Camtek Ltd (CAMT) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

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  • Kenny Green - Senior Partner of Israel

  • Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I would like to welcome all of you to Camtek results Zoom Webinar. My name is Kenny Green, and I'm part of the investor relations team at Camtek.

  • All participants other than the presenters are currently following the form of presentation I'll provide some instructions for participating in the live question and answer session. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded and the recording will be available on cam Tech's website from tomorrow. You should have all received by now the company's press release. If not, please view it on the company's website.

  • With me today on the call we have Mr. Rafi Amit, Camtek CEO, Mr Moshe Eisenberg, Camtek CFO, and Mr. Ramy Langer, Camtek COO. Rafi will begin by providing an overview of Camtek results and discuss recent market trends. Moshe will then summarize the financial results of the quarter. Following that Rafi, Masha and Ramy will be available to take your questions.

  • Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain information provided on this call are internal company estimates unless otherwise specified. This call also may contain forward looking statements. These statements are only predictions and may change as time passes. Statements on this score are made as of today, and the company undertakes no obligation to update any of those forward-looking statements contained weathers result of new information, future events changes and expectations or otherwise.

  • Investors are reminded that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected including as a result of the effects of general economic conditions. Risk related to the concentration of the significant portion of Camtek expected business in certain countries, particularly China, from which Camtek expects to generate a significant portion of its revenues for the foreseeable future. But also Taiwan and Korea including the risks of deviations from our expectations regarding timing and size of orders from customers in these countries, changing industry and market trends, reduced demand for services and products, the timely development of new services and products and their adoption by the market, increased competition in the industry and price reductions, as well as due to other risks and uncertainties identified in the company's filings with the SEC.

  • Please note that the safe harbor statements in today's press release also covers the contents of this conference call. In addition, during this call, certain non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed. These are used by management to make strategic decisions, forecast future events and results and evaluate the company's current performance. Management believes that the presentation of non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors understanding and assessment of the company's ongoing corporations and prospects of the future. A full reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP financial measures are included in today's earnings release.

  • And with that, I'd now like to hand the call over to Rafi Amit, Camtek CEO.

  • Rafi Amit - Chairman of the Board & CEO

  • Thanks, Kenny. Good morning or good afternoon everyone. Camtek ended another quarter of continued revenue growth, fourth quarter revenues were a record of $82 billion 11% increase year over year. Gross Margin came in at 49% and operating margin at 27.8%. Over 60% of our revenues came from advanced interconnect packaging applications. Front end and compound semi segments accounted for about 20% of our revenues. The total revenues for 2022 was a record of $321 million, 19% growth year over year. This is the fifth year in a row with record revenues. In the last two years we more than doubled our revenues and tripled our operating profit. In 2022. We continue to expand our customer base. We now have over 250 active customers and we have added more than 50 new customers, so we expect them to contribute significantly to future revenues. The company's diversified exposure to multiple customer secular trend and territories contributed to our success. We have met manage to increase our business in the true genius integration segment, which serve the high-performance computing and in addition, it has partly been qualified for the next generation DRAM products. We expect these two applications to continue to contribute significant revenues in 2023.

  • Compound semiconductor and specifically silicon carbide market continues to grow rapidly. And we have been able to win several inspection steps at several different customers. Last week, as reported few weeks ago, was a tier one manufacturer for an order totaling of $18 million for multiple machines to be installed in 2023 and 2024. In 2022, we have developed several new products and technologies, which we plan to introduce in 2023. We anticipate it will further increase our market position and expand our capabilities in entering new market segments.

  • Looking at 2023, global economic growth is projected to slow down thus affecting wafer fab equipment in general, and specifically the memory segment. Also regarding the new US restrictions on China's semiconductor industry from few months ago, we have yet to see how it influences the industry. After three years in which the entire production supply chain was disrupted, 2023 is expected to be a challenging year, with customers being more cautious and hesitant in increasing production capacity before receiving orders from their end user. However, we are also receiving positive signal from several customers regarding expected improvement in the second half of 2023. We believe that our leading position into specific segments broad and diversified customers base and long-term strategic relationships with customers will enable us to again outperform the wafer fabrication equipment, which is predicted to decline by 20 to 30% in 2023.

