Half Year 2026 Technoprobe Spa Earnings Call

August 5, 2026

Speaker #2: Financial results presentation. Before I hand over to your host today, please be advised there will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation.

Speaker #2: In order to do so, please use the raise hand function on your screen or, for those dialing in, its star 9 on your keypad.

Speaker #2: I now have pleasure handing over to Technoprobe CEO, Stefano Felici. Please go ahead, Stefano, the floor to you.

Speaker #3: Good evening, and thank you for joining us. I'm with Stefano Beretta, our CFO, presenting the first half 2026 results, and the guidance for the third quarter of this year.

Speaker #3: As usual, Q&A session will follow at the end of the presentation. Let me start by saying that the first half 2026 represents another milestone for Technoprobe.

Speaker #3: Our performance demonstrates not only outstanding financial execution, but also strength of our positioning in what we believe is one of the most attractive structural growth markets in the semiconductor industry.

Speaker #3: We delivered record revenues of $464.1 million, growing 42.4% year over year and 48.2% sequentially, as a result of broad-based demand across our key customers and applications.

Speaker #3: Confirming that the long-term AI investment cycle continues to accelerate. As volumes increase, we capture significant operating leverage across the business. Gross profit grew almost 66% year over year, with gross margin expanding to 53.8%, while EBITDA increased nearly 94% to more than $206 million.

Speaker #3: Delivering an outstanding margin of 44.4%. This result demonstrates the scalability of our business model and our ability to convert strong market demand into superior profitability.

Speaker #3: Looking at the key drivers, behind this result, execution was clearly been one of the of our greatest strengths. We achieved record revenues because of the manufacturing capacity improving and, at the same time, leveraging our cost structure, allowing profitability to grow significantly faster than revenues.

Speaker #3: The combination of execution excellence, operating leverage, and margin expansion is exactly what we aim to deliver as our business continues to scale. From a market perspective, AI data center remains by far the most important growth engine for Technoprobe.

Speaker #3: We continue to see exceptional investment across the AI ecosystem, with customer increasing spending to support ever more powerful computing platforms. We believe this is not a short-term phenomenon, but a structural transformation of the semiconductor industry.

Speaker #3: Within this environment, several trends continue to work strongly in our favor. First, data center applications remain the primary driver of demand for our advanced probe technologies.

Speaker #3: Second, the rapid evolution toward increasingly sophisticated AI models, including the emergence of agentic AI, is pushing semiconductor complexities to new levels. Finally, every new generation of advanced devices requires significantly higher test intensity.

Speaker #3: Increasing the value of our solutions and creating additional content opportunities for Technoprobe. This structural trend reinforces our confidence in the long-term growth trajectory of our business.

Speaker #3: Looking ahead, we remain very optimistic about the second half of the year. The positive demand trend we experienced during H1 is continuing. Customer engagement remains extremely strong.

Speaker #3: To support this sustained demand, we are continuing to expand our manufacturing capacity, ensuring that we can meet customers' requirements while preserving the operational excellence and profitability that have characterized our performance so far.

Speaker #3: Overall, we believe this result demonstrates that Technoprobe is executing exceptionally well, benefiting from powerful secular growth drivers and further strengthening its competitive position. Next.

Speaker #3: So let me now provide some context on the market environment and our expectations for the second half of the year. Overall, the picture remains constructive, with the trends and momentum observed in the first half expected to continue into H2.

Speaker #3: However, the pace of growth remains clearly differentiated across the market. Starting from AI, demand remains exceptionally strong and continues to be the main structural growth engine.

Speaker #3: For the semiconductor industry, recent industry commentary confirms sustained investment in the AI infrastructure. Continued strong demands for leading-edge technologies and increasing requirements for high-performance computing and advanced memory and packaging.

Speaker #3: For Technoprobe, this environment is particularly supportive. The development of increasingly powerful accelerators, custom processors, HBM solutions, and complex chiplet architectures is increasing both device complexity and test intensity.

Speaker #3: Each new technology generation requires more sophisticated testing, tighter performance, requirement, and greater reliabilities, reinforcing the strategic importance of advanced PROCAR solutions. With the four expect strong AI growth to continue throughout the second half, with no material change in the underlying momentum.

Speaker #3: Visibility remains solid, customer engagement is high, and the broader AI ecosystem continues to invest aggressively in next-generation computing capacity. Moving to the consumer market, the trend is more moderate.

Speaker #3: We are seeing slight growth supported by a gradual normalization in smartphones and personal computers. Selected product refresh cycles and the progressive introduction of AI-enabled devices.

Speaker #3: Nevertheless, we are not assuming a broad-based consumer boom, the recovery remains measured, and differs by customer. Application and product category. Our expectation for H2 is therefore for continued slight growth, broadly in line with the first half.

Speaker #3: The market appears healthier and more stable than in previous periods, but the magnitude of the opportunity remains significantly below what we are currently seeing in AI and data center applications.

Speaker #3: Finally, in automotive and industrial, the key message is recovery. Inventory correction and customer restocking have progressed, order patterns are gradually improving, and an increasing number of application are beginning to contribute to the upcycle.

Speaker #3: Within automotive, semiconductor content continues to increase as vehicles become more digital, connected, and software-defined. However, the near-term recovery is still progressive rather than uniform, and visibility can vary across geographies and customers.

Speaker #3: As a result, our H2 assumption for automotive and industrial is continued recovery rather than a sharp acceleration. We believe the direction of travel is positive, but we remain disciplined and do not yet assume a full return to normalized demand across every application.

