Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Warm welcome from our side.

I'm Markus Ewert, and I'm sitting here in Kahl with my colleagues from Investor Relations and my colleague Lars Lieberwirth is currently traveling, we are pleased to welcome you to our first-half-year figures conference call. I will start and hand over to Lars in a in a few minutes.

Most of you are fairly familiar with SINGULUS because we have our 30th anniversary this year and we're very proud of this. I know that many of you have been following SINGULUS for quite a while.

For those who are new to us, we're an equipment-making company, and you will learn a lot about our portfolio of technologies, our core competencies from my colleague Lars Lieberwirth, who will be taking over in a few minutes once I've ran you through the financials. Let's let's start with the financials with an overview, and basically you will see that we have increases in revenues and earnings in the first half year of 2026.

This is positive. Very important issues we've seen was the refinancing with our strategic partner.

I will get back to that when we have a look at the balance sheet. The gross margins are slightly above what we expected and is satisfying.

You will learn a lot, and we also had one interesting event, a small one, which is that we acquired some employees and activities from a company called MASS, M-A-S-S, GmbH, also equipment-making company, and you will also learn about the product portfolio when Lars takes over. This was basically the key events we have seen in the first half year.

If we have a look at the key financials, you will see that revenue is up with 40 45.3 million. That's a good good figure.

We're satisfied with that. We are along our planning for the full year.

This is this is positive. Order intake, for those who are remembering that the Q1 was at 28.8 million, you realize that we have only 9.1 million roughly in the second quarter, the order intake was rather slow in the second quarter.

However, you will learn what we've done in the second quarter and there was a lot of R&D work, there was a lot of project work we did, and this brings us this moves us forward. Basically no worries there.

If you have a look at the EBIT, we will get to that in the P&L. This is also satisfying and we stay along our business plan and the forecasts we've given to the capital markets.

Let's move on to the P&L and whenever you have questions later on, I'm happy to take the questions during the Q&A session. In in the first in the first half year, as I mentioned, we have seen 45.3 million in revenues.

This is split up between Life Science, Semiconductor, and Solar in such a way that Life Science is 6.7 million, Semiconductor is about 9.4, and Solar is the bulk of it with 29.2 million in revenues. You see very strong revenue in Solar.

It's the key segment for the the time coming. However, we do see that Semiconductor is very strong, it's still on a growth path, although that the second quarter was a little bit slower on the order order entry than we expected it to be.

This is just postponement and we will get those orders later in the year and we think we're on track with Semi. Life Science has a strong service business, but in the health care sector, well MedTech with our Medline, the order intake was rather slow, but this will be also picking up.

Remember, the segment is more or less dependent in its order entries also on the global GDP. If growth picks up globally and especially in the developing countries, then you do see also more investment into consumer goods and into medical technology.

This is roughly the split, as I said: 6.7, 9.4 for Semi, and 29.2 for Solar. With the 45.3 million, we're slightly ahead of plan and we are so we we do see we're very confident that we are matching and fulfilling the the forecast we have given and the guidance we have given for 2026.

Gross margin is also satisfactory, well, with 33.5%. This is good.

We had a very strong first quarter. Second quarter was a little bit weaker, however still satisfying and we're on track.

In the OpEx, you see that we have worked a lot on R&D, and especially in Semi and in Solar, we're working on new technologies, improving the technologies we have at hand. R&D is very important to us, these are the key segments for our R&D activities.

In the OpEx, however distributed, is please bear in mind the phantom stocks program with 1.8 million in cost. That was basically due to the very positive rise in share price we have seen.

We started at the beginning of the year with €1.34 and share price rose to more than €9. You remember we have a long-term incentive program for the leadership team in across the company, and this is a phantom stocks program.

It's related to performance of the shares and the share price. There's a cost related to that, which is paper cost, it's just accounting, it's not a cash-out.

However, it was kept to be capitalized with 1.8 million in the first half year. However, we will see the share price later, very satisfying, and I guess many of you appreciate the rise in the the share price, and we look forward to further increase this of course over time.

Let's have a look at the, I said like the EBIT is with 2.7 million. We're also in line with our forecast and our guidance.

I think this is this is good. Let's have a look at the balance sheet, balance sheet figures.