  • Regarding the first quarter, we estimate the sales to be approximately $71 to $74 million, which represents a decline of 6% year over year and 12% sequentially at the midpoint, after doubling sales in the last two years, while focusing on supplying systems on time and providing a good response to customers we now focus on a company's efficiency. Also we are carefully monitoring certain balance sheet items, such as inventory levels, and account receivable. We are adjusting our expenses in headcount to the current demands. Moshe, we will address our plan in more details. I would like to conclude by stating that the semiconductor is a strategic industry and all leading countries are heavily invested in it.

  • I would like to hand over to Moshe for more detailed discussion of the financial result. Moshe.

  • Moshe Eisenberg - CFO

  • Thank you, Rafi. In my financial summary ahead, I will provide the results on a non-GAAP basis. The reconciliation between the GAAP results and the non-GAAP results appears in the tables at the end of the press release issued earlier today.

  • Fourth quarter revenues came at a record $82.2 million, an increase of 11% compared with the fourth quarter of 2021 and slightly more than the previous quarter. Revenues for the whole year w3ere a record of $321 million, 19% increase year over year. The geographic revenue split for the quarter was as follows, Asia 80%, in USA and Europe accounted for 20%, gross margin for the quarter was $40.2 million. The gross margin for the quarter was 49% versus 50.9% in the fourth quarter of last year, in the same as in the previous quarter. In line with our previous guidance range.

  • We continue to experience inflationary pressure on raw material and labor which cannot fully passed on to customers. However, we are taking steps to mitigate this impact by improving our efficiencies in cost as a result improve our gross margin over the mid to long term.

  • Operating expenses in the quarter were $17.4 million difference compared with $16.8 million in the fourth quarter of last year and $17 million reported in the previous quarter. Operating profit in the quarter was $22.8 million compared to $23.2 million in Q3 and $20.9 million reported in the fourth quarter of last year. Operating margin was 28% Similar to the previous quarter and to the fourth quarter of last year.

  • Financial income for the quarter was $3.8 million compared to its $2 million in Q3 and $200,000 last year. The majority of the increase relates to significantly higher interest rates on our deposits on an increased cash balance. We expect the financial income to continue to increase throughout 2023 as the interest rates remain high.

  • Net income for the fourth quarter of 2022 was $24 million or 50 cents per diluted share. This is compared to a net income of $19.7 million or 40 cents per share in the fourth quarter of last year. So diluted number of shares as of the end of Q4 was $48.3 million.

  • Turning to some high-level balance sheet and cash flow metrics. So total cash including cash equivalents, short- and long-term deposits, as of December 31, 2022 was $479 million. During the fourth quarter we had a strong positive cash flow and we generated $19.9 million in cash from operations. And altogether for the year we have generated $57 million. Accounts receivable increased to $80 million in the quarter primarily due to the timing of revenue and collection within the quarter. There is outstanding for Q4, we're 90 days. Since the beginning of the year. We experienced strong collection and we expect the account receivable balance to come down by the end of Q1. Inventory level was $70.9 million and it went down by $3.9 million over the quarter. In the last few years, we increase the inventory in order to support the growth especially in light of the supply chain issues. The reduction this quarter is in line with our target to optimize the inventory level given the new business environment.

  • Moving to the guidance, in Q1 we expect revenue in the range of $71 to $74 million. Our gross margin is affected by the business volume and the increase in the Bill of Material resulting from the supply chain issues, inflation and labor costs. We therefore expect gross margin to be around 48% in Q1. Our focus in the last few years was on meeting the phenomenal growth. In order to improve the gross margin this year. We plan to focus on cost reduction through engineering and design optimizations and supply chain initiatives. These steps take time and we anticipate that they will assist us in gradually improving our margin over the coming quarters. We continue to invest in R&D to meet our customer road maps and be well positioned for growth. However, we are adjusting all other operating expenses to the current revenue level in order to move us closer to our target operating model when growth returns to our markets. The current strength of the U.S. dollar versus the Israeli shekel is helping our current operating experience levels as well.

