Applied Materials, Inc.

Applied Materials, Inc.

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Applied Materials, Inc. (AP2.DE) Q1 2016 Earnings Call Transcript

Published at 2016-02-19 00:09:08
Executives
Michael Sullivan - Vice President-Investor Relations Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President
Analysts
C.J. Muse - Evercore ISI Toshiya Hari - Goldman Sachs Japan Co., Ltd. Joseph L. Moore - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC Timothy Arcuri - Cowen & Co. LLC Romit J. Shah - Nomura Securities International, Inc. Krish Sankar - Bank of America Merrill Lynch Farhan Ahmad - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker) Harlan Sur - JPMorgan Securities LLC Stephen Chin - UBS Securities LLC Patrick J. Ho - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc. Sidney Ho - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Weston Twigg - Pacific Crest Securities Tom Diffely - D.A. Davidson & Co. Mark J. Heller - CLSA Americas LLC
Operator
Welcome to the Applied Materials earnings conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards you will be invited to participate in a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Michael Sullivan, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Michael Sullivan - Vice President-Investor Relations: Thank you. In a moment, we'll discuss the results for our first quarter which ended on January 31. Joining me are Gary Dickerson, our President and CEO; and Bob Halliday, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, let me remind you that today's call contains forward-looking statements including Applied's current view of its industries, performance, products, share positions, profitability and business outlook. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements, and are not guarantees of future performance. Information concerning these risks and uncertainties is contained in Applied's most recent Form 10-K and 8-K filings with the SEC. All forward-looking statements are based on management's estimates, projections and assumptions as of February 18, 2016, and Applied assumes no obligation to update them. Today's call also includes non-GAAP adjusted financial measures. Reconciliations to GAAP measures are contained in today's earnings press release and in our reconciliation slides, which are available on the Investor's page of our website at appliedmaterials.com. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Gary Dickerson. Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Mike and good afternoon everyone. I'll start by commenting on Applied Materials' results and talk about our outlook and longer-term strategic goals. Then I'll share our views on the market and what this means for us in 2016. I'll conclude with my thoughts on each of our major businesses. After that, Bob will provide additional details about our results and describe how we're optimizing the company's performance and delivering strong shareholder returns. In both semiconductor and display, we see dramatic technology changes taking place. When we look at the advances our customers are making, materials innovation is at the heart of these changes. I believe this creates great opportunities for us. We have the broadest and deepest talent and technology to enable the materials innovation, that will drive the semiconductor and display industries forward. Our strategy is to develop highly-differentiated materials engineering products and services that make major technology inflections possible. Our strategy is working and I'm pleased with our progress. We are turning the investments we've made in new products into profitable growth. When I look at our Q1 results and our outlook for 2016, there are four main drivers of our performance. First, our leadership businesses including Epi, PVD, Implant, CMP and RTP, have high market share and unique capabilities. I see these businesses delivering critical enabling technology that our customers need to drive significant innovations in transistor and interconnect for 10-nanometer devices. Second, our high-growth businesses, Etch and CVD, are winning substantial market share as the 3D NAND inflection and materials-enabled scaling accelerates. Third, we are delivering sustainable growth in service. 2015 was a record year for service revenue and in Q1 we booked our highest orders ever. And finally, we are growing beyond semiconductor, specifically in display. When I meet with leading display companies, it is clear that the industry is becoming highly dependent on materials innovation, especially as they introduce new technologies like OLED. This plays to our strengths and significantly expands our market. Now, let's turn to our market outlook. Like everyone, I'm mindful of the current global economic risks. Even in this environment, we believe 2016 wafer fab equipment spending levels will be similar to 2015. We are seeing industry investment focused on technology inflections, including 10-nanometer and 3D NAND, as well as increased spending in China. For our customers, the inflection-driven investments in foundry, logic and memory, are highly strategic. We have been witnessing a fierce battle for leadership in these new device technologies. When I talk to customers about their major competitive challenges, they talk about how critical it is to hit the right timing for major technology transitions. In foundry, we believe 2016 investment levels will be more or less the same as last year. We anticipate that the majority of spending will be for the 10-nanometer node, which will be heavily weighted towards the second half of the calendar year. In addition, we see a broadening of foundry spending and some shifts in customer mix, shifts that I believe are very favorable to us. In memory, we see NAND investment up about 25% year-on-year as more customers ramp 3D NAND technology. Our available market at a 3D NAND factory is up to three times greater compared to traditional planar technology. 