Axcelis Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACLS) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 2, 2024 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Douglas Lawson – Executive Vice President-Corporate Marketing and Strategy
Russell Low – President and Chief Executive Officer
Jamie Coogan – Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Craig Ellis – B. Riley Securities
Tom Diffely – D. A. Davidson & Company
Charles Shi – Needham & Company
David Duley – Steelhead Securities
Duksan Jang – Bank of America Securities
Jack Egan – Charter Equity Research
Jed Dorsheimer – William Blair
Christian Schwab – Craig-Hallum Capital Group
Mark Miller – The Benchmark Company

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Axcelis Technologies Call to discuss the Company’s Results for the First Quarter 2024. My name is Crystal Love, and I will be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will be facilitating a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes.

I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today’s call, Doug Lawson, Executive Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Strategy. Please proceed.

Douglas Lawson

Thank you, operator. This is Doug Lawson, Executive Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Strategy and with me today is Russell Low, President and CEO; and Jamie Coogan, Executive Vice President and CFO. If you have not seen a copy of our press release issued yesterday, it is available on our website. Playback service will be also available on our website as described in our press release. Please note that comments made today about our expectations for future revenues, profits and other results are forward-looking statements under the SEC Safe Harbor provision. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations and are subject to the risks inherent in our business. These risks are described in detail in our Form 10-K annual report and other SEC filings, which we urge you to review. Our actual results may differ materially from our current expectations. We do not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

Now I’ll turn the call over to President and CEO, Russell Low.

Russell Low

Good morning and thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2024 earnings call. We are off to a strong start to the year with first quarter financial results exceeding our forecast. Our revenue came in at $252.4 million. On the bottom line, our earnings per diluted share were $1.57, which increased 10% from $1.43 in the year ago period. Higher earnings were primarily driven by more than a 500 basis point improvement in gross margin as a result of the product mix shipped during the period, partially offset by higher selling costs, R&D and taxes. Continued execution by the Axcelis team combined with strength in the implant intensive silicon carbide power devices segment and strong customer shipments to China enabled Axcelis to achieve this performance. Based on current booking levels and quoting activity, we expect these two trends to continue for the foreseeable future.