LPKF Laser & Electronics AG

Hello, everybody, and welcome to our earnings call for the financial year 2025. My name is Bettina Schafer, and I'm responsible for Investor Relations at LPKF.

I'm pleased to be joined today by our CEO, Klaus Fiedler, and our CFO, Peter Mummler. Klaus and Peter will walk you through the business development for 2025 and provide an outlook for the current financial year.

After that, we will open the floor for your questions in a Q&A session. The conference will be recorded and published for a period of 2 weeks on our website.

Before we begin, please note that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.

We do not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. With that, I would like to hand over to Klaus.

Thank you very much, Bettina. Hello, and welcome, everybody, to our annual results 2025.

I want to lead in with the key takeaways of the year. Looking at our revenue, we are at EUR 115.3 million, so down 6.2% from previous year and at the lower end of our adjusted guidance.

Our EBIT improved from EUR 0.1 million to EUR 0.8 million adjusted EBIT, which basically shows that despite a decline in revenue, our cost-saving measures more and more are visible also in our bottom line. I want to quickly lead into when you look at the right-hand side, our distribution across the regions.

You can see that our business distribution, North America and Asia is growing, while Europe basically now constitutes less than 1/4 of our revenue. Dominantly, our markets, our growth are shifting step-by-step outside of Europe.

When we look at order intake, we are at EUR 91.6 million, significantly below previous year, which also reflects the backlog. The main impact factor that we have here in order entry also in revenue for 2025 is that we are going through a slow phase in our Solar business, which is driven by the upcoming technology shift to Perovskites, I'll come to that in a minute, that reflected also our order backlog and our order intake, which was very strong in the previous years in Solar.

Looking at other business fields, despite, of course, the headwinds we had with the tariff situation, we had a moderate growth in Rapid Prototyping. We exceeded our planning and expectations in Welding, mainly driven by a large order in the consumer field coming out of China.

Looking at advanced packaging, we don't make these numbers transparent yet, only for the packaging semicon sector, it's still in the low 8 figures. But from a positioning point of view, above our expectations.

Looking at all the customers that are preparing for ramp-ups for glass and advanced packaging, over 80% are now qualifying with LPKF equipment, which gives us a sound basis for the upcoming ramp-ups. What we are doing, we basically treat this as an entry ticket into this market and are right now expanding our portfolio with the goal of becoming strategically relevant in the large growth field.

For ARRALYZE, we took the decision to discontinue our internal activities and transfer the business to a suitable external partner. That is driven basically by the fact that our market entry is targeted at academic customers, funding for public institutions in Europe and also specifically in the U.S.

is quite shaky at the moment. So we see that this would be a longer way to get into this market as anticipated.

We need to focus. We need to watch cost.

So here, we took the decision to basically look for an external partner to continue these activities. Peter will say more about the North Star program in the course of this presentation.

We have a good start. Part of the journey is completed.

Part of the savings are already realized, and we are now in a second wave to secure a double-digit profitability in a volatile market environment in 2028. And we also finished a new financing framework with our existing banking consortium to basically make sure we have the right funding for this transformation.

Now a couple more details on our market situation. You know the increasing global tensions that are happening.

We had the tariff impact in '25. We currently have the Iran situation.

So this clearly overall creates headwinds for LPKF. There is more reluctance to invest than in a normal environment, and the investments that are happening, the deals that can be made are increasingly generated outside of Europe.

We are below 25% share of sales in Europe now. The semiconductor industry transformation towards glass-based substrates is clearly beyond the point of no return.

So several external sources, all the announcements of the large players, drive it. Positioning is very good, but not yet in '25 reflected in true volume sales.

The qualification of the whole process chain took longer than also expected by our customers, but is driven with full force and is making the right progress. Our SMT markets were impacted because large-scale projects needed to reshuffle based on the tariff situation.

This was just effect of, the demand is there, but given the tariff situation, all production chains could no longer be executed as planned. The tariffs would have destroyed the business case.

So our customers needed to replan where do we do which process step in our business case. So we had delays in there, but definitely not the overall market drive going away.

We see that it's only a delay and definitely not that projects are going away. What do we see in the solar market?

You know in the solar market, we are active in the U.S., but also in China. What we see in the U.S.

is that also the tariff situation required a complete reshuffling of the operational flows of our large key customer, which definitely weakened investment and allowed them to -- or forced them to focus their activities on setting up their production chain that it works in this tariff situation. And also in China, we see that overall investment appetite is low and where deals are to be made, there's a strong push to local-for-local, so an intensifying competition for solar scribing.

