Welcome to our earnings call for the first quarter of 2026. My name is Bettina Schäfer, 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 Mümmler. Klaus and Peter will walk you through the business development of the first three months 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 two 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 Q1 results.

I'm going to start with walking you through the key takeaways, latest market and business developments, and a special focus about the latest developments in the advanced packaging field and our positioning. Let's get started.

Performance for Q1: a solid start into '26 in, of course, a volatile macro environment. We had a strong order intake in our Development and Electronics sector, resulting in a total book-to-bill of 1.4, but we have—and that will be for the full year—a weak year in the Solar field due to the technology transition to perovskites, but basically, we are running on track against our planning also in that business field.

In advanced packaging—and I'll have more on that in later slides—the business is progressing as expected. We have a very good positioning in that field, meaning we are used for prototyping at multiple semiconductor customers.

This is a year where the first CapEx will be positioned now for true production purposes, which is a very important milestone for us. We received a first order for capacity expansions already in Q1 from a Korean customer, and we are in advanced talks with several customers for their production ramp-up orders.

We see the business progressing as we expected. Regarding our product roadmap, as announced before, we want to see our LIDE process as an entry ticket into this market, and we definitely want to broaden our portfolio to become a strategically relevant player in that large and growing market.

We are now offering additional process steps in glass singulation, in laser bonding of multilayer glass stacks, which are driven by customer needs because we are in intensive exchange about the needs with a lot of players in this market. We are also in co-packaged optics, here at a very different timing.

This is R&D in exchange with several customers to basically sample the market and enter a positioning phase from 2027 onwards. What do we see as demand trends for Q1 in the market?

We see a noticeable pickup in demand in rapid prototyping, and that is, to a relevant part, also driven by the defense industry, and also in SMT, where we see a gradual easing now of the investment restraint we saw in '25 due to the tariff situation. We had a very strong uptick in order entry in the SMT field in Q1.

Regarding our operations, we are transforming the company in both Solar and Welding. For '26, we see a challenging year, as mentioned, in Solar due to the shift in perovskites, but we definitely see that the perovskites open a perspective that it's the right business decision to accept a challenging '26.

In the North Star program—Peter will talk more about it later—we are on track in reducing fixed costs, improving profitability. For example, we ramped down our production in our Fürth site now and are now working on a footprint of three production sites to leverage synergies and reduce costs.

Our outlook and '26 guidance is unchanged. We basically guide cautiously here, and we do not bake in bulk orders from advanced packaging, while clearly seeing that this is a year where we will receive the relevant purchase orders to make clear that LPKF is not just a technology partner for this market, but the true production partner for our customers.

Next slide, please. A couple of more details on the market situation.

Semicon industry continues the transformation towards glass-based substrates and TGVs in the backend. It's now much more tangible, with players also now making their operation model clear, making their volume scenarios clear, and it's clearly in line with our estimations.

In the overall trend, we see the total addressable market going up simply because the wafer starts and the market demand specifically for AI is going up, and this basically linearly translates into demand for our product. As mentioned, increasing market activity, which we see in order entry in rapid prototyping and in Electronics, partly driven by delayed projects, which we actually expected in '25, which are now coming through, CapEx being released, us receiving the purchase orders, and also we see—that won't surprise anybody—an uptick in defense investments, which we benefit from.

Solar market: a weak investment year. We see investments in prototyping equipment in trial lines for perovskites, and we participate in that, but we see that the industry is not ready yet for high-volume ramps in perovskites while no longer investing in cadmium telluride, and that makes it a weak year, which we also planned for in the Solar sector.

We also see intensifying competition, not from Western players, but especially in China, where we are positioning ourselves also in product offering and cost structure to continue to be successful in China. Overall operating environment: persistent volatility.

We have the Iran situation as a new one coming up, geopolitical tensions, fragile supply chains, basically a continued environment with rapid changes. Our start into our year confirms that we are on track to our planning.

