應用材料 (AMAT) 2012 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to the Applied Materials' earning 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 today, November 15, 2012.

Today's call contains forward-looking statements which are all statements other than those of historical fact.

Including statements regarding Applied's industry outlooks, opportunities, market position, cost reduction activities, strategic priorities, products, cash deployment, and Q1 of 2013's business outlook.

These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied.

Information concerning these risk factors is contained in today's earnings release and in our most recent 10-Q and 8-K filings.

Forward-looking statements are based on information as of November 15, 2012, and Applied assumes no obligation to update such statements.

Today's call also includes non-GAAP financial measures.

Reconciliations to GAAP measures are contained in today's earnings release and in the financial highlights slides which are on the investor page of our website at www.appliedmaterials.com.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Michael Sullivan, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Please, go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Marly, and good afternoon.

Joining me today are Mike Splinter, our Chairman and CEO, Gary Dickerson, our Company's President, George Davis, our Chief Financial Officer, and Joe Sweeney, our General Counsel and Corporate Secretary.

Today we'll discuss the results for our fourth quarter and year ended October 28.

You can find a copy of our earnings release on our website, appliedmaterials.com, where you'll also find our quarterly financial highlights presentation which provides additional details.

Let me now hand the call over to Mike Splinter.

Thanks, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone.

In our fourth quarter, Applied posted profits at the high end of our outlook despite challenging industry conditions in semiconductor, solar, and display.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the entire Applied Materials team.

Their focus and commitment resulted in the Company delivering $8.7 billion of revenue and $0.75 of non-GAAP earnings per share for the year.

Our strong cash flow performance allowed us to increase our quarterly dividend and share buybacks returning $1.85 billion to shareholders.

Since completing the Varian acquisition, we have made excellent progress with integration.

Exiting the year, we have realized over $50 million of run rate synergy savings, well ahead of our target.

In addition, we have deployed key talent from the Varian management team to new roles in the Company.

In June, Gary Dickerson joined as our new President to bring renewed focus on our growth strategy.

Gary is leading important changes that will strengthen our product development capabilities and he will provide details in a few minutes.

2012 was a year characterized by significant fluctuations and seasonality in demand for semiconductor equipment, coupled with an extremely weak market environment for display and solar.

We see improving business conditions entering 2013 with orders projected to increase after bottoming in the fourth quarter.

In semiconductor, the mobility trend remains the biggest influence on industry spending with annual Smartphone sales expected to surpass 700 million units and tablet sales to grow in excess of 100% year-on-year.

Increased competition is fueling innovation throughout the supply chain and we see demand for advanced application processors driving the foundries to build out their 28-nanometer capacity and ramp investment for the 20-nanometer node.

We expect healthy investment by foundry customers in 2013, albeit at a lower level than 2012.

Although growth in mobile is also driving demand for memory, the adoption of cloud-based storage means that we are seeing only a modest increase in the average bits per box.

And, consequently, NAND bit growth is projected to be in the 50% per year range.

Given the low level of NAND capacity investments, there is potential for increased spending in the second half of 2013.

DRAM spending is expected to continue at low levels and we anticipate total memory to remain approximately 25% to 30% of wafer fab equipment investment next year.

Soft macroeconomic conditions combined with the timing of Windows 8 resulted in subdued back-to-school PC sales and we expect negative PC growth for the calendar year.

As a result, we are tempering our expectations for logic spending in 2013.

However, the release of new touch enabled ultrabooks can spur PC growth providing a potential upside for both logic and DRAM investment.

We now believe wafer fab equipment spending will end the year in the $30 billion to $32 billion range.

Based on our expectations of a pullback in logic and foundry spending and continued weakness in memory, we see 2013 wafer fab equipment investment down 5% to 15% or falling in a range of $26 billion to $30 billion.

We foresee consumer buying patterns and customer concentration again driving seasonality in the demand profile.

In Q1, we expect wafer starts and utilization rates to trend lower for the second consecutive quarter, further impacting our service business revenue.

In display, this was the weakest year for TV investment in the history of the LCD industry.

Despite low revenue levels, our display group executed well and remained profitable in every quarter.

Supply and demand is coming back into balance and equipment orders are picking up.

We are seeing a significant increase in average TV sizes, up to 2 inches year-on-year, compared to a typical increase of 0.5 inch per year.

In addition, there is strengthening demand in the emerging markets.

Together, we believe these factors will support industry investments in a range of $8 billion to $10 billion next year and provide a catalyst to build out factories in China.

Mobility related markets represented over 80% of our display revenue for the year, and we expect capacity investments for high resolution mobile displays and touch panels to remain robust, as Smartphones and tablet shipments grow and as these technologies migrate to ultrabook PCs.

In solar, the industry is on track to install over 30 gigawatts in 2012 and we expect double digit growth of the end market to continue.

This demand growth is starting to consume excess manufacturing capacity within the supply chain.

However, today conditions for our customers are extremely challenging and investment in new capacity remains very low.

Until we see clearer signs that solar equipment demand is recovering, we will take additional steps to reduce our cost structure and associated losses.

Looking forward to 2013, we are optimistic about the potential of our markets.

In all of the industries we serve, we see accelerated changes of device technology and the adoption of new materials.

This increasing complexity provides opportunities for Applied to build on our leadership and grow our market share.

We recently announced a restructuring plan that will free up significant resources to fund the product development needed to support our customers road map and drive Applied's growth.

Our strategic priorities for the year ahead are clear.

We'll focus on growing our share of wafer fab equipment, we'll make prudent and targeted investments in solar and display, and we will continue to strengthen the organization in areas that are critical to our success.