Cash available at hand is sufficient, although, of course, for an equipment-making company, we are always trying to be more cash-rich and because we always need cash as we are investing and try to have the the projects always cash-flow positive. However, 6.8 is fine, but we're working to improve the cash-at-hand situation over time.

Remember when we have a look at the balance sheet, also when we have a look at the long-term debt, remember we have been refinancing in the first quarter the outstanding bond. We issued a new convertible bond with 3.6 million.

We also had the chance to refinance long-term loans, we have now long-term loans with a volume of 31 million, and 31 million plus the 3.6 million for the convertible gives us a very strong financial background as we've as we know for the next 5 years that we're fully financed and we can follow up on our strategy, which you will learn later on about where we are moving towards and what the strategic objectives are. That was basically the refinancing we had in the first year in first half year.

However, that was just refinancing and not much cash at hand for us. That was about 7 million, which was exceeding, and so we do see that we have some cash available in our balance sheet, which gives us the stability.

This basically, we all know that the shareholders' equity is still negative. This will be changing over time.

We've been communicating that on every shareholder meeting, and this will take some time to become positive again, but over time this will change also. We're very positive there.

Cash flow development: I think I already talked quite a bit about the cash flows. The operational cash flow is -4 million.

We built up a lot of accounts receivables and because we've been working for our larger customers. This will be changing in the second half of the year.

We expect that the operational cash flow is going up because we're getting some of that accounts receivable paid and have and see the cash inflows. Also, we expect prepayments on projects to come, this will be improving for the second half of the year.

I talked about the financing cash flow already, the 6.1 million. As I said, most of the refinancing was neutral because we paid back our outstanding loans and the outstanding bond, which was repaid in time or even ahead of time, and that was very strong signal, I think, for this year.

Let's have a look at the headcount. As I mentioned, we took over the the activities from the former MASS GmbH, MASS, and along came 22 employees we highly appreciate having on board.

What MASS does in PCB technology and others and further drying ovens, we will learn from Lars in a few minutes. This is the increase in headcount is basically due to our new employees in that segment.

Let's move on. Sales, that was the split by segments I've given you already earlier on.

You can see that Solar is very strong and let's I think that's not too interesting. Also, the regional sales split is okay.

This will be always depending on where we do our projects. We see strong interest moving in Solar towards the Americas, also in Europe interest will be coming up, but you will hear that when Lars talks about the solar activities in a minute.

Let me sum up: from our perspective, this is basically what we've seen in the financials. I'm very much looking forward to take your questions later on and answer the questions in the Q&A and look forward to that.

Now I hand over to Lars, who's traveling right now, and he will give you a background on our strategy and product portfolio. Lars, stage is yours.

Thank you, Markus. I hope I can be heard well.

We want to continue with the application and especially the technologies. These are very much linked to each other, we are looking on one side also what are the target markets and target applications that we are aiming for, but we need to adjust and enhance the technology offerings that we can provide into those applications.

There's a very strong linkage here. We added the vacuum plugging as a new element that you have not seen in previous such meetings.

On the very right side starting, that's a process that we are offering now that brings paste, metallic paste of different types, into very, very tiny holes, and then there's a process about curing this and removing solvents from that. These plugging systems are used in the printed circuit board industry for very high-density boards, and we do foresee that as a good market as we see that the entire industry of compute and AI and so forth is moving very, very rapidly and we want to make sure that we have within our portfolio opportunities to engage in that.

The second piece that we are also strengthening through that acquisition of MASS is our capability to thermally process, especially for dry and cure. This drying and curing capability goes super well along our wet If you can go back, please, in this chart.

and our wet capability because what we process wet chemically also needs to be dried, and I think it's very important that we have both capability on curing and drying. Can we, please, stay on that page?

Thank you. Warum springt das die ganze Zeit?

Page 11. I don't know why the screen keeps on flipping.

We want to talk about the technologies and applications. What I just explained is the capability that we have on PCB.

If you want to stay at that page first, it shows systems and machines that we are doing here. You see on the left side a plugging machine.

That's an example of a machine that's a relatively small machine compared to some of the other machine that SINGULUS is doing, and what we like about that is that's a machine that is not coming with a lot of options. There are certain configurations that we have, but that's the start maybe to a little bit more a serialized kind of a machine that is used across varied industries and partners.