Speaker #3: To summarize, we expect the second half to reflect the same market structure seen in H1. Strong and sustained growth in AI, moderate growth in consumer and gradual recovery in automotive and industrial.

Speaker #3: This mix is favorable for Technoprobe, given our strong exposure to the most advanced and test-intensive semiconductor applications, and supports our confidence in the continuation of the positive trends into the second half of the year.

Speaker #3: Now let me turn to Stefano Beretta, who will give you more colors on our figures.

Speaker #2: Good afternoon, everyone. As you may have read in our press release, revenues recorded in the second quarter marked another all-time record for Technoprobe, exceeding $277 million euro.

Speaker #2: Above the high end of the increase of 64.3% compared to the same period of prior year, with a sequential increase of more than 48% compared to Q1 2026.

Speaker #2: Gross profit has practically doubled compared to the same period of 2025, up to $158.5 million, representing a 57.2% margin. This also exceeds the high end of our outlook range.

Speaker #2: Even more extraordinary is the increase in the EBITDA, which in just one quarter reached €137 million, with an increase of 135% compared to the same period last year.

Speaker #2: Representing an impressive margin of over 49%, well above the upper end guided during our prior call. Moving to the year-to-date figures, already showed by Stefano Felici, total revenues were just above $464 million, with an year-on-year increase of 42.4%.

Speaker #2: The gross profit was $249.6 million, 65.7% higher compared to the same period of '25, and representing a margin of 53.8%. The EBITDA closed at $206.2 million, almost double compared to the same period of '25, representing a margin of 44.4%.

Speaker #2: On this page, you can see a summary comparison between the financials at the end of the first six months of 2025 and 2026. Just to comment further, the year-on-year revenue increase was entirely driven by organic growth of almost $170 million, largely sustained by artificial intelligence volumes, as well as a softer recovery in the consumer segment, together with a slight recovery in automotive and industrial.

Speaker #2: The mentioned growth has been partially offset by the FX headwind. For approximately 13 million euro. In fact, the revenue expressed at cost and currency cost and currency used in H1 2025 would have been approximately $30 million higher than reported revenue, meaning an unfavorable impact of more than 6%.

Speaker #2: On a gross profit level, the increase in the margin of 760 basis points, from 46.2% to 53.8%, as already mentioned in our prior press releases, confirms once again the ability to rapidly increase the production capacity and implement internal efficiency in our production processes, together with the operating leverage across the entire P&L.

Speaker #2: All of these impacts have been partially offset by the increase in depreciation following the investments in fixed assets made during the last few months to expand our capacity and increase automation.

Speaker #2: Gross profit at cost and currency would have been approximately 24 million euro higher, by using the half 125 average rate. Bringing the margin well above 55%.

Speaker #2: At the EBITDA level, the effect of the operating leverage is even more evident, also favored by spending discipline in SG&A and the integration of the R&D departments of the various divisions.

Speaker #2: Showing an increase in the margin even including a negative forex impact for approximately 23 million euro. Which would have brought the margin above 46%.

Speaker #2: Finally, the net financial position has remained almost stable over these last six months, during which the cash generated by the operating activities, for approximately €93 million, was practically all used to fund the capacity expansion made in the same period.

Speaker #2: Again, as already anticipated in the previous press release, the group has recently embarked on a path to double its production capacity from 2025 benchmark.

Speaker #2: By the first quarter of 2027, through an ambitious investment and hiring plan. To date, the results exceeded our expectation, and we now expect to be able to increase the capacity up to $140% compared to the run rate at the end of 2025.

Speaker #2: Of course, the complete success will depend on many factors, especially on the ability to quickly adapt to changes in global dynamics and maintaining focus on our technology, on our people, and on an ethical governance.

Speaker #2: The increase in the production capacity combined with the stronger than expected volume growth driven by the artificial intelligence leads us to expect a third quarter with another strong sequential growth.

Speaker #2: In both revenue and profitability, and supported by a meaningful operating leverage effect. As shown in the chart, our investment mix is also evolving significantly.

Speaker #2: Compared to prior estimate, we have far accelerated the total investment to be deployed by the end of Q1 '27. To approximately $350 million euro.

Speaker #2: Of which approximately 80% of total investments are now concentrated in Italy, where the construction of the new greenfield manufacturing facility in Cernusco Lombardone has already begun and planned to be concluded by the end of Q1 2027.

Speaker #2: That said, third quarter of the year is expected to show another sequential record revenue together with robust growth in gross margin and EBITDA. Margin.

Speaker #2: So revenues to be about $314 million euro plus minus 3%. Gross margin in the range of 61.5% plus minus 200 basis points. And the EBITDA margin in the range of 52% plus minus 200 basis points.

Speaker #2: And considering that we are more than halfway through the year, and based on the volume and capacity information available to us today, we believe it's appropriate to update the revenue and EBITDA margin targets for 2026.

Speaker #2: Revised again upwards as follows: consolidated revenues in the range between €1,050 million and €1,100 million; EBITDA margin between 46 and the moment.

Speaker #2: So thanks everyone for your attention. Now we can move to the Q&A session.

Speaker #1: Thank you to the speakers today. We now have an opportunity for questions. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please use the raise hand function on your screen or for those dialing in, it's star 9 on your keypad.

Speaker #1: Once your name is announced, please remember to unmute your line and state your company name before asking your question. Thank you. The first question today comes from Alberto Jegra.

Speaker #1: Please, Alberto, go ahead.

Speaker #2: Hi, good afternoon. And congratulations for this another strong set of results. So I have one question on the implied second half. If you can if you have anything to flag, just to better understand the reason behind the phasing between the third and the fourth quarter since you are having a very strong third quarter, then the last one slightly down sequentially.

