使用警語:中文譯文來源為 Google 翻譯,僅供參考,實際內容請以英文原文為主
Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Entegris' fourth quarter earnings release conference call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Miss Heidi Erickson, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
- Director of Investor Relations
Thank you. Good afternoon, and again, thank you for joining Entegris's fourth quarter and year end 2002 conference call. We issued our fourth quarter results about 30 minutes ago. If you have not received a copy, or would like to be added to our distribution list, please call 952-556-8080, or you can access the release on our website, at www.entegris.com. Joining me today is Jim Dauwalter, President and Chief Executive Officer and John Villas, Chief Financial Officer.
Before we get into further details, let me know that certain matters we may discuss other than historical information may include forward-looking statements. Actual results, of course, could differ materially from the forward-looking statements we make. Additional information concerning the factors that could cause results to differ is contained in the 10-K and third quarter 10-Q that we filed in July 2002 and previous filings.
Additional or changed factors may also be mentioned on this call and included in the Form 10-K to be filed for the 2002 fiscal year end. This takes care of the Safe Harbor language. This afternoon, John will take you through the numbers and Jim will give his view of the business and how Entegris is positioned.
Finally, we'll take your questions. Please, we plan to end the call by 5:30 p.m. Eastern time. Now let me turn the call over to John Villas, our Chief Financial Officer.
- Chief Financial Officer
Thank you. I'm very happy to report that, from previous years as we are now operating at a lower break even point. Entegris has achieved annual profitability for the 36th consecutive year. This was not an easy feat in light of current industry conditions. But by focusing on what we could control, we met our goal to be profitable.
What could we control? Operational efficiencies, cost reductions and managing our assets wisely. By doing so, we ended the year with $119 million in cash on hand, an increase of $8 million from the previous year. And gross margin improvements from previous years as we are now operating at a lower break-even point. Sales increased by 6 percent from the previous quarter to nearly $64 million. Most of the improvement was related increases in sales in our fluid handling products such as valves and fittings and for our microelectronic group and wafer handling products. Our Global Services group also saw a significant pickup in revenue related town creases in cleaning equipment sales. This was partially offset by weakness in the data storage market related to soft demand for end products and the extended use of our products.
We estimate that sales for our unit driven products were just about 60 percent of our total sales during the fourth quarter. Sales for our unit-driven products such as wafer shippers increased slightly quarter to quarter while sales for our ultrapure molded drum decreased slightly.
Order rates for our unit driven and capital spending products were fairly steady, through most of the quarter, but started to weaken during the latter part of the quarter. Overall sales for the microelectronics group increased by 4 percent from the third to the fourth quarter 2002 total 72 percent of Entegris's sales.
For fluid handling, quarter-to-quarter sales increased by 10 percent to make up 28 percent of total Entegris sales. On a geographic basis, in the fourth quarter, we experienced sequential sales improvement particularly in Asia but also in Japan and Europe. For the full fiscal year, sales in north measure declined 5050 percent in 2001 to 47 percent.
Sales to Europe stayed flat at 16 percent. Sales to Japan declined from 18 percent to 16 percent of total sales and sales to Asia-Pacific increased from 16 to 21 percent of fiscal year sales. This is in line with the changes taking place in the microelectronics industry as more manufacturing facilities are located or built out particularly in Southeast Asia. Going forward, we will be discussing sales by market.
You might remember that we reorganized Entegris around markets in May of this year to give you an approximate starting point, Entegris sales to the semiconductor conductor market for fiscal year 2002 was 80 percent. The data storm market 11 percent. Global Services 8 percent. And life sciences 1 percent. The gross margin was 44.7 percent during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2002. That is down from 47.1 percent during the third quarter even though sales improved.
We knew that third quarter gross profit margins were exceptional, and I did expect margins would most likely stay closer to this level during the current quarter. What happened? The sales mix was less favorable. Generally, our products have similar margins but with over 10,000 active products, there are differences.
We did have increased manufacturing costs such as temporaries we hired to handle the increase in sales. In general, I am pleased about the progress we have made of increasing operational efficiencies and reducing costs. For next quarter, I expect gross profit margins in the mid 30 percent range. SG&A expenses were $19.1 million for the quarter, flat with the third quarter.