It's possible to spec in a process and a machine like that in the manufacturing process, and therefore we do hope that we can develop our business towards a machine type or platform that we can use in a more standardized way and fashion compared to some of the other machines and equipment that we have that require a higher degree of customization and unique discussion with the customer. This is really a huge opportunity.

What we show here on the right side is a thermal processing system. You can say that's an oven.

It's a little bit more than an oven because these systems deal with a very wide range of solvents and these solvents are typically flammable or tend to be explosive depending on the concentration level. One capability that spills very well with the overall capability of SINGULUS is the ability to offer a system that can process these solvents, drying, maybe certain inert gases, and that goes very well along at that overall capability that SINGULUS possesses.

Going back to this chart, we also can use this kind of processing capability in certain elements of our surface engineering solutions, and if we are dealing with surface engineering, we also have systems for ovens and imprinting that we can use through this newly acquired capability. I'm a little bit confused, to be sorry.

My screen is flipping fore and back all the time. On what page are we looking at?

I don't know what I'm Page 11. Okay.

I talked the entire time about page 10. Could we then go to page 12, please?

Okay. For a time being, we will report our PCB manufacturing-related activities under our Semiconductor offering, and as this may grow over time, we may consider to change the way of how we do the splitting.

What we are trying very much is to enhance our capability in semiconductors, and that will go a little bit towards advanced packaging, and this is exactly where also the activities of that newly acquired business go along. We are trying to strengthen our overall platform, but we also maintain a very, very high focus on the TIMARIS systems.

That's the reason why I'm traveling right now. These systems, we see a very good response from customers.

The individual process modules are a major part of our focus to enhance them, to add additional features, and also certain new features that are required really in what we see from this artificial intelligence industry: higher compute power, certain features in inductors. Those are exactly the kind of applications where our TIMARIS platform offers a very, very strong opportunity for further growth and we are pursuing this actively.

Next to Semiconductor, we maintain our strong position in Solar. What we see and what we spoke to is to make sure that we have a good choice between single equipment in Solar and turnkey offerings.

The difference is for single equipment, they have very individualized systems and machines and processes that we are selling to our customers, and we see that very strongly for established companies as well as for perovskite applications. Our main focus remains in turnkey solutions where we offer to a customer a combination of processes and that's illustrated here on this page.

Those are entire factories. The idea is that because SINGULUS is offering wet chemistry solutions as well as vacuum deposition solutions, and we just talked about the oven technologies, we are able to offer a broader range of process and machine technologies that are required in turnkey solar offerings, and it's a major focus that we continue to pursue very actively.

If we are going on the next page, you will see examples of an area that we see a very high continued interest. We see also a certain technology shift within that, and that's really talking about perovskite and tandem technologies.

Those are an additional layer of a solar that is added on crystalline solutions that offering an additional capability to catch more light and produce solar systems with a higher efficiencies. It's an area where we see a very, very strong interest from across the world, very interesting customer interactions in Europe, in the US, also in Asia.

We are following this very, very closely. The big trend here is to define what amount is done through wet chemistry and what processes are done through vacuum deposition processes, and because SINGULUS is playing in both fields, we do have a very good opportunity to catch early project opportunities, but also to see how these two technologies evolve.

It's very hard to say one or the other wins. I think it's a combination out of both, and we can see very clearly is there are certain customers trying with different end targets and application targets, and then either/or technology is a little bit more in focus.

We have here a system for deposition systems that are using evaporation systems. There are different kind of machines and also materials that we done.

This is a project example that is delivered and installed at a customer. We have more in the pipeline, we have already more installed, and we remain very positive about our EVARIS line, which was only introduced last year, and we see a continuous, good interest from prospect customers in all geographies talking to us about evaporation systems, and we feel we took the right decision to bring this product to the market, and we remain very invested in optimizing the system further and maybe even consider larger systems of that kind.

Closing on Solar, the next topic is about our medical lines. We remain very active to pursue that medical industry, especially we remain active in contact lenses.

We do see a very good response from customers working in these fields. We see certain trends where maybe new opportunities are coming up in contact lenses, and also the commercial model is changing a bit.

As that happens, we are currently working on several project in an early stage, I have to admit, on refining our service offering and solution offering in the wet chemistry side, and we remain positive that we can talk about larger projects going forward. At this stage, we can see overall that medical industry a little bit careful.

