KLA (KLAC) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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DATE

Wednesday, April 29, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Chief Executive Officer — Richard Wallace
• Chief Financial Officer — Bren Higgins
• Vice President, Investor Relations and Market Analytics — Kevin Kessel

TAKEAWAYS

• Revenue -- $3.415 billion, up 4% sequentially and 11% year over year, surpassing the guidance midpoint of $3.35 billion.
• Non-GAAP Diluted EPS -- $9.40, exceeding the midpoint of company guidance.
• Gross Margin -- 62.2%, 45 basis points above the midpoint of guidance, attributed to service business mix and manufacturing scale.
• Service Revenue -- $775 million, up 16% year over year but down 1% sequentially due to timing of revenue recognition.
• Free Cash Flow -- $622 million for the quarter; $4 billion over the past 12 months, delivering a 31% free cash flow margin.
• Capital Returned to Shareholders -- $875 million for the quarter ($626 million in share repurchases and $249 million in dividends); $3.2 billion over the past 12 months.
• Advanced Packaging Revenue Outlook -- Expected to increase from approximately $635 million in 2025 to approximately $1 billion in 2026, reflecting an upward revision due to strong customer demand.
• Market Share Gains -- KLA achieved a 14 percentage point market share increase in advanced wafer-level packaging, with approximately 70% year-over-year revenue growth in this segment.
• Process Control Market Leadership -- KLA's share has grown by 360 basis points since 2021, and is approximately seven times larger than the nearest competitor.
• 2026 Wafer Equipment Market Outlook -- Management now expects the wafer equipment market, including advanced packaging, to exceed $140 billion with higher demand visibility for 2027.
• 2027 Revenue Visibility -- “We expect the 2027 year-over-year growth rate to be higher than our growth rate expectations for 2026.”
• 2026 Revenue Growth Forecast -- For semiconductor process control systems, revenue is expected to grow over 20%, with the overall company anticipating high teen percentage growth year over year.
• Guidance for Next Quarter -- Revenue projected at $3.575 billion, plus or minus $200 million; gross margin forecasted at 61.75%, plus or minus 1 percentage point; non-GAAP diluted EPS expected at $9.87, plus or minus $1.
• Business Mix Forecast -- Foundry logic customers expected to account for approximately 82% of semi process control systems revenue; memory at 18% (with DRAM at 84% of memory and NAND at 16%).
• Operating Expenses Forecast -- Expected to be approximately $665 million next quarter, with annual incremental growth of about $15 million per quarter due to investments in product and infrastructure.
• Share Repurchase Authorization -- Company announced an incremental $7 billion buyback program and a seventeenth consecutive dividend increase.
• Long-Term Revenue CAGR Targets -- Management revised up revenue CAGR objective through 2030 to a 13%-17% range, including a services revenue CAGR of approximately 13%-15%.
• Gross Margin Headwind -- Higher DRAM prices expected to create a roughly 100 basis point negative impact on gross margins over the next several quarters, with the effect likely to persist through at least calendar 2026.
• Long-Term Capital Return Plan -- Company intends to target over 90% of free cash flow returned to shareholders.
• Cash and Debt -- $5 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities; $5.95 billion in debt at quarter end.

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RISKS

• The CFO noted, the guidance also includes the persistent impact of elevated DRAM ship costs for the company's image processing computers forecasting a roughly 100 basis point negative impact to gross margins continuing for several quarters.
• Management reported that memory pricing environment remains challenging in the near term, indicating ongoing margin pressure.
• Tariff impacts were characterized as it's still meaningful, I'll call it. with management describing a 50-100 basis point headwind to gross margin, expected to moderate as the year progresses.
• KLA's service revenue declined 1% sequentially due to the timing of revenue recognition, though the year-over-year trend remains positive.

SUMMARY

KLA (NASDAQ:KLAC) delivered quarterly revenue of $3.415 billion, exceeding internal forecasts and supported by robust demand in leading-edge foundry logic and advanced packaging. Gross margin outperformed guidance, propelled by favorable business mix and manufacturing scale, while free cash flow generation remained strong at $622 million. Management raised expectations for 2026 wafer equipment market growth and provided confidence in accelerated 2027 growth visibility, pointing to substantial customer urgency and expanded backlogs. The company increased its advanced packaging revenue outlook to approximately $1 billion, up from $635 million, following a surge in orders and higher customer adoption. An incremental $7 billion share repurchase authorization and sustained dividend growth highlighted KLA's focus on returning capital.

• Management indicated that WFE is literally just as fast as we can go as an industry. clarifying that industry-wide capacity constraints, not end-customer CapEx, are the binding factor for near-term growth.
• KLA’s services business is projected to remain at the high end of its 13%-15% CAGR model as customers prioritize tool performance and uptime.
• Customer demand for new installations and support services prompted active hiring and significant expansion of support infrastructure, with emphasis on readiness for 2027 ramp.
• The CFO stated that operating expenses will increase incrementally by about $15 million per quarter through year-end, attributed to investments in next-generation product development and infrastructure.
• Management expects quarter-to-quarter revenue growth throughout 2026 and strong business momentum leading into 2027.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• WFE (Wafer Fab Equipment): Capital equipment used for semiconductor manufacturing and wafer processing, a key indicator for sector demand.
• Process Control: Systems and technologies for defect detection, metrology, and yield management during semiconductor fabrication.
• Advanced Packaging: Technologies enabling integration of multiple semiconductor components through architectures such as 2.5D, 3D, flip-chip, hybrid bonding, and system-in-package, critical for next-generation performance.
• SOIC (System-on-Integrated-Chip): An advanced packaging technology combining heterogeneous elements in a unified package, often cited in high-performance compute applications.
• DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory): A semiconductor memory technology widely used in computing; represents a significant portion of memory segment demand for KLA.
• NAND: A type of non-volatile flash memory, used in solid-state storage and mobile devices.
• Free Cash Flow Margin: Free cash flow divided by total revenue, providing a measure of cash efficiency after operating and capital expenditures.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Good afternoon. My name is Leo, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the KLA Corporation March Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I will now turn the call over to Kevin Kessel, Vice President of Investor Relations and Market Analytics. Please go ahead.

