep Deshpande from JPMorgan.
Sandeep Deshpande: Richard, my question to you is regarding the logic market and the foundry market. I mean you've seen that some orders coming through in the last quarter on the foundry side. Do you expect that these orders from the foundry side continue into the first quarter? And when you say on your release that the order momentum remains strong in the first quarter, how would you quantify it? I mean, are we going to expect a strong sort of orders in the first quarter like you saw in the fourth quarter?
Richard Blickman: Well, the answer is, first of all, yes. So as we guided, continued momentum, that also means that we expect more orders in the logic space for hybrid bonders. And as we all know, the program in Taiwan entails several steps to build out a complete new factory. The first install start in June and operators have to be trained, maintenance has to be organized and that's all underway. And you can expect, as was also the case with the current factory, the AP6, that over the course of several quarters, that capacity will be built because supposedly demand is building. So that looks very promising.
Sandeep Deshpande: Then following up on that -- on the logic side, do you expect in the logic business this year that is '26 will be much better than in '25 because when you look at how your order intake was at the end of '24, you had about 100 cumulative hybrid bonding orders, you've had 150 at the end of '25. So there was a slight slowdown in terms of the order intake. And if this could accelerate now into '26? I mean, clearly, memory will also contribute to that, but will logic itself accelerate?
Richard Blickman: Well, as I just explained to your first question, if all goes according to public shared plans, it should increase because already AP7 is supposedly twice the size of AP6 and that's only one customer. So the adoption for logic is continuing. We saw that in the whole of '25. Again, we now have 18 customers, of which most are the far most are logic oriented customers with all kinds of different device designs. Remember, the first was AMD which has expanded its family throughout. And then we have many others now following. The big question here is when will the largest end customer have a product line using this technology, that should be on the horizon. So that then will create a significantly higher demand than what we have witnessed in '25. But that's according to the road map we've shared forever. There's a nice slide in our deck where we see a development in the past 5 years and an expected significant growth in the next 5 years. As we've said many times, that line of growth, it can have several variations, especially as you said, the adoption of memory will change that landscape significantly in terms of total volume required but we're still on track on that, let's say, road map, we, ourselves derived from what is happening in the market in the past 4 years, which we update every year. So that's in a nutshell, the overall picture, we should or we could expect.
Operator: The next question comes from Didier Scemama from Bank of America.
Didier Scemama: Richard, I have a couple of questions. So first question is on HBM. If everything goes according to plan and your two lead partners decided to put the trigger on TCB or TC NXT and hybrid bonding, can you give us a sense of the magnitude of orders sort of the volumes that would be required to create a production line? I've got a follow-up.
Richard Blickman: Well, as a rule of thumb, typically, one needs a factor more memory supporting a logic device. So when you take the rule of thumb of a factor of 4, then with the installed base so far for logic, which is now over 130 systems, shortly coming up 150. Then if you multiply that, then you know how much capacity you would -- or how many machines you would require to support the capacity for memory. It doesn't work exactly like that, but the factor for number of machines capacity required is significantly higher than for the logic. So that's a major step up what we can expect when that adoption occurs. But that, again, you see in that picture we share on the adoption scenarios.
Didier Scemama: Understood. Very clear. My second question is on mobile. So if you remember, like, obviously, a few years back, very high-end smartphone adoption bonding. Can you just give us a sense as to, first, whether we should expect the traditional order intake in the first quarter related to high-end smartphone, new features, cameras, et cetera? And then if you look a bit further out, how this is shaping up to be in terms of hybrid bonding adoption, whether it's '27 or further out in at least your best guess?
Richard Blickman: Well, this year, as we already shared a quarter ago, we should see some improvements or new updates on features on high-end smartphones. On the camera front, there are some new developments. But also maybe foldable versions are, let's say, on the road maps, and that requires also different solutions inside those cameras. So those are developments, which we see. But then the next question is what kind of computing power will need to support AI functions? And that is a big, let's say, question and that could have a significant impact and whether they are built with a reflow process or with a hard bonding process, chiplet architectures. As we've shared many times, there's a lot of development going on and certain road maps indicate those new major inflection points in technology, either already in '26 or certainly in '27. That is how it develops and there is no change in that road map. Does that answer your question?