Business development: advanced packaging. Basically, for me, the positioning phase is over, and a dominant part of the players in this large and growing industry has selected LPKF as their partner for prototyping, for technology.

Now the focus is shifting. The focus is now clearly on winning the first orders for true production assets, a very important milestone for LPKF.

The focus is on defending our IP, which is, by and large, respected in the market. There are certain regions where we see people obviously infringing on our IP, and there we also have already taken the relevant legal actions.

Again, for those who are not yet deep into this field, our IP is visible in the final product, we can defend our IP in a very tangible way, and that's what we're doing. Of course, the focus—and I'll talk a little bit more about it later—is on broadening now our product portfolio, using LIDE and our excellent customer contacts now as an entry ticket, but basically offering across the whole production chain the processes where we have strong USPs and see a tangible pain point in the market.

Rapid prototyping: strong overall demand, but more than expected driven by Asia, while the US, partly related to, how shall I say, constant government shutdown disruptions and lower plannability than usual, US being a bit weaker than expected, but compensated by a strong Asia demand. Electronics: strong overall demand, good start into the year, and we need to keep that track, basically now getting deals that were delayed from '25 plus the additional '26 demand.

Welding: very weak automotive market, as expected. We see orders from consumer electronics and specifically a nice bulk order from smart robotics, giving us the foundation that the restructuring of that business makes sense and we can get back on a growth path.

Solar: weak orders, but expectedly, nothing that is deviating from our plan, and uncertainty with Chinese competition that makes it a very weak solar year, but with the perovskite transition as a very good opportunity. We definitely are convinced it's the right decision to bear that weak year and reap the benefits in the coming years.

With that, Peter, a couple of words on operations?

Thanks, Klaus. Yeah.

North Star: we're on track, as Klaus mentioned already, with North Star. The first wave, really—must say really successful, on time.

We ramped down the production in Fürth, and it's finalized. It's closed, with all elements.

Personnel, end of this month, will be gone, and we have a successful start in Suhl. Very good start in North Star.

For North Star, we're targeting still sustainable double-digit EBIT margin in '28. The reason is not over North Star; we keep going on this.

We still have a road to go for this year to close further gaps, but the clear target is the double digit for '28, and I'm looking positive in this direction that we keep going with North Star and getting the cost reduction materialized. What we're doing, and this is really the specific, is focusing our resources on the most attractive growth markets.

We have growth markets—Klaus comes later a little bit in our advanced packaging area. We need to invest.

It's not just pure cost saving. It's a balancing North Star, looking at the growth markets, investing further, but keep going on the cost reduction that we're getting more resilient to the revenue changes we have.

Very very good news is we finalized in February, in quarter one, a new financing agreement with our existing banks, in a consortium, that we can secure our complete transformation and restructuring and the future investment in our innovative technologies, secured until 2028. We're very happy.

Gives us a stable base where we can now really plan and execute all our planned stuff we have to. There I can hand over to Klaus.

Thank you very much, Peter. Now let's talk a little bit more in details about what's going on in the advanced packaging field with glass as a new packaging material, specifically driven by AI and high-performance computing.

Those who were listening in to our investor relations call or to our quarterly reports before know we have been positioning ourselves in this market over years. It's not easy as a new player to become a viable supplier to the semicon industry, so that was a multi-year process.

Where we stand is that a significant number of players have positioned themselves in this new market, both established players and people who take this disruption as a chance to enter that market. Over 80% of these customers have been buying LPKF equipment to qualify their processes, to get the yield to acceptable level.

We now see the time that a handful of these players, four, five players, are at the technical and yield level now to make their first ramp-up investments. That's happening here and now.

If you follow the press, you see announcements about factories being built, about groundbreaking, and so on. It's becoming very tangible.

For us, the positioning phase is basically over in that field, and now the phase is to win the production orders to become a credible, viable player that benefits now from the first ramp-up phase and then the high-volume phase, and definitely right now to use the chance to not be a one-trick pony, but be a true partner across the whole process chain. Of course, we also need to monitor closely where competition is standing.