Kevin Kessel: Welcome to the March 2026 quarterly earnings call for KLA. I'm joined by our CEO, Rick Wallace; and CFO, Brent Higgins. We will discuss today's results as well as our outlook, which we released after the market closed and is available on our website along with supplemental materials. We are presenting today's discussion and metrics on a non-GAAP financial basis unless otherwise specified. We will not reference fiscal years in our discussion, all full year references we may refer to calendar years. The earnings material contain a detailed reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results. KLA's IR website also contains future events presentations, corporate governance information and links to our SEC filings.

Our comments today are subject to risks and uncertainties reflected in the disclosure of risk factors in our SEC filings. Any forward-looking statements, including those we make on the call today, are also subject to those risks, and KLA cannot guarantee those forward-looking statements will come true. Our actual results may differ significantly from those projected in our forward-looking statements. We will begin the call with Rick providing commentary on the business environment in our quarter, followed by Brent with financial highlights on our outlook. Now over to Rick.

Richard Wallace: Thanks, Kevin. KLA delivered strong results across the board for the March quarter with revenue of $3.415 billion, up 4% sequentially and 11% year-over-year driven by increased investment in leading-edge foundry logic and high bandwidth memory. Non-GAAP diluted EPS was $9.40 and GAAP diluted EPS was $9.12. We continue to see AI as a core driver of KLA's performance and an enabler for our growing momentum. Highlights in the quarter include KLA achieving the #1 position in process control for advanced wafer level packaging for 2025 due to continued customer adoption KLA's packaging portfolio.

We continue to see improving momentum and advanced packaging revenue growth and market share, and we now expect semiconductor process control product portfolio revenue for advanced packaging will grow from approximately $635 million in 2025 to approximately $1 billion in 2026, well above our prior estimates. CLA service business was $775 million in the March quarter, up 16% year-over-year but down 1% sequentially due to the timing of revenue recognition. Consistent long-term growth in service is a key aspect of KLA's business model and delivers predictable cash flow to anchor our capital return strategy. Quarterly free cash flow was $622 million, over the past 12 months, free cash flow was $4 million, producing a free cash flow margin of 31%.

Total capital returned in the March quarter was $875 million comprised of $626 million in share repurchases and $249 million in dividends. Total capital return over the past 12 months was $3.2 billion. Additionally, recently published industry research shows KLA increased its global share of both the overall wafer equipment and the process control market in 2025. This growing market leadership was highlighted by significant gains in advanced wafer-level packaging, where KLA increased its market share by 14 percentage points and achieved approximately 70% year-over-year revenue growth. KLA's market share also improved across basket inspection, optical pattern wafer inspection and electron beam inspection.

Since 2021, KLA shared process control has grown by 360 basis points and is approximately 7x greater than the nearest competitor. Looking ahead to 2026 and 2027, our expectations for growth in the wafer equipment industry are accelerating. KLA's relevance has increased across all vectors of semiconductor manufacturing as process control enables a growing volume of design starts at the leading edge and supports the needs for increased performance and reliability in the production of high-bandwidth memory.

It's important to distinguish that design activity and rising memory complexity are not the only catalyst driving benefits for KLA and process control, faster product cycles, higher-value wafers and mask, rising design complexity and variability and the growing demand and complexity of advanced packaging all require significantly more process control solutions. These solutions shorten time to results by addressing process integration challenges in R&D and early fab ramp phases, while continuing to manage yield with strong design mix and high-volume manufacturing. Turning to services.

As KLA systems become more technologically advanced and have longer service lifetimes in fabs, our service business continues to gain strategic importance, driven by rising customer expectations for tool performance and availability across all customer segments, creating a strong, predictable long-term tailwind for overall KLA revenue growth. KLA also recently held an Investor Day in March, detailing our position in the semi-sector market and our unique portfolio approach to solving customer process challenges and enhancing yield learning cycles within process control. We introduced new long-term revenue growth targets along with a 2030 financial model and increased our capital allocation to target over 90% of free cash flow.

We also announced the 17th consecutive increase in our quarterly dividend level and an incremental $7 billion share repurchase authorization. KLA revised up 13% to 17% revenue CAGR objective through 2030 reflects strong growth across our key business segments and includes an increased long-term services revenue CAGR growth model of approximately 13% to 15%. Our long-term model assumes a baseline semiconductor industry growth CAGR of 11% from 2025 to 2030 and wafer equipment market growing 1% faster than the semiconductor industry to $215 billion, plus or minus $20 billion by 2030.

Given the growing relevance of process control across all customer segments, we expect KLA to continue to outperform the wafer equipment market on the top line, driving operating leverage and continuing to deliver our best-in-class financial model. I'll close my remarks by saying that KLA's sustainable outperformance reinforces the strength of our leadership and process control. It also underscores the critical role KLA's suite of products and services play and enabling AI field growth in the semiconductor industry. Our consistent execution reflects the resilience of the KLA operating model, the talent of our global team and our disciplined approach to capital allocation focused on long-term investment and maximizing total shareholder value.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Bren to discuss the quarter's financial highlights.

Bren Higgins: Thanks, Rick. KLA's March quarter results reflect strong year-over-year growth with an industry-leading margin profile, highlighting our market leadership, consistent execution and the dedication of our global teams and meeting customer commitments. Revenue was $3.415 billion, above the guidance midpoint of $3.35 billion. Non-GAAP diluted EPS was $9.40 and GAAP diluted EPS was $9.12 each above the midpoint of the respective guidance ranges. Gross margin was 62.2%, 45 basis points above the midpoint of guidance, driven by better-than-modeled service business mix and manufacturing scale due to higher business volume. Operating expenses were $670 million and included $389 million in R&D and $281 million in SG&A.

Operating expenses were higher than expected, principally due to [indiscernible] materials timing and other reserve adjustments. Operating margin was 42.6%. Other income expense net was $9 million in income. The variance relative to guidance was due to a significant mark-to-market gain of a strategic supply investment. The quarterly effective tax rate was 15.4% at the guided tax rate of 14.5% and non-GAAP earnings per share would have been $0.10 higher or $9.50. Breakdown of revenue by reportable segments and end markets, major products and regions can be found within the shareholder letter and slides. Moving to the balance sheet. KLA ended the quarter with $5 billion in total cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities and debt of $5.95 billion.