  • I would like to highlight the contribution of our cash reserve on our results. We have close to $0.5 billion in cash that enjoys the increasing interest rates and puts us in an excellent position to grow inorganically, and we are actively looking at opportunities.

  • With that, Rafi, Ramy and myself will be happy to take your questions. Kenny?

  • Kenny Green - Senior Partner of Israel

  • Thank you, Moshe. (Operator Instructions) Okay. Our first question will be from [Blayne Curtis] from Barclays.

  • Thomas James O'Malley - Research Analyst

  • This is Thomas O’malley, I'm not sure what happened with the Q in there. But I just wanted to understand in the December quarter, you normally give a breakout by end market from a percentage perspective of what contributed to the revenue. Could you just break it down between advanced packaging? I know you said greater than 60%, but any more granular, it would be great. Compound semi front-end CMOS image sensing and then other? Just any granularity there would be really helpful.

  • Kenny Green - Senior Partner of Israel

  • (inaudible)

  • Thomas James O'Malley - Research Analyst

  • Just for the quarter.

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • Okay. Hi, Blyane. So this quarter...

  • Thomas James O'Malley - Research Analyst

  • Its Tom.

  • Kenny Green - Senior Partner of Israel

  • Tom.

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • Its Tom. Sorry. Hi, this is Ramy. So if we look at the fourth quarter, our advanced packaging came close to 67%. This is the mix of the orders. Overall, if we look at the yearly basis, it's about 60% our compound and front-end business, they were together just about 20%. And then there were a few others. The CMOS image sensors this year is a little bit lower than other years. And this is for the reason of the sales of mobile phones so it ended up about 6%. And then there are a few small items. Okay.

  • Thomas James O'Malley - Research Analyst

  • So 6% was for the full year, you're saying or 6% for the December quarter?

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • December quarter in overall this year was around 6%. The CMOS image sensors, as we anticipated was lower than usual, our usual 10% for this segment.

  • Thomas James O'Malley - Research Analyst

  • And then you guys are making some comments about the full year. You're saying you think you'll do better than broad-based WFE, but you're also saying, hey, the second half is going to be stronger than the first half. Could you just help identify which end markets are going to be weaker in the March and June quarter? And how should we think about what June should look like off of March given the fact that it sounds like June is the bottom for you guys? And how extreme should that look?

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • So first of all, we didn't say that June is going to be anything about Juno talk in a minute about what we are seeing beyond Q1. But let's talk about the segments. So the segments are going to be similar next year. I'm expecting and as I look at our backlog and the pipeline, advanced packaging is going to be very strong next year coming from the erogenous integration, a lot of them move for DRAMs to high-bandwidth memories, this is also going to contribute significant revenues. Silicon carbide is going to be strong. And the overall other markets are going to be okay.

  • So from the segmentation point of view, we don't see anything different. Keep in mind that we have 250 customers that helps us a lot in balancing the business, and we've acquired 50 new customers this year. They expecting that some of them will buy additional equipment in 2023. So this will give us a balance for us. But looking at Q2 and beyond in the entire year of '20 and '23, we have a solid backlog and a solid pipeline. Now you have to remember that we are working in a dynamic environment. Things are changing. We did not get any major cancellations. However, there is more hesitancy than before. So therefore, it is too early to give a forecast for Q2 or even talk about the rest of the year. But as we said in our prepared remarks, we expect to outperform our market segment.

  • Kenny Green - Senior Partner of Israel

  • Our next question will be from [Charles Shi] from Needham.

  • Unidentified Analyst

  • I want to ask a bit about the gross margin. It seems like you are facing some inflationary cost pressure and taking action to address those and you actually guided down the first quarter gross margin bias edge. My question is, I think historically, it's not just a volume that -- and also the cost input that influence your margin, I think your product mix sometimes play a bigger role. I know you didn't really talk about product mix in '23, but is there a favorable or unfavorable mix that could be, I mean, a positive or negative to gross margin for the full year in '23 because you have good backlog. I think you have some visibility into the mix.