On an annual basis, SG&A decreased from fiscal year 2001 by $4.9 million to 73.6 million, reflecting lower incentive compensation and donation expenses. We expect SG&A expenses to be about flat next quarter. We invested $4.7 million in engineering research and development. That's up a bit from the previous quarter and for the full fiscal year 2002, we invested $17.4 million in ER&D, compared to $16.5 million in fiscal 2001. Particularly, during the down cycles of the industry, we believe it is essential to invest in developing new products, materials and solutions that solve our customers' problems.
That's how we intend to not only maintain our market leadership position, but to gain market share. Very few companies in the industry have the financial strength and stability to invest at similar levels during all industry conditions.
During the quarter, we recorded a one-time pre-tax benefit of about $800,000, a reversal of a portion of previous accruals related to plant closures. This was the last remaining piece related to facility consolidation over the last 18 months. The effective tax rate for the fourth quarter is 10.7 percent.
And 242 percent for the year based on fairly low profit levels and one-time tax benefits. For the next fiscal year, 2003, we estimate tax expenses to be at 38 percent for the full year, closest to our historical levels.
We reported a net income of $4.9 million, or 6 cents per share and on a pro forma basis, $4.4 million or 6 cents per share for the quarter. For fiscal year 2002, we reported net income of $2.8 million or 4 cents per share and on a pro forma basis 2.4 million or 3 cents per share.
This is truly a significant accomplishment given the ongoing difficult industry conditions. Our balance sheet continues to be very strong. Cash and investments on hand are now $119 million up 8 million for the end of fiscal year 2001.
We generated about $25 million in cash from operations during the last year and we generated cash from operations during every, single quarter in the last fiscal. [ continuing transcript ]
- President New Market
Well within our expectations. Inventories declined by $8 million from fiscal year end 2001 to $39 million. That's about flat with last quarter even though sales increased.
Depreciation and ammortization expense was approximately $7.5 million for the quarter and $28.3 million for fiscal year 2002 compared to 24.3 million in fiscal 2001. Capital expenditures were $3.8 million for the fourth quarter and $20.8 million for the year. We invested in the remodeling of our Gilroy cleaning services facility in California and other facilities to establish our manufacturing centers of excellence. For fiscal year 2003, we expect to spend about $25 million in total capital expenditures.
Every large capital project goes through a rigorous review process which gives us the opportunity to adjust spending as necessary. Going into this fiscal year, I feel very positive about our financial position. We reported our 36th year of annual profitability. We executed on a one-two punch efforts to reduce cost and increase efficiencies.
And our balance sheet is very strong, with $119 million of cash with the capability demonstrated to generate cash in every, single quarter since we went public. I am confident with our financial strength and stability we will have even better opportunities to grow both our current markets and our new markets.
Now I will turn the call over to Jim. Jim?
- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, John. I have to second John's assessment of our financial position.
We have been very diligent in managing the resources at our disposal and have been rewarded with generating cash from operations every quarter during the last year. I'm particularly proud that we achieved another year of profitability which makes 36 in a row.
I'm proud of the fact that we managed successfully through the worst industry conditions we have ever experienced, and above else, I'm proud of how we focused our efforts to strengthen our core business and how we expanded our reach into new markets for future growth.
Reporting year end results like this, I would be remiss if I did not thank a very active Board of Directors, a very focused and talented senior management team and a truly dedicated and exceptional group of employees from around the world. Bottom line: Team Entegris delivered... and I'm proud to be part of that team. Why am I so proud?
Well, because in light of current industry conditions, team Entegris performed while we focused on posing for the future. Let me give you some numbers on this most dramatic down cycle in the history of the semiconductor industry.
Consider these facts. According to VLSI, semiconductor equipment sales during the 12 months of our fiscal year declined year-over-year by 47 percent. At the same time, billions of square inches of silicon produced declined by 11 percent. Prior to this cycle, the industry had not seen this magnitude of decline for either measure.
Entegris' overall sales from our fiscal year 2001 to 2002 declined by 36 percent. It's an enormous task to manage to profitability through a cycle where the manufacturing run rate drops by more than half within a 9-month period.
And at the same time, we must be ready for the possibility of business picking up at the same rate or even faster when industry conditions improve. To put this into even broader perspective, how many companies have been profitable over the last 36 years?
Well, we could only find such data back to 1983. And according to facts set research systems, of the over 10,000 companies who have been listed on the US Stock Exchange since 1983, less than 5 percent have been profitable every, single year.