The company has a flexible and attractive bond maturity profile supported by investment-grade ratings from all 3 major rating agencies. KLA generates consistent strong free cash flow, driven by our high-performing operating model. Over the past 5 calendar years, Free cash flow has grown at approximately 20% CAGR, above the revenue CAGR of 16% over the same period. This growth, coupled with resilience across business cycles, enables a comprehensive capital return strategy, featuring double-digit dividend growth and share repurchases to support long-term shareholder value creation. This strategy prioritizes predictable, assertive capital deployment and remains an important differentiator of the KLA investment thesis. Now turning to the industry outlook for 2026, which continues to strengthen across all segments.

We expect the wafer equipment market which includes advanced packaging to exceed $140 billion in 2026. The strength of demand and customer engagement and ensuring KLA has the capacity to support numerous new fab projects currently under construction, has led to unprecedented demand visibility from our customers. While normally, we would not comment on 2027 growth rates at April of 2026. This demand environment gives us confidence in 2027 visibility for the wafer equipment market. Today, we expect the 2027 year-over-year growth rate to be higher than our growth rate expectations for 2026. KLA has strong business momentum, expanding market share and higher process control intensity at the leading edge across all segments.

Given all this, we are well positioned to continue to increase our share of the overall market in 2026 and 2027. The strong customer momentum that we are experiencing is reflected in our growing systems backlog and sales funnel. We continue to expect quarter-to-quarter revenue growth throughout 2026 and strong business momentum leading into 2027. For 2026, we expect sequential revenue growth for the company to accelerate, leading to high teen revenue growth year-over-year in the semiconductor process control systems business to grow over 20%. KLA's June quarter guidance is for revenue of $3.575 billion, plus or minus $200 million.

Foundry logic revenue from semiconductor customers is forecasted to increase to approximately 82% and memory is expected to be approximately 18% of semi process control systems revenue to semiconductor customers. In memory, DRAM is expected to account for roughly 84% with NAND accounting for the remaining 16%. As always, these business mix approximations pertains solely to our semiconductor customers and do not fully reflect our total semiconductor process control systems revenue. Gross margin for the quarter is forecasted to be 61.75% plus or minus 1 percentage point. Although volume levels are up quarter-to-quarter, product mix is modestly weaker than in the March quarter.

As discussed last quarter, the guidance also includes the persistent impact of elevated DRAM ship costs for the company's image processing computers that ship with our systems, creating a headwind to the company's gross margins. While the memory pricing environment remains challenging in the near term, we have secured the required supply to meet our build plan requirements. Our view of elevated memory pricing persisting through at least calendar 2026 is unchanged. And we continue to see a roughly 100 basis point negative impact on our gross margin over the next several quarters.

Considering this impact, the tariff environment, along with product mix and volume expectations, our view of gross margins remains unchanged at approximately 62%, plus or minus 50 basis points in calendar '26. Operating expenses are forecasted to be approximately $665 million in the June quarter. For 2026, we will continue to prioritize next-generation product development and company infrastructure investments to support expected revenue growth over the next several years, and we anticipate these expenses to grow by roughly $15 million sequentially throughout the calendar year. Our business model is designed to deliver 40% to 50% incremental operating margin leverage on revenue growth over the long run.

Other model assumptions include other income and expense net of an approximately $25 million expense for the June quarter, and we expect it to remain at approximately this quarterly level for the calendar year. The planning tax rate is 14.5%. As always, we expect some quarter-to-quarter tax rate variance due to discrete items as we move throughout the year. In the June quarter, non-GAAP diluted EPS is expected to be $9.87, plus or minus $1, and GAAP diluted EPS is expected to be $9.66, plus or minus $1. EPS guidance is based on a fully diluted share count of approximately 131.4 million shares. In conclusion, our near-term revenue guidance reflects consistent growth and strong profitability.

We expect our semiconductor process control systems business to outperform the wafer equipment market in 2026 driven by rising process control intensity and growth in advanced packaging. KLA continues to focus on delivering a differentiated product portfolio that supports customer technology road maps and production efficiency, driving our long-term relevance and growth expectations. Daily operating model drives our best-in-class execution. Our focus on customer success, innovative solutions and operational excellence enables industry-leading financial performance and consistent predictable capital returns. As we detailed at our March Investor Day, KLA's business is uniquely positioned to capitalize on today's technology inflection points and growth drivers. We are encouraged by strengthening customer confidence and engagement, which informs our business forecast.

The long-term secular trends driving semiconductor industry demand and investments in wafer equipment are compelling and represent a relative performance opportunity for KLA over the next several years. KLA's business has gone from being primarily indexed to leading edge R&D investment and fab capacity ramps to now addressing all row phases in wafer equipment enabling leading-edge process development, time to results in fab capacity ramps and optimizing yield in a high-volume manufacturing environment. In addition, the growing investment in custom silicon particularly among hyperscalers developing their own custom chips has led to a proliferation of new higher-value design starts and increased demand on our customers to deliver performance, volume and time to market.

Design mix and complexity grows, so does the need for process control. As a result, KLA has seen consistent growth in process control intensity as each new chip design requires rigorous inspection metrology and yield optimization solutions. KLA is uniquely positioned to benefit from these trends as we expand our market leadership and deliver differentiated value to our customers. That concludes our prepared remarks. Kevin, please begin the Q&A.

Kevin Kessel: Thank you, Bren. Operator, can you please provide instructions and then begin the Q&A session.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] We'll now take our first question from C.J. Muse with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Christopher Muse: I guess first question I would love to dig a little bit deeper in terms of your extended lead times and visibility into '27. Can you kind of speak to we're in the portfolio, kind of what in the end markets and how you kind of see that progressing into perhaps soon having visibility into 2028.