Speaker #2: The second question on the capacity increase, just to reconcile the previous messages on around a $1.4 billion run rate of manageable sales by the end of the first quarter.

Speaker #2: So, an update on this figure, considering the updated CapEx, also considering DIS and potential Chinese revenue. And the third one: if you can update us on the new markets, what are you seeing in the discussion with your potential customers?

Speaker #2: What drivers do you expect in 2027 in particular between CPU, ASIC, HBM, and silicon photonics? Thank you.

Speaker #3: Thank you, Alberto. So let me start with the H2 trend. For the moment, we have guided for Q3, of course, and Q4 is still under examination.

Speaker #3: So what we showed now is a trend, an upgraded trend for the year-end, but we still have some lag of information as you know, the visibility is very short and not yet completed for the Q4.

Speaker #3: What we can see right now is that a significant mass production and cyclical trend, especially for the GPUs, that led the significant growth, the first half of the year, would take a kind of pause for the second part, especially for the last part of the year.

Speaker #3: And then to restart in terms of volumes in 2027. So in the second part, especially in the last part of the year, we expect a bit of slowdown in the GPUs softly replaced by CPUs and ASICs.

Speaker #3: But volumes will be different in that case. So this is something we expected usually in the Q3 as a kind of cyclicality in the past years.

Speaker #3: Now the cyclicality has been moved a bit farther along the year. So we expect that in the Q4. About the capacity increase, as I mentioned before, we have increased the investment.

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Operator: Financial results presentation. Before I hand over to our hosts today, please be advised there will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. In order to do so, please use the raise hand function on your screen, or for those dialing in, it's star nine on your keypad. I now have pleasure handing over to Technoprobe CEO, Stefano Felici. Please go ahead, Stefano. The floor to you.

Speaker #2: This market, with a better performance, has a different technology that can produce the same result as the technology used for our logic. And a step-by-step adoption doesn't depend on us for when it will happen.

Speaker #2: So we are already going in the right direction, so there is this interest in this technology, but it is still early to say when exactly it will be adopted.

Speaker #2: In mass production.

Speaker #3: Thank you very much.

Speaker #1: Thank you, Oliver. We will now move on to the next question. The next question comes from Alexander Duval. Please, Alexander, go ahead.

Speaker #4: Yes. Hi, everyone, and congratulations on the strong results. I had a couple of questions. Firstly, you have raised your capex investment this year. I wondered if you could give us some thoughts on the level of investment you might plan beyond Q1 '27.

Speaker #4: Clearly, there's an uplift you're talking about in your cumulative spend up to that point, but would be very helpful to get a sense given the extremely robust AI market.

Speaker #4: And second of all, just to double-click on that question about differentiation within memory, I wondered if you could elaborate a bit more on the extent to which the technological differentiation that you offer will allow you to surmount some of the sticky relationships one would think competitors would have in the memory space.

Speaker #4: Thank you very much.

Speaker #3: Thank you, Alexander. Let me take the first point about the investments. Your read is very correct. I mean, €350 million to be spent in 15 months, so starting from January '26 to March '27, is very, very challenging.

Speaker #3: And we are literally committed to deploy all these investments. Right now, at the end of June 2026, we spent approximately 90 million euro. So we have 250, more or less, left to be spent in the next 9 months.

Speaker #3: It's very challenging because most of these investments relate to machinery and equipment, depending on the ability of our suppliers to deliver what we have ordered from them.

Speaker #3: So it could be the case that, if not completed by March, something can be delayed for one month or two months. But overall, the commitment is to spend this big amount for this capacity increase.

Speaker #3: And this is exactly to deploy the run rate capacity at 1.6 million euro. That is already more than double, largely more than double compared to one year ago.

Speaker #3: But overall, do not forget the fact that the expansion planned was launched in the fourth quarter 2025. It's been implemented through two parallel workstreams.

Speaker #3: So not only purchase of equipment. So each of the two workstreams has a different execution timeline. So the first one that is the more most important for the moment in the short term, has been quickly derived.

Speaker #3: And that is quickly derived, with results involving greater execution complexity and a focus on optimizing the existing manufacturing processes, including redesign, production workflow, reducing machine processing time, increasing the number of daily shifts, and reconfiguring selected factory layouts—all to accommodate additional automation equipment.

Speaker #3: So the resulting capacity today is expected to progress steadily month by month through the end of 2026. So we will not have a big bang at the end of Q1.

Speaker #3: And this is what is concretely visible right now in our numbers. So we are growing consistently quarter by quarter and month by month. The second workstream is, of course, the new 4,000-square-meter manufacturing facility.

Speaker #3: Which is already underway and expected to be completed by the end of Q1 27. This is this project has a longer implementation timeline and carries lower execution risks.

Speaker #3: But at the greenfield facility can be designed and configured in line with the group-specific operational requirements. And the contribution to the productivity and capacity will only materialize once the facility become operational.

Speaker #2: Yeah, I think the second question. I hope not to be too much technical to answer to your question, but feel free to ask again more question if you need.

Speaker #2: But to answer in the simplest way to answer to your question is to check also and start from the beginning what happened and tell you what happened with the logic devices.

Speaker #2: Because if we go back 15, 20 years ago, all the logic devices were tested most of them were tested with can't deliver probes. Not vertical.

Speaker #2: Talk about logic now. Not memories, but then I'll make the point why I'm saying this. But focusing on the logic, they were tested with the can't deliver probes.