It's actually very rare that such a large new market opens up for a company with laser technology, a lot of players have basically their ambitions in that market. We are monitoring very closely.

We continue to see that we have both a multi-year head start in just the maturity of our equipment. Don't forget we have several dozens in the field who over multiple years have proven their performance.

We have a strong IP position. This IP position is visible in the product, we can very much point the finger on if somebody is trying to basically infringe on our claims.

We also very much know and want this not to be a single-source market. It's too big for single-source from risk profile also of our customers.

We are observing who positions themselves. We see companies in Korea.

We also see German company positioning themselves. That's good.

Those guys also respect our IP position. We see local manufacturers in China, where I can't always say that the respect for IP position is given.

We simply get immediately active in that field and take legal measures here because this is a global market, and freedom to operate, a clear IP-free position, is very important for the customers, IP has punch. As mentioned, LIDE is nothing but an entry ticket.

We want to become a strategic player in that field, and we took the relevant actions. Next slide, please.

If you look at our web page from time to time, that you see that we are now promoting a whole product line called Nexa, which includes our LIDE systems, but also systems for ablation, for basically cutting, singulating the ABF layer in such a package, and also a system for glass-glass or glass-silicon bonding. We brought all three in the market now, of course, based on our deep customer insights where the customer has needs and where he actually is looking for a partner to provide these process steps to him.

We see a good market pull here, and that is an excellent opportunity for us now to basically immediately position ourselves as LPKF is a company whenever it comes to glass in advanced packaging that you talk to and basically get in the roadmap discussions at the table to shape up the whole process and production chain. These three are tangible right now.

We know what the market need is. We have a good estimate on the relevant timing.

We, of course, are also active in, for us, the natural next step in this industry, and that is co-packaged optics, optical communication between the individual components in a high-performance computing package, but that clearly is at a timeline that is years later than those three technologies. Next slide, if we look how we see the market right now and what will happen over the next years: '26 positioning phase, there I basically make a check mark.

Our positioning is above our targets, measured by how many customers selected LPKF equipment for their process qualification. We will now enter a ramp-up phase in '27 and '28.

Our expectation is that first players will position and place their ramp-up purchase orders this year to install and ramp up in '27. That is, of course, glass structuring, our LIDE equipment, but also, in the same process flow, our Tensor ablation of the ABF layer.

This ramp-up, we expect, will take a year before target yields are reached that customers can take the next step and go into true high-volume orders. We see a ramp-up phase in '27 and '28.

It can be faster, then the whole thing will be pulled in. It can be slower, then it will be a little pushed out.

Don't forget we were ready with our process step a year ago, more than a year ago. Very large, sizable players in this market took a very long time to get to the yield level where they are right now.

It's a brand-new technology, we should be realistic in the expectation how long it will take for them to get to their target yield. We are prepared for any scenario here.

We see the high-volume phase then in '29 and '30, with POs coming in usually six to nine months earlier, and the volume potential, we are just updating our market model because the overall demand is actually going upwards. The number of wafer starts get corrected upwards permanently, we need to update also our TAM assessments.

Tensor glass bonding, from what we learned in the market, is highly attractive for the customers, but will not be in the initial ramp-up products. It will be delayed by about a year.

That's more for, let's say, the second generation of designs, but fits perfectly into the demand profile here. In our market model, we shifted that now by a year, and my expectation is POs also for Tensor ablation for production purposes we can get in this year.

Tensor glass bonding, we will sample a lot, but true sales of this equipment, I see more in the '27. Co-packaged optics, as communicated, we are in a market assessment phase.

For us, it's obvious that glass will be used as a light guide, as a waveguide for the next generation of architectures in semicon packaging, but a lot of different technology approaches are floating around. We are first assessing where we see winning processes.

