Select Medical Holdings Corp

NYSE:SEM

Hello, and welcome to Vishay Intertechnology Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Peter Henrici, Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you to [ Twanda ]. Good morning, and welcome to Vishay Intertechnology's Fourth Quarter and Year 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Joel Smejkal, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Dave McConnell, our Chief Financial Officer, will join me today.

This morning, we reported results for our fourth quarter and year 2024. A copy of our earnings release is available in the Investor Relations section of our website at ir.vishay.com. This call is broadcast live over the web and can be accessed through our website. In addition, today's call is being recorded and will be available via replay on our website. We will be referring to a slide presentation during the call which we also posted at ir.vishay.com.

You should be aware that in today's conference call, we will make forward-looking statements discussing future events and performance. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the forward-looking statements. For a discussion of factors that could cause results to differ, please see today's press release and Vishay's Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

We are including information on various GAAP and non-GAAP measures in our press release and on this conference call. We have included a full GAAP and non-GAAP reconciliation in our press release and in the presentation posted on ir.vishay.com, which we believe you will find useful when comparing our GAAP and non-GAAP results. We use non-GAAP measures because we believe they provide useful information about the operating performance of our businesses and should be considered by investors in conjunction with GAAP measures.

Now I turn the call over to President and Chief Executive Officer, Joel Smejkal.

Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our fourth quarter 2024 conference call. I'll start my remarks with a review of our revenue for the fourth quarter by end market channel and region. Then Dave will take you through a review of the fourth quarter financial results and our guidance for the first quarter of 2025. After that, I'll give you a summary of our actions during 2024 to implement Vishay 3.0, and the key initiatives we plan to focus on in 2025 as we continue to execute our 5-year strategic plan. And then after, we'll be happy to answer any of your questions.

Revenue for the fourth quarter was down slightly versus Q3 at $714.7 million, for a full year revenue of $2.9 billion that was below 2023. As we've talked about all year, the industry has endured a prolonged period of inventory digestion by customers worldwide, compounded by weak macroeconomic conditions in Europe. But after 9 straight quarters of inventory consumption, the longest inventory correction cycle we've seen, the inventory levels at the end customers and in the distribution channel appear to be normalizing. Particularly for semiconductors, serving automotive and industrial end markets in Asia and the Americas.

As a result, book-to-bill at quarter end was 1.01, compared to 0.88 in Q3, with most of the improvement coming from semiconductors which reported a book-to-bill of near 1, versus 0.79 in Q3, and a passive book-to-bill had moved into positive territory at 1.03 versus 0.97 last quarter. We're watching book-to-bill data closely in Q1, especially now coming out of the Chinese New Year holiday to see how this trend continues.

Bookings continued to improve, particularly for products related to smart grid infrastructure project, AI server power and military defense. Even though revenue was more or less in a holding pattern most of the year, at Vishay, we have not been standing still. We have been pressing ahead and building momentum. The organization has a shared sense of purpose and commitment to make Vishay 3.0 a success, preparing to take full advantage of the megatrends of e-mobility and sustainability. Setting the foundation to transform everyone's thinking to be business minded, is positioning us to accelerate revenue, improving profitability and enhancing returns. These are top priorities across Vishay.

As employees across the globe have adopted a customer first and a business-minded approach in everything we do, a cultural shift has been taking hold within the company. There's a different vibe now as employees collaborate, exchange ideas, cooperate and make decisions to improve profitability. And everyone is looking ahead to seeing the initiatives they are working on this year, pay off in the next industry upturn. I want to express my gratitude to the Vishay employees for their willingness to embrace continue to change this year and for working together to achieve our 5-year strategic plan and financial goals.

Let's now take a closer look at the fourth quarter revenue relative to the third quarter, starting with a review of revenue by end markets on Slide 3. Automotive revenue decreased 6% versus the third quarter. Most customers pulled below their schedule agreements, which was also at lower rates than the third quarter. While in Europe, production volume decreased along with lower forecast later in the quarter.

At year-end, due to the holidays, some automotive plant shutdowns pushed their scheduled demand out into the first half of 2025. New programs, however, using AI chipsets for driver assist and autonomous driving programs were started with customers during the quarter. In the Americas Automotive, customers [indiscernible] normal rates through the first 11 weeks of the quarter on strong demand. In the last 2 weeks of the quarter, poles were very light.