Speaker #2: 'Can't deliver' means probes coming from the side, and they cannot cross each other. So, basically, with that type of geometry, you can contact just a line of pads.

Speaker #2: Okay. And typically in the periphery of the devices. This was a very standard for there are still some devices with just paths on the periphery of the devices.

Speaker #2: And can't deliver probes can, of course, contact this line of paths. This was for logic, became a very big technical constraint for the performance of the chip.

Speaker #2: So because the designers needed more paths to be probed in the area, and they needed to maybe put some power supplies in the middle of the device or ground in the middle of the device to get better power integrity, signal integrity, to get better performance.

Speaker #2: So what happened is that for the logic chips, the designers start to put paths covering the whole area of the chip. Paths everywhere. So that was really the reason, the technical reason why can't deliver technologies couldn't at that point couldn't be suitable anymore for the application.

Speaker #2: So, because if you have paths everywhere, also in the middle of the device, everywhere, the only way to contact those paths is vertically.

Stefano Felici: Good evening. Thank you for joining us. I'm with Stefano Beretta, our CFO, presenting the H1 2026 results and the guidance for the Q3 of this year. As usual, Q&A session will follow at the end of the presentation. Let me start by saying that the H1 2026 represents another milestone for Technoprobe. Our performance demonstrates not only outstanding financial execution, but also strength of our positioning in what we believe is one of the most attractive structural growth markets in the semiconductor industry. We delivered record revenues of EUR 464.1 million, growing 42.4% year-over-year and 48.2% sequentially as a result of a broad-based demand across our key customers and applications, confirming that the long-term AI investment cycle continues to accelerate. As volumes increase, we capture significant operating leverage across the business.

Speaker #2: And that was really the why the best technology basically was the winning technology at that point. So from can't deliver everybody's wish to vertical.

Speaker #2: And basically 99% of the logic market and any logic chip is tested in with vertical technology because of this reason. This is more flexibility for designers to cover and to put all the paths wherever they want basically.

Speaker #2: Okay. So now coming back to memory. Memory typically the memory chips the memory devices were simpler than logic devices. And till now the paths I mean they could be contact for testing are still in line.

Stefano Felici: Gross profit grew almost 66% year-over-year, with gross margin expanding to 53.8%, while EBITDA increased nearly 94% to more than EUR 206 million, delivering an outstanding margin of 44.4%. These results demonstrate the scalability of our business model and our ability to convert strong market demand into superior profitability. Looking at the key drivers behind these results, execution has clearly been one of our greatest strengths. We achieved record revenues because of the manufacturing capacity improving and, at the same time, leveraging our cost structure, allowing profitability to grow significantly faster than revenues. The combination of execution excellence, operating leverage, and margin expansion is exactly what we aim to deliver as our business continues to scale. From a market perspective, AI data center remains by far the most important growth engine for Technoprobe.

Speaker #2: Like can be two lines of paths I mean very similar to the configuration that I just described for logic. This allow for as far as the geometry for a probe cut allow still allow to reach these paths using micro can't deliver probes.

Speaker #2: So from a side, you can contact a line of paths. Again, our vision—but it's not only ours, it's also supported by customers—is that it would be much more beneficial now to have paths everywhere.

Speaker #2: Because now we are in the we are going in the direction where also the HBM is not anymore a very simple memory chip. But it's a very high performance chip.

Speaker #2: And everybody wants to push the performance of these devices over the limit. And this can really be the reason why, at a certain point, the designer will prefer to change the layout and put paths everywhere, and at that point, vertical would be the only solution.

Stefano Felici: We continue to see exceptional investment across the AI ecosystem with customer increasing spending support ever more powerful computing platforms. We believe this is not a short-term phenomenon, but a structural transformation of the semiconductor industry. Within this environment, several trends continue to work strongly in our favor. First, data center applications remain the primary driver of demand for our advanced probe technologies. Second, the rapid evolution toward increasingly sophisticated AI models, including the emergence of agentic AI, is pushing semiconductor complexity to new levels. Finally, every new generation of advanced devices requires significantly higher test intensity, increasing the value of our solution and creating additional content opportunities for Technoprobe. These structural trends reinforce our confidence in the long-term growth trajectory of our business. Looking ahead, we remain very optimistic about H2. The positive demand trends We'll experience during H1 are continuing.

Speaker #2: So I don't know if I hope this can explain the differentiation here. The technologies I don't know if you have this clarify your question.

Speaker #1: That's super helpful. Thank you so much.

Speaker #4: Thank you, Alexander, for your question. The next question now comes from the phone number ending in 893. Please go ahead. I see that you’re currently on mute.

Speaker #4: Please remember to unmute your line. Thank you.

Speaker #1: Hi, sorry about that. Some technical difficulties, as George here from Deutsche Bank. Thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on the great quarter. I have two questions.

Speaker #1: Just firstly on the new guide for this year, I think maybe you touched on this earlier, but just to double-click. If I take your implied Q4 guide, even at the top end of the sales range, you're growing maybe 3% sequentially in Q4. But your implied margin in Q4, at the high end of the margin guide for the full year, I think the Q4 margin is around 49%, which is down from Q3 despite the implied higher sales.

Stefano Felici: Customer engagement remains extremely strong. To support this sustained demand, we are continuing to expand our manufacturing capacity, ensuring that we can meet customers' requirements while preserving the operational excellence and profitability that have characterized our performance so far. Overall, we believe these results demonstrate that Technoprobe is executing exceptionally well, benefiting from powerful secular growth drivers and further strengthening its competitive position. Next. Let me now provide some context on the market environment and our expectation for H2. Overall, the picture remains constructive with the trends and momentum observed in H1 expected to continue into H2. However, the pace of growth remains clearly differentiated across the market. Starting from AI, demand remains exceptionally strong and continues to be the main structural growth engine for the semiconductor industry.