Now, let me hand the call over to Gary for additional comments about our business segments and strategic priorities.

Gary?

Thanks, Mike, I'd like to start by adding my thanks to our employees for their achievements in 2012.

Since joining Applied, I've been very impressed with the talent, strong customer relationships, and outstanding technology I've seen across the company.

Together, these provide a tremendous foundation for growth.

I believe we have a significant advantage in the depth and breadth of our expertise and I'm delighted to be a part of this great team.

Over the past four months I've been spending a large portion of my time with customers and I'm excited by the opportunities they are sharing with us.

In semiconductor, display, and solar our customers are accelerating changes in device technology and new materials.

As a result, there are increasing numbers of device performance and yield challenges that fall in our leadership areas of precision materials engineering creating great growth opportunities for Applied Materials.

In order to drive growth and increase shareholder value, we are focused on three strategic priorities.

Our number one priority is to grow our share in wafer fab equipment.

To support this objective we will increase investment focusing on 300-millimeter R&D and building a stronger technical team in the field.

In display and solar, we are investing to extend our leadership in enabling technologies, but, as Mike said, until solar market conditions improve, we are implementing a significant reduction in our operating expenses to mitigate the impact of this business on our earnings.

We are also extending our planning horizon and will make incremental investments in technical capabilities and R&D programs in current and new markets where we see clear opportunities to leverage our precision materials engineering leadership and drive profitable growth.

To find our strategic priorities, we have conducted a comprehensive review of spending across the company.

As a result, we have been able to identify approximately $200 million that can be made available for growth programs.

We have stopped programs where we don't believe we have valuable sustainable differentiation or cannot deliver a good return on investment.

And, we will continue to review our R&D portfolio and shift investment to our best opportunities.

In solar we will reduce our operating expenses, going significantly beyond our previously announced plans for this business.

Additionally, we are restructuring our workforce through a voluntary retirement program as well as a reduction in force.

Beyond re-prioritizing our investments, we are implementing changes to the organization and our business processes to upgrade our product development engine to make it more effective and more efficient.

These changes will insure that we develop products with an architectural advantage in device performance, yield, and cost.

They will also enable us to accelerate development of disruptive technology and time to market for new products.

Now, let me briefly outline the opportunities for each of our businesses.

In semiconductor, the mobility trend is driving customers to deliver high performance, low power processors, and affordable solid state storage in a small form factor.

This translates to major inflections in lower leakage transistors, lower resistance inner connects, advanced patterning, wafer level packaging, and 3D NAND flash technology.

These inflections create spending shifts that are favorable to Applied as well as high value device performance and yield challenges that we can address with our technology.

As foundries transition to 20-nanometer, they will fully adopt high-k gate last transistor technology.

This moves right into the sweet spot of Applied's leadership areas and we expect a greater than 30% increase in our available market.

2013 is a critical positioning year for 20-nanometer with many process tool of record decisions being made that will impact our future market share.

Our organization is focused on winning these decisions and we anticipate strong growth for our PBD, Epitaxy, in-plant, and inspection products.

As a result of rising capital intensity in the transistor area, our front end products group, which includes our Epitaxy products, posted record revenue in 2012.

We expect continued strength in this business as new Epi steps are added to foundry device flows.

The move to gate last transistors also supported the strongest year in a decade for our PBD business.

Strength we believe will continue as customers add new PBD steps to their 20-nanometer processes.

Looking ahead to technology changes that will happen in the next 12 to 24 months, we are focusing our investments on key inflections, including 3D finFET, 3D NAND, and extending the inner connect road map beyond 20-nanometers.

These inflections expand our market and provide opportunities for share gains.

For example, 3D NAND structures require multiple film deposition steps which leverages our advantage in depositing very thin film with precise control.

In addition, we expect strong growth in selective material deposition and removal.

Beyond our core leadership areas, our inspection and etch businesses provide opportunities for growth.

The inspection market includes many segments.

Some where we are strong, such as defect review, and others where progress has been more difficult.

We have been adding technical and marketing talent to our team and have substantial customer pull for our inspection products including our latest generation brightfield tool.

We have recently penetrated new applications in advanced logic, foundry, and memory and these positions provide a platform for us to grow share in the inspection market.

Etch is a large multi-segment market and our actions have been to build a stronger team and product development in the field.

We are focusing this team in our investments in areas where we believe we have differentiated solutions which are primarily in conductor etch.

The customer penetrations we are making in patterning, NAND flash, and packaging applications provide a good opportunity for us to grow our share in etch.

Turning now to display, the transition to new technologies, specifically metal oxide transistors and low temperature polysilicon for organic LED and high resolution LCD, is challenging for our customers.

To address these inflections, we recently introduced a new PBD tool that enables the formation of higher stability metal oxide transistors, and a suite of CVD tools that address customers requirements for advanced films.

We expect the next generation of factories for Hi-Definition televisions and mobile displays to ramp with technologies that increase Applied's market for our CVD and PBD products by at least 30%.

In solar, we remain confident in this market as an attractive long term growth driver for the company.

Our current product portfolio, as well as new technology and development, is focused on enabling higher cell efficiency and driving much lower cost per watt.

With this portfolio, we believe we can capture approximately $100 million of revenue for each gigawatt of new capacity the industry adds.

The combination of our strong field team and product leadership puts us in a great position when customer investment resumes.

However, as long as the current market conditions exist, we will significantly scale back our investment in this business.

In summary, as we refine our plans in the year ahead, our direction is clear.

We will implement the organizational and portfolio changes required to fully fund our largest growth opportunities.