2015 was a year of heavy DRAM investment, with the highest level of spending in five years. This year we expect DRAM investment to be down around 20% coming off this high. And in logic, we expect investment to be relatively flat year-on-year. Within the global environment, I look at China as a very significant opportunity. In China, we are seeing growth in revenue and orders, both from Chinese manufacturers as well as multinational customers who are expanding their footprints. I believe that Applied is very well positioned. We were the first company in our industry to establish a presence in China more than 30 years ago. Today, we have strong customer relationships and great talent to support the new projects that are ramping there. Now that I've given you this background on the market environment, I would like to talk about the progress and priorities for each of our major businesses. In semiconductor equipment, I'm pleased with our momentum. Technology changes are moving the market to our sweet spot in materials engineering. And this means that our served market is now 60% of total wafer fab equipment. We are investing more than ever in innovation and unique products to accelerate materials-enabled scaling for our customers. I like how our future pipeline is shaping up. And we have very strong pull for our latest technology. We are projecting that 40% of our 2016 revenue will come from products that we launched in the last three years. In 2015, we believe that we made solid share gains in wafer fab equipment, with almost all our major businesses growing or maintaining their market position. I expect that 2016 will be an even stronger year for us. In service, we aligned our strategy to enable customer success. We've done this by bringing together capabilities from across the company to deliver more value with our service products. The changes we've made to our strategy drove record performance in 2015, and we are now focusing on sustaining growth in this business. Because demand for service is seasonal in nature, we believe year-on-year comparisons are helpful. Our Q1 revenues are up 7% compared with the same period last year. I also look at service contracts as another leading indicator of our future growth. If we look back to 2012 and 2013, the net number of tools under contract was not growing. In 2015 we added around 1,250 tools under contract, and I expect us to continue this momentum. As I mentioned, in display, customers are also making strategic investments in new technology. We are seeing these investments accelerate, particularly for OLED displays. The display technology inflections significantly expand our available markets. For example, we project that our opportunity at an OLED factory is more than three times larger than at a traditional amorphous silicon LCD factory. We have great opportunities and momentum in display, and I'm excited about how we are positioned. Our display business has grown consistently for the past three years, and we expect to deliver additional growth in 2016 and beyond. To summarize, as I look ahead, I am confident about our future growth and performance. We are maintaining a positive outlook for Applied in 2016 because our customers are making strategic inflection-driven investments that play to our strengths. Our leadership businesses, where we have unique capabilities, are performing well as the market comes to the sweet spot of our technology. Our high-growth businesses, Etch and CVD, are making significant market share gains as the 3D NAND inflection accelerates. And we are delivering sustainable growth in service and display. Across the organization, we are focused on delivering enabling products and services and generating attractive returns for our shareholders. Now, let me hand the call over to Bob, who will provide more details about our quarterly results, performance, and priorities. Bob? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Thanks, Gary. Like Gary, I believe we're in a strong position to deliver profitable growth in 2016, as our customers invest in the technology roadmaps across semi and display. Based on the demand outlooks of our customers, I believe we'll make significant progress this year towards our 2018 financial model, and we will deliver very attractive cash returns to our shareholders. On the revenue line, I'm encouraged by the progress we're making in semiconductor systems market share. While we expect the WFE market to be about the same size this calendar year, we believe our share of WFE will be higher. We expect our SAM share of WFE to expand this year as well. In fact, we believe it will be up seven points compared to 2012. Our Global Services business is on track for a third consecutive year of growth, and we believe our display business will grow for a fourth consecutive year. I'm also encouraged by the progress our teams are making on our gross margin initiatives, and I am still confident that we'll make additional progress in our second half. On the operating expense line, we are tightly controlling our discretionary spending, holding OpEx relatively flat while strengthening R&D. We are making substantial R&D investments to deliver a strong pipeline of new products for emerging inflections. These products are already delivering revenue growth today. At the same time, we're reducing non-GAAP G&A to the lowest level in years. We've made further progress with our tax structure, and I believe we're on track to lower the rate once again this year. We continue to be aggressive with the buyback program. We've repurchased 112 million shares over the past three quarters, which is equal to 9% of the shares outstanding at the beginning of the program. So while 2016 is shaping up to be a flattish year for WFE, we believe Applied will outperform our markets, making significant progress towards our financial 2018 model and deliver very attractive cash returns for our shareholders. Next, I'll make a few comments about the first quarter. When we delivered financial results that were slightly better than our expectations. Revenue of $2.3 billion declined 5% sequentially, and we slightly increased our non-GAAP gross margin to 42.4%. We held non-GAAP operating expenses within the range, and we delivered non-GAAP EPS of $0.26, slightly above the midpoint of the range. Turning to the balance sheet, we used $625 million to repurchase 35 million shares of our stock. We've completed 65% of the $3 billion authorization, and we'll continue to be opportunistic with the program. We also repaid $800 million in short-term debt and redeemed a $400 million bond scheduled to mature in June. Turning to the segments, Silicon Systems orders were 12% lower sequentially. Within the mix, only DRAM orders were higher. Our Silicon backlog remained healthy at $1.6 billion, and while revenue declined in Q1, we believe our demand will increase in Q2 and the second half. Our AGS orders