In China automotive, demand came from EV production and growing electronic content. Global and China automotive Tier 1 suppliers continue to buy and assemble using Vishay products for China automotive OEMs. Each product division works to design in and sell technology differentiated products to China automotive. We completed the contract negotiations with large OEMs during the quarter, which resulted in a typical ASP decline in the low to mid-single digits, along with volume and share gains.

Renewed schedule agreements show improving demand for the first half of 2025, but still limited visibility in the second half of the year. Design activity around EVs continued during the fourth quarter, even though there is an acceleration to design towards hybrid powertrain. Design activity is focused on high-performance computing, safety, autonomous driving, infotainment, smart cockpit applications and in-cabin monitoring.

Revenue from industrial end markets decreased $5 million, or 2% for the quarter. Order intake for smart grid infrastructure projects continues to be quite positive during the quarter. We won another China program during the quarter, and order intake was also strong for grid management products, power supplies, power tools and industrial inverters.

Customers in the Americas and Asia continue to consume semiconductor inventory throughout the quarter, improving the balance between inventories and lead times. Customers in Europe, on the other hand, continue to contend with weak business conditions impaired by seasonality and high component inventory, which is planned for Q1 '25 consumption. New design activity in industrial was focused on automation, including connectivity, robots, agriculture, remote monitoring, and HVDC for smart grid infrastructure as well as renewables and power supply.

In aerospace defense, with order flow similar to prior quarters this year, revenue was slightly below the third quarter. Distributors continue to place orders at a booking rate above 1 to support U.S. military demand as we increased our backlog of orders, also related to low earth orbit satellite program. In Europe, revenue was flattish for this segment on normal year-end seasonality, while commercial aerospace demand faces some supply chain challenges with mechanical products. Our Vishay products are in the queue once the mechanical supply chain issue is improved.

We are a preferred supplier and continued designing work on new programs for all U.S. Department of Defense OEMs. Some projects include munition replenishment, missile design programs, hypersonic ballistic tracking space sensors, next-generation interceptors and commercial and military low earth orbit satellites. We have multiple products supporting this design activity in the defense and space programs. As a reminder, Vishay's passives have the broadest military established reliability certification.

We sell the medical end markets, mostly in the Americas. This quarter, medical revenue was flat with the third quarter with strong demand for some customers based on forecast in 2025. We did have softer orders from one large customer for inductors, however. Design activity for patient monitoring, surgical assist robots and glucose monitoring continues to create new business opportunities for Vishay to sell our entire portfolio of products. Implantable devices continues to offer us high dollar content opportunity.

Revenue from the Other market segments, including computing, consumer and telecom end markets was up 3% quarter-over-quarter, with strong order intake in Asia related to heightened demand for AI servers and server power projects. We are designing in and supplying a wide variety of products to AI, which supports the unique position of Vishay. These products are MOSFETs, polymer [ tantalum ] capacitors, resistors, voltage suppressors, diodes and inductors. Also for IC products we're designing in [ eFuses ], driver [indiscernible] and power stage. This list further demonstrates the breadth of our portfolio, which populates a high percentage of components on a board in power application.

AI at this point remains a quick turns business. We see unscheduled orders from CMs looking for quick delivery to support AI power management modules. Spot orders are running around 60% of total orders in Asia, still low visibility. Design activity stayed focused on AI server power, power conversion and power management of the AI chip sets, along with notebooks, and designs aimed at companies who integrate AI chip sets into their program.

Turning to Slide 4, which displays revenue mix by channel, you can see that the distribution revenue declined versus the third quarter, while OEM and EMS revenue increased slightly. This is an encouraging sign around consumption. Revenue from OEM and EMS customers grew for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2023. Automotive and industrial OEMs are normalizing inventory levels and demand related to smart grid infrastructure projects was strong. EMS customers are starting to buy [indiscernible] although regional EMS in Europe are still holding high inventory, coupled with soft end customer demand. Most of the EMS in Europe [ did ] shutdown in the last 2 weeks of the year.

Sales to distribution declined 7% on fewer shipment days during the quarter versus Q3 and a prolonged weak demand in Europe's industrial end markets, particularly for renewables. Asia and the Americas distributors manage their year-end inventories and manage their financial P&L. Worldwide POS decreased 3%, once again pulled down by reducing POS in Europe. The holidays fell midweek in late December, many distributors stopped accepting shipments after 11 weeks into the quarter. Our distribution inventory remained stable at 27 weeks.

Let's go to Slide 5. In terms of the geographical mix. Europe is the lagging region, softening revenues for [ Vishay ] as a whole, and declining 8% as macroeconomic conditions continue to weaken. Distributors are still working through inventory and customers stopped accepting shipments after week 11 into the quarter. This weakness masked the growth in Europe related to smart grid infrastructure projects.