We will expand our planning horizon to make sure we win future technology inflections and we will focus on converting our development tool of record positions at the 20-nanometer technology node into volume orders.

Let me now hand the call over to George for further details on our performance and outlook.

George?

Thank you, Gary, and welcome to everyone on the call today.

In our fourth fiscal quarter, Applied delivered revenue of $1.6 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.06, the upper end of our outlook.

Fourth quarter GAAP results include the charges of $124 million related to our workforce actions and a $421 million impairment of EES goodwill.

These actions, coupled with $0.06 of acquisition related charges, resulted in a GAAP loss of $0.42 per share.

Full year GAAP earnings were $0.09 per share and non-GAAP EPS was $0.75.

Orders in the fourth quarter declined 19% from the prior quarter to $1.5 billion reflecting lower semiconductor equipment demand partially offset by modest order increases in our other segments.

Net sales decreased 30% to $1.6 billion lead by a greater than 40% reduction in semiconductor equipment sales.

Non-GAAP gross margin declined to 38.4% primarily due to lower volumes, inventory reserves, and lower factory absorption.

Total non-GAAP operating expenses were $518 million, below our $545 million target primarily due to approval adjustments for variable compensation and other employee related costs.

For the first quarter of Fiscal 2013, we expect non-GAAP operating expenses to be in a range of $525 million to $545 million.

During the quarter we took a number of actions across the company to enable increased funding for our critical priorities.

These actions include further reductions in solar spending, the workforce restructuring, Varian synergies, and a re-prioritization of existing spending.

In total, we expect these actions will make available approximately $200 million in 2013 for critical programs and new capabilities that support our highest ROI opportunities.

Our focus is on funding to grow share and expand our markets.

I will now cover the expected financial impact of the voluntary retirement program and reduction in force actions announced in the quarter.

When fully completed these actions will make available more than $140 million annually for new investments.

The total cost for this program is expected to be between $180 million and $230 million.

We incurred a charge of $106 million in the quarter for the program and expect a majority of the remaining GAAP charges to be incurred primarily in the first half of 2013.

The impairment of EES goodwill recognized in the fourth quarter reflects the deterioration of the solar equipment market and our customers financial condition, coupled with lower market valuations.

These factors lead the company to reassess the recoverability of EES goodwill.

Our non-GAAP effective tax rate for the year was 26.2%.

We expect our Fiscal 2013 rates to be in line with 2012 and within a range of 25% to 27%.

Cash from operations was $411 million reflecting our continued focus on working capital and the impact of lower revenue.

Share buybacks in the fourth quarter amounted to $516 million, or 3.6% of the shares outstanding.

And, we paid dividends of $111 million, or $0.09 per share.

For the fiscal year, we repurchased 126 million shares, for just under 10% of shares outstanding, at an average price of $11.22 and paid dividends of $434 million.

Given the cash requirements for severance and variable compensation programs in Q1, we expect our share repurchase for that quarter to be at a reduced level.

Cash and investments ended the quarter and our fiscal year at $3 billion.

We are entering 2013 in a strong position following a year in which we completed the $4.2 billion Varian acquisition and returned $1.85 billion to shareholders in dividends and share repurchase.

Next, I will comment on our segment results as compared to the prior quarter.

SSG orders were down 36% to $741 million, driven primarily by lower foundry and NAND bookings partially offset by logic.

Net sales decreased 44% to $870 million in line with our outlook with declines across foundry, memory, and logic customers.

SSG's non-GAAP operating margin was 10.9%.

In AGS, orders were up 8% to $576 million reflecting seasonal effect of annual contract renewals.

AGS net sales were up 7% to $621 million.

This result includes $85 million for a thin film solar line.

Excluding this item, revenue would have been down 7% on lower wafer starts and utilization rates in semiconductor factories.

Non-GAAP operating margin was 27.5%.

In display, orders increased modestly to $83 million.

Net sales for display were $93 million with mobility investments again accounting for the majority of revenue.

Non-GAAP operating margin was 4.3% as the segment remained profitable despite the low levels of revenue in the quarter.

In EES, orders increased to $65 million led by orders for our web coating tools with solar equipment orders remaining at depressed levels due to ongoing over-capacity issues and past conservation by our customers.

Net sales were approximately $62 million, at the midpoint of our outlook.

EES had a non-GAAP operating loss of $46 million.

We expect losses to narrow throughout the fiscal year as we reduce the combined OpEx run rate for the solar and web businesses to below $30 million per quarter by the second half of fiscal 2013.

This new OpEx level reflects a nearly 50% reduction from where we started in 2012 while absorbing the solar in plant spend which had remained in SSG for the first year of integration, but now will be recorded in EES.

Next, I'll turn to our outlook for Q1.

Net sales from our semiconductor business should be in the range of flat to up 10%.

We expect orders to be up more than 25% as customers prepare to increase capacity.

Net sales at AGS are expected to be down 15% to 25%, reflecting the absence of the thin film solar revenue of $85 million we received in fiscal Q4 and the effects of lower factory utilization.

Excluding the thin film solar revenue, net sales would be down 5% to 15%.

We expect net sales in display to be flat to down 30% off a low base.

We are seeing the beginning of the order ramp to support LCD capacity additions in China with display orders expected to exceed $150 million in our Q1.

Net sales in EES are expected to be down greater than 30%, again off a very low base.

Overall, we expect net sales for the Company to be flat to down 15% and non-GAAP earnings per share to be in the range of $0.00 to $0.06 per share.

Now, Mike, let's open the call for questions.

Thanks, George.

To help us reach as many of you as we can, please ask just one question and no more than one brief follow-up.

Marly, let's please begin.