Overall, and that's now a continued situation that we see, we are operating in an environment with persistent volatility, geopolitical tensions and also fragile supply chains. Looking at business development.

In advanced packaging, our positioning, and we have mapped really every customer in the world that is active in the field, is working very well. We see more than 80% of customers choosing LPKF for their qualifications.

We are also selling well into these qualification lines, but that's not yet the volume push we are now expecting for the future, but a very solid basis for this. We are seeing very clearly and also monitoring that many players definitely want a piece of that pie.

So our IP situation and the work we put into this business in the past 10 years is now becoming very important to make sure we defend the market share we are targeting here. And as already mentioned, we know the full process chains.

We know due to our contacts where also the future needs lie, we are using the opportunity to broaden our portfolio right now to become a strategically relevant partner in that field. Looking at Rapid Prototyping, we had a positive development under expectations, but positive year-over-year.

Strong North America demand, the U.S. government shutdown in Q4 dampened the order entry a bit in Q4, but the overall trend and our market positioning remains positive.

As mentioned, in Electronics, the tariffs delayed projects in the SMT market. We still could grow year-over-year with our cutting systems, but the over organic growth we clearly expect and which is driven by the fundamental shift away from mechanical milling to laser singulation, that was clearly dampened in '25 because a lot of production chains needed to reshuffle.

In Welding, automotive continues to be weak, and that was part of our planning. But our strategic shift to other application areas, consumer and medical, definitely worked well in '25.

We are significantly above plan in that area, driven by a large bulk order. And we also were able to win a substantial volume order in the smart robotics field in '25 with further orders coming in '26, which gives us a solid foundation for this transformation we are in Welding.

Solar, we had a weak and significantly below-plan year in '25. Operational execution was perfect, but overall, the situation that the market is focusing on the shift to perovskites, but perovskites not yet being mature for volume ramp-up, that results in a phase of low investment demand.

We consider the perspective for Solar very good with the transition to perovskites. So we definitely want to continue full force with our activities, but we had a '25, and we also expect a '26 where demand and revenue is significantly below historic figures.

We are supporting all these customers with perovskites prototyping lines, of course, but that's a different revenue bracket than fitting a full high-volume factory. Looking at operations.

We launched our North Star program to structurally reduce cost. Peter will tell a little bit more about that, and we have already gone a good step along the way, but are continuing with a true structural change of LPKF to be ready for a world that is in constant volatility.

We are targeting through these measures, but of course, also through the measures of realizing growth, specifically in advanced packaging, a double-digit EBIT margin for '28. And we are safeguarding our innovation investments.

IP is becoming more and more important for us. We are focusing our markets.

Definitely, the advanced packaging is set up the way we expect it to be set up, and we see a lot of future perspective in that market. There, we do a focus in areas where we do not see the progress, be it external factors or not that we expect, we focus stronger and also discontinue where we say this will not bring the payback in the time we expected it.

And as mentioned, syndicated loan agreement is redrafted, extended to '28, securing a solid financing for LPKF. Next slide, please.

Just a bit of an insight, advanced packaging field, you all know very well what we are doing with glass structuring with LIDE. We are still in a positioning phase, not due to us.

Our customers confirm LPKF is ready, but due to the whole production chain needing to reach volume maturity, we see the ramp-ups coming, and I'm happy to report how that reflects in our figures when we look at Q1, Q2 results. We expect ramp-up phase '27, '28; high-volume '29, 2030.

We have been positioning us with two additional highly differentiated process steps in that field to immediately broaden our footprint and gain strategic relevance, that's ABF singulation and glass bonding. And we are in a market assessment phase in co-packaged optics, the logical next step where the glass is used for data transmission between the individual chips in a package.

Most of you will know that 3 years ago, we started already a partnership with a large U.S. semiconductor company.

So we already have a track record and the right technologies for this field. With that, I will hand over to Peter, who will walk you in more detail through the financial figures.

Hello, everybody. I want to give you a little bit more insights about our financial year 2025.

And it shows a little -- really a diverse picture in our world. When we go to the next page.

As Klaus mentioned, that -- in the revenue, we had a challenging year. We are on our communicated guidelines on the lower end was still a raise towards Q4, but we are in the range.