  • Moshe Eisenberg - CFO

  • So I would say the following, yes, you are right. Product mix has a lot to do with the gross margin as well, but we decided to focus this time on the cost structure because we see some pressure on gross margin from the cost elements. We see some increase in the bill of material, both from components, labor cost. And altogether, we see some pressure.

  • So yes, product mix in may have a positive impact. I think that the 48% that we gave as the guidance should play as a bottom. And we can -- we may see over the year some improvement coming also from the initiatives that we are already taking. And as I said, it may take time, but we expect to see some impact already in the second half of the year. And also from the product mix that might be more favorable than we're currently seeing.

  • Unidentified Analyst

  • Maybe the second question, I really want to go back to the question asked by Tom earlier. On the full year -- what we think about the segment mix is going to be. I think you said it's quite similar, but I also heard you say advanced packaging, which includes memory DRAM seems to be doing well this year. And should we kind of expect that vast packaging as a percentage in your mix, maybe it's growing a bit this year with others? You said that they are okay, but I don't hear that they are going to be -- I don't hear like the conviction from you that they're going to be as great as the advanced packaging segment for you?

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • We rented -- I talked about the segmentation I didn't talk about the forecast that was the second part where I said we can -- and we're not in a position today to do any focus above, let's say, beyond the first quarter that we have already stated. Regarding the mix whether the advanced packaging will be a little bit more than 6%. It's still too early to say, but it's definitely we see in the backlog and the pipeline that this is going to play a major part of our business, continue to be a major part of our business and it will be, I would say, at least 60%, whether it will be significantly more as the fourth quarter, I still don’t know.

  • Unidentified Analyst

  • Maybe the last one. I really, I want to ask you about the geographical mix. What you're seeing today based on your order book, Asia Pacific versus U.S., Europe, do you see that mix kind of changing to ‘23? Maybe Asia Pacific may be growing a little bit faster]in '23 relative to U.S. and Europe, or do you see the other way around?

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • No, I don't think there is going at this stage, at least what we see in the current numbers in our plans. I think that the Asia 80% versus U.S. and Europe, 20%, I think at this stage, we expect this to stay.

  • Kenny Green - Senior Partner of Israel

  • Our next question will be from Auguste Richard from Northland.

  • Auguste Philip Richard - MD & Senior Research Analyst

  • I was just wondering if you could talk about sort of where you're slotting tools at this point? How much has that lead time compressed and just any general thoughts around that?

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • The main issue, and I think we spoke about it also in the last call, what we see today that customers are very hesitant in turning the pipeline into (inaudible) or even scheduling the shipment time. And the reason for that, they are waiting to see that their end customers are giving their business. And as a result, we've seen our lead times go down from about, I would say, 4 to 6 months, coming down to something like 3 to 4 months. And just I would give you these are the rough numbers. So definitely, this is the reason that from our point of view, it's very hard today to forecast beyond the first quarter.

  • Auguste Philip Richard - MD & Senior Research Analyst

  • And then you mentioned in your prepared comments about some new products, and I was just wondering if you could give a little more color in terms of expansion of market opportunity or any color on the types of applications you're going to be addressing?

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • This is -- in general, I can -- I will be very careful about it because some of this information is obviously very confidential. But I would say that there are 2 areas where we are developing products. First of all, is to increase our time. We've been increasing it gradually. And there are areas that we have identified that have -- we have good opportunities and we have the technologies to enter and these are areas that we develop products and will introduce it. In parallel, we are working with our customers on their road maps and this requires development on our side to meet those road maps. This is very important for us to maintain our market position and increase the business with our existing customers. So this would be the 2 types of developments that we will be introducing in '23.

  • Auguste Philip Richard - MD & Senior Research Analyst

  • And sort of any color on front-end advanced packaging? Is it -- just any sort of...

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • So it will be in the advanced packaging. It will be in the front-end, it will be for silicon carbide. And I would say even certain applications, even in the same aegis. So this is really across our entire portfolio and applications. We will be showing improvements in new capabilities in our products.

  • Kenny Green - Senior Partner of Israel

  • Our next question will be from Brian Chin of Stifel.