Bren Higgins: Yes, CJ, thanks for the question. It's really broad-based. Certainly, we're seeing backlogs build. And so order flow is very high. customer engagement as we talk about slot planning into next year is also very strong. So I think when you take that, couple it with now we're working really hard here to make sure that we can enable the capacity to meet our customer time lines. But most of our focus and discussion is on how do we address the opportunities in '27, lots of new greenfield opportunities. So I think customers want to make sure that they're in the queue is to align with their construction schedules. And I think it's pretty broad-based across our product portfolio.

Certainly, most of it is more leading edge centric. So it's the most advanced products in the product families.

Kevin Kessel: Yes. Just to build on that, CJ, the conversations I've had with customers in the last few months, there's there's a higher level of urgency around securing capacity for our customers that I remember seeing. And I think it's indicative and speaks to the demand that they're feeling from their customers. And so there's a huge amount of interest and push to make sure that they can get slots assigned. And I think the other realization they all have is that they're not alone in doing this. So the whole industry is trying to support that growth as we go forward. So there's no question '27 is going to be a massive buildup.

Christopher Muse: Perfect. And maybe as a quick follow-up. I guess as you think about the sequential going to the high teens in the second half, should we be thinking about kind of $49 billion, $15 billion as the right framework for calendar 2016 revenues? .

Bren Higgins: Yes, I think so. If you just take the commentary, getting the high teens, it gets you into the 15-ish range -- and I think when you look at the second half and we'll call it 15% to 20% type second half sequential growth or growth over the first half. It puts you up into that ballpark. I think you're thinking about it the right way.

Operator: We'll move on now to Stacy Rasgon with Bernstein Research. .

Stacy Rasgon: At the Analyst Day, you talked about a 2030 model, which had a $250 million WC and like $1.4 billion in semis and I mean it's looking increasingly likely that we might get to those kinds of levels like this year or next year. I guess maybe you could talk a little bit more about the underlying assumptions for that long-term model? And maybe it's a little craft asset, like why isn't it higher, given where we're sitting right now and what you guys are seeing? .

Bren Higgins: Say, great question. I think a couple of things are driving the increased revenue. And I think the number you're referring to that might be closer to what we talked about for 2030 is the semi revenue number, not the equipment number. And the reason the semi revenue is going higher, faster is pricing. And so there's been more elasticity, especially around memory and that pricing that's driven that number up. So when we talk about 2030, we talk about a normalized level of capital intensity associated with the revenue that we said would be in the range of $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion.

If we had to redo that today, there are a lot of reasons why you'd push that up from that -- as you know, that was 6 weeks ago. So things have changed. But I think the numbers around equipment haven't moved nearly as fast as the numbers around semi revenue associated with pricing. Does that help?

Stacy Rasgon: Yes, that actually does help. And I guess just for a quick follow-up. There's been some news flow apologize if you maybe mentioned this on the call or not, but there's a new law about bands for a Huahong. And I guess, is there any implication of that on you? And just, I guess, how are you thinking overall about the kind of trajectory as you go forward from yours, has your thinking there changed at all?

Bren Higgins: So we got the letter. I'm not going to say too much about it other than we're still looking at it. The impact on the company in terms of our Q2 guidance and the commentary around 26%, I would say, is fairly immaterial. It's focused on not all affiliated fabs. So the impact, I would say, is fairly immaterial and contemplated in the guidance we provided.

Stacy Rasgon: Broader thoughts on China?

Richard Wallace: Broader thoughts broader thoughts. I think when you look at China overall, it's playing out more or less consistent with the way we've talked about it. I think if you look at overall spending in China, it's more or less flat, maybe a little bit up has been fairly flat in terms of spending levels over the last few years. And so what's driving our business is what's happening at the leading edge. I would expect that the China growth rate is probably lower than where the overall WFE growth rate is projected to be here moving forward.

Operator: We'll move next to Harlan Sur with JPMorgan.

Harlan Sur: On your 2026 WSE better outlook now $140 billion plus of kind of high-teens percentage type of growth outlook. On the incremental upside this year, is it being driven by new brick-and-mortar sort of greenfield programs being pulled forward or are customers just accelerating technology migrations on existing capacity or maybe focusing on improving yields on existing capacity? Any color there? And then for on the '27, now you are saying WLC will go faster than '26 versus your prior view of in line or better. Looking at your order book, is that a continuation of the broad-based spending growth across segments, foundry, logic, memory advanced packaging? Or is there a particular segment that is driving the strong growth?

Any color there would be helpful as well. .

Richard Wallace: Yes. So I think around the [indiscernible] view, just the urgency from customers to take slots or take deliveries. As we have moved here into better visibility into the second half, we're seeing nothing more than just general urgency across different segments with our customer base. And that caused us to increment the views of industry growth upwards. If you look at 2027, obviously, you've got a lot of new fab projects out of greenfield activity, both on the logic side and memory. I think you'll also see some greenfield activity in flash. So -- and packaging of role also. So I think it's really pretty broad-based across the -- all our different customer segments.

Harlan Sur: I appreciate that. And then your serves business grew 15% last year with an exit run rate of about 18%. That strong growth carried into the March quarter with 16% year-over-year growth. you guys just outlined the 4 CAGR Analyst Day of 13% to 15% growth rate. In the current environment, just given the very high customer utilization for advanced services offerings obviously, lots of focus on driving as much output and yield per fab as possible. How should we think about the services growth profile this year? .

Richard Wallace: I think the service will be in the range as we move across this year. Obviously, a lot of the shipments that we're shipping this year will start to flow into service as you move into next year and beyond. So I think that's an accelerant to we'll call higher end of the range growth opportunities as we move over the next couple of years. But more or less, we're trending in service in line with the target range. We would expect to be within it.

Operator: We'll move on to Krish Sanker with TD Cowen.

Sreekrishnan Sankarnarayanan: The first one, I think, Rick or Bren, I think the visibility angle was pretty interesting. How much of that is really driven by true demand? Like the customers doing [indiscernible] maybe in '28 versus trying to ensure that you have enough capacity or even personnel who needs to be trained and service the tools. So how much do you think -- how much of that do you think is actually true demand versus setting you up for what could be potential demand? Then I have a follow-up. .

Richard Wallace: I'm sorry, it's a little hard to hear. So the question is -- is the demand real? Is that the question? Or do we think we're getting orders in anticipation of shortages? Is that your question?