Didier Scemama: Yes. Just had a quick follow-up. For your third quarter guidance, I just wonder why your order conversion is quite a lot lower than it normally is? So I think it's about 100% plus or minus. So why on EUR 250 million in Q4, you're sort of guiding to only EUR 185 million or so at the midpoint?
Richard Blickman: Well, a very easy answer. The orders were -- or let's say, the order placements were very much to the end of the quarter and the manufacturing throughput time for many of these orders, so take the high-end Flip Chip machines, the CHAMEOs, but also the multi-module attach, which is very much also for photonics, they take 12 to 16 weeks. So you simply can't physically arrange the shipment in the first quarter. So the answer also implies that you should see a significant impact on the second quarter.
Operator: The next question comes from Charles Shi from Needham & Company.
Yu Shi: The first one -- I want to go back to the comment about the hybrid bonding cumulative revenue orders, it was 150 plus by the end of last year. And if I do the math, and it looks like last year, the number of orders you got was actually more or less comparable with 2024. So the question here is what about 2026? What's the overall sense where the cumulative order number will go? 200 seems possible. I mean that basically assumes, I mean, flattish number of orders you're going to add this year versus 2025. But can you go to 250? Can you go to 300? And I mean, to go to higher numbers, what do you think needs to happen for -- yes?
Richard Blickman: Two things need to happen. Number one, the adoption of hybrid bonding for mainstream applications for logic devices next to what is already now using hybrid bonding. So think about the big AI providers, which are still building certain modules using mass reflow, using TC, if they switch to hybrid bonding, that could change the landscape dramatically. And number two is as we discussed to earlier question, is the adoption of hybrid bonding for memory stacking.
Yu Shi: Got it. But -- okay. So maybe I'll just go direct into memory. Now Samsung HBM 4E, that is the fact that it's happening. But I mean, on the other hand, if we understand correctly, the other 2 HBM customers have not even have a order from you -- hybrid bonding order from you. Why the hesitancy? That's the question I believe top of the mind for a lot of people here. And what's delaying them? And could they start getting some orders this year?
Richard Blickman: Well, it's -- the other two. One of them with the U.S. base. They have ordered already several hybrid bonders to develop HBM stacking for about 3 years now. It's also known publicly that the other one, the Korean, will start evaluating the hybrid bonding process in April-May time frame, we are invited for that, and they have publicly shared that their end customer demands them to have hybrid bonded version available by the end of this year. So although cost is higher using a hybrid process, performance is better in two ways. Number one is speed and number two is heat. So it is gradually moving from TC solutions for stacking to a hybrid version. And the big question, will this move in '26 or certainly in '27? That's how we read the inputs from all three and the biggest end customer driving, ultimately, the change in specification for these end products. Next question.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Robert Sanders from Deutsche Bank.
Robert Sanders: Yes. Good afternoon, Richard, maybe the first question would just be around the situation with Apple, which seems to be moving to using SoIC-X for the M5 Pro and M5 Max. Is that beachhead do you think going to be swiftly followed by other SKUs? Or is it going to remain do you think a relatively niche use of SoIC-X for high-end notebook type situations? And I have a follow-up.
Richard Blickman: Well, that's precisely put. So they're all preparing from a production and technology readiness to be able to adopt this technology shift when decided. For us, what we can do is continue to offer whatever qualification samples, testing to be ready for that. There is one big question out there, how much additional computing power will be required for AI functionality? And that is what we hear, still the question to be answered. How does that impact the choice of the technology used in these mobile devices? Because in the end, it will increase the cost but then the functionality is significantly more advanced. So that open debate, you follow at conferences directly from customer engineers, and also, we had our technology advisory board meeting 2 weeks ago in Taiwan, where there were also technology persons from the community sharing road maps and thoughts exactly on this subject.
Robert Sanders: And just quickly on China. Maybe you could just discuss a bit about what's happening in China. I mean I think it was 27% of your sales in the first half, but it has been higher than 45%. I mean it sounds like it's going to go up to close to 50%. Is that fair? And how do you think about the sustainability of that spending?