Asia was a bright spot with revenue benefiting from shipments to smart grid infrastructure program and spot orders related to AI servers, and some early signals for industrial.

I'll now turn the call over to Dave, where he will review the financial results of Q4.

Thank you, Joel, and good morning, everyone. Let's start a review of the fourth quarter results with the highlights on Slide 6.

Fourth quarter revenues were $715 million, including $3 million attributable to the legacy Newport products and within the range of our guidance. Revenues decreased 2.8% compared to the third quarter, reflecting a 1.6% reduction in volume, a 0.6% reduction in ASPs, and a 0.6% negative foreign currency impact related mostly to the euro. By reportable business segment, the $21 million decrease in revenues was mainly attributable to a $16 million decrease in Opto, and a $7 million decrease in inductors. MOSFETs, diodes and resistors had more modest decreases. These declines were partially offset by an $11 million increase in our capacitor segment.

Compared to the fourth quarter last year, revenues were down 9%, reflecting a volume decrease net of Newport of 4.7%, and a 4.6% reduction in ASPs. Book-to-bill for the quarter was 1.01, comprised of 0.99 for semis and 1.03 for passives, the first book-to-bill over 1 in 9 quarters. Backlog was stable at 4.4 months with semis and passives both flat versus Q3. Semis at [ 3.9 ] passives at [ 4.9 ].

Moving on to the next slide, presenting the income statement highlights. Gross profit was $142 million, resulting in a gross margin of 19.9% and included a negative impact from Newport of approximately 190 basis points. Compared to the third quarter, gross margin was 60 basis points lower, primarily due to lower average selling prices, a slight increase in depreciation and a higher negative impact from Newport. Depreciation expense was $52 million, slightly under our guidance for the quarter, up from $51 million in quarter 3, and reflects the additional equipment that's come online. SG&A expenses were $132 million, compared to $129 million for the third quarter. This was higher than our guidance for the quarter and reflects higher R&D expenses incurred in Newport and some unanticipated legal and professional fees.

During the quarter, we recorded a $66 million noncash goodwill impairment charge to reflect the reduction in fair value of our MOSFETs reporting unit. The impairment charge does not affect our liquidity, cash flows from operating activities or debt covenants. We remain committed to our MOSFET expansion plans.

Inclusive of the impairment charge, GAAP operating margin was minus 7.9%, compared to minus 2.5% in the third quarter and 9.9% in the fourth quarter of 2023. Adjusted operating margin decreased to 1.4%, in line with the decrease in margins in gross margin and reflecting the increase in G&A expenses. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $66 million for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 9.3%, down from 9.7% in the third quarter. Our GAAP effective tax rate for the full year is not meaningful at the low levels of pretax loss. Due to the GAAP net loss for the quarter, the effective tax rate for the quarter was approximately minus 12.3%. Our normalized effective tax rate for the full year was approximately 36%, which yields a not meaningful quarterly effective tax rate.

GAAP loss per share was $0.49, compared to a loss of $0.14 per share in quarter 3 and $0.37 per share in quarter 4 of 2023. Adjusted EPS was breakeven per share, compared to $0.08 per share in the third quarter and $0.37 per share in the fourth quarter of 2013.

Proceeding to Slide 8, [indiscernible] of reference. The presentation includes a table illustrating the revenue, gross margin and book-to-bill ratios for each of our reportable business segments. Of note, for the fourth quarter, the results of Newport continued to be [indiscernible] substantially all in the MOSFET business segment. Weighing on that segment's gross margin approximately 900 basis points.

Turning to Slide 9 and our cash conversion cycle metrics. Our DSO was stable at 53 days. DPO was up to 34 days from 32. Inventory was up slightly due to the [ Burkebok ] acquisition, up to $689 million, resulting in an inventory days outstanding of 109 days, up from 106 days in the third quarter. Total cash conversion cycle for the fourth quarter is 128 days.

Continuing to Slide 10. You can see we generated $68 million in operating cash for the fourth quarter. Total CapEx for the quarter was $145 million, including $103 million designated for capacity expansion projects, and $320 million for the year, which fell below our guidance of between $360 million and $390 million, as delivery of some equipment was delayed to quarter 1. This brings the total CapEx for the period 2022 through 2024 to over $1 billion, as we invest in Vishay 3.0. On a trailing 12-month basis, capital intensity was 10.9%, compared to 9.7% for the same period last year.

Due to the investments in capacity expansion projects, free cash flow for the quarter was a negative $76 million, compared to negative $9 million in the third quarter. For the full year, free cash flow was a negative $143 million. Stockholder returns for the fourth quarter amounted to $26.2 million, consisting of $13.6 million for our quarterly dividend, and $12.6 million for share repurchases. We repurchased 0.7 million shares during the quarter at an average price of $18.02 per share. For 2024, we returned $105 million to stockholders.

Cash and short-term investments decreased to $606 million at quarter end as we continue to deploy cash to fund our strategic plan.

At the end of the quarter, we are in a net borrowing position in the U.S. with $136 million outstanding on our revolver. As previously noted, we are required to fund cash dividends, share repurchases, and principal and interest payments using our cash on hand in the U.S. And we're using our U.S.-based liquidity to fund the Newport expansion as well as other strategic investments. We have $467 million accessible on our revolver at the current EBITDA levels. We expect to continue to draw on our revolver to fund our U.S. cash needs.

Turning to Slide 11 for our guidance. For the first quarter of 2025, revenues are expected to be $710 million, plus or minus $20 million. Gross margin is expected to be in the range of 19.0%, plus or minus 50 basis points. Newport is expected to continue to have an approximate drag of 175 to 200 basis points on the gross margin in the first quarter. [ Depreciation ] expense is expected to be approximately $53 million for the first quarter and $214 million for the full year 2025.

SG&A expenses are expected to be $137 million, plus or minus $2 million for the quarter. The increase versus quarter 4 is primarily due to the accrual of assumed incentive compensation for 2025, versus a very low level of incentive comp in 2024. SG&A expenses for the full year are expected to be between $530 million and $560 million. In addition to the incentive compensation accruals, we are assuming continued investment in R&D, increasing spending, enhancing technology tools and typical inflationary impacts. For 2025, we expect a normalized effective tax rate to be between 30% and 32%.

And finally, our stockholder return policy calls for us to return at least 70% of our free cash to stockholders in the form of dividends and stock repurchases. For 2025, we once again expect negative free cash flow due to our capacity expansion plans. Despite negative cash -- free cash flow in 2024, we still returned over $100 million to stockholders. For 2025, we expect to maintain our dividend and opportunistically repurchase shares.

I'll now turn the call back to Joel.

All right. Thank you, Dave. Let's turn to Slide 12. As a reminder, we are pulling 8 growth levers to meet our commitment to scale capacity to our customers. To accelerate revenue growth, to position Vishay to be a much more reliable supplier, to drive greater returns through expansion of our product portfolio, and to expand our participation in our addressable markets. During 2024, we continued our focus on expanding capacity, both internally and externally, and on innovation. I'll recap our activities from Q4, starting with semiconductor capacity expansion projects.

First, at Newport. We completed on schedule the transfers of 3 silicon MOSFET structures in Q4 and are on track to complete another 6 by the end of the first quarter of 2025. We started production of commercial and automotive technologies in late Q4, and are building inventory in anticipation of customer approvals later this year, after which we will start shipping. We expect to complete qualification of the automotive-grade components during Q1 and Q2, thereafter customers will schedule their site audits.

During the fourth quarter, we continued to receive delivery of silicon carbide equipment at Newport and remain on schedule to meet our plan of production in early 2026. At SK Key Foundry, our partner in Korea, we released on automotive MOSFET and have ramped up wafers to be delivered in Q1. We also plan to release another automotive MOSFET in the first quarter, and an additional 5 technologies in the second quarter, 1 automotive, 3 commercial and 1 IC. Through this partnership, we will be able to increase annualized capacity for MOSFETs by 12% in 2025, compared to 2024. But more importantly, we will be able to increase annualized capacity for our advanced split gate MOSFET by 25% to support new automotive and commercial opportunities.

In Taiwan, in Q4, we started to ramp volume of commercial diodes. Automotive qualifications are still pending. For 2024, as expected, we increased capacity of constrained lines of high runners between 25% to 40%, for an annualized increase overall diode capacity of 4.7%. In turn in Italy, we have received environmental approval from the government and now plan to ship commercially qualified diodes in Q2. We expect to complete qualification of the 1,200 volt technology in Q2, and the 650-volt technology in Q3, both to be released to production in the second half of the year.

Now for passives. At La Laguna, Mexico during Q4, we work directly with automotive customers on part number qualifications and stayed on track to qualify the facility for automotive inductors. We also began shipping Ametherm sensor products during the quarter. As a reminder, the Ametherm line includes products that support inrush current limiting and temperature sensing applications. For the year, we increased annual capacity for the large-sized low-volume inductors, but decided to pull back on adding capacity on the small size high volume, to align with end market demand in favor of using external capacity.

At our facility in Juarez, Mexico, where we're shipping commercially qualified current sense resistors and other automotive products, we have increased annualized capacity by 18% in 2024 versus 2023. In addition to increasing our capacity of lower-margin commodity products, and to expand our product portfolio to widen our market participation, we continue to qualify subcontractors this year.

During the fourth quarter, we completed qualifications for 2 new subcontractors for resistor technology. Across all subcontractors during the quarter, we added over 1,400 part numbers to Vishay, bringing the total for the year to greater than 10,400 part numbers. We exceeded our external capacity goals we set for the year on our path to achieving our 2028 financial targets, specifically against our goal of more than 4% of revenue from outsourced passives, we generated 5%. We set a goal of utilizing outsourced wafer fabs for 33% of semiconductor production. For the year, the rate of production for outsourced fabs on wafers was 34%. Finally, against our goal of utilizing outside assembly for back end, the goal was 20% for semiconductor production and our outsourced assembly represented 21% of revenue for 2024.

As for innovation in our silicon carbide strategy, starting with our plans to commercialize the 1,200-volt planner technology, we released 2 products during the fourth quarter for a total of 3 products in 2024, and released another 3 products in January and plan to release another 3 products yet in the first quarter. In addition, we are on schedule with our plan to commercialize the 1,700-volt plant or MOSFETs in the second quarter of 2025 and the 650-volt [ planner ] MOSFETs in the third quarter of 2025. As a reminder, the silicon carbide MOSFET components support traction inverter projects and modules for onboard charging, which open more doors for us with automotive OEMs.

During the quarter, we completed the reliability testing of the Gen 3 trench technology, and we are now working towards optimization. We currently have given samples to one automotive OEM and midyear, we will expand sample availability selectively with full market release of this product in the second half of the year. For silicon carbide diodes, we released an industry-first smallest package using our Gen 3 diode 650-volt and 1,200-volt products. We are also on track to release the automotive version in Q1.

We completed the reliability testing of our Gen 4 650-volt automotive power pack to be released in Q1. We also will release the Gen 4 1200-volt automotive diode in Q2.

Finally, at Electronica, 2024, we showcased 9 reference designs across automotive, industrial and telecom applications, some of which demonstrated our silicon carbide capabilities, plus Vishay's ability to populate 80% of the components on a circuit board in power applications. Sample boards were available for customers to take for quick evaluation. We plan to release some of these reference designs into catalog distribution throughout 2025.

For OEMs utilizing AI, we also displayed a multiphase power board that incorporates smart stage -- smart power stage ICs, vertical noninductors and polymer tantalum capacitors which is another example of our solution selling strategy.

To wrap up 2024, the extended inventory correction took longer than we expected. This did give us some breathing room to expand capacity and our product portfolio, so we're ready to scale with our customers as demand returns. We bolstered our engagements with OEMs, so we're ready to support their product road maps and with channel partners, so we're ready to gain share. Also EV programs were pushed out during the quarter, which gives us more time to advance our silicon carbide strategy.

We also expanded our product portfolio through the subcontractor strategy and made two technology acquisitions, Ametherm and [indiscernible]. And we also acquired Newport, which advances our silicon carbide strategy and our [ Campus ] concept.

Now as we enter into 2025, we see many promising indicators, including a positive book-to-bill for the first time in 9 quarters, strong order intake for the smart grid infrastructure projects and initial shipments for AI. All of our strategic levers will be in play as we continue to execute our 5-year plan to position Vishay to take advantage of the megatrends of e-mobility and sustainability. We remain committed to our long-term plan of increasing Vishay's capacity between 2023 and 2028, to assure our customers have reliable volume as they scale.

As a reminder, at our Investor Day in April '24, we presented a plan of investing $2.6 billion in CapEx between 2023 and 2028. While we plan to continue to advance our capacity expansions, we have and will continue to modulate the spending in response to order flow and the timing of customer demand and qualifications. Also, the lead time of equipment, and continued approval of subcontractor capacity are variables we include to throttle down our capacity spending.

For 2025, we plan to spend between $300 million to $350 million, at least 70% of which will be invested in capacity expansion projects for our high-growth product lines, including our wafer fab expansions.

Under Vishay 3.0, we are business-minded. We are connected to the customers, and we gather and utilize market intelligence. This allows us, among other things, to make informed business decisions to throttle CapEx up or down, if and when necessary. At the same time, we are taking a closer look at our global footprint, keeping in mind our customers' regional supply needs and also to optimize our global footprint to a lower cost base and to enhance our returns.

For example, in 2024, we started shifting towards campus structures that serve multiple product lines, La Laguna, Mexico and the Newport facility in South Wales, U.K., plus adding subcontractors to produce commodities. Because of our strong execution of our strategic levers in 2024, we're well positioned in 2025 to support a market upturn. We have the capacity and we have the print position.

Since the beginning of 2023, we have landed an incremental 23% capacity to ensure we are a reliable supplier, ready to scale and meet our customers' needs over time. We're ready to capture share gains as we continue to increase our SKU count on distributor shelves, and our inventory is well positioned to quickly grow POS. We're ready to support prior year design wins as they turn into future start of production.

By adding [ FAEs ] during 2024, we have engaged with more customers about their product and technology road maps. We also opened an e-mobility lab in Italy, which has strengthened our design position and reference design solution selling capabilities. We're creating design opportunities that increase our share of the customer bill of materials, and our capacity investments ensure we're ready to support their future demand. We are now better aligned with future growth segments like AI server power management, smart grid infrastructure project, aerospace defense, industrial robotics and hybrid for automotive and EV programs.

We are doing the work to implement Vishay 3.0 and the customers see a different Vishay, a business-minded organization. Feedback is that Vishay has engaged early in the design pipeline, partnering with customers and preparing to scale in line with their road maps. We are actively in conversations with customers for more visibility to be able to support their market upturn in a timely way.

I now turn the call back to the operator, [ Towanda ]. Let's open the call to questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Peter Peng with JPMorgan.

I just want to zoom in on the AI server power side? And maybe if you can just level set us on how you're thinking about AI-related revenue this year? And maybe how -- I think investors should think about your average content per system or per board, maybe we'll start there?

Thanks, Peter. AI, in the fourth quarter, we saw the initial volumes. It was very small in the fourth quarter. A number of CMs are lining up to participate with the NVIDIA chipset. The demand -- we're working hard to try and understand the demand, the schedule. And as we talk to CMS, they say they're going to have some volume. It's going to be better than Q4. but they're not able to tell us the timing of the delivery of the NVIDIA chipset.

So we're preparing on our own. We're being proactive to make sure that the MOSFETs are in position to be able to support -- plus the other components that I talked about, polymer [indiscernible] and others. So our design position is good.

To put content on it, we've seen content in the $30 to $40 range per tray. We try and gather how many trays are in a rack. We've heard in the order of $600. But again, it's what is our share going to be? I'd like to provide you more, but we're working hard to get more visibility. I think as we get past Chinese New Year now, we'll be able to get more intelligence. But at this point, that's about the content we know.

And maybe on a -- follow on that. I think outside of the GPU ecosystem, the custom [ ASIC ] is also ramping up pretty aggressively. And our forecast is that sometimes over the next few years that it could be a 50-50 split between custom ASIC deployments versus [indiscernible] GPU.

Maybe talk about your position on the non-NVIDIA side?

Okay. We are designing with others. Other computer companies, EMS companies are getting into server power designs. So we've positioned our FAEs to reach out FAEs, whether they're Vishay FAEs or our reps. They're at the design locations of computer companies. They're at the design locations of EMS who are doing server power. So we are in a good position to design the technologies across Vishay again, introducing them to be able to support 80-plus percent of the components on the board.

So I would say at this point, our design activity, we're in a positive spot.

One more, if I may, before I go back into the queue. Typically, your second quarter is a seasonally stronger period. I didn't hear you guys call a bottom, but would it be [indiscernible] based on some of the positive book-to-bill also pretty normalized inventory that we should be tracking -- is more positive growth quarter, just given some of the positive seasonal trends in your [ dream ] quarters?

Okay. The book-to-bill in Q4 was positive. The book-to-bill in Q1 is also attractive. We're now looking at the Chinese New Year. You always watch Chinese New Year before and after. How will the bookings look once the people are back to work? So the next couple of weeks will be a signal if it's sustainable.

Automotive, the schedule agreements I mentioned, they're showing us better volumes in the first half of the year, quarter-on-quarter. So we're optimistic about that as well. The guide of [ 710 ] that we put in the quarter, Dave mentioned there's the annual ASP reductions that have come from our contract negotiations. So that all lands in January. We do have volume growth. So we'll get past the first quarter, get those ASPs in place and then work to grow volume. We like how the book-to-bill is setting up at this point.

[Operator Instructions] I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call -- one moment. We do have a question that came up.

Our next question comes from the line of Ruplu Bhattacharya with Bank of America.

Joel, to start, I want to ask you about your outreach to distributors. Does Vishay now have the proper amount of inventory in the channel? Or do you see any excess inventory at distribution?

And with that, can you also comment on pricing in both passives and active. Is there any scope for Vishay to raise prices in either segment?

Okay. Ruplu. Thanks for the question. Our work with distribution began right away with Vishay 3.0, January of '23. And we've been adding SKUs quarter-on-quarter. We've added nearly 50,000 SKUs now after the period of 2 years. Those were part numbers that Vishay did not have on the shelf.

Our inventory distribution, I said, is relatively stable. We're at 27 weeks. The inventory, I'll say, is fresh. Items that are nonmoving or idle would be very small, very small. So you see the inventory at 27 weeks. If we look at Asia versus Europe versus the Americas, Asia inventory in Q1 of '24 was 20 weeks. Asia inventory of Q4 '24 is 18.5 weeks. Americas inventory in Q1 of '24 is 47 weeks. Americas inventory in Q4 '24 is 51.5 weeks. A lot of catalog plus other part number adds. Europe inventory, we talked about it. We've got to get through this inventory in Q1. The Q1 '24 inventory was 18.7 weeks, and the inventory at the end of Q4 was 23.4.

So when we talk about Europe, we got to get through that inventory in Q1. But as far as the inventory itself, it's the right inventory. We've added inventory because of the SKUs we've added.

Regarding your question about pricing. Pricing for distribution, we made adjustments to our VPA, our published pricing in 2024, so we did take price protection. We believe on the screen for many of our products were competitive. So decisions can be made using the screen price. There will always be opportunities where a distributor brings in large volumes, million piece opportunities plus, where they'll ask us to be a little more aggressive and we'll take those into consideration.

But Overall, Ruplu, I think what we've done in distribution is well positioning us. We'll continue to work with distributor by distributor to better position Vishay and gain POS.

Okay. Can I ask you a question on CapEx? So you're guiding for $300 million to $350 million of CapEx spend in '25. You gave a lot of details, but I missed this, how much total new capacity is coming online in fiscal '25? I know you have Newport coming online and then maybe there are other sites?

And -- how has your total expectation for the 3-year CapEx spend changed since the Analyst Day? So can you give us some details in terms of that $300 million to $350 million, where is that spend coming online? How much of it like total capacity coming online? And has your 3-year expectation changed?

Okay. The $300 million to $350 million, we first look at the fabs. We look at the Newport fab, getting the silicon products up and running. We talked about the dates that we have there, releasing these structures as well as landing the silicon carbide equipment that's there, putting the process in place. So continuing to get this fab turned on to Vishay products is where CapEx will be.

The other fab is in Itzehoe, Germany. That's the 12-inch fab. We've got the building and now equipment is part of that next step in the fab. So CapEx continues as a majority of that $300 million, $350 million is for the fabs.

After that, we look into the individual product lines. We've done well to add capacity in 2024. I mentioned we've increased capacity for the company, 23% since Vishay 3.0 began. That's good. We're in a good position. Now we look at line by line and modulate what is the delivery time of equipment? It's no longer 2 years. It's no longer 1.5 years, it's less. In our plan, we had spending based on what we knew about the delivery of equipment. We've also increased our subcontractor qualifications. This is great because we're able to take the Vishay recipe and have a subcontractor build the products without our own CapEx investment. So this is why we say modulate.

We're going to make adjustments throughout the year. We're going to watch the order flow by these products. We might throttle back on some product lines because we've got subcontractor capacity coming. We might throttle up on spending because we're seeing the market move to a particular product where we think we're not -- we might be at risk of underserving.

So that's how we're managing it. We're excited about what we landed. In 2025, there will be CapEx coming to put a percent on 2025 yet, I don't think we're ready to do that because of the modulation we're doing with subcontractors.

Okay. Okay. I appreciate the details there. Can I ask one question to David. Can you update us on your capital allocation priorities? And you mentioned free cash flow would be negative in fiscal '25. So is it reasonable for investors to expect the same level of $100 million of return on capital that you had to shareholders in fiscal '24? Should we expect the same amount in fiscal '25?

Ruplu, it's a good question. So first and foremost, I think to reset the bar, our policy is to return 70% of free cash to the shareholder, okay. And even though in 2024, we had negative free cash, we chose to shoot higher and we returned at the end of [ 105% ], okay -- in 2024.

In 2025, we're committed to the dividend, as I noted in the remarks, and we're going to make opportunistic share repurchases during the year, but we're not going to commit to a specific number yet.

Okay. Okay. Got it. If I can sneak one more in. Joel, Europe is weak and Asia is strong. How do you see the regional mix changing in fiscal 1Q? Will your playbook be any different across these regions? Meaning are you hiring more in Asia because it's stronger. So how do you plan to deal with the mix of macro across these different regions in 1Q?

You bet. When we look at our FAE placement and our sales -- the commercial salespeople were always moving these in the proper place, too, to be engaged with customers. So Asia is high concentration for sure, of positioning the people in the right spot. We've got a great Asia team. They're well in tune with Vishay 3.0, and they get close to customers and they bring back a lot of good intelligence. So Asia is still a main focus and they're doing very well.

Europe, we adjust the European sales team in some ways to be closer to the customer. This is happening in Q4 and Q1. We're excited about the team of people we have. The customers are trying to get an understanding of what's going to happen with their governments. There's an election coming in Germany in February. This election is important because the colleagues that I speak with hope to see some direction by the government.

First and foremost, people want to feel that the economies can move, the government has a direction and they're sponsoring programs to make the business move. We're going to go through inventory digestion in Q1 in Europe. But I'll say the same thing about distributor position. We're going after better position. Our distributor team in Europe is working for that. We want to gain share. So even if the economy is soft or flat, we want to gain share of business we may have lost, regain it, or gain share of what's there.

So we continue to concentrate. We're focused on each region. They are different dynamics, but our intention is to grow in each. Asia is -- seems to be out front at the moment.

[Operator Instructions] We have a follow-up question from the line of Peter Peng with JPMorgan.

I have a question on the gross margin front. And so there's a few puts and takes.

So with the Newport, it should be -- I would imagine that it should be a tailwind as we kind of move through 2025. But then I think there's also additional depreciation expense that we should account for. So just taking to those factors, how should we think about your gross margins as we kind of move through the year?

Peter, that's a great question. So -- and you hit on the -- some of the puts and takes upfront already. But obviously, what drives our margin is volume, right? And based on Joel's comments and input from customers, we're expecting volumes to improve through the year.

In terms of the Q1 guidance, we already have the ASP declines baked into the into that margin for the annual contract renewal at the OEMs. We're doing the usual cost downs, cost reductions, efficiency gains, automation. You noted the higher depreciation. Newport, your comment is a good one. We hope to be margin neutral towards the end of the year. So when we enter '26, we're profitable, okay? Then that will step down, that drag as we go through the year.

That's about, I think, all we -- but the focus this year on the Newport is obviously the technology transfer and the qualifications and the customer approval, not necessarily the profitability. So I think that's about all we can say on the margin. It's volume-driven, right. Volume is the swing.

Peter, as we release these structures quarter-by-quarter, if it's a commercial product, industrial, we sent out a [ PCN ] and to notify our distributor partners that this is a new location. There's a time frame that they get 30 to 90 days to sign off the PCN. Once we have that signed off, then we can start loading volume. So you're going to see a stair stepping of volume towards greater capacity utilization in Newport throughout the year.

We qualify a structure, we get the PCNs approved commercially first. You'll see more utilization.

Automotive. We've got to get the automotive customer in for audits. We want to do this in parallel to component qualification. We got good people at Newport. They understand the technology very well. They're doing a great job of turning this from one owner to another. And I think our pace is quite good. We're expecting the tailwind, as you said, in 2025 to help us out on that margin.

Got it. So the Newport from being 150 to 200 basis points of impact to being margin neutral. So that would sound -- would be -- probably almost -- that would be like almost a 175 basis point step-up through the year. Is that right?

[indiscernible] see improvement quarter by quarter. Dave, the target is...

But exit the year-end to be neutral. Certainly, in the first quarter, 26, we're planning on profitability.

I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back to Joel for closing remarks.

All right. Thank you, Towanda. Thank you again, everyone, for attending our year-end 2024 earnings call. As you've heard today, we are moving forward implementing Vishay 3.0 with speed and determination. We are ready to support our customers when the market turns up and we're quite positive on what we've achieved so far. Thank you again. We'll see you at our next earnings call in May. Have a good day.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.