Speaker #1: So just wondering how to think about the drivers here for the margin specifically. Maybe it's visibility, maybe it's a degree of caution, but any commentary there would be helpful.

Speaker #1: And then I have a follow-up.

Speaker #2: Thank you for the question. So basically, if you see the profitability guideline or trend, we show it—this is a full-year profitability that is not in a decrease compared to Q3, because you should remember that Q1 was a much lower profitability on GBDA.

Speaker #2: And then you have to cumulate all the profit of the year. So we expect for the moment to have Q4 in a range between second quarter and third quarter revenue.

Speaker #2: We don't know yet what the guideline will be for that. The real order backlogs we will see in Q4, but we expect that to be in a range between Q3 and Q2 2026.

Speaker #2: So if the range will be that, we will have similar profitability, equal to the same quarters we have just passed. There could be some small dilution in the second part of the year, but nothing significant.

Stefano Felici: Recent industry commentary confirms sustained investment in the AI infrastructure, continued strong demand for leading-edge technologies, and increasing requirements for high-performance computing, advanced memory, and packaging. For Technoprobe, this environment is particularly supportive. The development of increasingly powerful accelerators, custom processors, HBM solutions, and complex chiplet architectures is increasing both device complexity and test intensity. Each new technology generation requires more sophisticated testing, tighter performance requirements, and greater reliability, reinforcing the strategic importance of advanced probe card solutions. We therefore expect strong AI growth to continue throughout H2, with no material change in the underlying momentum. Visibility remains solid. Customer engagement is high, and the broader AI ecosystem continues to invest aggressively in next-generation computing capacity. Moving to the consumer market, the trend is more moderate.

Speaker #2: In general, the current mix of customers we expect in the second part of the year will be more addressed with higher agency fees or distribution fees, which could impact profitability a bit.

Speaker #2: There will probably be some additional labor award for our colleagues, depending on the results that will be achieved. There will be some R&D and SG&A extra charges related to the Chinese factory ramp-up, especially.

Speaker #2: As you know, we are building a new factory in China to serve the domestic market, and this is ongoing. The vast majority of the expenses for the ramp-up are expected in the second part of the year.

Speaker #2: So Q3 and Q4. We talk about 3 to 4 million ramp up cost in the second part of the year. So all these elements combined together can give you a very small dilution on the profitability.

Speaker #2: But the profitability overall across the year will be consistent with the second quarter with the level of revenue of the second quarter. And consistently Q3 with the level of revenues of Q3.

Stefano Felici: We are seeing slight growth supported by a gradual normalization in smartphones and personal computers, selected product refresh cycles, and the progressive introduction of AI-enabled devices. Nevertheless, we are not assuming a broad-based consumer boom. The recovery remains measured and differs by customer, application, and product category. Our expectation for H2 is therefore for continued slight growth, broadly in line with H1. The magnitude of the opportunity remains significantly below what we are currently seeing in AI and data center applications. Finally, in automotive and industrial, the key message is recovery. Inventory correction and customer restocking have progressed. Order patterns are gradually improving and an increasing number of applications are beginning to contribute to the upcycle. Within automotive, semiconductor content continues to increase as vehicles become more digital, connected, and software-defined.

Speaker #1: Brilliant, thank you very much. Just secondly, I'm wondering if you have any update on the custom ASIC market share, or any further engagements with customers? And with these new markets like ASICs, HBM, silicon photonics becoming more material, I guess in '27, maybe '28, how should we think about the potential for margin dilution or margin gains from these new products versus maybe what you're doing today in the AI GPU, which I assume is driving the margin today?

Speaker #2: Let me answer from the financial standpoint, and then I will leave the floor to Stefano. From a financial standpoint and in terms of profitability, we do not expect to have any dilution on this product.

Speaker #2: Unless maybe for the initial ramp up of the industrialization, as Stefano mentioned before, for example, silicon photonics is still on a lab phase so the cost is higher and the profitability is lower.

Stefano Felici: The near-term recovery is still progressive rather than uniform, and visibility can vary across geographies and customers. Our H2 assumption for automotive and industrial is continued recovery rather than a sharp acceleration. We believe that the direction of travel is positive, but we remain disciplined and do not yet assume a full return to normalized demand across every application. We expect the second half to reflect the same market structure seen in H1: strong and sustained growth in AI, moderate growth in consumer, and gradual recovery in automotive and industrial. This mix is favorable for Technoprobe, given our strong exposure to the most advanced and best-in-test in semiconductor applications, and supports our confidence in the continuation of the positive trend into the second half of the year. Now let me turn to Stefano Beretta, who will give you more colors on our figures.

Speaker #2: But we talk about very little volumes. Are there mass volumes? We do not expect any dilution on profitability in any of our products.

Speaker #3: And I would add that for AI products, we're still investing, developing, and improving our technologies, so basically with every generation of GPU, we also update our technology.

Speaker #3: The new generation of technology—probably technology. So, typically, our model for profitability is very good. It's not the same product; it's always an updated product, or even a completely new product.

Speaker #3: We need to address different challenges year over year. The power of it is cheap. It's become very, very high. So there are other challenges we need to address.

Speaker #3: And this is a very good opportunity for us because, as said by Stefano, this can give us the chance to be pretty stable in the profitability, and even grow even more with new technologies.