Klaus gave a little bit about -- feedback about this. And then later on, we showed a little bit more about our business units where the diverse picture comes from.

The EBIT development is strongly hit by restructuring measures. We already mentioned that we started North Star -- and you see this on the lower end in employees where we -- on the one side, we are really reducing significant headcount, and these are special costs, restructuring costs, what we have here considered and therefore, this development of the profitability is really EUR 11 million of a hit towards previous year.

When you look at our adjusted EBIT margin, there we have an improvement towards previous year. Here, you can see that we already have in the North Star, in our cost reduction measures, we have already the input.

And when you look at the development of the revenue that we are 6% below, but we could improve our adjusted EBIT that there you can see that we're really hard working on the so-called breakeven point to be profitable. And we really put cost out of this during the year, and I would say this is a good situation and a really good move we did, and therefore, we could improve our adjusted EBIT towards previous year.

When we're looking at our -- one of our really positive developments is, a lower element, is the free cash flow. Here, we must really say we did in our asset management, significant improvements and especially where we have a huge driver and I mentioned this in our DSO, where we really, on the one side, we're collecting much earlier the cash by the customers compared to last year, and we even made a significant improvement about collecting cash from so-called overdues receivables.

There we did really a very good job, and therefore, we improved our cash -- free cash flow significant by 400%, even that we are still not growing towards previous year. The orders in hand, and you see this when you look at the order income numbers before, we are still in a book-to-bill rate below 1, that shows and is reflected in our development in the order backlog and the significant Solar business where we have so-called big orders in there that shows that we really had a hit in our order backlog by minus 47% in -- towards previous year.

North Star, Klaus mentioned this, North Star is an overall profitability program we started. We see here already in the development of the employees that we are progressing here.

We reduced by 6% our employees. There's still a way to go, but this is the first steps we are doing.

And therefore, we have the right trend when we look at our revenue development today. Therefore, we made the first steps, and I'm really happy to show that we're developing in the right direction.

Net cash follows the free cash flow, therefore. Here we are about our working capital.

Next slide. Here, working capital.

It shows a little bit worse. First of all, I mean, the working capital follows in the structure, the revenue development to our business development.

But we have two elements where we really made good progress on top of the development is our inventory and our trade receivable. I mentioned the trade receivable already this slide before, where we really improved our DSO by 40% by the significant measures.

And our inventories, even in our inventory asset management, we improved despite the development of the revenue, we had -- and you see this in our DIO, we reduced by 10% towards previous year. Overall, it's a very positive development.

Our working capital improved by 34% towards previous year. This is a good step and we want to keep this level now for the future because it was a really good approach in our asset management.

Overall, very positive development compared to the previous years. Next slide.

Here, we see the diverse picture we mentioned. Klaus mentioned already in the beginning a little bit about the business development.

But here, you can see really our diverse picture in our business units. When we look at Electronics.

Electronics were short of the budget in our previous year, majorly hit by the tariff discussion about the investment, how the customer really looking at the investment, there was really a downside in our Electronic business. We're still pushing for the semi market.

Therefore, the EBIT follows the reduction of the profitability a little bit more because we're still going -- investing in our semi business. Second business unit Development.

I must really say development really grows even in this challenging environment -- market environment we have with the tariffs. There was a growth.

It's a very good story. And we had even measurements in here that we over-proportional growth the profitability in this business by -- from EUR 0.1 million to EUR 1.3 million.

This was really a good story and a good push. Welding.

In Welding, Klaus mentioned this already, the growth of 30% towards previous year, majorly driven by an order out of the consumer electronics, must say we really executed this contract even very efficient. Therefore, you see the impact about the profitability, really the turnaround in the Welding business towards a positive business was really good improvement here and one of our good storylines we had in '25.

Now Solar. Solar, mentioned this is our downturn in this year -- last year because we had a significant hit, 1/3 of the business has gone.

And here we go. When you really look at the number that we had a significant reduction of revenue, we still made a pretty good job that it's not a one-to-one extreme hit in profitability.

There were certain cost reduction measures when done that the hit we received here is still in a range where I must say, we did a good job. Therefore, it's mainly driven from the diverse business.

You see Solar is kicking us very hard this year. So Klaus, I hand over to you towards the -- for growth.

Thank you very much, Peter. So basically, given the overall situation we see in our markets, we see headwinds in our, let's say, core business.