There are certain considerations going on about in which country, in which geography, what kind of a production systems have been placed, and while this has been sorted out by our customers, we are working with their respective R&D teams on new solutions, and we are very glad that we do see a continuation of the work that SINGULUS has been done there for many years. Aside from contact lenses, there is a few other application where we start to engage.

We reported in prior meetings about that. As that happens slowly and the processes for approval in the medical and pharmaceutical industries take a certain time, we don't want to speak too much about it today, but we see there's a continuation and an interest that we are actively pursuing.

The same thing we also notice on our three-dimensional deposition systems. Currently those systems are mainly used for cosmetic or for appearance coating.

We also see certain customers switching to more functional coatings where they have additional properties embedded into this deposition systems. We see a very interesting trend where that industry is coming back or getting stronger in Europe.

There's a few examples that we see in different countries in Europe where the production systems are increased for traditional consumer packaging applications, but we also see very major global companies and branded companies who start to engage very deeply in certain technological aspects and working with us actively on developing new solutions or an adaptation of a solution. Here also our combination of capabilities in vacuum deposition, in curing, drying, and oven technologies, and the wet side is coming to play.

Those are exactly the kind of activities that we actively pursue in our development work with our customers. All in all, you can see that our product portfolio is developing.

We have shared this chart a little bit and we are going to refine that more going forward. What we want to make sure is that we have a very clear focus on our systems in vacuum, in wet, and also in thermal processing solutions, and with that overall offering, we feel very confident that we can well pursue our interest and our strategic view where we want to go.

That strategic view we summarize here as our business development goal, meaning that we are trying to very actively seek projects that require both or combination of technologies for both wet chemical technologies and vacuum deposition technologies. The combination out of those offer us a unique selling point and selling proposition, and that's something that we actively pursue in discussions with customer.

There's a whole range of different applications that we see and we are judging one by one about what's the risk level to establish a process, what's the likelihood we can get in, we're looking into certain aspects of timing and our own resources, and we feel positive that that strategic direction that we took to really focus in this intersection of those two major technology fields offers us a good plan forward, and that's actively what we are pursuing with nearly all the projects we're working on. All in all, we want to close with an outlook.

We remain positive for the remaining of the year that we can achieve our sales. We have a guidance currently to achieve about 80 €83 million in this current year, and the main drivers here we see really in the combination of a one side using our technology footprint that I just explained, wet and vacuum in that combination, and work then together with customers more strategically, and especially we see here huge opportunity going on in the work that we are doing with a very large, leading technology company in the solar segment.

This we expect will be one of the growth drivers we are working on. These things take a little bit time.

We need to go through proper work to establish a process, but we are positive that that will come. While we view that positively, we also remain bullish about our Semiconductor segment, as we just said, because that's an established machine platform and we are going more into incremental improvements of this machines.

That's why the Semiconductor segment has a very good contribution to our EBIT in the company, which we forecast in a low single-digit million euro range for 2026. That's closing what we have prepared for our sharing today, and we want to open the floor for questions.

Yes, basically we do expect that. As I mentioned, we built up some accounts receivables over the first half year due to the POC that we're working on larger projects.

Yes. Yes, the operational cash flow will improve.

We expect also some prepayments when new projects are coming in. I mentioned that the order entry was rather slow in the second quarter and we expect order entry picking up in Q3, Q4 in a normal turn of business and this is why we expect also the operational cash flow to increase and being positive in the end.

Sorry, I couldn't hear the first part of the question. Can you just repeat it?

We are working on that and we are very confident [unclear] very confident that we can do this. That's basically it's a short-term liability we have and we are already in touch with CTIEC on the repayment.

We also expect a related cash-in close to that project. This is basically no issue at all.

Basically, we do expect order entries in the coming months. As I mentioned, we stay with our forecast and our prognosis for 2026.

This means that we will be using some of the existing order backlog to turn that into revenues and we will be also moving forward with new projects, especially in the solar segment, but also in semiconductors, and this will basically lead up to the revenue forecast. Not sure Holger, you are hard to hear for me at least a little bit.

Can you make it a bit louder? Sometimes the questions are hard to hear.

Okay. You can hear me better now, I hope?

Now I hear you a lot better, way better.

That is in thermal processing. There's certain elements that we see.