reached $773 million and set another all-time quarterly record. AGS sequential revenue was slightly lower, consistent with seasonal patterns. Our display orders were down 6% sequentially, but remained up year-over-year. Our display revenue increased 12% sequentially. Bear in mind that display orders and revenue will continue to be lumpy. EES turned to modest profit even as revenue remained at low levels. Now, I'll provide our business outlook for Q2. We believe our overall net sales will be up by 5% to 10% sequentially. Within this outlook, we expect Silicon Systems' net sales will be up by 11% to 17%; AGS net sales should be flat to up 5%. We expect our display net sales to be down by 20% to 30%, and EES net sales should be approximately $55 million. Our non-GAAP gross margin should be approximately flat, and we plan to hold non-GAAP operating expenses in a range of $565 million, plus or minus $10 million. We are forecasting a Q2 non-GAAP tax rate of 17%, and we believe non-GAAP EPS will be in the range of $0.30 to $0.34. So in summary, we see 2016 as a year when a broad range of our customers invest in leading-edge technology across semi and display. Our investments have put us in a position to grow our served market, revenue, share and earnings. While we're mindful of the macroeconomic concerns, we believe 2016 will be a strong year for Applied Materials. Now, let me turn the call over to Mike for questions. Michael Sullivan - Vice President-Investor Relations: Thanks, Bob. To help us reach as many of you as we can, please ask just one question and no more than one brief follow-up. Operator, let's please begin.
Operator
Your first question comes from the line of C.J. Muse from Evercore ISI. Your line is open. C.J. Muse - Evercore ISI: Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I guess first question on the silicon side. So, given your outlook for you guys to outgrow WFE and where you are in terms of backlog and the orders in the quarter, the math seems to work that orders should be up at least 20%, 25% into the April quarter and then rising through the back-half of the year. Is that kind of the framework you're looking for? And I guess within that, how should we be thinking about mix between foundry, logic, memory through the year? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Sure, C.J., I'll take a shot at that. We're not going to give specific orders guidance, but we have said, we do believe that the second half is stronger than the first half. We do believe that the first half is a little bit more weighted to NAND, whereas the second half is more weighted to stronger performance in foundry, logic and DRAM. So we do see a stronger second half. And incrementally, we see strong performance for Applied in the second half, because of our position on V-NAND throughout the year and also foundry and the 10-nanometer conversion. So we think the second half does feel more positive than the first half, and our position is pretty good in the second half. C.J. Muse - Evercore ISI: Excellent. And I guess as follow-up, how should we think about the trajectory here off of a flat gross margin guide into the back-half of the year? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Sure. We said on the last call that first half of fiscal 2016 would be flattish with the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 when we did 42.2%. We did 42.4% in first quarter this year. We're guiding to about the same in Q2. So we're a little above what we thought we were a quarter ago and we still believe that the second half is up from the first half. We've said in the last call there to be a 200 basis point roughly increase from first half to second half. We think the full year is still positive as we've said. We think we exit the year. We think we're up in the second half. But given that we're a little ahead of plan in the first half, I don't know if there's a 200 basis point improvement from first half to second half. C.J. Muse - Evercore ISI: Got you. Makes sense. Thanks so much. Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: You're welcome. Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, C.J.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Toshiya Hari from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Toshiya Hari - Goldman Sachs Japan Co., Ltd.: Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations on a solid quarter and a strong guide. I have two questions as well. The first one is regarding memory CapEx. Just given the recent pricing dynamics in memory, are you worried at all about DRAM and NAND CapEx in the back-half of the year? Or do you think the pending projects are strategic enough for your customers to spend according to plan? Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, generally, we think that this year is sort of flattish with last year, when last year it was 31.5% to 32%. But the year is a good year for Applied Materials, because if you look at the spending this year, we kind of think foundry, logic are flattish, but the mix within foundry and logic spending in terms of what they're buying, I mean customer profile is very good for Applied. The second thing is within memory, DRAM is down about 20% and we think flash is up about 25%. And the predominant spending in flash is V-NAND. So that transition on V-NAND is particular good for Applied on three levels. One, the absolute level of greenfield spending for first and second generation V-NAND is higher than the absolute spending for planar NAND. The second thing is that the reuse – where they were doing a lot of reuse in the shrink on planar, is significantly less in first and second generation V-NAND, and particularly around tools that we sell. And thirdly, we're gaining on the transition. So I think that the mix within the year plays for Applied, and in terms of our concern, we think the 31.5% type number, maybe a little more on the year is a fair estimate, and we think we've taken the risk you've referenced into account. Toshiya Hari - Goldman Sachs Japan Co., Ltd.: Okay, helpful. Thank you. The second one is regarding your display business. I know, Gary and Bob, you've both touched on this, but can you maybe talk little bit about what you're seeing in terms of orders trends primarily in China today and how big the OLED opportunity could be for you guys in 2017 and beyond, I'm guessing primarily in Korea? Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. The OLED is a great opportunity for Applied. We've talked about the increase in the total available markets there added CVD, PVD, thin film encapsulation steps. So if you do a comparison to amorphous silicon LCD, the total available market is up by about a factor of three for us. In display, we've talked about 2016, we're anticipating it being a fourth consecutive year of growth. And based on everything we're seeing, we're on track to either hit or exceed the 2018 model that we published for display previously. So display, we have tremendous momentum. And certainly OLED, especially in mobile, is a huge opportunity for us. The other thing I would say is that this is really a great proof of our ability to expand materials engineering into adjacent markets. Toshiya Hari - Goldman Sachs Japan Co., Ltd.: Thank you so much.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Joe Moore from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Joseph L. Moore - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great, thank you. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the lumpiness in some of the order patterns, particularly NAND, I mean for NAND to be as strong as you've talked about it. It seems like it's going to come back a lot in the second quarter, is that the right trajectory? And then longer-term, how long do you think this 3D investment sustains, and when do you think that that might peak? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Sure. I'll take a shot at that. The – so if you look at it, the disconnect is, we think that NAND is stronger in the second half than the first half and we think there's an increase in traction around V-NAND – I'm sorry NAND is stronger in the first half than the second half. And you'd say, well, why did you have bigger DRAM orders and not NAND? We had already booked some. If you go look back to Q3, Q4, of 2015, we had very large bookings, and some of those were V-NAND bookings. Secondly, we see increasing traction. So if you see why we're beating in Q2, it's around two things in particular. It's around China and a wider proliferation of V-NAND. So we do see the momentum on V-NAND and we're pretty comfortable that it's going to happen. Joseph L. Moore - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: And then in terms of the length, the duration of this investment? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Oh, the duration. Joseph L. Moore - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Does it grow again you think in 2017? Do you have the visibility to say that? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: So right now, there's about 1.4 million wafer starts in the world of NAND. Through the end of calendar 2015, 150,000 had been converted. We think cumulatively through the end of 2016 there's going be 350,000 to 400,000. So through the end of 2016, 400,000 of 1.4 million available have been converted. We think most of those get converted over time. This year, we think NAND spending is about $8.7 million. And we think it's sustained to pretty good levels over the next three years for this conversion. Does it stay that high? I'm not sure, but it's a pretty healthy number. Joseph L. Moore - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Very helpful, thank you very much. Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Thanks, Joe.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Timothy Arcuri from Cowen & Company. Your line is open. Timothy Arcuri - Cowen & Co. LLC: Thanks a lot. Actually I had two. First, Bob, if I look at the service, orders have been pretty meaningfully above revenue for about a year now. And I thought that service usually had like a one-year contract. So I guess I would have thought that we would see some catch-up on revenue relative to bookings. So are these contracts now lengthening out beyond a year? Can you sort of bridge that gap for us? Thanks. Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: The service contracts are a good leading indicator of revenue and they are also a good leading indicator of sustainability of revenue, because you build in that relationship over time, and customers get greater value from us, frankly. And so, it's a win-win both ways. In terms of how you recognize it through the revenue plan, it is happening. A couple of things are happening though in the quarter. One, you did have the Chinese New Year and a little bit of slowdown started up earlier in Q1. So we book a lot of contracts typically in Q1, but the revenues – it's not a high revenue quarter, and fab utilization was okay in the quarter, so in terms of tactical sales of spares and services, not super high. And then 200-millimeter tools are in that number too, and those go up and down a little bit. Timothy Arcuri - Cowen & Co. LLC: Okay, great. Thanks, Bob. And, Gary, just a question for you on M&A. Can you just talk at a very, very high level about that? There's just not a lot of stuff in your current SAM that really can move the needle for you. So I guess the question is your willingness to think a bit outside the box and maybe expand your SAM into some new verticals. Thanks a lot. Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks for the question. Regarding our current strategy, we like our current strategy. The outlook for 2016 we think is very strong. And beyond 2016, we also believe that there are great opportunities for growth. We have a strong position in transistor and interconnect as foundry and logic moves to the new technology node, very strong pull for Etch deposition tools also, especially in the memory space, but certainly in patterning and future technology nodes. We're growing service, growing the display business, and we believe that's sustainable growth in those markets. So overall, we're making tremendous progress towards the 2018 model, and we're optimistic about growth opportunities for Applied, especially when you look at what's driving this year and what's going to drive the future. You have 10-nanometer that is really based on materials – new materials, 10-nanometer, 7-nanometer, new memory technologies, organic LED displays. All of those areas are enabled by materials innovation where Applied has clear leadership. And we think this is a -we're in the early innings of these changes and in driving materials-enabled scaling. So I am personally very optimistic about growth for Applied Materials. Relative to M&A, our strategy continues to be pretty much the same. We continue to look for good opportunities, but we're very selective in what we look at. There are three criteria: financial returns; strategic alignment, especially with our materials engineering technology; and does the company have an opportunity for leadership in whatever segments that they're in. So those are three things we look at. Certainly we keep looking for opportunities, but I am very confident about our growth opportunities, and we are definitely not needy relative to M&A. Timothy Arcuri - Cowen & Co. LLC: Thanks a lot for that, Gary. Thanks.