The Iran situation we factored in, is definitely not helping. On the other hand, we see that the growth drivers, especially in the semiconductor field, but also in overall Electronics are intact.

So we went to a conservative guidance of EUR 105 million to EUR 120 million, that's resulting in an adjusted EBIT of minus EUR 3 million to EUR 4.5 million. What do we see happening at the moment?

We clearly work strongly on both levers, the cost, but also the growth factors to work towards a double-digit EBIT in 2028. In the individual markets, what is our aspiration?

What do we see? We see that the positioning in LIDE will now transfer into first ramp-ups.

I'll tell you more about that when I am allowed to talk about Q1 and Q2 order entry, and we definitely take the strategic opportunity, expand the portfolio, use the deep market insight. This is the area where LPKF will be a strong and strategic player in the future.

SMT and our Rapid PCB Prototyping, yes, we see solid growth prospects, stronger in SMT because the shift from mechanical routing to laser depaneling is still having a long way to go and a lot of market to grab. Rapid PCB Prototyping has a dominating market share, we'll defend that, but we'll generate cash.

We see good prospects there. Solar is a hit.

Solar was for many years a solidly growing and nicely contributing business. It is going through a weak phase also in '26.

And this is largely driven by the fact that new investments are not happening because people need to reshuffle their production chains due to the tariff situation and people expecting perovskites to be the new technology to invest in. So we stay positioned.

As you already saw in our '25 figures, we are managing the cost, despite significant movements in the revenue, but we definitely will support this business to the extent that we can grab the opportunities with perovskites when they become mature. But at least for '26, it will be a weak year for Solar, which definitely also reflects in the overall revenue of LPKF.

In Welding, yes, we need to completely restructure this. The old automotive-driven model is definitely no longer working.

We are in the middle of executing that, and we will also consolidate our production sites. We will go from 4 to 3 production sites in this course, but we definitely see the growth perspective in other markets.

We see the orders coming in, in other markets, which definitely help and build a foundation. The robotics example was one of those.

And we will make this, again, a profitable contributor to LPKF with the foundation in automotive, but with the growth coming from new technologies, A-to-A in other markets as well, consumer, medical, also robotics. And from the structural adjustments we are doing North Star, this is not just headcount reductions here and there.

This is really setting up the company in a structure that a permanent situation of volatility in the macro environment we are operating in is something that LPKF is set up for and can absorb without short-term measures and, let's say, short-term cost reductions, but basically a model that is ready for outside challenges and volatility, but grabs the opportunities we have with the semicon back-end market being the dominating one. There, we will definitely stay the course and also continue what is necessary to play to win in that field.

Thank you. With that, I hand over to Bettina for the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] And the first one comes from Apus Capital, Johannes Ries I assume.

I have a couple of questions. So first one of my preferred topics, I have no word about foldable screens.

There was a pushout you explained last time that the old technology was still used. But I hear, for example, that the expectation that the Apple foldable phone will be a big success and maybe push -- increase the market by 2x.

Therefore, it is an interesting market. Are you still on the way maybe to come in this market?

And how is the actual situation?

Let me answer that immediately, Mr. Ries.

We are definitely in this market or let's say, our customer, our partner is in that market and offering the glass technology there. But what we saw that beyond what was already invested, things are moving slower than expected.

Of course, when I was in Korea, I asked them, look, guys, why is this -- why are you not getting more customer orders in? Basically, people stay a bit more on the conservative side with the technology change than expected.

The fundamental of glass being used in that field, we still see as clearly intact. Actually, I'm next week in Korea to also raise that topic again.

So to answer your question, this is still an attractive business opportunity, but definitely progressing on the slow side.

Okay. Maybe on the more short-term interesting side, you have shown definitely interesting again, the chart about the different business areas in semiconductors could develop.

But if I look at the market, the topic photonics is really heating up heavily. Could it be that this CPO topic could come a little bit earlier than you have on the chart?

So of course, we are monitoring and also participating in co-packaged optics since many years. What we see at the moment is that a lot of different architectures are evaluated, shown at conferences, sometimes even shown in customer presentations.

But having an architecture where we say this has a high probability of winning and making it into high volume, that we don't see yet. It's like VHS and Betamax.

There's still a high risk that you bet your money on Betamax and then it's VHS and your investment doesn't pay off. So we are still in a market assessment phase.

We are working with customers on a sampling basis, on a technology alignment basis. We do not see the point yet where we can with confidence say this technology will be a winner.