MASS has two technology fields: one is the thermal processing, the other is the vacuum plugging. If you want to call really one big driver, I think it's definitely the thermal processing capability that we see as well.

We are trying to open up some of the technology capabilities that we can offer to answer to growing market opportunities that we see, and that brings clearly the vacuum plugging. We feel it's a very, very good fit between the two companies to combine these technology into one unified service offering.

We see this is slowly picking up. We are going through that integration, making sure that we integrate their systems into ours and that's life going on.

We hired additional people also to support our design in that area and we are quite positively looking into this. This is a small flower that we planted, but we have a very positive outlook that that will grow.

That overall market that you can see, especially in computer developing and supply chains for that diversifying, we think MASS and the technology that come with MASS are a very, very good fit with us.

It was just a small asset deal because the GmbH, the former MASS, was in insolvency procedures, and we took over selected assets and as I mentioned, most important besides the IP was taking over the employees. They give us a good lever to move into that market.

It was five-digit, small six-digit thousand euro sales price related to that. No major investment, and we got a lot of IP, we got customer relationships, we got the employees, and we have an strategic entry into that business field which Lars was just explaining.

That was a very good deal. Overall, as you can imagine, 22 people do not change the consolidated financials that much.

Over time, it will round up and add to our product portfolio, what Lars already told, but right now in the consolidated figures it's negligible.

It already happened is the good news. We through this activity, we got to know customers that we did not know.

We are in this early conversations with them. Some conversations actually start to materialize.

We can see that. I think they came to visit us.

They had a lot of questions to understand what is SINGULUS offering, how do those two companies fit together. To our big happiness, there are some also larger names from the industry in the clientele that discuss with us.

They are negotiating through us through contracts. We are doing that.

Typically for more standardized machines, there's a negotiation on certain frame contracts required because those customers, they have multiple factories, they discuss about deployment across different sites, and this kind of negotiations, they take a little bit of time to to pursue. The same thing is on the technical side.

We went through a period of certain demonstration and explanation and customer-making sample making with the customers, and this takes a bit of time. In 2026 specifically, I do not expect a super major contribution, but we are building a pipeline here and so for 2027 we do see that that could be a very, very good business and it's a very interesting synergy with the service offerings that SINGULUS already has.

As we continue, we will report on that. Markus just said, it's a relatively small team.

We are growing that and we are finding very good synergies between that. I think material results I only see in 2027.

The Semiconductor side is growing overall. SINGULUS is in the non-CMOS kind of semiconductor.

The big growth that you see for the broader industry is mostly in CMOS and in advanced packaging. Advanced packaging is one of the reasons why we are looking also into MASS and some of the related works there.

We do see a very good pickup of our customers. We see that machines, especially delivered to customers in the past 24 months, are actually getting higher and higher in production, in mass production.

That's really a shift that also SINGULUS is going through to bring the SINGULUS machines from a predominant research institute, relatively small production houses driven customer base into fabs and foundries and different level of customers. There's a learning that we are going through.

I think in 2025 particularly, we put a lot of effort in to make sure that we upgrade our machines, work on software applications, make sure that our systems are more suitable for large-volume production, and we see this is happening and we also remain positive that we will see that momentum. Customers are in active discussions with us.

There's a very positive dialogue about driving that. If you're looking into, for example, the magnetic applications for TMR sensor, that's just a gigantic market for electric vehicles.

There are many such sensors in an electric vehicle. You see the same things also happening going forward in the robotics.

There are major programs right now going on in robotics, humanoid robotics are everywhere talked about in the internet. I think if you're looking into each joint, TMR sensors for different functions, for encoder functions of basically defining the positions, but also for sensing, right, current sensors to measure force on overload.

That's exactly the kind of application that we see, and while we talk to those customers that are working on this kind of applications, we need to see that our systems also are made fit to do that. The, for example, TMR values, they are changing.

We are seeing customers asking for different working ranges of those sensors, and that's exactly what we are adjusting our process to so that our machines suit the needs of the customers. That's an ongoing dialogue, and we see that that overall market is right and we remain positive that we have a good offering of our products and processes today, and we will see that in coming orders.

That's an interesting question because that depends on larger projects that are as opportunities we are working on in the solar side. Those projects tend to be higher in volume, lower in margin, and in Semiconductor it's a bit different.