Stefano Beretta: Good afternoon, everyone. As you may have read in our press release, revenue recorded in Q2 marked another all-time record for Technoprobe, exceeding EUR 277 million, above the high end of the outlook range, registering an increase of 64.3% compared to the same period of prior year, with a sequential increase of more than 48% compared to Q1 2026. Gross profit has practically doubled compared to the same period of 2025, up to EUR 158.5 million, representing a 57.2% margin, also exceeding the high end of our outlook range. Even more extraordinary is the increase in the EBITDA, which in just one quarter reached EUR 137 million, with an increase of 135% compared to the same period of last year, representing an impressive margin of over 49%, well above the upper end guided during our prior call.

Speaker #3: For market share, we for let's say we're not we prefer not to give exactly the percentage of each segment. I can tell you by the way that is the AI is the all these the mix of product relating the AI.

Speaker #3: I mean GPU, CPU, ASICs now represent more than 50% of our total revenue, so it's very healthy. We are growing. I mean, the numbers are there to see.

Speaker #3: It's our record quarter and Q3 even more. So we I can definitely tell you that we are leading the market. We are very strong position, very strong market share in each segment.

Speaker #1: Brilliant. Maybe if I could just add one quick question to my two questions. Just touching on the question earlier around the capex beyond Q1 27.

Stefano Beretta: Moving to the year-to-date figures, already showed by Stefano Felici, total revenues were just above EUR 464 million, with a year-on-year increase of 42.4%. The gross profit was EUR 249.6 million, 65.7% higher compared to the same period of 2025, and representing a margin of 53.8%. EBITDA closed at EUR 206.2 million, almost double compared to the same period of 2025, representing a margin of 44.4%. On this page, you can see a summary comparison between the financials at the end of H1, 2025 and 2026. To comment that further, revenue year-on-year increase was entirely driven by an organic growth of almost EUR 117 million, largely sustained by artificial intelligence volumes, as well as a soft recovery in consumer segment, together with a slight recovery in automotive and industrial. Dimension growth has been partially offset by the FX headwind for approximately EUR 30 million.

Speaker #1: Obviously, you raised to free 350 million out to Q1 27. Are you thinking about going beyond this currently beyond the 140% capacity increase? I assume you're speaking to your customers about 27, 28, maybe forecasts even beyond that.

Speaker #1: So I'm just wondering about capex beyond the Q1 27.

Speaker #2: Thank you. This is another very, very key point for Technoprobe. We, of course, have a lot of conversations with our customers. Everybody knows that everyone is investing in capacity.

Speaker #2: So not only investing in space, but also in the semiconductor industry in general. So we do not give up on investments. The big investments we are making right now will allow us to serve the current production and the current demand we have now, in our estimates.

Speaker #2: What we expect in 2027 and 2028 is to make another run of significant investment. The amount and timing of this new CapEx investment are still to be discussed and approved by the board.

Stefano Beretta: The revenue expressed at constant currency used in H1 2025, would have been approximately EUR 30 million higher than reported revenue, meaning an unfavorable impact of more than 6%. On a gross profit level, the increase in the margin of 760 basis points from 46.2% to 53.8%, as already mentioned in our prior press release. This confirms, once again, the ability to rapidly increase the production capacity and implement internal efficiency in our production processes, together with the operating leverage across the entire P&L. All of these impacts have been partially offset by the increase in depreciation following the investments in fixed assets made during the latest months to expand our capacity and increase the automation. Gross profit at constant currency would have been approximately EUR 24 million higher by using the H1 2025 average rate, bringing the margin well above 55%.

Speaker #2: But for sure it will be interesting to see what we will be able to deploy for 2027 and 28. So of course the capacity will increase even further in the next couple of years.

Speaker #2: And thanks also, not only to the new investment, but to the increase of internal efficiencies.

Speaker #3: Yes. And I want to also say that any typically so our the way that we plan is incremental investments and capex. It's not we are not it's not in the reaction mode.

Speaker #3: I mean we are just on wait and see what happen. But we typically we get very good feedback from our main customers every quarter.

Speaker #3: We are in front of them, all the main, the major customers and foundries. And they really tell us what to prepare for the future.

Speaker #3: So they give us good visibility we're not talking about orders. Or commitment but pretty good visibility about what to do. So I think this is of course when there will be the next round of investment we will for sure share with you what we're going to do.

Stefano Beretta: At the EBITDA level, the effect of the operating leverage is even more evident, also favored by spending discipline in SG&A and the integration of the R&D department of the various divisions, showing an increase in the margin, even including a negative ForEx impact for approximately EUR -23 million, which would have brought the margin above 46%. Finally, the net financial position has remained almost stable over these last six months, during which the cash generated by the operating activities for approximately EUR 93 million was practically all used to fund the capacity expansion made in the same period. Again, as already anticipated in the previous press release, the group has recently embarked on a path to double its production capacity from 2025 benchmark by Q1 2027 through an ambitious investment and hiring plan.

Speaker #3: But we are, I would say, ahead of the game and are prepared for the next wave.

Speaker #1: Brilliant. Thank you so much, guys.

Speaker #4: Thank you. We will now move on to the next question. The next question comes from Harry Blakelock. Please, Harry, go ahead.

Speaker #1: Hi there, thanks for taking my questions. My first one is just around gross margins. I know they've been very strong, and I wanted to ask specifically how much of that is related to customers shifting over to turnkey solutions?

Speaker #1: And I guess more broadly on that, are you seeing more customers shifting over to turnkey as testing complexity is increasing?