If you benchmark Entegris against such publicly available data, we are part of this elite group. We are the only semiconductor or materials company that's been profitable on an annual basis every year since going public, or in our case, since we are founded in 1966. Those facts speak volumes about Entegris. Those facts underscore our leadership and materials integrity management, and those facts highlight our focus on addressing customer needs.
As you know, past performance does not guarantee future success. And we know that in the near term, industry conditions will remain challenging. John walked you through the sales trends that we saw last quarter. Our customers are extremely cautious at this point waiting for end demand for microelectronics-related products to pick up. So what does all this mean for Entegris?
For our first quarter 2003, we expect sales to decline by about 20 percent. Again, based on discussions with customers, our experience and the data we see, our perception is that this is a pause in the microelectronics industry. From our perspective, we're well positioned to strengthen our materials integrity management leader position in the upcoming year.
Why? Well, let me bring you back to when Entegris became a publicly traded company in July 2000 and the progress we have made. Since our IPO, we have consistently talked about five major goals which are, one- expanding our technology leadership; two- broadening our product offerings; three- building on our presence in Japan; four- taking our technology into markets; and the fifth one- pursuing selective acquisitions.
Had we -- have we executed against these goals? I believe we have.
First on technology leadership, we expanded our technology leadership this year by introducing over 20 new materials to address the specific needs of our high-tech customers. We added 8 new patents to our patent portfolio in the US and 21 internationally just this last year.
We developed new polymer manufacturing capabilities that, to our knowledge, no other materials integrity management company in this industry has been able to accomplish.
To give you just one example, we're now able to mold a 90-degree sweep elbow from high purity PFA. Why would we get excited about the development of a new fitting? A seemingly simple part? Well, this new elbow design solves a significant problem in the fab[rication]. Particularly, as it relates to CMP. With this new fitting technology, flow capacity is increased and turbulence and CMP fluid streams is reduced. This translates into productivity increases for our customer.
It's exactly these kinds of breakthroughs that allow us to be recognized as the materials integrity management leader and why our products get designed into new equipment and retro fitted into installed systems. Technology leadership is just one of the critical factors in our continued success.
Another factor leading to Entegris's success is our ability to broaden our product offerings. Last year, we announced 16 new products. These new products are strengthening our market position or expanding our scope within the markets we serve.
For example, during the last fiscal year, we introduced a product line called "stream." This is a new offering in the tape and reel market. We now offer a radical smith pod, film frame and dicing cassettes for front end and back end applications. Our new offerings display our expertise and leadership in engineering polymers that are cleaner and lighter. These are all opportunities within the semiconductor industry that we have not addressed before.
In my opinion, we have done an excellent job in expanding our product offering, staying ahead of our competition, and producing customers cost savings alternatives.
Our third goal has been to build on our long-term presence in Japan. We started this by reorganizing our distribution network in Japan and by acquiring a company with a fluid handling product line specifically targeted for the Japanese market. Such steps have moved us closer to the Japanese OEMs and we see early indications that we are strengthening our market position in this region.
The fourth of our five goals was to take our technology into new markets. Our first move outside the microelectronics was life science market, including pharmaceutical, biotech, and the chemical processing industries.
We have a full suite of products specifically designed for materials integrity management within these markets. Some of our accomplishments include technological advances such as our ability to sheet line metal containers with PFA, and PTFE, for the biotech industry.
We also expanded our distributor network for our products specifically designed for life sciences applications. Life sciences industry veterans are now coming to us, commenting that they would like to learn more about the technology they expect may replace stainless steel from many fluid handling applications.
Our second entry outside the microelectronics industry will be the fuel cell market. Let me explain why we decided to enter the fuel cell market and what Entegris can offer.
First, fuel cells represent a materials integrity management opportunity. Critical materials including hydrogen, oxygen, and water, are transported and protected as they produce a valuable end product: Power.
Second, our core competencies are well aligned to help fuel cell system developers. Fuel cells use numerous bipolar plates that can be made from conductive polymers similar to our matrix trays, only much more conductive.
Fuel cell stacks require complex assembly and expertise in handling a number of polymeric materials similar to FOOP and pod assembly. Fuel cells need contamination control and must be leak-free to be reliable similar to our valves.
Fuel cells have numerous gas and liquid handling needs and our fluid handling technologies and expertise provide ideal solutions. The third one, fuel cells are projected to be a very large growth market over the next decade. As such, we expect to develop a significant sustainable business for Entegris not tied to semiconductor cycles.