I do see that a good third or more of our business is semiconductor-related, and that's exactly also investments that we are taking. If you look at what we describe as Solar, that's also a semiconductor at the end of the day.

There are certain synergies that we are catching. We are expanding our laboratory and sample-making capability in our headquarters in Kahl and so these things will go hand in hand.

If you just talk about that Semiconductor as SINGULUS defines that, I would say I think the 30% plus is a very, very solid number, hopefully even bigger. The projects are there.

It's exactly on track, in my opinion. It's exactly on track.

We set a larger set of activities. We are working through that.

These things take time. It would not be R&D if this would be done in a few weeks or months.

That's a process development where we are spending really significant effort. There's a large part of the team is working on that.

We have multiple activities there and we will see that in the coming months of how that yields. In terms of meeting the more granular milestones that we agreed there with the partner, we just reviewed that actually a few days ago.

I feel we are on track to meet what we said we are going to deliver.

The bidding is closed. That's a very simple answer.

There's a public solicitation that Triumph bid. We submitted and published also on the demand of Triumph that that period has been closed, they are accepting currently no additional bids.

Whoever bid it, those bids have been received, and currently this is entirely an activity of Triumph to go through those bids and evaluate that and then come to a conclusion. We can't really state too much.

I think that's a question has to be raised to Triumph. What we are doing is we are basically waiting for a Triumph decision.

We are very excited about that. Thanks for mentioning that and that ties into everything that I said before.

We are actively working on widening our service offering and taking technology that we have and putting this a little bit in a different context, and that's exactly a case and example where we do that. The release came out ahead of the semiconductor show in Taiwan that is happening in beginning of next month, beginning of September, and so we are actively working with customer, we are also working on additional marketing activities, and we will share when we are ready.

That's exactly the kind of activities that we are pursuing very, very systematically: one side in terms of technical aspects to make sure that we have a solution and we have an offering that is attractive to the market, but also on the commercial side. We do see that these projects might require a little bit different go-to-market strategy from the commercial aspect, and that's exactly what we are working through in certain partnership.

We expect there's more to come. We are working on more in that field and we feel to really tackle these upcoming applications, they're so challenging, we need to put this on a few shoulders and we can't do everything by ourselves.

Partnering is a great way to also mitigate risk, but also offer more sales channel, have more access to more customers because our overall offering is wider, but we don't do this in any form or shape as a joint venture or any other kind of a relationship. It's really two companies working very, very closely together to offer something to the respective markets, and that's what we find is the right approach to pursue here.

We are very happy about that application.

Yeah. Turnkey is a wide word.

When we talk about it, it's basically that we offer the customer a machine plus a process. Very often, it's not just one machine and one process, it's maybe a combination of machines and a combination of processes as well giving them a guarantee that what is being processed in this set-up has a certain measurable output or measurable performance standard at the end.

We're doing that as a general contractor. Those projects are highly attractive to us because they underpin the capability of having multiple technologies in the company, and that's something that we are pursuing very actively in a very, very positive way.

These projects take a bit of time, there's a lot of discussion going on. We also see the customers are going through their funding discussions.

I think this is very typical in the solar industry. They're working through that to make sure that these projects are established, and in order to manage our risk, what we are doing is we are trying to work through pilot serieses and making sure that we deliver these combined processes prior to customers for testing.

That ensures that the customer knows really what they can expect getting from us, but it also makes sure that we understand what the customer's expectations exactly are. That's something that we are working on very, very actively and we do see a huge opportunity here for SINGULUS going forward.

It will take some time.

Some things are already our customers in production. We don't want to speak for the customers, but we are very positive on where we stand.

We think that we did the right choices from our point of view in terms of some of the offerings on machines and exactly configurations of machines. What we see is there is, like I just said, a trend on combining what you do in wet and what you do in vacuum and the combination of the two, and that's exactly what we are pursuing.

These customers that we are looking for, they are located in Europe and in the United States and that's something that we will pursue very, very actively and we remain bullish for that. There's a certain time for qualification, I know the performance results that the customer achieved in the lab scale and they are also working with their partners to bring this really in a large scale to market, but on a small-scale mass production we are already in.

I hope it's a good consequence that we see continuation of business. What we see is that it's a market that has a certain saturation on one side, but it has also very, very good niche player on others who continue to develop these products.