Richard Blickman: Well, so far, we've always had this typical mix. You have non-Chinese customers producing in China. Since 30 years, all non-Chinese customers have set up assembly capabilities in every technology and that is still today the case. Although there's a lot new established outside China and Asia, in Vietnam, in Thailand, in Malaysia, Philippines and then India, but that's still slow and coming. So to be less dependent upon China. And then you have the emerging Chinese technology, which is growing year by year. And as we said for the 2.5D modules, we are very much engaged in these Chinese versions. So supposedly, the cost of ownership using our equipment is beneficial for local compared to local alternatives. Don't forget, we built all these machines in China. We have a wonderful facility in Leshan, which is expected this year to surpass the peak it achieved in '21. So although there's a lot of expectation that, that will become less, we don't see that at all. But we are expanding in Vietnam. As many of you know, we have set up a factory 3 years ago. We're expanding that significantly this year. By the end of this year, we're also able to build one of our die attach systems in Vietnam. And then as I said earlier, the expansion in Thailand, in Malaysia, the whole Pacific Rim, is preparing to have next-generation products produced in those countries rather than establishing more capacity in China. But the Chinese market itself is growing rapidly. Any next question?
Operator: The next question comes from Daniel Schafei from Citi.
Daniel Schafei: Basically, the first one would be on TCB NXT. You mentioned 5 players. I was just wondering, just to clarify, this is a testing or are some of them already high-volume manufacturing? And then if hybrid bonding will take longer for some customers, what is your expectation now going forward for TCB, especially given you are now gaining traction within TCB NXT? That would be helpful to understand.
Richard Blickman: Well, number one, our system is designed for bond pad pitch below 20 micron. The world today is still above that, 25, 30. So the preparation with these five customers is to be ready once technology moves to smaller bond pad pitches and stretch the life of using a reflow process because the reflow has many advantages compared to hybrid bonding. One of them is simply cost. We have mentioned several times that our system has demonstrated even to be able to bond successfully at 10-micron bond pad pitches, and that comes very close to the crossover point with hybrid. So we cover the space between mass reflow Flip Chip and as mentioned earlier, very successful at this moment. And then the TC space where it becomes difficult for TC and then beyond that, the hybrid bonding. So gradually, always the industry moves to smaller geometries, and that is where exactly this TC NXT is aimed for. Your question, how much in high volume? Not yet. It's in the early stages in qualifications and in two areas. So in the logic space, so single die, but also one of the major memory producers is using TC NXT to prepare for the next generation. And that is what we mentioned last year when we received the order, 5 systems ready to go once that becomes the mainstream.
Daniel Schafei: Perfect. And just as a follow-up, then you mentioned also earlier the adoption of hybrid bonding within '26 or '27. Just to understand what your expectations are right now, do you see hybrid bonding being adopted between all the HBM layers or only within certain layers? Yes, that would be just interesting to understand.
Richard Blickman: Well, it can be a mix. There are different road maps showing a combination of a certain hybrid part of the stack and also a reflow part. So one has to go into a bit more detail to understand all of the road maps, but that is also why we have this 2-track development strategy that you have to cover both.
Daniel Schafei: Okay. Is it then dependent on the HBM structure itself, where I would say the mix is more a hybrid bonding. Basically, the taller you go. My question...
Richard Blickman: The reason -- sorry to interrupt you, is simply performance. If you connect direct copper-to-copper you have less heat in operating such as stack. And that allows you to get a higher power out of that stack and the higher the stack, the more, let's say, loss of power you have due to the heat. So a mix can already help in that performance.
Operator: The next question comes from Nabeel Aziz from Rothschild & Co Redburn.
Nabeel Aziz: So the first was just on hybrid bonding tool maturity. So I was just wondering if you could provide an update on the hybrid bonding tool maturity and progress that you're making on throughput and yield improvements?