And last but not least, fuel cells hold the promise of improving people's lives and the environment. This is an investment into a market that is just developing.
Yes, we have received the first small orders and, no, we don't expect significant revenues out of this market for fiscal year 2003. We are positioning ourselves take advantage of this market when it takes off.
The last goal for Entegris was to pursue selective acquisitions. In the last 18 months, we have announced 4 acquisitions. We'll continue to acquire companies or technologies that strengthen Entegris.
Our business development team was strengthened in September with the addition of our new chief development officer. Greg, who came to us from Piper Jaffray, has an outstanding record of getting deals done.
And let me add that Patrick McKinney also joined Entegris in September as the President of the Semiconductor Market. Patrick came to us from AMCOR, and has a deep understanding of the semiconductor industry, and a wealth of experience. We're excited to have him on the Entegris team, as well.
So where do we go from here? We're delivering on our strategic goals I just mentioned. We have a unique record of success over the past 36 years. And we're continuing to build on that success.
What's the future? Well, going forward, I have challenged all Entegris employees with our five-year vision. This vision includes five new aggressive strategic goals.
First, we want to be one of the top three players in all markets we serve. Second, we want to generate an even greater percentage of revenue from newly developed products and services in all existing markets. Third, we want to grow revenue to above $700 million. Fourth, we want our new market efforts to contribute at least $150 million to our revenue stream.
And finally, our fifth goal, we want to make our operations a competitive weapon by being the most efficient producer of goods and services in every market we serve. In five years, I'd like to us revisit this list and see how successful we've been.
I believe these are achievable goals because team Entegris has a track record of success.
We'll continue to focus on growing our leadership position as the materials integrity management leader. We'll provide products and services that protect and transport the critical materials enabling high technology.
As a wrap-up, during the last 12 months, we've delivered on what we were able to control. This has carried us through this most difficult industry cycle, and I expect you will see an even stronger and more formidable Entegris in the future.
Let me emphasize, we have a strong experience management team, a history of delivering results, and of values-based organization has been very successful in maintaining and growing our market leadership in materials integrity management. We delivered a profitable fiscal year 2002, and generated cash forms during each one of our fiscal quarters. I firmly believe that our microelectronics industry success will also translate into successes in other markets.
As you can tell, I'm excited about our new year. Team Entegris has always responded to new challenges and new goals, and we're ready to go. So with that, we'll open it up to questions.
Thank you. The question-and-answer session will be conducted electronically. If you would like to ask a question, please do so by pressing the star key followed by the digit 1 on your touch-tone telephone.
If you are using a speaker phone, please make sure your mute button is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. We'll proceed in the order that you signal us and we'll take as many questions as time permits.
Once again, please press Star 1 ask a question. Our first question comes from Glen Yeung with Salomon Smith Barney.
Thanks. John, if I look at your revenue expectations for the November quarter, you are going to look a lot like you did last February. Should we expect gross margins to be a little bit higher than 33 percent you recorded back then?
- Chief Financial Officer
I think the guidance I gave, Glen, was to be in the mid 30 percent range. So yeah, with the gross profits, we realized last year, we expect it to be somewhat better because of the one-two punch in reducing our costs and increasing our efficiencies.
And if you were to look specifically into the November quarter, can you talk I guess a little more specifically about exactly what's going on there? Where are you seeing weakness and is it from the OEM side? Is it from the end market side? You know, anything you can tell us about what's going on?
- Chief Executive Officer
Hey, Glen. This is Jim. You know, it's pretty much in line with all of the things that we have been hearing out there for some time and that I think people have been commenting on.
As we look forward into the first quarter, which is the September-October-November time frame, I think that based on what our customers have been telling us and what we've seen from both the materials side as well as the capital side, it's in line. And I think the management team is responding to that.
And any sense as to how things can roll out beyond the november quarter at this stage?
- Chief Financial Officer
I think, as you know, our visibility is always limited. We're a high turn business. We don't carry large levels of backlog. So we're only giving guidance, right now, on the November quarter.
Any comments on the fuel cell market at this point?
- Chief Executive Officer
Glen, we're pretty excited about that one. Now, it's a little bit like being in the semiconductor industry in 1972. And so..., uhm, there's a lot of investment dollars being put out there by a lot of high technology companies.
The G.E.'s of the world, the 3M's, the DuPonts, the G.M.'s, you name it. So I think it's a technology that's going to be here and right now, we are just positioning ourselves to be a supplier into that whole market.