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Romit Shah from Nomura Securities. Your line is open. Romit J. Shah - Nomura Securities International, Inc.: Yes, thank you. You talked about strength in China, and I'm seeing orders in this region up 20% sequentially and up over 50% year over year, and in terms of regions, your second-largest region for total orders. Can you guys talk a little bit about what's driving that strength and the sustainability of it? Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I can start and then, Bob, if you want to add anything. So clearly there's a lot of activity in China. We see investments by both multinational companies and domestic companies. Applied has a very strong position in China. We were the first company to build capability there about 30 years ago; very strong team, very strong capability, very good relationships and positions with both the Chinese companies and the multinational companies that are moving to China. So we would look at this as certainly an incrementally very good opportunity in 2016. But my feeling is that this is certainly not just a 2016 story; that there's a great opportunity going forward, and for Applied we're very, very well positioned. Romit J. Shah - Nomura Securities International, Inc.: Okay, thanks. Thanks, Gary. And then I also had a question on OLED. So your display business is about $700 million to $800 million last year. Can you break down for us within that, how much is OLED revenue? And when do you think this business actually starts to move the needle for total revenues? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Sure, we segment it in a couple of ways. One, we talk about historically between TVs and smaller screens, and the smaller screens historically have been split between OLED and non-OLED. Last year, mostly what we've sold was OLED. It was the encapsulation tools. Those were OLED-like. We talked about bookings last year of $150 million. Many people in the mainstream media speculate that there will be a more rapid transition, particularly in the small screens, to OLED. We are pretty well positioned for that. In terms of split of revenues, we said earlier in the year that our split of revenues that we were projecting for this year between small screens and larger screens, TVs and smaller screens, I think we were like 60% for the small mobile devices and about 40% for the others, mostly TVs. If anything, we think we're better positioned if there's an inflection that goes more strong in OLED. So over time we think there's probably more and more of that. Now put in perspective, we are much better positioned than we were several years ago there in terms of products and breadth of products. And there are about twice as many layers on OLED devices and LED screens. So I think we're very well positioned. The inflection seems to be happening, but we haven't talked specific numbers. And it won't hit our revenue line right away because these tools take about nine months to build. Romit J. Shah - Nomura Securities International, Inc.: Okay, thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Krish Sankar from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open. Krish Sankar - Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Yes, hi. Thanks for taking my question, I had two of them. First one, for Gary or Bob, looks like everyone is bullish on 3D NAND, which kind of makes sense given the technology transition going on. I'm curious. When you guys look at the risks to it, where do you think we could be wrong in terms of the 3D NAND growth? And along with that, have any of your customers actually looking at 2D NAND at like 12-nanometer or below, or do you think there's no more 2D NAND development being done? And then I had a follow-up. Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think relative to 3D NAND, certainly when I'm spending time with customers, there's a tremendous competitive pressure to move to 3D NAND technology. So all the discussions – and I had met with many customers over the last few weeks, so all of the discussions were focused on that transition. Not everybody is in the same place relative to the maturity or the yield for that technology, but I certainly see that as an overwhelming focus for all of the memory companies. Krish Sankar - Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Got it. Got it, and then a follow-up on the display side. It looks like when you compare to your semi business, your served available market on display is pretty low. I understand that you're riding the OLED wave. Is there any plan to actually make the display like a $2 billion revenue business by organically or inorganically developing products so that you can get a better percentage of the display CapEx? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: We've got, as we've talked about, really good momentum in OLED with 3x larger TAM than we've had in the past. Bob talked about the number of steps increasing with CVD, PVD. We've entered thin film encapsulation also, so that gives us another growth driver. So we're very optimistic in terms of the growth opportunities in display. We are working on some other areas that would expand our TAM, but we're not ready to talk about those. Krish Sankar - Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Got it, thank you. Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Krish.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Farhan Ahmad from Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Farhan Ahmad - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations on the solid results and guide. My first question is on 3D NAND. In your guidance of up 25%, can you tell us if you are including XPoint or any of the new memories in there? And secondly, if you could tell us what portion of the non-CapEx was 3D last year and how much of it is on 3D this year? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: So I can take on the XPoint. XPoint still is really in the early phases. So really almost no CapEx for XPoint in our forecast. And what was the other question? Farhan Ahmad - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): The other question was what portion of the CapEx within NAND is 3D in 2016 and what portion of it was 3D in 2015? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: We think that in 2015, it was a little under 50% and we think in 2016 it's probably mid-80%s. Farhan Ahmad - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Got it. And then one question on China. I wanted to just probe little bit more along China. There are two things we are seeing from China, one is, like, we have seen new fab announcements from new entrants. So I wanted to understand if you have seen any of the orders or any activity from new companies that are coming up in China like XMC or some of the other memory companies that have been announced? And secondly, there have also been some large equity investments in some of the tech companies in U.S. from Chinese private equity companies, and I wanted to hear if you have received any interest from any private equity firm in China? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: So, the first question, have we seen memory orders from new Chinese manufacturers in China, Farhan? Farhan Ahmad - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Memory or interest, like even activity, like, joint development projects or R&D lines or any sort of activity? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Let me try to answer and help. Most of the activity we're seeing tactically is from existing customers; existing customers in China already and existing customers outside of China who are increasing their footprint in China. We hear about people interested in technology and in acquisitions, but we're not really involved in that. Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I would say we are engaged with some of these companies, but relative to business coming from those companies right now, it's very minimal. We are engaged with some companies that have future opportunities, but by far and away, the majority of the business today is from existing companies. Farhan Ahmad - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Thank you. That's all I have. Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Thanks, Farhan. Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Harlan Sur from JPMorgan. Your line is open. Harlan Sur - JPMorgan Securities LLC: Hi. Nice job on the quarterly execution and the strong guide. On the foundry investment for this year, I think you guys were previously looking for a slight growth for foundry this year and now you're kind of guiding for flattish. I'm just kind of curious what's changed. Do you see a slower 10-nanometer conversion cycle? Or maybe slightly lower 14-nanometer and 16-nanometer capacity adds? Any color here would be appreciated. Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: I don't think we've changed much, frankly. I think we were flattish, slightly up last time. We're flattish now. I don't think there's been much change, frankly. I wouldn't read too much into it. Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: There has been some change in mix. Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: I think mix has changed a little bit. In other words, we think some of our foundry customers are more committed to their spending, giving us orders. Some of the others seem to be hesitating. So we think the mix has changed a little bit from last quarter. Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: And those changes are also a positive for us in 2016. Harlan Sur - JPMorgan Securities LLC: Got it, okay. And then on DRAM, you expect it to be more second-half weighted. Are you starting to see the 1X nanometer DRAM conversion in your pipeline for the second half of this year? And is this part of what's driving the second half bias? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: We see some of that happening this year, but we're not getting a lot of orders yet. Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: But it is a big focus, there's no question. 1X is also another one of these competitive battlegrounds where there's a lot of focus. Harlan Sur - JPMorgan Securities LLC: All right. Thanks a lot. Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Thanks, Harlan.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Chin from UBS. Your line is open. Stephen Chin - UBS Securities LLC: Thanks. Hi, Gary and Bob, nice execution, just a follow-up question on China. So can you share your thoughts on the competitive landscape in semi-cap equipment from local Chinese semi-cap suppliers? I mean Applied has been there for many years. Do you see any meaningful local Chinese semi-cap competitors different from other regions in the world? Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: As you've said, we've been there for a long time. We have extremely strong relationships. I mean certainly you have some investment from multinationals moving to China. And the transitions that are happening there are areas where we have strong shares, strong momentum. And the domestic companies that are there, we also have a very strong share position. Historically, those positions have been some of the best that we have within the company and that really – we expect to continue that outlook in 2016. Stephen Chin - UBS Securities LLC: Okay, thanks, Gary. And then just a follow-up question for Bob on how to think about modeling gross margin in the second half of this year. It sounds like foundry customer mix, it's helping Applied's revenue in the second half of the year. But should we also think about that helping drive gross margin higher in the second half too, because of the favorable foundry customer mix? Thanks. Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: It should help some. If you go look at why it would be up from the first half through to second half, it would be because some of foundry mix – some cost reduction is helping us and some is maturing of new tools. The thing that helps us a little bit ahead of schedule in the first half is we had some pull-in a little bit of some of the foundry customers that we have. And this is some of the lagging node stuff as much as anything, where we have strong share and positions. So foundry does help us generally, because the mix of tools is more advantageous for us there. Stephen Chin - UBS Securities LLC: Okay, thanks, Bob. Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: You're welcome.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Ho from Stifel, Nicolaus. Your line is open. Patrick J. Ho - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Thank you very much, and congrats on a nice year. Bob, first on the display side. Typically, it's always had little bit of a lower gross margins relative to your Silicon system. As this transition to OLED begins, is there any potential, I guess, margin improvement you see with the product portfolio and things that you have done on display side of things? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: I think display gross margins will improve over time. I think that in this year of early adoption of some of these new tools, I think they're okay. And then they get better through the end of the year into next year. The second thing that we talked about I think on the earlier calls is that the mix of tools we sell into small screens versus TVs. TVs is a sweet spot for us in terms of mix of tools and gross margins. It's a little bit different mix down at the smaller screen side with little lower gross margins. And as we mature our positions there, they should get pretty good. So by the time we're done, you'll see gross margins more attractive in display over the next year or two. Patrick J. Ho - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Great. That's helpful. And Gary, maybe a question on a bigger picture related to EUV and potential capital intensity increases on future technology nodes on the logic end. Have you had any customer discussions that have highlighted, hey, EUV could be further delayed? What are you guys going to do to help us out? And maybe potentially, especially since your models are based on EUV getting the 7-nanometer logic node, maybe just on a big picture basis, what are some of the, I guess, additional incremental opportunities for Applied if EUV misses this next node? Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks for the question, Patrick. We have a number of very deep engagements with customers in patterning. Certainly patterning cost is one area that's a big focus, but also from a yield standpoint, edge placement errors are another area that is a big focus for our customers. And this is another area where, again, materials innovation, materials engineering, there are some really great opportunities for us. So as we continue to drive new capabilities with the new products that we've introduced over the last three years, the combinations of those products we also see tremendous opportunity. So the engagements that we have with customers I would say are further out, broader, deeper than we've ever had. And this particular area is one that is a huge focus for all of our customers. Patrick J. Ho - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Great, thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Sidney Ho from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Sidney Ho - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.: Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the quarter end guide. My question is on the foundry side. With improved visibility of your 10-nanometer orders, do you think 10-nanometer will be a smaller node similar to 20-nanometer, or is it closer to through node? And related to that, how much of 10-nanometer capacity do you expect by the end of this calendar year? And lastly on this topic, what's the incremental equipment for 2016, 14-nanometer versus 10-nanometer and maybe between 10-nanometer versus 7-nanometer? If you can give some color, it would be great. Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Sure, let me see if I can do this efficiently. Our customers tend to think of these as sister nodes now, 20-nanometer, 16-nanometer, 14-nanometer, and then 10-nanometer, 7-nanometer. They do the interconnect stuff more on the first leg and they do the transistor stuff more on the second leg. So they tend to ramp quickly through the first leg, whether it be 20-nanometer or 10-nanometer, to get to 16-nanometer, 14-nanometer, or 7-nanometer. And so my guess, 10-nanometer won't be a long node. They're already going to start doing parallel work on the 7-nanometer, and so it won't be a long node. The total node of 10-nanometer, 7-nanometer, the sister might be an attractive node, but they've got to get to 7-nanometer. Okay, that's one and two. In terms of comparing 20-nanometer/16-nanometer/14-nanometer to 10-nanometer/7-nanometer, there are differences. You have to look at what the backfill is from the previous node on a lot of this stuff. So if you look at 20-nanometer, they change the interconnect, but it was the last planar transistor, it wasn't a FinFET. So the attractiveness in terms of processing power and battery, processing speed and battery is a lot better on a FinFET. So that you didn't have a lot of people pull to go to 20-nanometer, they waited for 16-nanometer. You don't have that disadvantage when you're going from 16-nanometer to 10-nanometer. So there will be a lot of tapeouts still coming at 16-nanometer from people who went from 28-nanometer and so forth. So you're not going have back this back-filled gap you had at 20-nanometer. So point number one, 10-nanometer/7-nanometer are probably attractive. They get through 10-nanometer pretty aggressively. You won't have as big a gap as you've had at 20-nanometer because 16-nanometer will backfill and tapeouts will increase. Sidney Ho - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.: Okay, great. Switching to a different subject, how should we think about your buybacks in your April quarter now that your thinking is down to roughly $1 billion remaining authorization? And are you restricted somehow by domestic cash balance to do more buybacks beyond the existing program? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Sure, the total authorized buyback was $3 billion. Through the end of fiscal Q1, we've done $1.950 billion, so we have $1.050 billion left under the existing authorization. The way we execute the authorization is we look at multiple valuation metrics of the company and we set up a table, such that if the stock price is attractive based on, frankly, longer-term metrics, then we will buy stock. So we pretty aggressively bought stock the last three quarters. We started to get a little bit tight on U.S.