Sreekrishnan Sankarnarayanan: No, no, I was just wondering how much of it is actually true demand versus customers making sure that there's enough capacity and service personnel, et cetera, people looking like [indiscernible], et cetera.

Richard Wallace: Well look, I think our customers, given they're going to -- these are significant investments they're going to open these fabs. I mean part of the discussions are not only around tools and tool delivery timing, but also in our support resources, our installation resources, applications, which are people that are out there working with our customers to drive value out of the tools, that the service teams are there to support. So it's really across the company that we're in position to support what they expect to be a pretty significant ramp in terms of business activities as those fabs come up to higher levels of productivity.

Sreekrishnan Sankarnarayanan: Got it. And then a quick follow-up. It seems like some of the incremental WFE demand this year is coming from the CPU titles. But like inter last week spoke about incremental CP capacity coming from Intel 3 and Intel 7, which are prior nodes where I believe the initiatives are already being solved. So will the incremental CPU demand actually benefit KLA or not as much.

Richard Wallace: Certainly, it's something we've talked about over the last year is that we're encouraged by is the broadening of investment at the leading edge in our lease edge. And so that has been, I think, good for KLA. Our collaboration levels are very high with our customers. And so if you look at what we're -- the easiest way to drive efficiency out of the existing installed bases to drive yield. And so that plays to KLA ability to help drive learning cycles and drive yield in a high-volume manufacturing environment. So I think we're well positioned.

We're encouraged by the engagement levels really across the installed base and the broader participation I think lends itself to a pretty robust leading-edge environment as we go forward.

Operator: We'll move on now to Joe Quatrochi with Wells Fargo.

Joseph Quatrochi: Yes. Maybe just a follow up on that. I guess, like when we think about your customers trying to obviously drive higher yield to drive higher output, is that a bigger driver for potential incremental like process control system sales for you? Or is it largely flowing through the service line?

Richard Wallace: Well, it absolutely drives process control sales. It drives both, but the process control, especially if they're dealing with fabs that are already up, but don't have a particularly high yield and if they've changed die size. So that's the challenge, I think, that they're dealing with when they're trying to put out more capability to support AI. And I think that's a different fact that's driving a lot of the activity around process control. And you even heard -- I mean, Intel was public about increasing their metrology usage as you heard on their call.

So we're definitely seeing, in general, because there's a shortage in the industry, the easiest lever anyone can use is to get more yield out of the existing capacity that they have. even the leaders have gone back to prior nodes and added process control because they recognize that's a faster way to get more that's far less true in historical cycles when they're meeting demand. So once you see utilizations go way up on leading edge, the only lever you have left, you can build new fabs. But the thing you can do before that is try to squeeze out more yield.

I think one of the other benefits we see is just the product types change that our customers are shipping serving different parts of the market that the need for different capability arises -- it might be different than how they originally set up the fab to run a different type of parts or different mix of parts. So that tends to create opportunities for us because new and different capabilities required to support different like higher performance compute markets, for example.

Joseph Quatrochi: That's very helpful. Maybe as a follow-up, I was wondering if you could maybe talk about your own lead times and just kind of thinking about your own supply chain and kind of I think last quarter, you talked about maybe things being tight from a component standpoint in the first half of this year. I mean the really opening up in the second half. And obviously, you've increased your WSE guidance now a couple of times. Just how do we think about KLA's capacity to support this ramp as we continue to increase into 2027?

Richard Wallace: Yes. So thanks, Joe. So look, I think the thing that surprised us was the slope and duration of how quickly the business started to ramp into the first half. And so that did put some constraints on our ability to scale from an overall supply chain capacity point of view in the first half of 2016. As we move into '27 and some of the context we provided and some of my comments earlier around growth rate in the second half. I think we're much better positioned to support this ramp and support customer requirements.

And as we look at '27, as I said earlier, our focus has been really to ensure that we have the capacity to support the different forecasts that are out there. So we feel pretty comfortable about the guidance we gave today and our ability to support that and then some. We always try to think about all the conceivable opportunities as we plan along our supply chain. And so there's a tremendous amount of focus across the company to ensure that we have that capacity to support what looks to be a very strong environment next year. And then as we said earlier, we've got to do -- we're hiring a lot too.

We need to make sure we've got our installed resources or service resources to be able to support the tools after we ship them.

Bren Higgins: Yes. Joe, and the folks in our operations service know that we're matching the urgency in providing capability to our customers that our customers are sharing with us. So this is a time, like I said, I've not seen this before, but there's such broad demand, such capacity at [indiscernible] speed. So we're working very hard to support that. And historically, we've always done it, but it's going to take a lot of work.

Operator: We'll move on now to Timothy Arcuri with UBS.

Timothy Arcuri: Bren, I just wanted to come back to this idea that you're outgrowing WFE this year. You're guiding up sort of high teens. I think the general consensus among all the other companies is that WFE is growing like mid-20s. So is it that you just think that, that WFE growth is too high, maybe your baseline for WFE last year is more like 120 or something. So actually, you don't think there'll be even high teens. Is that -- is that how you get to the concept that you're going to outgrow this year? .

Bren Higgins: Well, yes, I think you're right. I think the baseline is about 120, and that aligns with where the various third parties. And if you do kind of a consensus view of all the different forecasts that are out there, you end up somewhere more or less in that ballpark in terms of where 2025 growth rates were. And if you look at the different relative performance of the different players, it does imply that '25 was a pretty good year, greater than 10% growth. So from a baseline point of view, we see it at about 120, growing to about 140 plus, as we said, which translates into this call it, mid- to high-teen growth rate.

If you look at the semi PC business, as I said in the prepared remarks, we expected it to grow our systems business to grow in excess of 20%. So that's aligns with our view of growth. As we talked about at Investor Day, we spent a lot of time trying to explain how we're defining the. Everybody, of course, defines it in different ways. But we believe that the approach that we've taken, as I said, it lines up with third parties. I think there's a lot of opportunity out there that starts to span not just traditional WFE, but also in the advanced packaging parts of the market.

And as we've seen our revenue inflect in that part of the market, we think it's appropriate if you're going to measure yourself on share of market that you got the numerator, but you also get the denominator, right? So that's how we see it, and that's that kind of informs the forecast that we have here.

Timothy Arcuri: Okay. Got it. And then I guess just, Rick, I wanted to ask you about the pushout of High-NA. And just like what the puts and takes are for you? I mean, I can see on one hand, you've got like 25%, 30% direct attached to litho. So maybe that's a bad thing that is pushing up. But on the other hand, there's going to be some other process things that get more complex and things like that, which obviously would actually help you. So how do you weigh those puts and takes.

Richard Wallace: Yes. Thanks, Jim. There's no change in the high NA forecast from everything that we've modeled. It's exactly what we've modeled and started talking about a couple of years ago. So in that sense, this is what we're talking about when we put out the 2030 plan. However, INA has puts and takes, as you say. So ultimately, it's going to be better if people are printing smaller geometries and the defectivity challenges are going to be greater. But it's also the case that, that's not going to happen until the economics support it. So I'd say for us, it's a push.

It's going to happen, it's going to extend the time line for which people could keep getting benefit out of process. That's good for the industry. But it is in our -- what's happening is in our model. So that there was no change from our expectations.

Bren Higgins: Yes, Tim, and I think this attach rate to litho historically when scaling was driving the innovation in the process road map, that was more true than it is today. Today, you have architecture changes, you have the nature of a high mix design environment. We talked a lot about larger die and what that means in terms of defect density the value of that die and how that translates to how much you're willing to invest to ensure that those die are good and are performing at spec process and performance requirements are much more significant. So there's a lot of drivers there for process control that's beyond just traditional lympho scaling.

If you look -- we need a lot to scaling road map, as Rick said, it's important. It's good for the industry, but it's not the only factor that drives process control intensity. The 2-nanometer node has higher intensity than 3-nanometer node and the amount of EUV layers hasn't changed all that much from node to node. So I think that gives you an indication that it's not the only factor that influences how customers invest in our products.

Operator: We'll move on now to Jim Schneider with Goldman Sachs.

James Schneider: I was wondering if you could maybe address your expectation for the advanced packaging market and your revenue growth there in calendar '26. And maybe just kind of talk about how that's likely to kind of filter as we go throughout the year.

Richard Wallace: Yes. And so it's a pretty exciting part of our story. Of course, we spent a lot of time talking about how it's how that market has moved to the need for more front-end like requirements and how well the KLA portfolio is positioned here. We talked about exceeding being somewhere in the range of $1 billion in business and advanced packaging for our process control business this year, growing from about $635 million in 2025. One of the great things that we're starting to see also is as the packaging market has evolved and more nanometer level inspection is required, but the need for more precision and more capability from the tool set.

So as we look at 2026, we're actually seeing meaningful revenue increases across some of our more advanced systems as we talked about that, that was going to come, and we're starting to see that both in terms of [indiscernible] packaging, but also emerging SOIC packaging as dista is happening, driving hybrid volume requirements and so on. So we're pretty excited about the growth in that part of the market for us. It's likely one of the top growing markets certainly in overall packaging, and we expect it to continue to grow into next year.

James Schneider: And I was wondering if you could maybe provide a little bit of color kind of given your extended sort of order book and higher visibility, can you see your way clear to a point in time in the future where you would expect the process control intensity to really step up and start to really materially outgrow the overall WFE envelope you're forecasting?

Richard Wallace: Well, the last 5 years, we gained 160-ish basis points of share, and that translated into about a 6.5% growth rate for KLA above the market baseline. If you go back to what we talked about at Investor Day, we thought that we could gain another 150 basis points plus share of the overall wafer equipment market, and that translates into a 4.5% growth for the company over the market baseline of WFE growth of 12%. So it's -- these are small increases, but on a pretty big base, and it translates into meaningful CAGR upside relative to the overall market. And that's our plan that then feeds into our $26 billion target for 2030.

Operator: We'll move on next to Charles Shi with Needham.

Unknown Analyst: I have a question around some technology in metrology. There is a lot of discussion around x-ray versus optical for CD measurement in the front end, let's say, in [indiscernible] detection, those kind of other stuff in hybrid bonding type of advanced packaging. And Rick, I'm sure you're familiar with all of this discussion around the debate around optical versus e-beam DUV versus actinic. I think you've said that when you can use optical, customers will stay with the optical, but -- is this new debate around metrology, x-ray versus optical, you would have the same view, maybe optical eventually win or you have some other starts?

I understand you do have XTD tool, but I want to get your thoughts.

Richard Wallace: Yes. I think that the history of inspection and measurement and really the industry is you move to the highest capability tool that can do the job additionally to debug it and then you go to the cost of ownership play. So whatever can do the job and most efficient. And we talked about the roll off, for example, in our wafer inspection portfolio where you might under process at a very high level of, say, e-beam during characterization along with high and optical. But then if you can possibly go to higher throughput, lower cost, you do.

The case of X-ray is interesting because in some ways, when we introduced Axion a few years ago, that was a product that was really solving a problem that could only be solved in failure analysis. And the challenge with that was getting the tech to work, getting adoption and getting proof of concept with enough players that they would make the change. And we've done that, but it took quite a while because the industry it's remarkably aggressive in new technology development, but slow in making changes in manufacturing except for when it has to.

So I think the question is, is there a capability that you can use and you can drive more with x-ray and can you do it? And the answer is you might be able to do it, but the question is, is it something you can do in production? You can do it to debug the process. But if even in e-beam, what we're seeing now with our portfolio is we might use our eBay system, coupled with our inspection system to tune that inspection system, but offload as much as we can to higher throughput. So I think there's a scenario in which you see that's what happens with X-ray as well.

You want to have the capability, but the problem is always eventually is the cost. And if it's something that is so out of control that the only way you can do it is with massive amounts of very inspection metrology and it's very expensive, you are not going to do it, and you're going to figure out another process. So I think the answer is yes, there's a lot of work going on, and there's people that are really focused on getting something to work, but that's different than what they'll use in volume production. As a company, we've always focused on the difference between the characterization, development phase and what you can pan out.