Some are unique versions of mainstream product for certain target application, and that's something where we continue to offer our solutions, right? What we want to make sure is that we stay relevant, that we also understand the trends where that market is continuing.

There are certain materials currently being tested, there are certain process combinations being tested, and being part of this active development of customers is a very good opportunity for us to make sure that we maintain our position with our customers. As people age and populations are aging, we see also certain trends, cosmetic trends are changing, we see in different geographies the contact lens market is to be behaving different and that's are the drivers.

There are certain markets that demand for more. We are right there.

At the same time, this also the end customer's commercial model is a bit changing in terms of the price structure. Private label is a big topic in that market.

We need to make sure that our offerings are fit to what those customers are asking for.

We are working through a development plan, answering the second question first. We are working through a development plan.

We mentioned that before. These activities and developments, they have a certain time, we are going through that and we don't want to preconclude exactly when that is.

At the moment, from our point of view and the development roadmaps and the sub-milestones that we agreed, we are on schedule to deliver what we said we would deliver, and we are in active discussions with that customer on whether and when they may go ahead. That's a decision that right now solely sits with them.

What we are working on is to make sure that we are really ready, our process technology is ready, design is ready, validation is ready, and in that terms, we are there. These projects will take some time then to be built and made, if you are asking for major contribution, this is definitely not in 2026.

This is something for 2027 and beyond. Our team is highly, highly focused to make sure that we close on these projects, yeah.

Specifically in the US market, I think this was the first question, we do see a high interest in solar in the US market. There's different drivers really.

I think one big driver is that the US market is a little bit more entrepreneurial than the European market, you have multiple also smaller players who are very active, who have very, very strong technical teams, and with selected teams where our technologies really fit, we are in a very close interaction and cooperation, and we see that continuing, yeah. The European market is a little bit more, yeah, careful about that.

We don't see in the crystalline side a lot of growth, but we see in the European sectors also in other fields, perovskite, thin films, there's a continued interest and with those customers we're also dealing. By nature of these markets, the European side, I think they're a little bit more conservative, they're a little bit more careful, they are thinking less big in scaling, and the availability to invest the money in the US is much better, so that's why you see in that US solar market a much higher momentum.

Yeah.

We are talking to many customers. There are many rumors.

We're not going to talk about individual customers, but we talk with nearly everybody in the solar market as well as companies who are today not in the solar market. There's a multiple arrangement.

We heard all sorts of things. We also follow very closely what they do, their publications.

This is one side. You have the same thing for Tesla.

We get the same question nearly daily. We see that also for the other markets.

There is a huge search in energy and that's partly driven out from the growth in AI industry, so that is where those questions are coming from. At the same time, we are seeing that also in other markets and in other I don't want to say markets as a geography, but also in an application market.

There are companies who are interested in using solar for their self-use, right, and because they have an demand in energy and in supply, and there are other players who are more working on selling solar as a module for others to produce electricity, right? These business models are very, very different.

With nearly everybody in the market, we are in an active conversation.

I would say especially in Solar, there is more players in the US. Perovskite is one of this area where you find some very strong players in the US, and I think they're building very strong pipelines.

Also, despite some of their statements in what you may read here and there in the media, there is a continuous good business case for solar in the US. You need to look a little bit under the hood, but there is a few companies who are very active and they pursue very promising go-to-market plans in solar, and we do have the capacity.

We are working with them, we have machines in those companies, and we are in a very, very good contact. Myself, I would say probably on a weekly basis, we have a very good insight on where we are with those existing as well as new customers.

We have not disclosed who that partner is, and there are currently no plans to disclose that.

It's not so much the front-end semiconductor, that's definitely the back-end of semiconductor. Some people call that advanced packaging or even after advanced packaging, the printed circuit board, and printed circuit board assembly process, so that's really a little bit afterwards.

Those markets, however, they grow a bit together, especially in advanced packaging. You see people are working with more dense printed circuit boards, the whole density of electronics is developing very, very rapidly.

There are a lot of thermal questions, especially due to AI compute, that require dissipation of heat. There are different combinations of materials being used to dissipate heat, to also deal with thermal expansion coefficients, and that's exactly the area where we are working on.

If you want to look at MASS-related to semiconductor, is really the back-end part of the semiconductor world where we see a good opportunity and where we focus on.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Take care, everybody.