The earnings release stated: "We expect that Net sales in the third quarter of 2000 will exceed those achieved in the second quarter of 2000 and, based on quote activity and current bookings momentum, we are optimistic about the level of Net sales in the fourth quarter of this year. Our efforts to realize further margin improvements will continue."
During the investor conference call, Mr. Rinse de Jong, Chief Financial Officer, made the following comments: "The growth of Net sales is of course depending on new orders. We received in total € 573.6 million in new orders in the first six months of this year, with € 303.6 million in the first quarter and a solid € 270 million in the second quarter." Commenting on this, the Company stated that its delivery time for assembly and packaging or back-end equipment had gone beyond the period that was comfortable for its customers and that new orders for back-end equipment had been scaled back to a level that could be sustained with its current capacity. Mr. de Jong continued in the conference call saying: "There is to our knowledge no change in the trend. Bookings remain strong and so is the quote activity. In fact, our main worry is to meet the demand that we see and to expand our capacity so we can ship the forecasted quantities in 2001 and 2002."
Responding to concerns about the continuity and strength of the industry cycle, Mr. Arthur Del Prado, Chief Executive Officer, said that: "Our assembly and packaging operation, ASM Pacific Technology Ltd, is not experiencing delivery push outs that would affect operating results. However, we agree with the view, which we have expressed already in our most recent investor conference call, that much assembly and packaging capacity has been added recently and the industry needs some time to digest this. This interaction between customers and suppliers is business as usual and normally takes place in an orderly fashion. We have a broad range of products both in the front-end and back-end segments of the equipment market and we have always believed that this is one of our strengths. Amongst other things, it allows us to better balance short term variations in order flows, especially as back-end equipment has shorter lead times and thus a more volatile order pattern than front-end equipment."
"Our front-end companies expect to ship higher volumes in the third and the fourth quarter of 2000, which means to us that wafer fab capacity is still being added. It also suggests that, in the none too distant future, new assembly and packaging capacity will be needed to deal with the further increased output of the wafer fabs."
We confirm that ASM International is expected to meet the net sales and earnings targets it recently set in the follow up of its second quarter results. There is no change in the way the Company responds to the positive market environment it is currently experiencing and which it expects to continue for some time.
About ASM
ASM International is headquartered in Bilthoven, the Netherlands. ASM International's subsidiaries design, develop, manufacture and market equipment and materials used to produce semiconductor devices. ASM International and its subsidiaries provide production solutions for the wafer processing, assembly and packaging segments of the semiconductor equipment market through their facilities in the United States, Europe, Japan and Asia. ASM International's common shares trade on the NASDAQ National Market and on the AEX Stock Exchange in Amsterdam under the symbol "ASM". More information on ASM can be found on its website at http://www.asm.com
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Safe Harbor Statement under the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: All matters discussed in this statement, except for any historical data, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These include, but are not limited to economic conditions in the semiconductor industry, currency fluctuations, the timing of significant orders, market acceptance of new products, competitive factors, risk factors related to litigation and other risks indicated in filings from time to time with the SEC and Stock Exchange Authorities.