Richard Blickman: Well, we've come a long way that after 4 years, you certainly can see enormous progress. And where do you see that progress is, number one, the predictability of any application. So understanding the right preparation time required and the preparation processes, remember, cleaning, tracking, wet, clean plasma. And that is the most, yes, let's say, process technology, which sets us apart from many others. There are many bonders in the world which can place accurately. But exactly that bond process is where it's all about. Where are we right now? As I said in the beginning, we certainly have -- but there's still a long way to go. The process itself is, each time you could say every day, improved. One of the issues is always throughput, so the time required to place the die accurately. And the faster you can do that, you have more output of that machine and that influences the cost of ownership. So that [ battle ] is identical to what we have gone through with mass reflow Flip Chip for 25 years every year, either focus on accuracy improvement or focusing on throughput. And that combination is exactly the same challenge we have with now over 130 hybrid bonders operating in the field for larger die, smaller die, stacking dies and that's where we are.
Nabeel Aziz: Very clear. And just a quick follow-up on that. A lot of your competitors are starting to develop hybrid bonding solutions of their own and in some cases, shipping R&D tools. So I just wondered how you see the competitive landscape in hybrid bonding evolving? And how competitive are your peers' tools with your own?
Richard Blickman: Well, what we did share end of October was the simple fact that for the next round in Taiwan, that was based on the outcome of a complete landscape evaluation where -- because the orders were placed with us and are placed with us, the outcome is what it is today. But if you look at the whole landscape, everyone understands that hybrids sooner or later will become the mainstream technology for advanced packaging. So that's why every bonder company is focused on this market. How can you maintain your leadership? Because after 10 years nearly where we started this development with that big Taiwanese customer, it's all what I just said along the accuracy and speed. So today, the 100-nanometer is sufficient covering the logic and the memory requirements as it looks today. In the next year, we have to move down 250 because of the next-generation technology. And then the accuracy and speed combination is what sets us apart from others. Also, what is very important is the partnerships in this change of technology inflection from the assembly reflow space to hybrid bonding, hybrid bonding has to occur in front end. And front end requires complete different support structure than what we have in back end. Through the partnership with Applied Materials, now for 5 years, we have come at the levels that is supporting the highest end customers in the industry. And that combination is unique. So that support, so not only having a successful bonder, but also how to support customers 24/7 in a front-end environment is a complete different challenge than in the back end. So we see certainly competitors trying to participate in this market as well. But there is a very clear challenge for us to maintain in that lead.
Operator: The following question comes from Ruben Devos.
Ruben Devos: I just had one on your prepared comments where you talked about new hybrid bonding use cases that were identified for co-packaged optics. I was curious, is that mostly referencing sort of the material you presented at the Investor Day in June? I think you talked about sort of NVIDIA Spectrum X, which requiring 36 hybrid bonding tests per device. I think earlier in this call, you talked a bit about the factor difference between memory and logic, but how does that shape up for maybe co-packaged optics? And yes, I think the mid case was also somewhere around 50 cumulative units through 2030. But with the prepared comments around new use cases, might that really be contributing this year or next year?
Richard Blickman: Well, that's a very, very big question. Number one, co-packaged optics is still in early days and a lot of development is going on with the use of hybrid bromine because the accuracy is required. So as shared in the Capital Markets Day or in the Investor Day, that is going on, that's continuous development. How many systems that entails? I can't tell you at this very moment. So that's -- you could qualify that as the next step in technology. So we first have the interconnect and co-packaged optics is a step beyond.
Ruben Devos: Okay. And maybe something unrelated, talking about the mainstream market, basically, that's what I was thinking about. It's -- I think you also talked about green shoots, right, after a full year downturn. I think you mentioned smartphones in the mobile market, obviously, automotive and industrial are two other end-user markets. 50% of your business might already be computing. But so yes, a bit more color on maybe what you're seeing across the industry? What are maybe the die bonder utilization rates at this point? That would be very helpful.
Richard Blickman: Well, we have seen, as we said, green shoots. We see some of our main customers for years in automotive and industrial after a long time showing signs and having new programs where equipment will be required, which gives a positive outlook for '26. That is referenced to Techinsights, which also expects the market to carefully improve in '26, more sizable in '27. So that's how our comment is also based on. What we have seen in these 4 years of very modest capacity increase only for new devices. We have seen development of many new devices ready for next-generation electronics, especially power devices for automotive, supposedly for hybrid application. So hybrid cars, I mean, not hybrid bonding. So in power, there's a lot happening. But still, the overall picture is not recovering to the extent which we are used to. But the growth in the other areas is so significant that, that offsets the -- yes, usually, our revenue, we've shared that forever. Automotive was between 15% and 20% of revenue. Now it's somewhere around 10% to 15%, depends on which quarter. It probably will drop in the next quarters or it has to turn. But that's about -- well, it is 10% to 15% of revenue.