(Operator Instructions)

Krish Sankar, Bank of America.

Yes, hi, thanks for taking my question.

Mike, the first question I had was when you look at the order rebound in the January quarter, how much do you think is driven off just from a seasonal bounce off these low levels in October versus actually a true cyclical uptick?

And, who -- which segment, whether it's NAND, logic, foundries, is actually driving that uptick in the January quarter?

Sure, thanks, Krish.

I think we've seen the SSG business be quite seasonal and orders have been starting to show up in Q1 for the last few years.

And, the order in revenue pattern has been, at least in our fiscal year, stronger Q2 and Q3, weaker Q1 and Q4.

I think this is quite a similar pattern to that.

And, the uptick is primarily in foundry and logic spending.

Thank you, if I could just have a quick follow-up for Gary.

Thanks for giving the priorities for the company.

You highlighted conductor etch.

I'm just curious, any plans for the dielectric etch business?

If I do the math, you probably generated low $100 million in revenues last year in that segment in very low market share.

So, what are your priorities for dielectric etch?

Thank you.

Maybe let me talk about etch overall.

We're shifting our R&D investment in etch to areas where we have largest opportunities and focusing on areas where we have the most pull from customers and the highest probability of success.

Etch is a large multi-segment market.

The strongest position for us is in conductor etch, where we have differentiated technology leading to new penetrations that give us a great opportunity to grow share.

There are some applications, again etch is in many different segments, there are some applications within dielectric where we have a strong position, we're seeing very strong pull from customers.

And, we definitely will pursue those.

But, the biggest opportunity for us is in conductor etch.

I'd also like to say about the team, we've added some major additions to this organization.

I really like working with this team and believe we have a great opportunity to grow share in this market.

Thanks, Krish.

Stephen Chin, UBS Securities.

Hi, thanks for taking my question.

First question for Gary.

Gary, you talked about share gains as your number one priority.

You also had a chance to do strategic review.

The question is, are you at a point where you think you have done a strategic review of the entire silicon business and the other businesses?

And, are you willing to share what your near to midterm share gain goals are in etch and inspection?

Let me just give an overview.

As we talked about earlier, we made significant reductions in OpEx to focus on growing our share in wafer fab equipment.

And, as I said earlier, this is the number one focus for the company.

If you look at what is going to happen over the next two years that will have a big impact on our performance, it's really the 20-nanometer transition.

And, this transition is really focused on the transistor, low leakage, low power, high performance and this is in the sweet spot of our leadership in transistor equipment technology.

As I said earlier, we anticipate, in this transition, significant growth in Epi, PBD, implant, and inspection in this 20-nanometer transition.

The transition creates a great opportunity for us to grow our available market and increase share.

We also -- there are also a number of other device technology inflections that are good for Applied and this is where the majority of our spending is being focused.

Within SSG, we've shifted a large amount of R&D dollars to focus on areas with the best returns, and some of those we talked about earlier in the call.

So, I would say, again, overall, I'm optimist, very optimistic with the major transition that will impact our business, being right in the sweet spot of our leadership position.

And, overall, I think we have a great opportunity to grow share.

We're not going to give specific market share goals in all of the different segments.

But, I do believe, based on customer pull and penetrations that we're making, that we have a good opportunity to grow share in those businesses.

Thanks, Gary, and one question for Mike.

A question on the 2013 WFE.

You had previously said you expect a similar seasonality of 2012 into 2013, so should we expect a much stronger first half '13 as we come out of the second half '12?

Thank you.

Yes, thanks.

When we look at wafer fab equipment spending for all of '13, it's a little bit hard to tell right now what the second half will look like.

I really think the big part of that is how the macro environment plays out, economic environment plays out, and more specifically, how well PCs do in that environment because that could stoke spending both in logic and DRAM for the second half.

The first half, we will see logic increase, as I mentioned, but we'll also see the foundry spending profile.

And, as I said, that, for us, is second quarter and third quarter of our fiscal year.

So, that plays in, it cuts across first half and second half calendar year.

But, generally, stronger in the first half.

Overall, I would say as we looked at the total WFE, we think it will be weaker next year based on lower foundry and logic spending.

Thanks.

C.J. Muse, Barclays Capital.

Yes, good afternoon.

Thank you for taking my question.

I guess first question, Mike, can you talk a little bit about visibility in particular to the foundry/logic uplift that you're seeing?

And, I guess importantly, how that may have changed in the last week, two, month because it sounds like maybe things are getting incrementally better?

Yes, I think actually, we would say from our projection -- our original projection last quarter was that we thought WFE for 2013 was going to be a little bit stronger, especially in logic.

I think we've lowered our expectations on growth in logic spending.

I think our expectations on foundry are pretty much where they were.

We thought that it would be down off a high peak in 2012.

Now, if we look at our seasonality picture that we've seen now for two years in a row, we start to see orders grow for SSG products in Q1.

We believe that's what we're seeing today.

We don't believe it will be as extenuated as it was last year with such a high peak in Q2 and then dropping in Q3.

A little hard to tell right now, but maybe a little more muted trend than we saw last year.

Okay, that's helpful, and, if I could ask a follow-up.

Gary, thank you very much for the color.

I guess a question in terms of magnitude of share gain and timing wise, and I get you don't want to put numbers around that, but I'm just curious.

When you think about the inflection of the transistor level at 20-nanometer and how AMAT is really at the sweet spot there, plus new investments in hiring as well as investments in field services, what will drive the most share gain near term?

And then, how do you think about the layering of other share gain from those other levers as you invest in the business?

Yes, again, 20-nanometer is really the major focus over the next couple years.