We do that over the whole year, talking to the same customers where we have good insights and relation now due to LIDE, due to glass packaging. We will enter a positioning phase in '27/'28, but on an R&D level, we are highly active already right now, also together with customers.

We see here that ramp-ups for co-packaged optics will be more in the '29/2030 timeframe. This strategy we are executing now.

You can measure us against winning true production orders for ramp-up this year because that's the important milestone that proves that LPKF is not only a technology partner, but a true operational partner for our customers. With that, I hand over to Peter, who will give you a lot more details on the numbers now.

Thanks, Klaus. Going to the financials in quarter one: overall, I must say the quarter one runs at our plan, in our expectations.

When we look at the development, the revenue compared to previous year reduced by 32%, driven by Solar business, what was clear in our plan and what we're expecting for the fiscal year. Adjusted EBIT, minus 68% to previous year.

Here you can see the positive impact already from North Star. When we just see the revenue reduction by closely to 8 million and go down, and you see an impact of roughly 2 million in the profitability, there you can see that we have cost reduction measures planned, that this hit in the reduction of the revenue is really mitigated, strongly mitigated.

Positive trend here. Incoming orders, plus 18%, very good story.

Book-to-bill rate bigger than 1, 1.4. We're growing, and despite we are lacking of our Solar business here, strong businesses in Development and Electronics on the side.

Development of free cash flow, as expected, minus 73%. Here we have, yeah, the reduction of the revenue, we're getting an impact, but we have one-time costs here for our restructuring efforts in there, too.

What I mentioned in the beginning, that we ramped down significant personnel in Fürth is in the range what we're expecting here. Orders on hands, yeah, compared to last year, we are 26% below.

There were still certain Solar business in there, but the trend is that we're growing our order on hands again due to the book-to-bill rate. Overall, still a good development.

Employees, total numbers, minus 5% compared to first year. This is, yeah, North Star.

We're seeing it, it goes more and more in the direction that we're going further reduction of our workforce to get more efficiency in there and pulling out synergies. Going to the next slide, there we can see the working capital development.

Inventory increased by 18% compared to last year. This is to do—we know in our planning we have in the quarter two, we ramping up our revenue.

This is already a preparation of revenue ramp-up, and then we have some smaller amounts here on finished goods in there, where we just planned to deliver in quarter one, but due to logistic, and you know what in the world market is right now with logistics, good development in trade receivables. The contract liabilities, increase of 66%, is driven by advance payments due to our higher order income, what we have in our books.

It's the major impact here what we have here. Trade payables follows a little bit the business, the quarter one lower revenue in this direction.

Overall, when we see that we have a negative trend of the working capital by roughly 1 million, but when we see the development of our all-over business, it's still a very good performance, I must say, in our asset management we're having right now in the company. Going to the next slide, basically, here you can see our business.

What Klaus mentioned, some trends already, when we look at Electronics, quite a stable market here, no significant growth. There are some impacts as previous year in the revenue.

We keep it stable. The reduction of 70% compared to previously an adjusted EBIT of 400,000, it's slightly driven that we keep investing in our LIDE technology here.

You can see here this is the slight impact. Development had a strong quarter one, must say, a growth of 9% and significant growth of the profitability, majorly driven by the revenue.

Very positive, we see that the Welding, Klaus mentioned, there's a bulk order in there from smart robotics here. We're happy to won this contract.

There's a growth of 21%. Very good direction.

In the impact in the adjusted EBIT, we could not give it because we have certain costs to secure the delivery of the equipment in quarter one. We have some certain investments.

We kept the profitability of this business stable. As I said, it is exactly planned because we saw already that we have a certain investment to stabilize the delivery performance of the business in the quarter one.

You can see finally with Solar, this is a dramatic picture, I must say, but it was seen, this investment of the perovskites that really the investment goes down in the industry for the fiscal year '26. This you can see dramatically reduction of revenue by 88%, when small revenue of 1.3 million in the quarter one is really dramatically.