  • Brian Edward Chin - Associate

  • I appreciate the color on the lead times. And at this still if you place an order now, maybe you get a delivery in May, June. So you maybe have a little bit of visibility and backlog going into 2Q. But do you think base on that first half revenue is generally stabilizing around first quarter levels? That’s my first question.

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • Well, Brian, I talked about it before. It's -- the current status, even when we look at our backlog and pipeline that they are solid. Still, we are very hesitant in giving you more color on the second quarter because things are changing. But as I said before, we did not have any major cancellations. So we feel we are positive about the business. But still, it's very hard at this stage to put a very clear number.

  • Brian Edward Chin - Associate

  • Because if you just run Q1 revenues flat across the year, and you're obviously a little bit more optimistic about second half, but that would obviously get you maybe down 10% for the year or something a lot better than maybe what the kind of the benchmark might be in terms of industry spend this year? Maybe a couple of other questions. The -- I know you -- with China, I know you don't aggregate China exposure as a whole, and so I'm not asking you to do that, but can you provide some sense of how you think holistically your revenue in China could trend this year relative to last year? And also, generally, what makes you more optimistic maybe that the distribution of this revenue improves later in the year?

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • So first of all, we did not -- and as you said, we don't give any segmentation in Asia. But all in all, China is coming out of the CORONA virus, it's going to open, and we'll see how things work there in a couple of months. But when we look in China, we are -- the business there is stable. The backlog is stable, the pipeline is stable. We don't see any major change and I think our customers there are continuing to order machines. The industry is growing there, the new customers there. So I don't see any change. However, there are some, I would say, some things that we will need to wait and see how the whole thing in China is playing out. I think Rafi talked in here in his prepared remarks about how the U.S. restrictions would work there. There are a lot of unknowns, but I think from our point of view, we do not see a major change there. And Rafi, maybe you want to comment further.

  • Rafi Amit - Chairman of the Board & CEO

  • I say that if during the Q1, the proportion between China, Asia and other territory are about the same as last year and we are to take into consideration, the China was under a very tough time and very heavy slowdown. So as far as I know, the government now want to make a very quick recovery. So definitely, it can make -- this action could definitely improve the business in China. But as I said, it's too early to say we have to wait maybe 1, 2 months, and then we can feel more comfortable what is going on.

  • Brian Edward Chin - Associate

  • And maybe a very last question. Silicon carbide has come up a mentioned a few times on the call. Within maybe that 20% of revenue, which Q4 and maybe similar to last year, but what's the significance exiting the year of your silicon carbide power device revenue? And kind of with new products, existing products, is that a business of its smaller size right now? It looks like it could even grow this year? And kind of geographically, where are you stronger and where are you targeting? Do you think just not by customer, but Europe, U.S., Japan, maybe China? Any color there would be helpful.

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • So first of all, the silicon car by the compound semi in general, it's a global business, and it's in all territories. And obviously, I'm hesitant, I don't want to disclose any names of customers, but we are serving, I would say, most of the major players in this area. I think we talked about the $18 million of order which we received a few weeks ago. And that's definitely from a number, it's a significant number. What I can talk about is, this is just one customer with specific steps. We are doing additional steps at this customer, this specific customer that there is even more potential in that specific opportunity. And like this customer, there are several other customers that can order machines.

  • So silicon carbide is growing very fast. We have a good position in all, I would say, most of the major Tier 1 customers that are out there. And definitely, it's a business that I'm expecting to grow. We're going to grow both as the business growth, but we are also finding more and more steps within the process that we are going to address.

  • Rafi Amit - Chairman of the Board & CEO

  • I would like to add that silicon carbide actually is mainly for the electric cars. And everyone knows what's going on. This is one of the segments that is the (inaudible) is over, I think, 20%. So definitely, this drive the silica carbide very aggressively, and this is why we feel very comfortable with it.

  • Kenny Green - Senior Partner of Israel

  • Our next question will be from Craig Ellis from B. Riley.