Speaker #2: Turkey solution is, of course, the most profitable product we can sell to our customers. And this is very, very exposed in the second quarter, especially in terms of percentage on the total of our revenues.

Stefano Beretta: To date, the results exceeded our expectation. We now expect to be able to increase the capacity up to 140% compared to the run rate at the end of 2025. Of course, the complete success will depend on many factors, especially on the ability to quickly adapt to changes in global dynamics and maintaining focus on our technology, on our people, and on an ethical governance. The increase in the production capacity, combined with the stronger than expected volume growth driven by the artificial intelligence, leads us to expect a Q3 with another strong sequential growth in both revenue and profitability, supported by a meaningful operating leverage effect. As shown in the chart, our investment mix is also evolving significantly.

Speaker #2: We cannot, of course, disclose exactly the percentage of our mix. But for the two main customers that relate to GPUs, it is, of course, the most important portion of our revenue.

Speaker #2: So this is another reason for our gross margin increase across the quarter.

Speaker #3: Yes. And basically I mean but you can see from all the our main customers the announcements they are making so about very big very very fast acceleration even starting from this year even not expected for them as well.

Speaker #3: So what happened is that all these main players were very hungry for capacity, so they would take any capacity available. Okay. So the game here was how to grow this capacity as fast as possible.

Stefano Beretta: Compared to prior estimate, we have further accelerated the total investment to be deployed by the end of Q1 2027 to approximately EUR 350 million, of which approximately 80% of total investments are now concentrated in Italy, where the construction of the new greenfield manufacturing facility in Cernusco Lombardone has already begun and planned to be concluded by the end of Q1 2027. That said, Q3 of the year is expected to show another sequential record revenue together with robust growth in gross margin and EBITDA margin. Revenues to be about EUR 314 million ±3%. Gross margin in the range of 61.5% ±200 basis points, the EBITDA margin in the range of 52% ±200 basis points.

Speaker #3: And as you can see, we made a very big jump forward in Technoprobe. And I can explain this also. As was said in some past calls, a big, big factor here was also the fact that we are very vertically integrated.

Speaker #3: This helped us a lot to be faster in growing the capacity faster than other players I would say. And to explain this maybe I will I can make a very very simple example.

Speaker #3: I mean, imagine that Technoprobe has a race car and you want to go faster. How do you do that? Okay. Of course, you can modify the car.

Stefano Beretta: Considering that we are more than halfway through the year, based on the volume and capacity information available to us today, we believe it's appropriate to update the revenue and the EBITDA margin target for 2026, revise it again upwards as follows. Consolidated revenues in the range between EUR 1,050 million and EUR 1,100 million. The EBITDA margin between 46% and 48%. This is all I have for the moment. Thanks everyone for your attention. Now we can move to the Q&A session.

Speaker #3: You can try to do something. But if you own the design of the engine, and you are the one developing the software for the engine, and all the parts of the car are developed by you, of course you know what to do, and you will define the car the way you want, very quickly.

Speaker #3: Okay. So this is really what is happening. We own and we develop all the main equipment we use for our production, including the software for the equipment.

Speaker #3: I mean we develop many we are very very vertically integrated. So this allowed us to push on the efficiency and use our machines in a much better way.

Operator: Thank you to the speakers today. We now have an opportunity for questions. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please use the Raise Hand function on your screen, or for those dialing in, it is star 9 on your keypad. Once your name is announced, please remember to unmute your line and state your company name before asking your question. Thank you. The first question today comes from Alberto Jegra. Please Alberto, go ahead.

Speaker #3: And this you can see a very big jump in efficiency and the profitability. Then of course to grow even more you need more equipment.

Speaker #3: So, then more capex and so on. But the vertical integration really helped us to move faster here than other players, let's say.

Alberto Jegra: Hi, good afternoon and congratulations for this, another strong set of results. I have one question on the implied H2. If you have anything to flag just to better understand the reason behind the phasing between Q3 and Q4 since you are having a very strong Q3, then the last one slightly down sequentially. The second question on the capacity increase, just to reconcile the previous messages of around EUR 1.4 billion run rate of manageable sales by the end of Q1. An update on this figure, consider the updated CapEx, also considering DIS and potential Chinese revenue. The third one, if you can update us on the new markets, what you are seeing in the discussion with your potential customers, what drivers do you expect in 2027, in particular between CPU, ASIC, HBM, and silicon photonics? Thank you.

[Analyst]: Hi, good afternoon and congratulations for this, another strong set of results. I have one question on the implied H2. If you have anything to flag just to better understand the reason behind the phasing between Q3 and Q4 since you are having a very strong Q3, then the last one slightly down sequentially. The second question on the capacity increase, just to reconcile the previous messages of around EUR 1.4 billion run rate of manageable sales by the end of Q1. An update on this figure, consider the updated CapEx, also considering DIS and potential Chinese revenue. The third one, if you can update us on the new markets, what you are seeing in the discussion with your potential customers, what drivers do you expect in 2027, in particular between CPU, ASIC, HBM, and silicon photonics? Thank you.

Speaker #1: Got it. So you could say they're the Ferrari of the pro car world.

Speaker #2: You said you said.

Speaker #3: We are in time. It's really, it's really important. Really. So this was important because right now, every supplier we see—I mean, this is in our industry—they are short of capacity.

Speaker #3: No matter what supplier we are considering—it can be a PCB supplier or any supplier of machines—in the semiconductor world, typically now everyone is fighting for capacity.

Speaker #3: Of course owning the IP and the design of the machines and so on it's easier of course to do things with our relying on suppliers that also they have problems with capacity.