But nothing that you can speak of in terms of revenues at this stage?
- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. It's just too early on. You know, if we hit somewhere in the million-dollar range this year, I think that would be a good start for us.
Great. Thanks.
Our next question comes from Brett Hodess with Merrill Lynch.
Hi, this is [INAUDIBLE] filling in for Brett. I think Glen wanted to touch on this before but I wanted to get a feeling for the guidance in the November quarter, how much was that related to the units driven business and how many of was related to some of the capital spending-driven business?
I mean, would we assume that it's kind of equally -- are you seeing both those segments tend to be down in that kind of range or is it more towards the OEM side?
- Chief Financial Officer
It's pretty broad based. We saw a decline in our order rates as we mentioned during the latter part of the August quarter and we're seeing really both sides, the capital spending OEM-driven business as well as the unit-driven business decline during this next quarter.
Do you have a feeling if part of that decline is due to customers carrying some inventory of your products, or do you have a feeling of how that looks?
- Chief Executive Officer
You know, I think it's a kind of a combination of some of the inventory that might be in place with our customers, rather than our actual product inventory being built up -- we just haven't had enough time to really build inventory back up based on the spurt that took place in the April, May, June time frame.
I guess, uhm, in terms of pricing, you know, with revenues coming down, your -- are you seeing a lot more pricing pressure across the board in a number of your products?
- Chief Executive Officer
You know, I think we talk about that quite often. And, you know, I think the same answer holds is that while there's always pricing pressure, there isn't any significant pricing pressure out of what ordinarily takes place. Some of our competitors that are a bit more concerned about, you know, their future do some spot things.
But we tend to kind of walk away from that and eventually those customers come back to us. But, you know, it's really about adding value. And that's what we're doing.
And I think as the materials integrity management leader, it's important to emphasize that value and that's really how we get around some of the pricing pressure.
Okay. And regionally, I mean, you know, everyone's obviously already heard that Taiwan and Asia is one of the weakest regions right now. Is that consistent with what you guys are seeing in your outlook in terms of what regions are declining?
- Chief Financial Officer
Really, we said for the full fiscal year that our Asia-Pacific sales were up to 21 percent of our total sales compared to 16 percent in the prior year. In terms of our outlook regionally, just giving kind of across the board -- I don't know that I can really comment region by region, Samir, what we're really seeing for Q1.
Okay. And last question was, now with the turndown of revenues, are you planning to take any additional costs out of any of the other operating areas such as SG&A? I mean, you modeled it -- you tended to be flat. Should we kind of signalling that you're expecting some type recovery, that's you're still keeping that letter on the same level?
- Chief Executive Officer
You know, Glen, our management team has been -- I'm sorry, Samir, our management team has been through several of these, and we're going to keep our eye on the ball on those things. And we will adjust accordingly.
Now the one thing that we have to also pay attention to is be prepared for the upturn. And so it's something that we will manage through that and take the necessary steps to make sure that we're positioned for the future and that we can continue to provide value to our customers. [ transcript continuing ] . It will be coming back and we just need to be smart about how we execute.
Okay. Great. Thanks a lot.
- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Next we'll hear from Darice Lou with CEU Interberg Tobin.
Hi guys. You recently announced several new enhancements to your FOOP product. I was wondering how your customers are responding to these improvements and how these changes are helping you in the competitive landscape.
- Chief Executive Officer
Our FOOP product as we discussed in the past is one that's in constant evolution and there are things that we continue to come out with for our customers as we further the technology path in 300mm. And directly to your question is, yeah, those features are things that our customers and we have identified would enhance their production capabilities and so our offering has been well accepted.
I would also add that, you know, when it comes to Entegris, it's more than just FOOPs. It's our broad 300mm offering which includes a host of products and all of those are gaining acceptance from our customers and we're feeling good about our market share.
And can you give us some color in your factory utilization levels?
- Chief Financial Officer
Really, we're looking at our factory utilization and we certainly have additional capacity. Our utilization was up slightly over last quarter.
We continue -- we are monitoring our utilization, getting our products into our manufacturing centers of excellence so we can be more efficient going forward. And I think utilization -- I just stated, is up from last quarter and we still have plenty of capacity available.
And quick housekeeping question. What is your new break-even level?