When we're looking on the profitability side, we did a lot of special action items in the Solar business to keep the impact in the EBIT as low as possible, short-time working. I must say, very successful countermeasures in the Solar business right now, and that's ending up by minus 1.6 million.

Overall, as I mentioned, the summary, quarter one is in our plan, in the area where we expected, and we're looking now for the next quarter to grow. I hand over to Klaus.

Good. Guidance for the year: unchanged.

In the big picture, what do we expect from our product lines? We see in the semicon market that now the transition to operational business is happening.

Positioning: good. That's clearly our focus field for strategic growth, and that's clearly our focus field for strategic broadening of our portfolio.

This is the focus of our company, and this is definitely where we see all the read points on track. Next read point, very clearly showing all of you true production ramp-up orders out of that field this year.

SMT and rapid prototyping: we see solid growth prospects in that field. The megatrend of replacing legacy technology, milling, stamping, by modern laser technology is intact.

We see the need for rapid prototyping, confidentiality, defense business, and fast design cycles intact. Of course, we are exposed to macroeconomic factors.

We saw that in '25, the tariffs definitely didn't help. We've got to monitor how the Iran situation affects the overall business, but we are definitely having all hands on deck to countersteer on the cost side in that field.

Solar: as mentioned, we have a current weakness. This will be the weakest solar year for a decade in investments for us, but we very clearly see perovskites being addressed globally with a very high R&D effort, and we see our positioning, we think it's absolutely the right business decision to accept a weak year and grab the opportunities ahead of us.

Welding: yes, strategic realignment happening as we speak. Our expectations for the automotive market are very moderate, but we are making the right steps and see the market traction in the fields we are focusing now on: consumer, medical, smart robotics.

Of course, it requires a complete restructuring of the cost structure of this business area, but that is far progressed now. Basically, the main steps, including operational consolidation, are done.

The midterm aspiration is grab the opportunities at hand in the semicon market, which we were preparing for many years, and structure our core business units in a way that we can grab the opportunity, but clearly improve the profitability and resilience, flexibility, to be ready in a market that is basically now defined by constant volatility. With that, I basically want to hand back to Bettina for your Q&A.

Thank you very much, Klaus. We are now ready for your questions.

You can write your questions into the chat, or you can give me a hand signal in order to speak directly. If you are calling from a phone, please press *9 to raise your hand and *6 in order to unmute yourself.

The first question comes from Apos Capital, Johannes Ries, I guess. I have unmuted you.

Yes, good morning. First, maybe astonishing share price development.

Funny that you talked years about the topic, and now it's seen by the market. It's astonishing.

Anyway, maybe coming to this hot topic, semiconductors. You mentioned some market size.

Can you give us a feeling, maybe for LIDE and also for ablation and bonding, what market size you see maybe if you come to the mass production? What is maybe the size difference between ramping and mass production?

Is this factor 1:5, 1:10, only to have some feeling, yeah?

Of course, Mr. Ries.

Basically, what we are doing right now, and we will finish it within this quarter, we are currently consolidating all the latest market figures about the high-performance computing market and the glass share. I gave you my addressable market numbers before, which is about half a billion, split into interposer and as a dominant part, glass core.

Please have a couple of weeks of patience that I come with sound, solid, updated numbers in that field. What I can tell you that the number of wafer starts for high-performance computing is ticking up in the latest projections by analysts, by banks, significantly.

This is a positive factor for us, and there are various scenarios out there for how fast will glass now be adopted and basically gain its share in the overall HPC advanced packaging market. For me here, the key factor is how fast and well will these ramp-ups go now.

What I'm seeing and what my assumption is: several players will release their POs for ramp-up production assets this year. Another group of players needs still a bit more time to reach that maturity level, they will maybe place the same orders in '27.

Those people who are placing orders now, I know where they are. They are now at the level that they can ramp, because the market wants the product, but they are not at yields and therefore total costs that is at their target level.