So when we laid out our 2030 plan, we obviously work very closely with our customers on their packaging road maps and what we anticipated was having capability across our portfolio to solve all the tool, the needs they have, including in their development phase. So I don't think you're going to see a quick adoption of X-ray anytime soon. And those of us who have been around a while, there was an x-ray lithography company 30 years ago. So it's not like it's a new idea to leverage x-rays, just the cost and throughput is really challenging. I hope that helps.

Bren Higgins: And just to build on that, the market size, most of the adoption has been in memory. And so the market size has been roughly, I'll call it, today, it's about $75 million to $100 million. And I'd say we have probably about, call it, 60-ish percent share of the overall market. I think as adoption starts to increase as maybe more production opportunities become available, you could see that moving up into the $150 million range over the next few years. But the challenges of the productivity of the tool and how that then translates into volume production as Rick said, has been the biggest challenge, and I think has affected how the pace of adoption for that technology.

Unknown Analyst: Maybe a quicker one as a second question. You gave that advanced packaging revenue outlook from $635 million to $1 billion. But if I recall correctly, one quarter ago, you were basically calling advanced packaging. I mean, probably gets like a much lower growth -- it feels like that was a Abrevision to advanced packaging revenue outlook. So may I ask what was the big upward revision about? I mean, it happened like a just over 60, 90 days? And what's changed? -- from maybe a quarter ago.

Richard Wallace: Yes. So we thought in a quarter ago, we thought that the overall growth rate in Process Control Advanced packaging was somewhere in excess of 30%. Obviously, if you do the math on the numbers we've talked about, we're now in the upper 50% range in terms of growth. There's clearly been -- and one thing about packaging is it's shorter lead time business generally. And there's clearly been momentum from a number of customers for additional capacity this year. We didn't have the visibility to it going into this calendar year.

And we see it growing more, and it's I think it's going to be a little bit more of a second half dynamic in terms of half to half of that growth. But it has absolutely picked up over the last 90 days or so. And I think the competitive positioning, the need for more capability, as I talked about earlier, are big drivers in it. So semiconductor process control, growing in the range of $1 billion, up from about $635 million, which translates, as I said, into the high 50% range.

Operator: We'll move on now to Srini Pajjuri with RBC Capital Markets.

Srinivas Pajjuri: I have a clarification -- sorry, I've been jumping between calls here. It looks like you're raising the WFE number to about 140 versus 135 to 140 at the Analyst Day. But at the same time, your annual guidance, revenue guidance is still for high teens. I understand high teens can mean a lot of things. Just trying to see if I'm reading that correctly, if you can kind of give me some additional color on that number.

Richard Wallace: Yes. I think that we're talking about a pretty small adjustment from where we were about 6 weeks ago, but we think it's 140 plus and I think that, as I said, I'm pretty comfortable with the guidance that we provided, I would say, it probably translates into consistent with the stronger view of the industry that translates into probably a little bit stronger view of 2026 for KLA than we thought 6 weeks ago. But look, we've got 9 months to go here, and we have a number of opportunities to provide an update to that forecast.

So we're pretty excited, and we'll see how the second half plays out in terms of opportunities to reduce the risk and increase the -- our views of performance here for the year. But I think that's as good as we can do for now.

Srinivas Pajjuri: Yes, that's fair enough. And then on the 2027, just a few clarifications, Bren. So you're obviously guiding for high teens or better. It seems like I'm assuming WFE is at least growing in one or maybe you continue to outperform WFE as you've been doing over the past few years. Just trying to understand the moving pieces there. I know you said it's fairly broad-based, but can you maybe parse it out by end market, memory versus logic, what you're seeing it also. What's your base case assumption for China WFE from next year?

Bren Higgins: Yes. So I think that if you look at the greenfield opportunities, which I think is for DRAM but also in the flash market is that memory is probably a few percent higher than this year. So this year, memory is about, we'll call it, 60 -- logic [indiscernible] about 62% of the overall spend. I think it's probably closer to 60% more memory focused versus logic into next year. I don't think it's hard to say about China, we're a little ways away, but at least in terms of how we're modeling it, our general view on China is that it grows at a slower rate than overall WFE.

And we haven't seen it change much at least in terms of KLA's business levels over the last couple of years. So I would say that you'll see us more along those lines. Now it's more greenfield, less around technology upgrades. And so that drives a different dynamic. And with the rising process control intensity that we're seeing in memory, we feel very good about how well we're positioned for that activity into next year. Logic foundry continues to be very broad-based. And legacy is pretty weak this year. So I would think that legacy probably has some upside into next year. I don't want to quantify it yet though.

Operator: We'll move next to Shane Brett with Morgan Stanley.

Shane Brett: My first question is on margin. I want to assume that your customers are likely fighting for KLA shipment slots at the moment. Just how should we think about your ability to take advantage of this demand via margin I'm especially curious in the context of your memory customers, given you have seen a gross margin headwind due to higher DRAM pricing, but shouldn't we be able to pass this cost on earlier than the historical 1-year pricing pass-through cycle? .

Richard Wallace: Yes, Shane, we don't price based on scarcity at KLA, our pricing is based on cost of ownership improvements from one generation to the next. We're pretty disciplined about that, and that translates into terms of meeting our customers' view of incremental performance and incremental cost of ownership improvement. If you start to price based on different price changes and components, I would expect that your customers would want symmetry with that. And so that's not how we think about it. At KLA, it's much more about the value that we offer, the value-based pricing and how we're able from product type to product type to deliver new capability at better cost of ownership to our customers.

So I think we do a pretty good job around that at KLA. And this is a headwind around memory that we think ultimately will normalize out in the future. I don't think it's going to I think it's going to be with us for a little while, but we feel pretty good about the supply that we have to be able to support the growth outlook we've talked about. And as I talked about at Investor Day, I think it's highlights why our new product introduction cadence is so important for KLA because it allows us to introduce new products, rethink how we're pricing that incremental value, how do we share it with customers as we move forward.

So I think we feel pretty good about how we're positioned. And the last thing you're going to do is go to a customer in the middle of a transaction or middle of a buy and change pricing. So that just -- it doesn't work that way. So I think we're pretty good and feel pretty good about what we do.