Some 20-nanometer investment will hit toward the end of 2013, the majority in 2014.

And, as I said, it's really focused on the transistor.

And, this is where we have clear leadership in a number of different enabling products.

So, we've seen record performance in Epi, best performance in PBD in a decade.

Certainly there are more steps that are being added in this 20-nanometer -- full adoption of high-K, gate last 20-nanometer processes.

That will fuel significant growth in those businesses.

Implant and inspection, also, we have a really good position in 20-nanometer based on our DTOR positions with customers.

So, that's really the major focus for us and the major opportunity for us.

And, as I said, it's a more than 30% increase in our available market and really right in the leadership areas that we have as a company.

So, we look at this as being one of the best transitions that's happened for Applied Materials in many, many, many years.

Thanks, C.J.

Jim Covello, Goldman Sachs.

Great, thanks so much for the question.

I appreciate taking the time.

On the solar piece, what's the difference between what you're doing and getting out of the business entirely?

It seems like there's a very significant scaling back of the effort here.

I mean what's left?

Well, as Mike talked about earlier today, we certainly anticipate that end market demand is going to continue to increase over time.

And, we can add about $100 million per gigawatt of new capacity given a reasonable market.

This can be a good business for Applied Materials.

We have a strong position in technology to enable higher cell efficiency, enabling lower cost per Watt, and a real advantage in products that are important to making this happen.

The spending reductions, there's always a balance in these types of situations.

We clearly understand that we need to reduce the drag on earnings, impact on the company overall, but we also want to be investing when this market returns.

We have a very strong position and we still think this can be a good business for us.

Okay, thank you.

The next question, it's going to -- at the risk of sounding a little bit like pandering here, you guys seem to be seeing the market a little more clearly than some of your competitors.

At SEMICOM, when you guys announced a more dour market outlook, a lot of people said that's just AMAT losing share.

And then, low and behold, over the next two quarters they were all missing numbers and guiding down to where you guys already were.

And now, your competitors are insisting on a flat to up market next year and you guys are calling it more consistent with what the customers are saying which is down 10% or so.

Why do you think you're seeing it a little sooner than your customer -- than your competitors in this cycle?

Well, Jim, I think we really try to go out and talk to the customers and understand what their investment profile is.

We really do take this item seriously because we have to plan our business around where we believe wafer fab equipment spending is going to end up.

And, I think that's the primary aspect.

But, I think, overall, our planning team has a good approach to figure out really what the puts and takes on figuring out what's driving the market as well.

When you think you have negative PC growth, I think there's an aspect to the logic spending that we have to take into consideration and how much impact that then has in particular on DRAM spending.

George, I don't know if you'd add anything to that?

No, I think -- I appreciate the comment and one of the things that we see, we tend to have an extra month because we have fiscal quarters.

And, we often will see a change in the order pattern and we try and get it out as quickly as we can.

And, I think that's what we saw at SEMICOM.

We wish we had better news back then and we wish we hadn't been right, but we appreciate it.

Thanks, Jim.

Chris Blansett, JP Morgan.

Hi, guys.

I just want to see, Mike, if you could give us an incremental break down in where you see the relative spending in SSG next year given the down 5% to 15%?

Sure, I think maybe I can be helpful if I look at the top end of the range and the bottom end of the range.

On the top end of the range, we would have to see a return of strength in PCs, a pretty big uptake in ultrabooks.

I think that's possible.

There's some compelling models out there that would drive increase in logic and DRAM spending.

And then, we would expect 3D NAND to come in a little stronger probably than we're projecting right now as that technology gets ready for production.

On the downside -- I would say first of all, on the downside, we would have to expect the overall world economy is not good, not maybe as good as it is today.

And then, continued slide in PC sales which we're not expecting in our current model.

I think that would be the big aspects.

And then, when you look at the segments inside of spending, we think foundry and logic spending are going to be down modestly next year, in that 10% range.

And then, memory spending is pretty much going to be flattish at a low level of 25% to 30% of overall wafer fab equipment spending with some bias that NAND spending could go up later in the year but I think it's too early to call that.

That's very helpful.

And then, I had a quick question on the OpEx, maybe, throughout this next fiscal year.

Obviously, you're reducing some expenses in what you consider non-critical areas.

But, in the end, when you think about the restructuring of the EES division and some of these cuts, should we assume that you're just simply going to add OpEx costs back for areas of growth?

Or at a given level of revenue, say 12 months from now, we do expect a lower level of OpEx associated with the company?

Our real focus right now is on making sure that we're fully funding the growth opportunities that we see.

I think Gary laid out pretty clearly also the opportunities that we see to gain market share over the next 12 to 18 months.

And, we want to make sure that funding is not the issue there, so we are taking significant actions.

We do think, as we said, it frees up $200 million of investable funds relative to what we saw in 2012.

Some of that will net out at the end of the day, but we would expect really all of the -- for planning purposes, I would expect all of the restructuring savings to go back into spending.

Mahesh Sanganeria, RBC Capital Markets.

Yes, thank you, very much.

Just following up on the seasonality comment.

Is it fair to say that last year, when you had the very strong first half that was -- the big component was Korea, and this time it's less Korea?

So, that drove the more seasonality last year than compared to this year?

Well, it gets down to specific customer expectations.

I would just say it's primarily -- the seasonality is still primarily consumer driven, Smartphone driven, consumer cycle driven.

And so, as much capacity increase that's needed in that area we'll likely -- we'll see those sales, orders and sales in the first half of the year.

Just one more follow-up, I'm just wondering your forecasting, if it's more top down driven or more your visibility from the customer?

