By Christian Moess Laursen
ASM International lifted its shareholder returns after fourth-quarter bookings and revenue beat market views, while full-year net earnings soared.
The Dutch supplier to semiconductor manufacturers said late Tuesday that it made a fourth-quarter net profit of EUR90.9 million, down from EUR236.6 million in the same quarter a year earlier, mainly due to lower operating results, and below analysts views of EUR121.0 million, according to Visible Alpha.
For the full year, however, net profit surged to EUR752.0 million from EUR389.1 million.
"While the broader semiconductor market is expected to recover in 2024, the softer wafer fab equipment market conditions we saw in the second half of 2023 are expected to continue into the first part of 2024," ASM said.
Fourth-quarter order bookings decreased 14% to EUR677.5 million, while revenue fell 7% to EUR632.9 million, in line with the company's expectations. Analysts had seen new orders of EUR639.5 million and a revenue of EUR624.0 million.
On the back of the full-year result, the company said it will hand back more cash to shareholders, as it plans to launch a EUR150 million share buyback, while it lifted its dividend to EUR2.75 from EUR2.50.
Looking ahead, the wafer-processing equipment specialist expects to report first-quarter revenue between EUR600 million and EUR640 million, which compares with EUR710.0 million in the prior-year quarter.
It expects revenue for the second half-year to be higher than the first half's.
The company said it expects to benefit from an anticipated reebound in the WFE market in 2025. As such, it remains confident its revenue will rise to the targeted range of EUR3.0 billion to EUR3.6 billion for 2025. Full-year revenue for 2023 was EUR2.63 billion.
Write to Christian Moess Laursen at christian.moess@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 27, 2024 12:54 ET (17:54 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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