  • Craig Andrew Ellis - Senior MD & Director of Research

  • So congratulations on the fifth year of growth, really a great track record. I wanted to follow up on the industry outperformance issue, and I totally understand that the nature of things makes it hard to really provide concrete color around the businesses dynamics beyond the current quarter. So I'll try it this way. If you look at the potential to outperform industry this year, can you give us some range of potential outperformance that you think is possible? And if you can't quantify that, could you rank the factors that you think are most significant in leading to an outperformance margin?

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • Let me try. We talked about the segmentation. So I think that the advanced packaging segment will be, I would say, solid this year. So this is a segment that is 60% of our business in the fourth quarter was 67%. This is a segment that will maintain, I would say, a good performance. And when I talk about this segment, I'm including the DRAM move to high-bandwidth memory, potentially there is the DDR5. So definitely 60% of our business, I think, is this, I can say, in good shape.

  • Then there are the rest, I think silicon carbide is an area that should also perform well. As Rafi said, this is going to electric cars, and this is a segment that's going to continue to grow because there is a transition from the – to electric cars, we see it everywhere. And that comes, I would say, the risk. But I think where we are -- where there is an uncertainty is in the capacity. And some of our customers that are very hesitant about expanding their capacity. And that's the area where it's very hard to give a number to quantify. So we feel comfortable about it will outperform the performance of the market, but to give you an exact number, it is difficult.

  • Now one thing that definitely I think is a plus is our exposure and strength in China, definitely. As Rafi said, they are coming, there are some loans, but definitely, this is an area that's going to continue and expand the industry. There is no choice. We see that the number of new customers, application, definitely, I'm expecting that this will be a plus for us in ’23.

  • Rafi, do you want to add something?

  • Rafi Amit - Chairman of the Board & CEO

  • That's fine. That's exactly the situation.

  • Craig Andrew Ellis - Senior MD & Director of Research

  • Moshe, I'll flip one over to you. So it sounds like within operating expense, there are some different dynamics going on, on the R&D line. The company is committed to all the things that are going to generate those new products that you've talked about. So it sounds like spending there is at least stable but potentially up. But on other parts of operating expense, you're looking for efficiency. So how does that net out in the first quarter and through the year? Does it net to fairly flat OpEx? Would they go down in absolute dollars through the year? Help us with the contour of that line?

  • Moshe Eisenberg - CFO

  • Yes. So yes, you're right. We will continue to invest in R&D. And as a matter of fact, we will see some increase in R&D over the year. So that means that other areas will have to compensate for that, and these are sales and marketing and G&A. And here, we are going to tackle sales channel improvements we are going to look into travel. Basically, we will be doing like any company that is looking to improve profitability, we will be much more cautious with respect to all kinds of expenses. We will monitor it more carefully. Not that we have not done it in the past, but obviously, when you are in a more challenging business situation with demos.

  • So net-net, we will see some reduction in operating expenses from the Q4 numbers. Not by much, but we will see some reduction. So if we ended Q4 with 17.4%, we will see some reduction in Q1 in the level of operating expenses.

  • Craig Andrew Ellis - Senior MD & Director of Research

  • And then, Rafi, I'll ask you a question. So the company has done a fantastic job growing its customer base and the 225% -- or excuse me, the 50%, 25% addition last year is pretty remarkable. As you look at 2023, how much further room is there to expand the customer base? And how significant can that be relative to what -- was it a really big year in 2022?

  • Rafi Amit - Chairman of the Board & CEO

  • First of all, regarding customer base, even from time to time, we are surprised discover new customer, many of them, by the way, in China as a new customer that you don't know about them, nobody knows. And all of a sudden, you get more and more customers. So definitely, China is one of the major territory that we can see new customers. And when we talk about new customers sometime, it is the same customer, but different segment in this specific customer. For example, if we penetrated to a Tier 1 customer to a specific application and then we found that we can give them better solution and other applications in other departments. So all of a sudden, you have more than one customer, like sub-customers. So we see that there are enough room for us to develop our ability to many other segments, and especially, we talk about OQC, front-end application. There are more and more players that from time to time, we see that we have the tool, we have the ability and -- in order to go there. And this is why we feel very comfortable that the 250 customers definitely are helping us and reducing our risk when there are some slowdown effects. And we definitely continue doing all our efforts to continue expanding the customer, the installed base of customers.