Because what surprises me is that last year, when the NAND was in oversupply and the prices were declining 20% quarter-over-quarter, most of the companies were pretty bullish on NAND spending.

And now, we have prices stabilizing to going up, and I hear a very, very muted outlook.

So, I'm just wondering what am I missing, why the outlook this way?

For us, on NAND, the issue is that right now our bit growth projection is about 50%.

And, to really get a need for increased wafer capacity, we believe you have to get that bit growth above 70%.

So, that's the reason that -- we do see that supply and demand is coming, customers have taken actions to get supply and demand in the much, much better balance in flash memory.

But, our thinking is that they are going to be able to achieve a 50% bit growth through technology improvements.

Moving to the next generation of technology as opposed to building new factories and facilitizing those factories and adding wafer starts.

We would love to see solid state drives really take off next year.

That could happen with ultrabooks.

And, that would certainly drive that bit growth above 70% and then require more investment there.

But, that's our rationale that I think is consistent with the view.

When you look back to 2012 and the forecasts that were coming out, it really was a bottoms up talking to our customers and to the signals that our account teams were seeing.

And, what you saw is in the second half of the year, customers pulled back.

And, everybody was very encouraged by the Smartphone growth expectations for the year, tablet growth expectations.

And, what you just didn't see was bit growth within the device.

So, you just didn't get the growth, particularly with a weak solid state drive market in '12 that people had hoped for.

And, that's the world we're entering 2013 with.

Vishal Shah, Deutsche Bank.

Yes, hi, thanks for taking my question.

Just on memory spending, if I look at the October quarter orders, your orders are below $100 million, that's consistent with, I think, the orders that you saw back in 2009.

So, I'm just wondering what kind of profile you see for orders, especially if you think memory orders are going to be flattish next year?

And then, same thing on logic, if you look at the October quarter orders, they almost doubled last quarter -- from last quarter.

And, if your orders are going up again in the first quarter, then are we looking at another similar sharp decline in orders in the back half of the year?

I think it's way too early to forecast the back half of 2013 right now.

There's just too many puts and takes.

If capacity demand was all about Smartphones and consumer products, I think we could make a better projection.

But, I think there's a real chance for Windows 8 and PCs to be stronger in the year and therefore drive more spending which would change the profile half over half.

Other than that, I think memory spending, it's chugging along the bottom.

And, I don't think the fluctuations are going to be that great other than as I said, we could see strengthening in NAND in the second half of the year.

But, I don't think it's going to be a big impact on the seasonality or variability in the first half of the year.

We still see memory orders combined less than 20% of the expected orders for our Q1.

Actually memory or DRAM, will be up quarter-over-quarter, but it's off such a low base it's just not material to the overall outlook.

That's very helpful.

Just one other question, in the down 15% -- 5% to 15% a year, how should we think about AMAT's revenue overall, especially considering the puts and takes in display and EES?

Thank you.

Well, nominally, our SSG revenue will follow wafer fab equipment plus whatever share gains that we have.

And, we feel quite bullish about 20-nanometer, but 20-nanometer is going to be maybe 25,000 or 30,000 wafer starts in 2013.

So, we would see that in the latter part of -- that effect in the latter part of the year.

Satya Kumar, Credit Suisse.

Thanks for taking my question.

I just wanted to probe you a little bit on the foundry expectations for next year.

I was wondering if you look within the foundry segment and across the different customers, are you seeing most of the decline coming across just one particular customer or do you see a broad based trend?

I would say it's not a broad based trend, Satya, but I think I'd probably leave it at that.

Thank you, and just one more question on foundry, if the foundry -- if you look at the foundry utilization at leading edge, do you see they are changing?

From what we hear, it's still at already tight supply demand dynamics there and the logic content continues to grow, there's fundamentally no change.

And, the units also are continuing to grow on the mobility side.

So, I was just wondering is the view that next year foundry would be declining?

Just of a reflection of the current outlook from your customers, even when you look at it from a top down level, things could be a little better next year?

Yes, this is George.

If you look at year-over-year, foundry will still be far and away the strongest part of the demand from our customers.

But, it will be down and our expectation today is that overall foundry spending will still be down.

And, is a contributor to the reduction overall in WFE.

Thanks.

Jagadish Iyer, Piper Jaffrey.

Thanks for taking my question, two questions.

Gary, first, given your expertise in process control can you talk about where are some opportunities in process control?

What are some low hanging fruits and what are some real term, long term opportunities where Applied can make a big impact?

And, I have a follow-up.

Okay, I would start by saying I've never seen a business with more customer pull than our PDC business.

And, we are shifting our investment into areas where we have largest opportunities and most pull from customers.

The areas that we're making incremental penetrations are in inspection and logic, foundry, and memory.

Especially in logic and foundry, we see some traction.

So, that would be the area I think that is the biggest opportunity for us.

But, again, in my career, I've never seen a market -- or a business with more customer pull than the PDC business.

This is a follow-up for George.

George, given that you elected more resources now, as you re-shift the resources, how should we think about the operating margin of the silicon segment as it bounces up in 2013 compared to prior cycle?

Thanks.

Hi, Jagadish.

When we set the models for performance at the last meeting, at the last analyst meeting, we had brought the models down somewhat in semiconductor to reflect the expected increase in spending.

I think, overall, we'll still be operating within our model ranges as a company, both at the segment and at the overall level.

Patrick Ho, Stifel Nicolaus.

Thank you, very much.

Just first off, historically Applied has been very well exposed to the DRAM side in terms of memory.

Would 3D NAND approaching, being adopted in the next several years -- I guess a two part question.

What do you see the TAM for Applied and what market segments do you see the biggest growth opportunities?