Operator: The following question comes from Marc Hesselink from ING.
Marc Hesselink: Yes. Can we have a bit more view on the 2.5D photonics opportunity? I think that is sort of a momentum that's been building up throughout the year in '25. And I think with an extremely strong end with the order intake towards the end of the year, can you maybe see -- I would assume that in this business, maybe the -- because it's strategic investments, the visibility is a bit higher than in your usual mainstream product portfolio. So can you maybe see -- how do you see this ramping the capacity? Is it just a few quarters? Or is this a longer-term trend? Is this going to accelerate from where you are today? It would be very helpful if we get some extra detail there.
Richard Blickman: Well, there are two growth drivers. Number one is simply the data center, let's say, capacity built in the world. So the connectors to connect those computers inside those, yes, data center units, that is what we have been involved in for the past -- over 10 years. But the second driver is that there is a technology step and that will require twice the amount of steps, the interconnect steps in these connectors than the current generation. So there is definitely more growth ahead of us for these two drivers. So not just the growth in data centers, but also in technology. I mentioned already, 10 years -- that started, well, over 10 years ago with Cisco modems. And these connectors, it's a set of 5 main customers, and they all produce for the very big end customer. And as long as that is growing as the world expects, we are directly linked to that. Does that answer your question?
Marc Hesselink: Yes, it does. And maybe as a follow-up on that. Now that you're also seeing a lot of that volume coming from the OSAT. Is it then fair to assume that implies that it becomes even more mainstream and even more adoption beyond what you just mentioned?
Richard Blickman: Yes, certainly. Certainly. And that's also publicly known that the IDMs, as usual, they offload more mature products to the subcontractor space and the more complex the technology, the more attractive that is for the subcontractor space. And we know the big two leaders, both starting with an A. But then there are many subcontractors who are also involved in this expansion into mainstream for data center computing applications. Any further questions?
Operator: The following question comes from Martin Marandon-Carlhian from ODDO BHF.
Martin Marandon-Carlhian: My first question is on the new fab of your Taiwanese customer, the AP7. Do you think the vast majority of the demand there will come from new customers adopting hybrid bonding? Or do you also expect AMD to be a big contributor since the announcement of its deal with OpenAI? That's the first one.
Richard Blickman: Well, what we hear, and I was just there 2 weeks ago, there are several big companies, and we all know the names, either for high-end smartphones or for data center computing who are supposedly on the brink of changing from reflow process designs to hybrid bonded designs in whatever end products. And that is the driver for a factory, which is twice the size of what is currently the AP6. But then there is a next plan, AP7 is not the end. So there are major plans. So look at the model, which is shared by many of the front-end companies, what they expect in the next 3 years, the demand for AI translated into capacity that similar model you can use for the advanced packaging. So the next note plus an enormous expansion in end market demand. Whether that will -- as presented, we all know this industry but anyway, that's the picture driving the programs in Taiwan.
Martin Marandon-Carlhian: Okay. Very clear. And the second one is a bit of a different one, is on high-bandwidth flash HBF, some expect HBF to be necessary to improve the memory capacity in future AI chip packaging. So my question is just what do you think about this? Do you think it's a driver for hybrid bonding or TCB? Is it part of the current discussion with your customer? Or is it not really relevant in the near future?
Richard Blickman: Well, I can't answer that. Yes, simply, I have no, let's say -- if I would, I would answer it, of course, for you, but time will tell, and we are certainly following that closely.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at the end of the presentation. I would now like to hand the word over to Mr. Richard Blickman for any closing remarks.
Richard Blickman: Well, thank you all for joining us today. And in case you have any further questions, don't hesitate to contact us. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, you may now disconnect.