Speaker #3: So, of course, we can do it by ourselves. We can push more and be faster. So this was really an important point in our field of work.

Speaker #1: Got it. And then I just had one last question, which was a clarification around the capacity investments that you're completing by Q1.

Stefano Beretta: Thank you, Alberto. Let me start for the H2 trend. For the moment, we guided Q3, of course, and Q4 is still under examination. What we show now is an upgraded trend for the year end, but we still have some lag of information. As you know, the visibility is very short and not yet completed for the Q4. What we can see right now is that a significant mass production and cyclical trend, especially for the GPUs that led the significant growth the H1 of the year, would take a kind of pause for the second part, especially for the last part of the year, to restart in terms of volumes in 2027. In the second part, especially in the last part of the year, we expect a bit of slowdown in the GPUs, softly replaced by CPUs and ASICs.

Speaker #1: I think you mentioned earlier on the call that it would be a run rate of $1.9 billion annual revenue. I don't know whether I misheard that.

Speaker #1: But then, I guess an additional question on that. You’re obviously talking about further capacity additions beyond that after Q1, but looking at that initial investment that’s ending in Q1, how long would you expect it to take to ramp that to kind of close to full utilization?

Speaker #2: Wait, when you mention 1.9, I want to reiterate the message. This is dollars, USD. So this is 1.6 euro, 1.9 USD, just to clarify.

Speaker #2: The utilization it depends who will answer to you because if you ask to sales they will say no we hope to have 100% utilization.

Speaker #2: If you ask production, maybe they will say 80%. So, in general, it's not always healthy to believe that the utilization will be largely used.

Stefano Beretta: Volumes will be different in that case. This is something we expected usually in the Q3. It is a kind of cyclicality in the past years. The cyclicality has been moved a bit farther along the year, we expect that into Q4. About the capacity increase, as I mentioned before, we have increased the investment.

Speaker #2: By the end of Q1. But the one with the 1.6 run rate we expect to be able to serve all our main customers. Unless something unexpected will happen for I don't know HBM adoption or silicon photonics adoption on any other unexpected events.

Speaker #2: So far, the run rate and capacity will increase again gradually over 2027. We have, for the moment, a preliminary plan of investments that will, of course, be disclosed as soon as it is ready.

Speaker #2: That will increase across the year, so we do not expect—we are very, very confident—that our goals and our plans will be consistent with the demand growth.

Speaker #1: Great. Thank you guys.

Speaker #4: Thank you. We will now move on to Giovanni Selvetti. Please, Giovanni, go ahead.

Speaker #5: Hello, everyone, and congratulations on the results. I think most of the questions were actually answered. Just maybe a follow-up on the questions from both Alberto and George.

Speaker #5: About the implied Q4 numbers. If I didn't just mishear previously, I think you also mentioned a difference in the Q4 mix in terms of sales.

Speaker #5: And I was wondering if you can kind of provide a difference in the gross margin between CPUs and GPUs, just to have an idea.

Speaker #2: Okay, yes. On the mix of sales, as I mentioned, we expect Q4 to have a decrease in terms of GPUs, because the big campaigns have already been almost completed in the course of 2026.

Speaker #2: And their cyclicality will restart at the end of Q4, with the deliveries and revenues restarting in 2027. In the meantime, the shift will be addressed to CPUs—more addressed to CPUs and ASICs—for which we don't see any particular difference in gross margin or profitability.

Speaker #2: So the complexity of these different products is almost the same for the GPUs, and volumes are a bit different because what we have experienced in the first part of the year is that industrialization of pro cards for GPUs has been massive.

Speaker #2: So you have additional operating leverage when you produce more product of the same type. We do not expect to have this similar mix on the last part of the year.

Speaker #2: So we expect the same volumes in general, but composed of more designs—more projects. So that's why the profitability overall could be... not the profitability, sorry.

Speaker #2: The operating leverage could be a little affected, but this is largely expected in our model. This is also guided at an increase in the fiscal year overall gross margin, up to 200 basis points on average.

Speaker #2: Despite this cyclicality, for us it's a very, very encouraging second part of the year.

Speaker #6: Okay. All clear. Thank you very much.

Speaker #4: Thank you, Giovanni. I see that we have a follow-up question from Oliver Wong. Please, Oliver, the floor is yours.

Speaker #7: Yes, thank you, guys, for taking my follow-up. I just wanted to piggyback on—you sounded pretty confident about continuing to increase capacity, and I was wondering if maybe you could share a little teaser on what's driving that.

Speaker #7: Obviously, GPU volumes continue to be strong, but out of the emerging opportunities, would you be able to say if there are any particular ones—anything in customer conversations—that's giving you that confidence to continue to expand capacity?

Speaker #7: Thanks. So, what is driving this is the AI growth that is really still predicted to be very, very strong, of course. And this is not only so. The expectation we get is not only a higher number of chips to be tested.

Speaker #7: But with a longer also test time. And this is valid for GPU, CPUs—all types. AI devices will grow in number of volumes to be tested and also in test intensity.

Speaker #7: So this is really what is driving of the market. I don't know if this was the question. Yeah. Sounds good. Thanks so much.

Speaker #4: Thank you, Oliver. As we have no hands up at the moment, I will now give the word back to the speakers for any final comments before bringing this presentation to a close.

Speaker #4: Thank you.

Speaker #7: Thank you to everyone for joining us tonight. We are very happy to announce this record quarter, and we hope to hear from you on the next call.

Speaker #7: We think it will be a very good call. So, bye bye.

Speaker #2: Thank you.

Speaker #4: Thank you. This presentation will now come to a close.

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