They will need time now to run the whole production chain, and for what it's worth, I've got to say no, it's not us. Our process step yields are excellent, but it's the whole process chain.

If they get fast to their target yields, the whole share of glass and the high-volume phase will be coming earlier. If they take more than a year to get to their target level, the share and therefore also the high-volume phase will be on the lower side before they reach that level.

That's the key impact factors I see. My expectation is several players over the coming quarters positioning first ramp-up volume orders, and they will not be dramatic.

They will buy a handful of machines each and just run the whole production chain. When they go to the full orders, and this amount is ticking up, what they need, this will depend on the ramp-up performance.

I hope that answers your question, Mr. Ries.

The market very well, I know.

Maybe one or two follow-up. First, if the mass production is coming, then you mentioned in the ramp-up is it a couple of machines per customer?

Is it then in the figure of 50 or 100s per customer or what?

In the high volume, yes. Yes, it is.

Okay. This half billion you mentioned, which maybe has to move up, that includes the classical LIDE business and also ablation and bonding,

or is it? Ablation and bonding will be on top.

Just to give you figures, we are really in deep discussions with customers on throughputs and all that stuff now, but our first ballpark estimate of addressable market for the ablation is $100 million. It's attractive, but it's, of course, much lower than what we can achieve with LIDE.

That's not the key point for me. It's really, for me, very important to now go out and be more than a one-trick pony.

Go broad. My customer wants to buy more from me because it's very unusual that a small company like LPKF gets a place in the semicon supply chain.

Basically, what my customer is telling me, 'Okay, fair enough. You're in now.

What else can you do for me? I don't want to buy one process step from a supplier.

I want to buy a lot from you.' I've got to give them the right offerings, and that's why we go broad right now.

The

bonding is the same like ablation, or is it a larger market? I think it's larger, no, if it comes?

For the bonding, no, I don't want to give you a number. We know it's large enough to be worth our while,

but

there we are really currently with the customers and their architectures in deep discussions, and we haven't finished that yet. I don't want to give you a number and correct it three months later.

Please be a bit patient. Okay.

The

same for the CPO market, which is far away, but

yeah. No.

Again, we are in a market assessment phase. We are firmly convinced when you have glass in an advanced package, it will be used as a light guide, as a waveguide for the next generation of architectures in semicon packaging, but a lot of different technology approaches are floating around.

We first got to assess, we have the access to the customers now, they like talking to us. We first got to assess which architectures consolidate towards, oh, that could go into mass production.

Then we position ourselves with the right process steps. It's too early to give you a market size here.

If you want, there are analyst research papers out on the size of co-packaged optics. It's huge,

but

for a bottom-up calculation, not mature enough. I want to get the right facts and figures first.

Fully understandable. Maybe my usual questions because foldable screens, you have not given up because you said no word on this.

It's still going on?

Basically, where are we? Yes, we have our partner who is pitching the technology in the market.

He gives me regular updates. I have a certain installed base of capacity, but I'm basically not seeing a hockey stick ahead of me.

Again, it was a development also paid by my partner in Korea, yes, I complain, but not too loudly. I definitely also see that they are pushing getting it into the next phone designs, but for me, at the moment, not a focus area because I'm not the one developing the market and winning the customers.

Basically, for me, focus on where you can really make a difference now, and that's advanced packaging.

It's still an option, you could say.

Yeah. It's alive.

It's being offered in the market, but from what I hear, I'm just back from Korea, yeah, unsurprisingly, the legacy technology is not willing to just die, they are fighting back very hard. We have to be patient in getting market absorption here.

It's clear. On the solar business, perovskite, what's holding back perovskite so far that it's not ramping up, and how long it could last before it's really market-ready?

Is it next year, and what is the technology hurdle, no?

For what it's worth, my personal feeling: perovskites in the lab work awesome. That's why everybody has dollar signs in their eyes.

It would be a big efficiency boost for solar cells and a total game-changer in the solar industry. Getting them technology-wise ready: perovskites are super sensitive to humidity, oxygen, whatever.