  • Craig Andrew Ellis - Senior MD & Director of Research

  • So plenty of room for share and share of wallet expansion should look ahead. That's helpful. Rafi. Moshe, I'll flip it back to you as my final question. So very significant increase in interest income in the quarter. Would you expect that kind of increase again in the first quarter? And how much duration should we expect with these increases in average interest rates across your different cash and investment instruments as we look at '23?

  • Moshe Eisenberg - CFO

  • So as you can -- as we all know, interest rates are pretty high these days, and we are trying to take full advantage of the high interest rates. -- we have reported $3.8 million of financial income in the fourth quarter. And yes, we expect this number to continue to grow to $5-ish million on a quarterly basis in 2023. And again, this is all assuming that the interest rates remain at the current level.

  • Kenny Green - Senior Partner of Israel

  • (Operator Instructions) Our next question will be from Alona Lahav from (inaudible).

  • Alona Arieli Lahav - VP of Marketing & Sales

  • My question is about the memory. It was a bit sluggish in the last couple of years, and you speak about it as a potential for 2023. Could you elaborate a bit about what the prospect there?

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • Yes. So this is an example where the technology of the DRAM is changing. So today, there are more and more applications and this is tied up to the high-performance computing and the heterogeneous integration, you see the high-bandwidth memory. These are memories that are in stacks. They are very fast, they're very efficient from power consumption from bandwidth, from every aspect. So all the manufacturers are starting to produce them, they have been producing them, but they are ramping up the quantities, the capacity is growing. And obviously, our machines are here used to inspect the bumps on the (inaudible) and that's an application that we are very dominant throughout in all the major players in this segment. And that's an area, it's not huge, but it is big enough to mention it, I'm expecting '23 and also '24, we expect to enjoy in this application.

  • Kenny Green - Senior Partner of Israel

  • Our next question will be from Shahar Cohen.

  • Shahar Cohen

  • What about silicon carbide. What's your market share over there? Are you the dominant player in the silicon carbide inspection and do also play on gallium nitride on top of silicon carbide. And what we see, we see major expansion from across all customers from on to Wharf to Infineon, why you're saying that customers are electing to add capacity. What we see is multiple growth of capacity in that area. So if you can speak more about that? That would be helpful.

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • So Shahar I’m not -- I cannot speak about customers' names. But I think as we said before, this is definitely a market, the end market is growing, and the use of silicon carbide is also growing, and more and more people are adopting silicon carbide in their electric cars. So definitely, that's an area that we will see growth over the next few years. And I think Rafi mentioned the (inaudible) is about 20% plus.

  • So yes, we are a dominant player in certain applications, not in all of the applications, but it's an area that we are gradually developing capability and expanding our presence to other applications, other steps, process steps within the silicon carbide. So that's definitely a very promising market for us. It has been growing over the last few years. And I think from a single-digit number to double-digit numbers this year, and we definitely expect to see more growth in this segment over the next few years.

  • Shahar Cohen

  • Is there a gallium nitride (inaudible) or is that...

  • Ramy Langer - COO

  • Yes, a gallium nitride also has some advantages in other applications. I think the market there still at this stage is slower. But definitely, it's a market that we play in gallium nitride, gallium arsenide -- there are many flavors here. And each of the flames different aspects and means in capacity. I think it's a little bit more complex to try and answer all of this in a few minutes.

  • But you can give me a call and we can speak about it more. Thank you very much.

  • Kenny Green - Senior Partner of Israel

  • I believe that is the end of the question-and-answer session. Before I hand over back to Rafi, I'd like to let you all know in the coming hours you upload the recording of this conference call to the Investor Relations section of Camtek's website at Camtek.com. I'd like to thank everybody for joining this call. And I'd like to hand back to Rafi for a closing statement.

  • Rafi Amit - Chairman of the Board & CEO

  • Okay. I would like to thank you all for your continued interest in our business. I want to especially thank the employees and my management team for their tremendous performance. To our investors, I thank your long-term support. I look forward to talking with you again next quarter. Thank you, and goodbye.