Thanks, Patrick, we see 3D NAND really as a great opportunity for us.

And, on this multi-level stack type of process, there are many very precise film deposition steps where we have leadership.

And, some additional high aspect ratio etching also, where we've had good customer pull, additional CMP steps.

So, overall, the 3D NAND we see as an opportunity that can grow our available market more than 25%.

So, we look at this as really, really a great opportunity, it's really in the sweet spot of our precision materials engineering and our leadership and deposition.

Great, thanks Gary.

The second question, given some of the issues with EUV at this point and the adoption rate for that process technology, how do you see those delays impacting Applied, I guess on the positive side in terms of additional tool sales or the move toward multiple patterning?

How does that help you over the next few years?

Good question.

So, the double or quad patterning does represent an opportunity for us in that many of the patterning films we have a very strong position.

So, we see that as an opportunity and we also have some pull from customers in Etch for some of these films.

But, certainly the deposition side is a good opportunity and again, some incremental opportunity in the patterning etch.

Great, thank you.

Edwin Mok, Needham & Company.

Hi, guys, thanks for taking my question.

First question is for Gary, regarding your comment on the 20-nanometer, I would suspect that given that some of the fabbers expect to start investing in the second half of 2013 that some of the PTO business might have been won or at least secured.

Can you quantify where we are at in terms of those positions being already ordered versus the opportunity that you guys can still go after?

I just want to get a sense of where we are in terms of that opportunity there.

Sure, yes, as I said, again 20-nanometer is really our primary focus and certainly will be a really big opportunity for Applied Materials.

And, this is, as I said, really all about the transistor, low leakage, low power, high performance, and really in a sweet spot of where we have leadership in transistor equipment technology.

So, we see ourselves as being very well positioned, the pull from customers is very, very strong since we have a lot of enabling technology for that transition, and we're in a good position.

I would say in terms of the DTOR positions, we're very, very optimistic.

And, again, overall this is a great opportunity for Applied Materials.

Great, that was helpful color.

And, just quickly, on display, in terms of this rebound on order in the fiscal first quarter, how sustainable should we think about this order recovery?

And, how do you guys view this, do you view this cautiously or do you think it's the beginning of a big cycle?

Well, we do think that TV investment is back.

As you know, the last couple of years that our business has been sustained primarily by mobile investments.

And, the thing is that's happening now for us is that there's a lot of technology change happening.

So, that as we look to this next phase of investment our TAM should be about 30% higher than it was in the previous investment cycle as customers go for metal oxide transistors on the back plane, or they're going to go for LTPS with organic LED displays.

So, I think this is an area that, after quite an extended downturn, is starting to come back.

Marly, can we take the next question?

Mehdi Hosseini, Susquehanna Financial group.

Yes, thanks for my question.

My name is Mehdi Hosseini.

I have two easy follow-ups.

And, Mike, you're exiting fiscal year with 1.6 billion of backlog.

And, talking about WFE down 5% to 15% in calendar year '13.

So, unless there is a massive upward revision to this WFE, even if January recorded bookings are up, I just don't see how your revenues for fiscal year '13 could be up on a year-over-year basis.

And, simply because the backlog has eroded so much.

Do you have any color on that?

And then, I have a follow-up.

Well, as we said, if WFE is down we would expect SSG revenues to follow that, Mehdi.

This is the -- while we're not making a full year revenue projection at this time because our visibility in the second half isn't what we would like it at this time, we do see that we are in again the seasonal pattern that we've seen the last few years.

We're still in a market where solar is depressed and wafer starts and utilization are not good in semiconductor factories.

So, we'll see a dip in service in this first quarter.

But, then we think as utilization improves throughout the year, service should get better.

Overall, unless we see a recovery of the markets, we won't grow in 2013.

But, just conceptually, given where the backlog is and where WFE is spending, it's indicating an SSG down.

Conceptually, revenues for AMAT could be down on a year-over-year basis.

It could be, if SSG is down.

And, you're right, we're starting with a very low absolute level of backlog in SSG.

One of the things to remember that is different in the foundry led world, the turns business that we see in SSG has grown over time.

So, you could have a quarter where 70% of your orders were booked and shipped within the existing quarter.

So, I think we really have to see to what extent foundry spends this year relative to last year.

The heavier the foundry spending, obviously, the more rapidly you'll see a closing between growth and the backlog.

And, even within, I think, logic, if PC -- confidence in the PC market goes up I think you could see a relatively short-term between orders and shipment of tools in that space as well.

And then, my follow-up has to do with etch and opportunities for share gain.

One of your key competitors last week was talking about 70% of the N plus 1 decisions made, and they are the number one in the conductor etch.

So are you focusing more money N plus 2 transition?

Or if you think you can grab some market share for N plus 1 next year, how should I reconcile the number one market leader and their commentary of the share gain with what you have mentioned today?

Yes, I think -- we can't comment on what other people are saying.

But, what we do know is the pull that we have from customers, the penetrations that we're making in the market and the opportunities that we have.

And, with all of that, from what we see directly from our customers, we think we have a good opportunity to grow our share.

Thanks, Mehdi.

Ben Pang, Caris & Company.

Thanks, for taking my question.

You commented on the number of wafer starts for foundry for 20-nanometer.

What's the expectation for 28-nanometer?

And, I have a follow-up.

I think what we believe right now is that we'll finish 2012 pretty close to 200,000 wafer starts per month in 28 -- that's the combination node.

And, we'll see 75,000 to 100,000 incremental wafer starts in 2013.

That's basically how we're modeling the 2013.

So, it's about, maybe, on a spend rate, would it be still one-third of the foundry budget will be on 20-nanometer because of the higher capital intensity?