Making a stable solar cell that you can put somewhere in a solar farm and it produces for 10-plus years, that's a very different challenge than getting it to work in the lab. There, basically, very big players, both in the US and China, are throwing a ton of engineering and R&D resources on to figure out exactly this stability questions.

That's it: stability. Zero-hour performance is awesome.

Stability is where it's at. My personal assumption is it will take until 2028 that this is ready for volume ramp-up.

My target is to still sell the factory equipment for the first perovskite factories in '27. It's hard in '26.

You saw the figures. We are missing $10 million in one quarter because this business is at the moment slow.

We hang in there for good reasons. I stand behind it.

We can't do that for two years. I'm working also with my customers on, 'Look, you need me, I need you.

I can do it for a year, but I can't do it for two.' We've got to make it that we sell again as we did for years and years in '27, and the ramp-up then happens in '28.

That's my working assumption.

Okay. Final questions, then I can back in the queue.

On welding, this smart robotics is also hot topic, and a large order. Could there come more, and could we expect welding, if you had a lot of exceptional costs this year in, therefore maybe at least reach break-even next year?

Yes, absolutely. Otherwise, we wouldn't do it.

Such a restructuring costs a lot of money and a lot of brain share. Yes, we absolutely believe that it can be put back on a growth path, but it's a tough change from an industry that was living well with automotive for decades suddenly to say, 'Oh my god, party's over.

Focus on something new.' We are convinced we can do it, but it takes a drastic restructuring, but of course, it needs to bear its own costs at a minimum next year.

Okay. Robotics, is it a one-trick thing, or is more to come maybe?

God, now I've got to be careful with NDAs. All I can say is my customer has plans that are humongous.

We take it in a more conservative approach,

but

I'm very happy about this order because it positions ourselves very well, and it makes a difference as a good foundation for Welding in a year where basically, it's definitely not a bull market in many other markets they are addressing.

Okay. A great answer, but a new opportunity.

Thanks a lot for all these answers, and good work so far, and looking ahead of the beauty things, and also the triple-digit maybe growth from the revenue from the new areas. Thanks a lot.

Yes. It will be very interesting quarterly calls this year, you can believe me.

It's a very hot phase. We'll keep in touch, Mr.

Ries. Next question, please.

Thank you very much, Mr. Ries.

The next question comes from Malte Schaumann. Yes, please go ahead and speak.

Mr. Schaumann?

Hello. Yep.

Hi. We can hear you.

Hi. First question is also on LIDE.

With the first customers moving this year with the first orders for the low-volume production, what's the risk, in your eyes, that customers might be delayed in getting yields to sufficient level to then follow up with the ramp next year? What's the risk, in your eyes, that this might be delayed by two to four, three, four quarters into 2028?

What I can tell you is the process steps where we take ownership now, definitely the structuring, but also the ablation process, no risk. We have all the numbers to show we are at excellent yields.

There are other process steps that were holding us back in '25, as you well know, and what I know is that they are now at yield levels where they say, 'Okay, we can ramp. We can start.'

Yes, the risk, it exists. I can't give you numbers even so I know them, that they say, 'Oh my god, we are getting better step by step, but this is still not the target yields that a semicon backend process expects.'

I would then still expect, because the end customer, the OEMs, they want the product, that they would expand capacity, but at a more, let's say, moderate pace until they have the yields under control. Looking at how long it took these guys to get to the level where they can finally ramp, I don't expect that they get to target yield faster than a year from starting with, let's say, ramp-up capacity.

If it's faster, I'm happy, it's upside. That's my expectation: they turn it on, they take a year, and then they are ready for the higher-volume POs.

Good. Then on Welding, with the demand you're currently seeing, consumer electronics, smart robotics, would you say that there's chance that '26 might turn out a bit better than initially expected?

No, I'm happy if I make plan for '26 because yes, there are some upside opportunities, some things running better. Don't forget that this whole Iran situation, so far, we don't see anything relevant.