-sourced cash in September. So what we did was we were able to trigger home some $800 million of cash as a repatriation of capital without paying tax. And secondly, we raised some money through debt. So right now, about 50% of our cash is onshore at the end of the fiscal quarter. So we think we have enough cash to execute the buyback. And then if we want to continue – we are committed to long-term cash returns to shareholders through dividends and buyback. If we want to continue to buy back after discussion with the board, we believe we can find other sources of cash. Sidney Ho - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.: Okay, great. Thanks so much.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Weston Twigg from Pacific Crest. Your line is open. Weston Twigg - Pacific Crest Securities: Hi, thanks. I just have a couple of questions. First, operating expenses, they look like they're creeping up a little based on the guidance. I'm just wondering if you think that flattens out moving forward or if that grows a bit more in the second half. Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: We said we're about $5 million over in Q1, about $5 million over the midpoint in Q2. So I think we're a $5 million over model for a quarter or two. But I think we're pretty much holding the line. Weston Twigg - Pacific Crest Securities: Did you say $5.55 million or $5.65 million for Q2? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: We're flat from Q2 forward. Weston Twigg - Pacific Crest Securities: Okay. The other question is just related to the Inspection segment. You have the new E-Beam tool, a new optical tool. KLA had a pretty good quarter and outlook. They had orders up 26% last quarter and they have a new inspection platform launching this year. You said you'll get more aggressive in that segment. So I'm just wondering if you can walk us through what you think happens in the Inspection segment. Do you think you can gain some share or grow your SAM this year, or is it more of a 2017 event? Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We're pretty optimistic on wafer inspection and review for 2016. Our UVision brightfield tool has a good position in foundry and logic. Last quarter we talked about receiving our first revenue for our new E-Beam inspection platform in both memory and foundry. E-Beam technology is the largest part of PDC revenue, our PDC division. We're number one in E-Beam review, and now taking that technology into Inspection, where we have significant pull from customers. So overall in 2016, we're pretty optimistic about that business. Weston Twigg - Pacific Crest Securities: Okay, good. Thank you. Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Wes. And, operator, I think we have time for two more questions, please.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Tom Diffely from D.A. Davidson. Your line is open. Tom Diffely - D.A. Davidson & Co.: Yes. Good afternoon. So a quick question on the mature side of the business. What is your view right now for 200-millimeter business this year? And what impact does that have on margins in general? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: 200-millimeter business ticked up last year. 200-millimeter business is driven mostly for things like sensors, CIS devices. There's a growing content of those in your mobile devices and also in things like automobiles. Last year it spiked up as they added capacity. We think sales of 200-millimeter tools this year might be down a little bit, but healthy. Tom Diffely - D.A. Davidson & Co.: Okay. And then over the next two years, do you think that's still an IoT growth market for you? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Generally speaking, we're positive on IoT growth in sensors and things like that. How it translates into used 200-millimeter tools sales, we're not sure past this year. Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I would say that those – the other wafer processing CIS, CMOS image sensors, power devices, RF sensors, all of those areas are definitely areas of growth. And some we're seeing in China with some of the business incrementally in 2016, but definitely that will continue to grow. Whether it's 200-millimeter or 300-millimeter, I think that it may not be 200-millimeter far into the future, but certainly that is definitely an area of growth and opportunity for Applied. Tom Diffely - D.A. Davidson & Co.: Okay, thank you.
Operator
Your last question comes from the line of Mark Heller from CLSA. Your line is open. Mark J. Heller - CLSA Americas LLC: Thanks for squeezing me in. Two questions on OLED. I guess first, along with the display business you're guiding down I think 20% to 30% on revenues for the April quarter. I was wondering if you could give any color on the expectations for display orders in the April quarter. Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Again, these tools take nine months to build, Mark. So I wouldn't read too much into the Q2. I think that the general direction is positive and our position is positive on display. So I think I wouldn't read too much into Q2, that's more of a result of what we booked six months to nine months ago. Mark J. Heller - CLSA Americas LLC: Okay. But any color on direction of orders for the April quarter for display? Robert J. Halliday - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: We don't usually guide explicit orders, but we're directionally positive. Mark J. Heller - CLSA Americas LLC: Okay. And then it sounds like most of the interest or activity is on small-screen displays. But I was wondering if you have any thoughts on OLED TV pickup and investment there? Gary E. Dickerson - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Certainly the big inflection right now is in mobile, and we see tremendous opportunity there. TVs is really a longer-term opportunity. Mark J. Heller - CLSA Americas LLC: Okay, great. Thank you. Michael Sullivan - Vice President-Investor Relations: Thanks, Mark, for your question. And we'd like to thank everyone for joining us this afternoon. A replay of this call will be available on our website beginning at 5:00 PM Pacific Time today. Thank you for your continued interest in Applied Materials.
Operator
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.