Yes, I think that's a pretty good assessment of what we're thinking, in that neighborhood.

The capital intensity is quite a bit higher at 20-nanometer.

So, under those parameters, can Applied's foundry SSG business grow?

Certainly, if we're gaining share and the business can grow.

We're not making a projection at this point for the year.

And, I'm sure your question is really based on a calendar year approach, which we're really not ready to look at the second half of 2013 at this point.

But, we think we have a strong position in 20-nanometer, we think we should be seeing those share gains materialize as 20-nanometer really starts to ramp.

And then, just one quick clarification from George.

In terms of the money that you guys freed up by doing the reduction in force and early retirement, you commented that that scales back in fully by the end of the fiscal year?

I'm not sure I understand the question.

The --.

You guys freed up $200 million, right?

That's correct.

That's $200 million '13 versus '12.

And so, what you'll see is with the redeployment, '13 and '12, from a modeling assumption, you can leave your OpEx pretty flat.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you, very much.

Thanks, Ben.

And, Marly, I think we've got time for just two more questions please.

Tom Diffely, DA Davidson.

Good afternoon, I have a longer term question here.

Based on your comments earlier about the inflection points and increased capital intensity, what's your view longer term, maybe five years out, of the WFE market?

Does it just bounce around this $30 billion level or does it increase over time?

Yes, I think that depends really on the end market.

I don't think we're prepared to make a five year forecast on WFE today.

Certainly, if the market continues strong, capital intensity is improving, that would tend to make you think that WFE is going to increase modestly over the next few years.

And, there could be a peak in that cycle due to certain investments.

But, I think it's too early to make a projection that far out.

I guess one other thing I would say is that, again, our number one focus is to grow wafer fab equipment market share.

There are a number of inflections that are coming over the next several years.

Certainly 20-nanometer, as we said, is all about the transistor where we have leadership.

FinFet is also focused on the transistor and a good opportunity to grow our available market and share.

3D NAND, there are multiple film deposition steps that require extreme precision, and that's another area that's a good opportunity for us.

And, I would say, also longer term, what we're seeing is an increase in changes in device technology around new materials that really leverage our leadership and precision materials engineering and create a great opportunity for Applied Materials.

Okay, and then, ultimately when we get to the 450-millimeter wafers, does that create a bit of a step function down in capital intensity then?

Just because of the economies?

Well, first of all, the first thing that it will create is a new buildout in 450-millimeter because you have to replace all the equipment at some point in the future, depending on a lot of factors.

Then, the capital efficiency will be what it is.

But, for right now, we're very focused on 300-millimeter share gain.

This is the most important thing to our company.

It's the most important thing to our customers.

These next few generations of technology have very difficult inflection points.

We have to make sure we're helping them get the performance and the cost out of their products in these next few generations.

And, that's where we're spending all of our time focused on.

Okay, that makes sense, thank you.

Timothy Arcuri.

One for George and one for Gary.

George, I wanted to ask about how you think about right sizing EES.

If you just take the new run rate in OpEx, you were guiding to about $30 million a quarter, so that's $120 million a year.

And, if you assume like a 30% gross margin you have to do $500 million in EES just to breakeven.

So, I mean I'm sure that you think that the opportunities much bigger than that, but why is that the right number?

How do you think about, in terms of a megawatt basis or tops down, how do you think about how to size the OpEx spend for that business?

And then, I had one for Gary as well.

First off, welcome back, Tim, it's nice to have you on the call.

In terms of the right sizing for solar, this is something, obviously, that we've looked long and hard at and we've taken a significant reduction in our costs in that area over the last two years, accelerating this year.

And so, the spending that you're seeing there is really for our core leadership positions and a very select set of technologies that we think are going to be the most leveraging to our customers technology road maps going forward.

We think it's a growth market that's important.

We think it's something that will ultimately differentiate Applied in its ability to grow.

And so, I think at $30 million, we're pretty much where we think we need to be, given our outlook for the market and what we need to sustain our capabilities.

Gary, I don't know if you wanted to add anything to that?

No, the only other thing I'd point out is the $30 million includes both solar and web.

So, the solar OpEx number is actually less than that.

Right, okay, makes sense, and Gary, just for you.

I heard you talk about materials more than I've ever heard.

In 15 years I've never heard Applied talk about materials that much.

And, it's interesting, and I'm wondering whether there's some expertise in house that you've come in and you've uncovered?

Or whether that's something that you have to go out and acquire?

Because you've typically worked with the material suppliers, but it sounds like you think you want to own that expertise a little more, thanks.

Well, again, if you look at the inflections, as I said before, it really is right in the sweet spot of our leadership in the transistor and materials engineering.

So, again, 20-nanometer, finFET is all about the transistor.

And, the 3D memory is also a number of new materials where we have leadership.

So, I think -- and this is over the next several years.

If you look at what technologies people will be introducing beyond the next several years, I think this trend towards materials being critical to enable the device performance and customer differentiation is going to increase and create a great opportunity for us.

And, I'd say it's not just in the semiconductor business, as Mike talked about, and I had in the script earlier, in display we're seeing an increase in the materials that we will deliver in the display industry and increase our available market by more than 30%.

So, I think this trend is one that hasn't happened to Applied in many, many years and creates a great opportunity for us going forward.

Great.

Well, thanks, Tim for your questions.

And, we would like to thank everyone for joining us this afternoon.

A replay of this call will be available on our website beginning at around 5 p.m.

Pacific Time today.

So, thank you for your continued interest in Applied Materials.

This concludes today's conference call.

You may now disconnect.