Shane Brett: Got it. That's very clear. And for my follow-up, this is more of a clarification on advanced packaging. So I understand you see your business growing 30% in packaging. But your process peers are now also talking about 50% plus growth. Correct me if I'm wrong, but does that mean that relative to your initial packaging guide of approximately $12 billion that you disclosed in late January, we should be looking at closer to $13 billion or $14 billion for this year. .

Bren Higgins: Yes, Shane, so we're growing greater than in the high 50%, as we said in the prepared remarks, the shareholder letter and the question I answered earlier. The overall market is somewhere growing up in the range of about $13 billion, we think. And so that's approximately 30% growth in the overall market from 2025.

Operator: We'll move on now to Edward Yang with Oppenheimer.

Unknown Analyst: Just following up on DRAM and the gross margin headwind. You mentioned having procured enough hits now. Is that through calendar year '26 or possibly longer?

Richard Wallace: Longer. I feel very good about our supply situation going into to support our bill plans through next year.

Unknown Analyst: Great. And second question is on AI CapEx assumptions. A couple of hyperscalers reported tonight as well, not a couple of few, a couple have appeared to have come in a little light on CapEx tonight. Microsoft and Google for the quarter, Meta and Amazon were a bit higher. But we all appreciate those numbers can be lumpy quarter-to-quarter. But given sporadic market concerns around data center CapEx durability, can you bridge your updated '26 WFE view of greater than $140 billion and your expectation of growth in 2027 to the underlying AI infrastructure assumptions. Put differently, what level of hyperscaler end customer AI CapEx due to WFE forecast effectively require?

Richard Wallace: Yes. So when we talk -- and like I said, we've had all these conversations with customers recently about what is their expected demand and what kind of capacity are they bringing online recently, within the last 2 weeks, I've had those conversations, both on the foundry live side and on the memory side, there's still -- with all these very aggressive plans through '26 and '27 they're not going to close the gap. And in some cases, the gap is even expanded from where it was a few months ago because of the demand.

So this equilibrium between what the CapEx hyperscaler you guys say and the notion that you can draw a straight line to WFE, you can't because they're -- we're way under serving those demands. So our contention has been for quite a while that there's not enough silicon to be able to support the plans that people have. And so the WFE is literally just as fast as we can go as an industry. That's kind of what we're seeing when we talk to our customers and we talk to their plans for build-out in '27. And the reason '26 isn't bigger is because they can't build enough fast enough.

And take the extreme of this because he said it on his call, if you say what Elon Musk was saying about SpaceX and the demand and why he talked about building Parapat because it was going to be a massive shortage of semiconductor capacity through 2030. So nothing about the short term, and I think that's -- that confuses a lot of people. What is talked about short term in terms of the hyperscaler CapEx and the buffer between that and what's happening in terms of the ability of the industry to bring on all that capacity.

So I understand people are trying to correlate it, but there's a massive assumption in there that this thing is even close to filling that capacity and it's not.

Operator: We'll take our last question from Chris Caso with Wolfe Search.

Christopher Caso: Just as a follow-on to the prior question. And it does certainly sound like demand is well ahead of the industry's ability of supply. Does that cap the amount that [indiscernible] ship to customers and that the customers have clean room space to be able to put tools right now. I mean you talked about perhaps the opportunity to increase the view as the year goes on, but are we sort of towards the upper limits of what can be supplied in '26 and we're just going to have to supply it in '27, '28? .

Richard Wallace: Well, yes, I think so. And the way to think about this, and I think this is we are an ecosystem. So it kind of takes all the parts of the ecosystem to make it happen. And so when you look at what are the constraints or one of the limits, I know when we talk in the AI world about power constraints or other constraints. But in the semiconductor industry, the first constraint is how many fabs do you have? Like how many shelves can you fill? And then you got to have enough equipment from all the different suppliers to be able to make functioning line.

So in many ways, this is why we talk about the overall investment in the industry, you kind of have to think about it in aggregate because let's say, we could infinitely ship. -- there'd be nowhere to send it because you'd be sending it in a fab that haven't been built yet. So that's why we look very closely at what the overall industry is doing, what our customers are doing. And that's why when we say you can get a marginal increase in 2026 to the numbers we're talking about, you can't go from 140 to 200 in 2026. And there's only so much you can add in 2027 and those fabs have to be built now.

So when our customers say, it's just not easy, it's because it takes a long time to get through even in places where they build fabs very quickly takes a long time to build them and then to get the equipment and the fastest in the world, places to build fabs have big plans for expansion next year, and they're still going to be short by the end of next year. And so that's how the whole system is working. So when we give our guidance for the year, it's -- yes, it's what we can do, but it's also collectively what we as an industry can do. Does that make sense?

Christopher Caso: Yes, it does. That's clear. So the last question, I have something more mundane on gross margins for the year. And I think you indicated you're kind of sticking with a view of 62% for the year. Can you talk about the pluses and minus on that? I know you had some mix headwinds earlier, and there's some cost increases. So what should we be watching for on the gross margins this year?

Richard Wallace: Pretty consistent guidance with what we had last quarter, I would say the memory pricing environment is on the margin worse. I thought that the headwind was 75 to 100 basis points. I think it's 100 basis points now. And part of that has been the relative pricing on DDR4 versus DDR5, where they're generally, and it depends on what type of memory level. But more or less the same prices. You still have tariff dynamics. I would expect as we move through the year, the tariff headwind that we have at KLA will become less, but it's still meaningful, I'll call it. I talked about 50 to 100 basis points of overall impact.

I said we're operating at the middle of the higher end of that range today, but would expect that to come down to the lower end of the range as we go through the year with some of the things we're doing here operationally. Overall mix generally is pretty consistent with how we thought about it. So like anything else, there's always puts and takes. But in general, we said 62%, plus or minus 50 basis points, and we still feel that's an appropriate way to think about the company at the revenue guidance that we provided for the year.

Unknown Executive: Thank you, Chris, and thank you, everybody, for tuning in. We appreciate your support. Apologies for those that weren't able to get a question on this call. We will catch up [indiscernible]. And with that, I'll turn the call back to the operator to provide any closing remarks.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes the KLA Corporation March Quarter 2026 Earnings Call and Webcast. Please disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day.

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