Yes, we see far higher logistics costs, but they are usually covered by our customers. If I look at the potential of the Iran situation disrupting global economies, I would not plan for upside right now, just make the plan.

That's my target here. Focus on the cost and structural part, because that we can influence.

Okay. Another one on LIDE: what's the risk or is there risk that customers who now enter low-volume production this year, that one of these might not follow up with higher-volume production next year as all these customers or some customers might chase the same volume orders from their customers?

Is there a risk in that sense, or do you think that market volumes, product volumes are sufficient to support a higher volume or the ramp-up at all of the customers you're now supplying with some tools?

Hey, oh god. Now I need to find the right diplomatic answer.

As we are working with a high number of customers, and it's definitely a double-digit number. They all identified that very large addressable market, and they all have their ambitions.

Now, what is the probability that all of them are successful? Low.

Yes, out of this group of a two-figure amount of people who start with good ambitions here, several will make it, but some will not. For me, it's important to serve all of them to a great quality level, and then they can do their business.

For me, the total addressable market and my share in this market is what counts. I don't think that it will distribute over a double-digit number of customers, but that there will be five, six companies in the world who distribute that market among themselves.

That's where I get my high-volume POs. Yes, there will be some who say, 'Oh, maybe I started too late, or maybe I didn't figure out that technology process as well as my competitors,' and they will retreat.

Yep. Many thanks.

Thank you very much. Are there any further questions?

If so, please give me a hand signal so that I can unmute you. I can't see any hand signals, and there is nothing in the chat at the moment, which might mean, Klaus and Peter, that you have answered it all.

Believe me, it's a hot phase, next quarterly meeting

Klaus Klaus, wait.

Okay.

Let's just see. 'Follow-up: Current share price levels look attractive.

How do you think about raising equity to de-risk, bridge the potential time gap until technology adoption happens, and improve your market position with increased investments?'

What we are definitely looking at, as we speak and constantly: do we see an external partner that we could take into our fold to basically broaden our offering in the overall field of advanced packages here and now? If we find the right target, then definitely, raising equity to finance such an acquisition would be definitely something we would envision.

We do not have the ambition, Peter and me, right now to say, 'Oh, we basically get ourselves external financing to bridge the gap until LIDE has the revenue level that we can show a attractive double-digit EBIT.' We are focusing on basically completely updating our whole structure of LPKF to make it future-proof, to make it resilient, and to be, from our whole structure, ready for the permanent volatility of that world.

Our target is not to raise capital for bridging a certain time period, but raising capital for an acquisition, if the right one comes along and fits our overall strategy in that field. That's something, yes, we can envision.

Must say, adding to Klaus's comments is, when our financing we signed in quarter one now, it's a frame. This gives us the potential to invest in certain areas even for the LIDE growth.

For this, we don't have even for an unexpected growth, not a challenge to raise capital in this area.

Thank you, Peter. I see another question on ARRALYZE.

Just a quick update. We were winding down our internal activities on ARRALYZE.

That's done. We still have a core team on board, and we are talking to external partners to basically continue this activity in a external entity, because our learning is, 'Oh, the product is actually good and attractive, but market access on our side, and also, let's say, willingness to absorb in the current market, where especially in the US and in academic funding in the US, we are in a very tough timeframe for those guys.'

That was too costly and too lengthy for us as LPKF to say, 'Let's just go through.' Yes, these talks are happening as we speak, and our clear ambition is continue the activity, but not within LPKF, but within an external entity.

I also expect to give you updates in the course of the year when I say, 'Oh, milestone is reached.'

I can't see any further hand signals at the moment. If you have any further questions, please raise your hand or type it into the chat.

No further questions, I think.

Okay.

In that case, I would like to thank you all very much for joining this call, and our next regular earnings call will take place on the 23rd of July at the release of our Q2 report. Thank you very much, and goodbye.

Thank you, everybody. Bye-bye.