This is where we invest in as LPKF. But we see that, that phase will be reached towards '27, and then we will definitely start the right activities to position ourselves with true volume offerings.

Okay. The second thing I missed in your reporting was a statement you have made in the past that you expect the LIDE business maybe leads you to a low triple-digit sales.

Is it -- you only talk about the margin. Is it still your expectation?

Or is maybe the expectation come a little bit down?

No, it's absolutely my expectation. You know we are very broadly networked in that market.

First customers have now shared their volume demand profiles for the coming years. Some customers are still hashing it out.

And what we see as numbers that are thrown on the table is absolutely in line with our previous market model, and that is also the number you were just mentioning.

Super. On perovskites -- how's your visibility?

Is there a good chance that this business really could start to fly in 2027? Or is it hard to say?

My personal expectation is that it will not be ramped in '27, but in '28. Our clear goal is that we get high-volume orders for fitting the factories also already into our '27 revenue.

We will have a slow year far below what we had in good years like '23, '24 and so on this year. And my -- I need my customers, my customers need me.

And I will need to make very clear to them, look, guys, I can compensate maybe one very slow year like '26, even though it's in the big picture, of course, a big hit we take. But for '27, my clear goal is to have high-volume orders in the revenue.

And that's what we are working towards. And it, of course, also depends on the progress our customers are making in the technology development.

Very clear. Another area of Welding with the reorientation and rightsizing Welding, could -- is it possible with the new customer sectors like consumer, for example, that this business could return to the growth path, at least maybe slow growth in next year?

Well, next year, we will focus -- or this year, let's say, we focus on finishing the transformation. And we do not go in with very high revenue expectations, but with realistic ones.

For '27, yes, absolutely. We will operate this business on a far superior cost structure.

We will use synergies in our production footprint, which also helps here. And yes, we see that in the markets we are now targeting, orders are to be gotten, and we have the new technology out with [ ATA ].

So yes, our -- otherwise, we wouldn't do it. If we don't believe that this can be a growing and profitable business, we would discontinue.

But I absolutely see that perspective. And the foundation of nice large high-tech orders in sectors like we had in '25 in the consumer field like we have now in '26 in robotics tells me, yes, this is a viable plan.

Very fast question, then I'll move out. On ARRALYZE, has the cost to downsize maybe to move out with your own activities or to reduce your own activities already included in the '25 figures or is more to come?

And how far you already on the search for a partner?

So the costs for ARRALYZE are out now with Q1. So we started this activity, decided in Q4 and immediately went to execution.

Execution is now finished with Q1. So the dominating part of the cost is out with end of Q1.

We are in talks right now with an external partner who has an awesome network in the biotech field now, on the right partnership, and we have the clear goal to finish also this in the course of '26.

Can you hear me now?

We can hear you, hello.

Johannes already asked a lot of the questions I had on my mind as well. But I just wanted to get back to LIDE, and you made this interesting comment that you are going to -- will be able to tell us more about LIDE in Q1 and Q2 because there's some initial ramp going on.

Could you just at least now today give us a quick introduction about what this is really about. Is it pilot production with some of the South Koreans.

Is it -- what kind of volume could we see with these orders in Q1, Q2 when it comes to LIDE? And also for the full year, do you expect LIDE to show strong growth?

And sorry, if you've spoken about this, my internet connection was down for a few minutes, so I may have missed something during your presentation.

Any time, so I have to watch Bettina's face now closely because already this morning, she scolded me, look, you're not allowed to give too many details. So what are we seeing?

Basically, '25, we were ready with end of Q1. We got confirmation from our customers, yes, your machine qualified, all great.

But our customers took longer than they expected and already also planned, to really get the whole process chain qualified. So that held us down in '25.

We had good orders, but still low 8-figure portfolio a machine here, a machine there, not what we really wanted to achieve. What I now see for '26, and I'll be in Korea, actually, I'll fly on Sunday to confirm all these plans that now customers are saying, okay, we finally figured it out.

Let's go into first investments for true production purposes, but this will not be, hey, here's a PO for 100 machines. This will be, okay, we buy a little bit of a higher amount, but still single-digit machines per customers to go into a true production flow, try it out, get the yields to where they should be.

And there, I see a handful of customers being ready for that now. And now I need to be quiet.

Otherwise, Bettina will tell me not to say it. When we talk about Q1 and Q2 results, I will be able to also show you tangible numbers there.

So this is what I'm seeing. How much we still get into '26 revenue or which ones will be top line '27, we are figuring that out, and we'll have a clearer picture on that by the middle of the year.

But the overall picture in the market, I mean, you read what the OEMs are saying. They are all locked-in on glass now.

And I see happening in '26, the first production start, but on a moderate volume, learn it and then go into the full investments in '27. I, of course, see, yes, we have a good positioning, but it's very rare that such a large market opens up in the laser field.

So a lot of competitors want a piece of the pie, that's good because it cannot be a single source market if the people respect our IP and technology. A lot of our energy and also strategic thinking now goes into whoever wants a piece of the pie and tries to take a shortcut by copying us, we will definitely get very active in making sure this doesn't happen that we -- the key strategic goal is transfer this in the ramp-up deals into our target share now and not have a cheap copycat basically steal the pie.

This is what we will be doing. And we definitely will be able to show what's happening in the order entry.

I will make my picture by middle of the year what will still be operationally in revenue in '26 for what will be backlog for '27. I hope that answers your question, Tim.

Maybe a quick follow-up. Did I understand you correctly, you're talking about a handful of customers.

So we're going to see not just one customer ordering machines in Q1, Q2, but we're going to see several customers? And regarding competition, I've also read a lot about this with Schmidt and Philoptics.

And I think there's a bit of concern in the market that you are losing market share. So can you just confirm that this 80%, I think it was market share, at least when it comes to the customers in this early stage, can you confirm that you have kept this very high market share?

So we have the fair now when people buy equipment for qualifying the process. That's what we see.

We have a very good market overview. And yes, other players are going in.

If they go in with their own technology they developed, fair, that's good. It cannot be a single source market.

Again, if it's competitors copying us, there, we will be very active in avoiding it. How do I see it?

We have a good overview also from our customers, how our machine performs, how competitive machines perform. My personal target is 70% market share.

So I'm better than that in the positioning, but we need to be realistic. People want alternatives.

The market is too big for single source. It will be slower if it would be single source.

My goal is 70%. And I have to -- I need to be measured against, do I win that now in the ramp-up orders against what competition is offering or will be offering?

From what I see right now, our machine is just superior in key KPIs that the customer wants. So I see nothing speaking against.

On the other hand, again, we are a German company. All the action is in Asia or the U.S.

So there, we have a disadvantage. And this, we need to balance smartly.

Okay. Sorry, did I miss the answer regarding the number of customers that are...

Of course. So our total number of customers that bought from us is clearly two-figure.

It's a lot of customers that bought individual machines. We are doing our internal assessment which customer we see as mature enough to really push the button on ordering first capacity expansions for true production.

And there, I see a handful at the moment, but it will definitely not be one or two customers. It will be more.

So more than -- sorry for being -- for sticking with this point. So more than one or two customers that you're already going to see in the first half or that you expect to see in the first half of 2026?

Bettina told me this morning, "Klaus, you cannot be that specific." I ask for your patience when I report Q1 and Q2, then it's a done fact, and then I will be able to speak more specifically.

The next question comes from Bastian Brach.

So my question is also on the LIDE and especially on the expanding offering in singulation, you talked about a lot and maybe co-packaged optics in the future. What is your first feedback from customers, especially your existing customers who also ordered LIDE products?

And do you see the singulation ramp-up in parallel to the expected LIDE ramp-up? Or is it more like a little bit delayed or further in the future?

So for the singulation, that's the ABF singulation, this was actually a customer pull. Our customers, we sometimes work with them for more than 5 years.

They are very open where they stand and where their pain points are. And they specifically asked, for example, in ABF depaneling, look, we have a pain point.

We need a mass production process for this. Are you able to do it?

So there, of course, now with the sampling that is running, we create very high interest because the customer was asking, we need solutions for this process step, what can you do for us? For the glass bonding, that is -- so the ABF depaneling is parallel to the LIDE, maybe with a couple of quarters delay because people have figured out a workaround for this ABF singulation, which they don't want, but they don't want to wait with ramp until they have the final process for that, but it will be a slight delay.

That's basically the same production chain where LIDE goes in. The glass welding also creates high interest, but that's one generation further in the architecture, that I would see with a certain delay and not fully parallel to the LIDE ramp-ups.

Does that answer your question?

The next question comes from Malte Schaumann.

First question is also on the perovskites side, but how many customers -- tangible customers are you speaking about perovskites technology?

So I see two very large customers that really put very sizable investments into getting that technology to high-volume maturity. One customer in the U.S., one customer in China.

And a lot, a handful of smaller customers that are investing in this technology, but I would expect them with a certain delay. They are more in the follower bracket and not in the "I push ahead and want to be first-to-market" bracket.

And do you see the large customers having or following kind of a similar time frame for the introduction of the technology?

I need to be careful now because it's a key account business, and I'm bound to confidentiality. I see both customers having the same ambitions in terms of when do we want to ramp as soon as possible.

I see one customer clearly ahead in technology. So my personal bet is that he will be the time-to-market winner.

And please don't ask about the customer.

Maybe a comment on competition. How do you see, especially in the Asian markets, regional competition?

So in Asia, it's brutal. There are a lot of companies who basically say, "Hey, I can do that.

And of course, they want to buy getting into that market. We are long established for decades.

Sometimes they put the equipment to the customer just for free, just to somehow get in. Our advantage is that none of them has a proven track record.

Basically, you buy the PowerPoint. The disadvantage is they are brutally aggressive in pricing, and you know there is a political preference in local-for-local in China.

And that is to be taken very serious. That's why we did the Allegro ESSENTIAL, to be price and cost competitive.

And that is also why we need to very clearly market our KPIs that directly transfer into money for the customer, throughput dead zone. Otherwise, the locals will do everything to get their share.

In the West, I feel very comfortable with the competitive situation. I don't see any viable competitor in the Western countries who is close to our offering.

Okay. Then on welding robotics, can you quantify what the market potential might be in 2 to 3 years?

Do you have some visibility, the opportunity?

Yes, I can, but I am skeptical about hockey sticks. You can take usual projections in growth for AI-driven robotics, the numbers are public and basically then scale our business exposure.

For the moment, what we have is there's a credible frontrunner in that field, and he is now doing his ramp-up of production with our equipment. We are in the process flow.

If this guy realizes his ambitions and LPKF is a chosen supplier, yes, it could reach a very attractive volume, which is definitely in the 8 figures. But at the moment, again, focus is here lean and mean cost structures for Welding, maximum synergies, set it up for smaller ambitions than in the heyday of automotive and then take it from there.

Thank you. So I think we have time for two more questions in the chat that reached us.

The first one refers to the Electronics segment. Could you say something more on expected order intake in Q1 and Q2 on Electronics?

You already see an uptick in revenues in Electronics in Q4. What part of the financial guidance for '26 is driven by Electronics revenue?

You might want to be careful again, Klaus, in answering this.

Bettina, you already told me. So how do I answer?

I see the fundamental growth driver in Electronics, and that is specifically our laser depaneling very intact. I see that the large-scale businesses, which we were expecting in '25 and which then got delayed due to the tariff mess that they are coming and that I see them in the order entry.

I clearly expect growth out of this area relative to '25, and we will have headwinds again this time from the Iran situation, where the impact is not yet fully quantifiable at the moment. So please let me report my Q1 order entry figures for this sector when I have them, and Bettina will allow me to talk about them.

But this is definitely something where I say overall setup, I'm bullish, but I need to be cautious about the headwinds we're going to have by whatever is now the fallout of this Iran situation.

And the next question refers to the Solar segment. What is the expected path for Solar over the quarters in 2026?

Revenue in Q4 was very low.

Well, first and foremost, this is a large key account business. Revenue over quarters, you usually have 1 or 2 very strong quarters where you ship the large machines and then you can have a weak quarter.

This is not a portfolio business where you can derive anything useful out of the sales for 1 quarter. We went in with a realistic and not too high revenue plan for '26 for Solar.

So we are not hoping for, oh, a big order will come out of the blue. We are realistic here.

And we absolutely see as of right now that they are in even slightly above plan, but we still -- we are not fully operating out of backlog yet. So a large part, we are already operating out of backlog against plan for Solar.

We need still a couple of purchase orders for this year, and this is what we are strongly monitoring, but which we see progressing. The tenders have been opened.

So it's on track, but not done yet.

Okay. So we have reached the end of this call, and there are no further questions as far as I can see.

So I would like to thank you all very much for joining this call and the next regular earnings call will take place in only 4 weeks on April 30 at the release of our Q1 report. Thank you very much, and goodbye.

Thank you, everybody. Goodbye.