- Chief Executive Officer
Our break-even point, we had mentioned in previous calls, we have taken from the high $60 million quarterly run rate down into the mid-$50s. Based on the cost initiatives that we took on over the last 18 months. And for the present time, we are still in that general range, in the $50 million break even run rate.
Okay, thanks, guys.
- Chief Financial Officer
Thank you.
Fred Wolf with Adams Hartness Hill will ask our next question.
Can you give us some guidance on ER&D going forward for the next quarter and does this mean that you are probably going to show a loss -- operating loss next quarter?
- Chief Financial Officer
Fred this John Villas. Yeah, certainly our ER&D expectation has been right around that $4 and1/2 million quarterly run rate and what we expect going forward. And based on the revenue guidance that we just gave along with the growth gross profit and SG&A guidance, it's our expectation at the present time that we will have an operating loss for Q1.
[ transcript continuing ] We are trying to gain more efficiencies in our manufacturing processes by using lean Sigma. Things to help us take costs out of our system. We think that we are positioned well for the future. We are getting into these new markets. And we need to continuously focus on growing our core business and these new markets. So we'll respond as the industry conditions demand for it.
Okay. I assume your goal is to be profitable for the year.
- Chief Executive Officer
Our goal is surely to be a strong company that's positioned to take advantage of whatever opportunities we're dealt. And profitability is absolutely one of those goals but it's not the only thing that drives us.
One other final question. Can you sort of quantify a few years out about what the opportunity for the fuel cell business is as opposed to your revenues? I'm sure you've done a lot of work in this area.
- President New Market
Well, we have a goal of having $150 million worth of revenues come from markets outside the semiconductor industry. So it's we think it's going to be a significant amount of business. It's a little about the like attempting in 1972 to speculate what the long-term size of the semiconductor industry was going to be because there is just a lot of unknowns out there.
But based on the players, the kinds of players, the technology that's involved and the momentum and the opportunity, we think that it's going to be significant.
So that could be a significant portion of your $150 million incremental in your five-year plan?
- President New Market
Yeah. I think so.
Great. Thank you.
I'd like to remind the audience, if you would like to ask a question, please press Star 1 at this time. And we'll take our next question from Jim Cavello with Goldman Sachs.
This is Amanda in for Jim. Two quick questions. One, could you please give us some idea as to how business is tracked entering the quarter versus as within the quarter? And then finally, just a housekeeping question, if you could let us know what the global head count was at the end of the fourth quarter. Thank you.
- Chief Financial Officer
Certainly entering the fourth quarter, the June quarter, Amanda? Is that your question?
Yes.
- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Business was strong. We gave guidance in the June quarter that we expected fourth quarter sales to be 62 to 66 million. So business had been picking up, certainly did early in the quarter. And then as we exited the quarter, as we mentioned, the latter part bookings certainly declined.
And hence, that's what caused us to give guidance for this quarter to be in the 20 percent down kind of range. Certainly that down draft that we have been feeling starting in August is something that we have experienced early on in this quarter, as well.
In terms of housekeeping, yes, our employee head count, global head count, is still right around that 1700-employee range worldwide. Excluding temporaries.
Great. Thank you.
Next we'll hear from Liluno Zang with T. Rowe Price.
Hi, Jim.
- Chief Executive Officer
Hi. How are you doing? Good. How are you? We're good today, thank you.
Good. Could you talk about for the -- do you -- in your guidance, how much is the pricing versus unit type assumption?
- Chief Executive Officer
Our guidance for the -- for the -- where -- (overlapping speakers). We could be 20 percent.
Yeah. And is it most of it unit-driven or also --
- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. That is mostly unit-driven. It isn't the effective pricing pressure.
I see. Uhm -- what have you seen on the business activity in September since you have, uhm... started the quarter already?
- Chief Executive Officer
Well, September has started off similar to I think how the latter part of August was, and it's kind of in line what I think we've been reading about for the last couple months from a variety of outside sources. And so we wouldn't argue with their consensus that's out there right now.
Thanks.
And as a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press Star 1 at this time. And we'll pause for just a moment.
(Pause) and it appears there are no further questions at this time. Ms. Ericksen, I'd like to turn the call over to you for additional or closing remarks.
- Director of Investor Relations
Thank you. We would like to thank you all for participating in this conference call. Please give me a call at 952-556-8051 if you have any additional questions regarding this conference call or any other issues. And thank you again for your interest in Entegris.
That does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation.