Earnings Call Transcript - MKSI Q3 2025

Operator, Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the MKS Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Paretosh Misra. Please go ahead.

Paretosh Misra, Vice President of Investor Relations

Good morning, everyone. I'm Paretosh Misra, Vice President of Investor Relations, and I'm joined this morning by John Lee, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Ram Mayampurath, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Yesterday, after market close, we released our financial results for the third quarter of 2025, which are posted to our investor website at investor.mks.com. As a reminder, various remarks about future expectations, plans and prospects for MKS comprise forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in yesterday's press release, our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. These statements represent the company's expectations only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing the company's estimates or views as of any date subsequent to today, and the company disclaims any obligation to update these statements. During the call, we will be discussing various non-GAAP financial measures. Unless otherwise noted, all income statement-related financial measures will be non-GAAP other than revenue and gross margin. Please refer to our press release and the presentation materials posted to the Investor Relations section of our website for information regarding our non-GAAP financial results and a reconciliation to our GAAP measures. Our investor website also provides a detailed breakout of revenues by end market and division. Now I'll turn the call over to John.

John Lee, President and CEO

Thanks, Paretosh, and good morning, everyone. MKS delivered a solid third quarter with revenue and EPS in the upper half of our guided ranges and healthy results across each of our three end markets. Third quarter revenue of $988 million was up 10% year-over-year, driven by strong demand in our semiconductor and electronics and packaging end markets. We continue to demonstrate strong execution in delivering value to our customers' most critical needs. Net earnings per diluted share totaled $1.93. We also continue to take advantage of our improved cash flow to reduce our leverage with another voluntary prepayment of $100 million on our term loan completed in October. MKS is uniquely positioned at the forefront of accelerating innovation and enabling the advanced technologies that power the AI era. Increasing device complexity is creating significant challenges and opportunities in both the semiconductor and advanced packaging markets. We are differentiated in our ability to serve many critical applications with our comprehensive portfolio of semiconductor capital equipment subsystems, advanced packaging chemistries, and advanced packaging equipment systems. Our Q3 performance in our end market demonstrates how we are benefiting in this dynamic environment. Starting with our semiconductor market, we reported solid revenue growth year-over-year, driven by continued strength in our products supporting deposition and etching applications, which are increasingly critical for advanced memory and logic manufacturing. Our dissolved gas systems for advanced logic applications were also a solid contributor to our performance, and our services business continues to contribute steady year-over-year growth. Lower NAND upgrade activity, which was expected after a very strong second quarter, drove the sequential decline in semiconductor sales; however, our leadership in power delivery remains as strong as ever in this space. We expect fourth quarter semiconductor revenue to remain flat on a sequential basis, which would translate into a healthy double-digit year-over-year growth for 2025. This underscores how well positioned we are with the broadest portfolio of products and technologies to drive our industry's increasingly challenging technology road maps. In Electronics and Packaging, revenue exceeded the midpoint of our expectations, growing 25% year-over-year. This strong performance reflects continued momentum across our portfolio, driven by robust demand for our chemistry solutions and, in particular, our chemistry equipment. The investments we have made over the past several years to position MKS to optimize the interconnect in advanced electronics are now paying off as we gain momentum in AI-related applications. Today, our chemistry revenue growth reflects our position as a leader of the most advanced packaging technologies used in high-performance computing applications. Longer-term, our chemistry equipment business highlights how critical we are to our customers as they rapidly build their next-generation infrastructure. The high attach rates from our equipment sales are a leading indicator of sustainable longer-term revenue from our proprietary chemistries. It's important to keep in mind that once we build and install the equipment, it can take six to twelve months for customers to qualify it and then put it into production. Once in production, our chemistry provides a long tail of steady consumable revenue generally for the life of that equipment. With high single-digit growth in chemistry revenues and strong equipment sales through Q3, we have confidence our proprietary chemistry will be a key revenue generator for us in the years ahead. In Q4, we expect revenue from our electronics and packaging market to be up on a sequential basis and up double digits on a year-over-year basis. Our strong performance reflects our ability to capture emerging AI-driven demand even as broader industry demand trends remain stable in markets such as smartphones and PCs. We anticipate continued strength in our chemistry equipment business, supported by AI, offset by modest sequential declines in chemistry due to seasonal factors consistent with prior years. Assuming the midpoint of our Q4 guidance, our Electronics and Packaging business is on track to deliver robust full-year growth of approximately 20%. Our specialty industrial market revenue was consistent with the stable trends we've seen over the past several quarters. Within this market, the industrial category showed sequential improvement in life and health sciences and research and defense end markets remained steady. We had a healthy quarter of design wins, particularly in research and defense. This success highlights how MKS leverages its semi and electronics R&D investments to unlock new opportunities in specialty industrial markets that generate attractive incremental margins and cash flow. Looking ahead to Q4, we expect Specialty Industrial revenue to remain relatively flat sequentially. Overall, MKS is continuing to perform at a high level in 2025, with year-over-year growth powered by our semiconductor and electronics and packaging markets. Our broad portfolio of differentiated products and technologies in areas such as vacuum, power, photonics, laser drilling, and advanced chemistries positions us favorably to win new opportunities in applications critical to enabling the AI transformation. Against this exciting backdrop, we are executing with financial discipline, aligning our business to win in our key markets and reducing our leverage. I'll close by extending my thanks to our MKS team for their tireless work driving the great results we are reporting today and also to our customers and our suppliers across the globe for their collaboration and support. With that, let me turn it over to Ram to run through the financial results and fourth quarter guidance in more detail.

Ramakumar Mayampurath, Executive Vice President and CFO

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. We delivered strong results in the third quarter, driven by healthy demand in our semiconductor and electronics and packaging end markets and continued stability in our specialty industrial end market. As in prior quarters, our execution remains strong with healthy margins, robust free cash flow and continued progress on our deleveraging goals. Third quarter revenue was $988 million, up 2% sequentially and up 10% year-over-year. The result was at the high end of our guidance and reflected better-than-expected trends in key end markets. Third quarter semiconductor revenue was $415 million, down 4% sequentially, but up 10% year-over-year. This result was at the high end of our expectations. The sequential decline was driven by lower RF power sales due to the timing of NAND upgrade activity as expected. The year-over-year growth was driven by strength in many product categories, including our vacuum products and plasma and reactive gas businesses. The fundamentals of our semiconductor business remain strong. Third quarter Electronics and Packaging revenue was $289 million, up 9% sequentially, driven by growth in our chemistry and equipment businesses. On a year-over-year basis, sales were up 25%, driven by growth in chemistry, chemistry equipment, and flexible PCB drilling equipment sales. These strong results underscore the strength of our Electronics and Packaging business as we deliver enabling technologies for high-growth emerging AI applications and today's advanced consumer electronics. Chemistry revenue was up 10% year-over-year, excluding the impact of FX and palladium pass-through, continuing the strong growth trend over the last year. In our specialty industrial market, third quarter revenue was $284 million, an increase of 3% sequentially, mainly due to the improvement in the industrial market. Revenue was down 1% on a year-over-year basis. Overall, our Specialty Industrial business has remained steady for well over a year. Third quarter gross margin was 46.6%, just above the midpoint of our guidance. Gross margins were stable relative to the prior quarter, with tariff impacts of about 80 basis points, 35 basis points better than last quarter, offset by a higher mix of chemistry equipment sales. As we have stated before, the strong equipment sales we have seen throughout 2025 are a good indicator of future high-margin chemistry revenues. Third quarter operating expenses were $256 million at the high end of our guidance and higher sequentially, primarily as a result of an increase in variable costs, mostly related to employee incentive compensation tied to stronger business performance. Third quarter operating income was $205 million with an operating margin of 20.8%. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $240 million and above the midpoint of our expectations with adjusted EBITDA margin of 24.3%. Net interest expenses were $45 million, in line with our guidance. Third quarter effective tax rate was 17.9%, just below the midpoint of our guidance. Third quarter net earnings were $130 million or $1.93 per diluted share and above the midpoint of our guidance. Free cash flow generation was very strong at $147 million, representing over 100% of our net earnings and 15% of our revenue. Through the first three quarters of 2025, we generated cumulative free cash flow of $405 million, nearly as much as we did in all of 2024. We invested $50 million in capital expenditure in the quarter. We expect CapEx to sequentially increase in Q4 but fall within the low end of our annual CapEx guidance of 4% to 5% of revenue. We closed the quarter with approximately $1.4 billion of liquidity comprised of cash and cash equivalents of $697 million and our undrawn revolving credit facility of $675 million. As John highlighted, we made a voluntary principal prepayment of $100 million in October. In total, we have made $400 million in voluntary payments thus far in 2025. We remain focused on executing our long-term capital allocation priorities of investing in organic growth opportunities while reducing our leverage through principal prepayments and working with our banking partners to reduce our interest expenses as market opportunities arise. We exited the quarter with a gross debt of $4.4 billion and a net leverage ratio of 3.9x based on our trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA of $953 million. We continue to bring down our net leverage ratio as we generate strong free cash flow, make proactive principal prepayments, and deliver high year-over-year adjusted EBITDA. Finally, during the quarter, we paid a dividend of $0.22 per share or $15 million. Let me now turn to our fourth quarter outlook. The guidance we are providing represents our best estimate based on the dynamic trade environment in which we are operating. We expect revenue of $990 million, plus or minus $40 million. By end market, we expect semiconductor revenue to be $415 million, plus or minus $15 million, reflecting the continued strong fundamentals of our business. Revenue from the electronics and packaging market is expected to be $295 million, plus or minus $10 million, which would be up 16% year-over-year at midpoint. As we look to model 2026, we would remind you that chemistry equipment revenue is poised to have a record year in 2025 and has historically varied significantly from year-to-year. Chemistry revenue, which is the majority of our E&P revenue, is much steadier and more predictable. Revenue from our specialty industrial market is expected to remain relatively steady at $280 million, plus or minus $15 million. We are guiding gross margin of 46%, plus or minus 100 basis points. The sequential decline is due to higher chemistry equipment sales in the mix and lower chemistry sales due to seasonality, partially offset by lower tariff-related impacts. We anticipate our mitigation actions will nearly offset tariff costs dollar for dollar beginning in Q4; however, these costs are passed through at zero margins, and we anticipate tariff will continue to dilute our gross margin in Q4 and moving forward by approximately 50 basis points. With our mitigation initiatives in place, we remain confident in our plan to deliver our long-term gross margin objective of 47% plus. We expect fourth quarter operating expenses of $255 million, plus or minus $5 million. As a reminder, OpEx is typically higher in Q1 as a result of higher stock-based compensation and fringe benefits consistent with prior years. We expect fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA of $235 million, plus or minus $24 million. We expect a tax rate of approximately 2% in the fourth quarter, benefiting from certain favorable discrete tax items in the quarter and bringing our full-year tax rate to just over 14%. We expect fourth quarter net earnings per diluted share of $2.27, plus or minus $0.34. Wrapping up, MKS has executed at a high level through the third quarter, and we are expecting this momentum to continue in Q4. We are winning exciting opportunities across our semiconductor and electronics and packaging end markets, and we are focused on managing our business with discipline to drive profitability and free cash flow. We remain focused on reducing our leverage. With our broad portfolio of products, strong secular tailwinds, and an improving balance sheet, MKS is in a great position as we look to 2026.

Operator, Operator

Your first question comes from Melissa Weathers with Deutsche Bank.

Melissa Weathers, Analyst

I think first, I want to touch on the E&P side. You said a couple of times in your commentary that equipment orders generally precede chemistry orders, and that can take about six to twelve months. You also mentioned that chemistries were, I think, a record year in 2025. But I wasn't quite clear on how you were guiding 2026, whether or not that should maybe come down or be stable. So any color on how we should be thinking about the chemistries flow-through into 2026 after all the strong equipment sales?

John Lee, President and CEO

Melissa, it's John. Thanks for the question. We're not providing guidance for 2026 at this time, particularly regarding chemistry or the company overall. However, I can say that the equipment we are currently building and installing positions us well for increased chemistry revenue starting in 2026 and beyond. We are looking at the entire market and its growth, and we've stated that in our E&P market, we expect to grow 300 basis points above GDP. This is based on stronger growth in the substrate business, mid-single-digit growth in HDI, and GDP-like growth in MLB. These figures remain unchanged for now. However, it's important to note that when we provided those figures, AI had not been factored in. Generally, conditions appear to be improving, and we are confident in our ability to achieve that target of 300 basis points above GDP because we are shipping significant amounts of equipment, and the associated chemistry will help us reach our long-term goals.

Melissa Weathers, Analyst

Great. And then maybe on the semiconductor side, it seems we've seen some really positive pricing data points in memory in the last couple of weeks or months. And I think a lot of people are expecting a shortage situation in memory in 2026. So can you talk about like the order patterns that you guys saw in the quarter? Have you seen an acceleration in orders ahead of maybe potential capacity additions in the memory space?

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes. We read those same reports as you do, Melissa. So I think in general, we're happy that memory is recovering, pricing is recovering and that the industry is moving towards a more constrained supply-constrained environment. And I think our customers are probably better to answer whether they're going to be ordering more equipment from us. But certainly, in general, I think everything is positive in the trend towards memory equipment.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company.

James Ricchiuti, Analyst

Wondering if you could give us a little bit of a better sense within the E&P business and you could comment on Q3 or nine months, how much of that growth is actually coming from equipment, which admittedly has been strong and we know can be a little bit lumpy.

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes. Thanks for the question, Jim. I think we've said historically, when we looked at the MSD business, equipment can be anywhere from 5% of total revenue to 15%. And I would say because of the last four quarters of really strong revenues, orders, and therefore, revenues, we're towards the higher end of that range and maybe a little higher than that. So it's really going to be probably the historic four quarters or a year for the equipment business.

James Ricchiuti, Analyst

And John, I'm also curious about another aspect of equipment in the PCB area. Are you noticing any signs of a cyclical recovery in the flex PCB drilling equipment business, especially considering the somewhat improving smartphone shipments and the possibility of form factor changes in the market next year?

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes, we are actually seeing a pickup in Flex. The business there, as you know, we're a market share leader in flex laser drilling. And so we have seen that pick up. And this is actually the second year where we've seen a healthy business there. It's not at the historic rates that were kind of in the 2000 time frame, 2021 time frame, but it has recovered to a very healthy level.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Shane Brett with Morgan Stanley.

Shane Brett, Analyst

I want to follow up on that E&P question earlier. But considering that your chemistry sales for this year are up high single digits, some back of the envelope math indicates that your tooling business could be almost doubling this year. One, is that kind of the right way to think about it is that in the right ballpark? And just how much visibility do you have on equipment sales on a go-forward basis?

John Lee, President and CEO

Shane, I think your math is roughly right with respect to the equipment business for chemistry equipment. And then I think what we can say is that we've had four strong quarters of bookings for that chemistry equipment. And we can look out certainly the lead times of our equipment are four to twelve months. And so we have added some capacity even to some of our equipment factories, not new buildings, but just expanding within the space that we have. And so we look forward to a couple more quarters at least of large equipment builds. We know that we have the backlog for that.

Shane Brett, Analyst

Got it. And for my follow-up, so your semi customers have spoken about a pickup in equipment shipments from the second half of next year. And I think your peers have been kind of cautiously optimistic towards a pickup from Q2. Just where are you guys in terms of your expectations towards semi revenue cadence through 2026? And if there's sort of any idiosyncratic tailwinds for MKS that should drive your shipments above WFE in 2026, that would be very helpful.

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes. Certainly, we read the same things, and a lot of folks are saying kind of second half '26 is where WFE really picks up. I think we're just focused on this quarter, next quarter, and the next six months. I would say this, our semi revenue has improved double digits year-over-year on a quarterly basis as well as year-over-year. And this is really not with a lot of NAND upgrade yet, right? We had a good NAND upgrade in Q2, not so much in Q3. And so that's still yet to come. Certainly, our customers think that's going to happen. I think we know and we're very confident in our position in our power for the high aspect ratio dielectric etch. We're very confident that when those upgrades occur, that will be us. And then certainly, even without the NAND upgrade, you can see the broad portfolio of semiconductor critical subsystems we have continued to outgrow WFE even this year. And so we look forward to 2026, where WFE follows the trends that people are expecting, another maybe high single-digit increase, we're going to enjoy some of that as well.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from the line of Krish Sankar with TD Cowen.

Sreekrishnan Sankarnarayanan, Analyst

I had two of them too. John, just to follow up on the previous question. If you do assume that in the second half of next year, let's just take a time frame and say, in Q3 of next year's inflection, in theory, should you not start seeing it one quarter earlier? Or do you think there's something else different this cycle?

John Lee, President and CEO

No, I still believe that's correct, Krish. If our customers are shipping in Q3 as you suggested, we would definitely notice that at least a quarter in advance. Our lead times have returned to historically low levels, ranging from four to eight weeks, occasionally extending to twelve weeks based on system complexity. In four- and eight-week time frames, we are witnessing a significant number of in-quarter turns, as we've mentioned over the past few quarters. So yes, I don’t foresee any changes to that assumption, Krish.

Sreekrishnan Sankarnarayanan, Analyst

Got it, John. And then I just had a two-part question. One is, how much of your E&P sales was advanced packaging chemistry? And how much within that was AI? And then on the PCB drilling side, are drill bits a constraint? And is that impacting your business? Or you're not seeing any of that?

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes. I'd like to discuss chemistry and the role of AI in that area. Previously, we mentioned AI servers contributing to the top one-third of the PCB industry, which refers to the substrate. The AI share of that segment increased from 5% to 10% to 15%. Recently, we've observed that AI is also influencing equipment for HDI and MLB, which represent the next and final thirds of the PCB industry, along with the associated chemistry. Overall, our AI revenue has risen from about 5% of the total PCB business, not just the top one-third, to approximately 10% over the past year. When including equipment, we are now reaching a mid-teen percentage of the MSD business attributed to AI. I think your second question may need some clarification...

Sreekrishnan Sankarnarayanan, Analyst

I was just wondering if drill bits are a constraint on the PCB drilling side and if it is impacting your PCB drilling business.

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes, I don't know if I can comment on that drill bits. We don't do that. That's mechanical drilling, I think, what you're referring to. We're really doing laser drilling, but I have not heard that, that mechanical drilling is constraining the industry.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Mani with BofA Securities.

Michael Mani, Analyst

On E&P, could you help us parse through when you look at your growth drivers? What is exactly secular versus more idiosyncratic to MKS? So I mean, it seems like a lot of the HDI and MLB momentum reflects some of this secular uptick in AI. But obviously, with Atotech, you're able to go into many of these opportunity selling both equipment and chemistry. So is there a share gain overlay aspect to it that you're seeing? Can you attribute these wins to that deal? Or is it mainly just broad-based secular growth?

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes, I think it's both, Mike. We are an industry leader in regular growth, benefiting from an increase in square meters of PCB boards and the chemistry that supports this. However, what distinguishes this time and benefits MKS is the impact of AI, which is driving the demand for incredibly thick boards with many layers, including HDI, substrate, and MLB boards. As we mentioned, many of the equipment orders we received related to AI for HDI and MLB are due to our equipment's unique capability to process these thicker boards. We made modifications to our equipment to meet this demand, which led to those orders. Additionally, we have very high attach rates of chemistry to our equipment. Since we are uniquely positioned to supply this equipment compared to our competitors, we are also likely to supply the necessary chemistry, making this situation unique this time around.

Michael Mani, Analyst

Great. Could you provide some insight on gross margins? Considering the potential increase in chemistry revenues over the next few quarters, what would be a reasonable baseline for gross margins going into next year? It looks like the volume trends are favorable, and you’ve seen an uptick in margin-enhancing business. How should we approach modeling margins through 2026?

Ramakumar Mayampurath, Executive Vice President and CFO

Michael, this is Ram. I'll take that. So if you look at the progress we have made in gross margin in 2024, all the way to Q1 of 2025, we were well over 47% in gross margin. Since then, a couple of things have happened. One is the impact of the mix that you talked about of very high fast-growing equipment sales and the impact of tariffs. As we said in our prepared remarks, we have offset the impact of tariffs dollar for dollar, but we'll see an ongoing 50 basis points impact on our gross margin because we are not marking up the tariffs that we pass through, right? So in time, we'll offset that with efficiency and ongoing operational excellence programs. And in the long term, with a normalized mix, we are very confident we can get back to that 47-plus percent that we were having before.

Operator, Operator

Your next call comes from the line of Matthew Prisco with Cantor.

Matthew Prisco, Analyst

I guess to start, how do you see the NAND lumpiness playing out over the next handful of quarters? Kind of what are the primary moving parts you are focused on here as determinants for the linearity of that upgrade cycle?

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes, Matt, I wish I knew. However, I can say that we have ample manufacturing capacity to accommodate any increase in either upgrades or new projects. One of our major customers has indicated that there is still a significant opportunity for upgrades in the 2026 timeframe and possibly beyond, although they mentioned it could be inconsistent. Additionally, there is ongoing industry chatter about NAND pricing, which Melissa asked about earlier, providing a favorable condition. Many chip manufacturers are stating that NAND supply is now limited. Moreover, there is excitement around potential new applications for NAND, particularly driven by AI, which could lead to greater use of NAND in solid-state drives. This could spur additional growth. We are prepared for this, recognizing that it might be inconsistent. We will do our best to keep you informed about when we expect this to happen, but it's important to note that circumstances may change and are likely to do so swiftly.

Matthew Prisco, Analyst

And then maybe you could talk about progress you've made in the litho inspection and metrology part of your business. Maybe remind us of kind of year-to-date highlights and what success would look like to the team from a share gain perspective through next year?

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes, we have discussed our world-class optics as part of our effort to increase our presence in litho metrology inspection. We previously mentioned that revenue in this sector has grown from $150 million to $300 million due to our investments. Although litho metrology inspection has been somewhat steady this past year, we're not unaffected by market cycles, though they are less pronounced than in dep etch. We're pleased with the challenging projects we've taken on, which are now essential to some of the most advanced lithography machines globally. We will keep investing in this area to expand our market share. Litho metrology inspection will always be significant in the semiconductor industry. MKS's strategy is to serve as a foundational technology supplier for the entire industry. Over the years, the importance of different segments may shift, with dep etch being crucial for multi-patterning in one decade and EUV and litho metrology inspection gaining prominence in the next. We hope all markets will grow, and if there are shifts, we can adapt without concern for our current focus.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Barger with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Steve Barger, Analyst

John, you alluded to some of this already, I think, but we've been reading that CoWoS or other packaging formats are evolving from organic interposer to RDL. From your perspective, is that just switching from one format you enable to another? Or is that evolution good for you due to more layers or smaller features?

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes. I think the industry is certainly working hard on various configurations for this redistribution layer, the RDL layer using CoWoS, CoWoS-R, CoWoS-L and then even CoOP, right? So I would say this, that RDL layer is more complex as we move to organic layers. That's good for us. That's our traditional strength, organic layers versus silicon. And when you go to organic layers, the RDL layers increase a little bit, maybe from one layer to two or three. So that's good for us. But I think the bigger picture are the 40 layers beneath that, that are all the substrates and PCBs. And that's really the largest growth factor for us. And that used to be 20 layers, now it's 40. As we visit customers, as we work with our customers, they're already looking at 80 layers. So think about that. It's gone from 20 to 40 just in the last couple of years, and we're working on 80. And the one after that is three digits, let's put it that way in terms of number of layers. Each of these layers made one at a time. You can imagine the challenges of yield, making sure that when you put 100 layers on top of each other that it still yields the same as if you had four. So those are great challenges for the industry and opportunities for us. So that's the bigger picture. At the same time, to your point, there's a lot of CoWoS-L or S, coOp, and all that going on. We're involved in all of that. If it goes more toward organic, that's a tailwind for us. But the bigger picture is 40 layers going to 80 going to 100.

Steve Barger, Analyst

Right. That's good detail. And just listening to some of that, this is being driven by compute right now, which is high growth, but smaller unit volume maybe. But at some point, this likely transitions to like PC or mobile, higher volume applications. Is that your understanding? And any view on like timeline of when that could happen?

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes. We believe our perspective aligns with the industry's view that as inferencing expands to PCs and phones, the chips will become larger and more complex. There will be an increase in the number of chips that need to be integrated. Consequently, we will likely see more layers of PCBs or substrates required underneath. This development has not fully materialized yet, Steve, which presents a significant potential growth opportunity for us. Everyone is putting in effort to ensure that AI fuels this inferencing demand. While the timeline is uncertain, we are optimistic that this change will occur, or at least something similar will come to fruition.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Liu with Mizuho.

David Liu, Analyst

For Vijay. Maybe the first one on revenue by geo. Can you just highlight what types of trends you're looking at split by geo? I know your customers mentioned some write-offs, but there's also maybe some tailwinds in the U.S.

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes. Well, certainly, a lot of Asia is driving a lot of the growth for sure. But as you know, some of that's coming back to the United States as well as to Japan and Europe as people start onshoring chip fabs and packaging fabs for that matter. But I think the other larger geographic trend is China Plus One trend as things move to Southeast Asia. As you know, we are building some factories in Southeast Asia to meet that demand because our customers are moving there. So I think there is a lot of geographic movement in the industry today, especially the packaging industry, but also the chip industry as you see fabs coming up in the United States, Europe, Japan, and potentially India as well.

David Liu, Analyst

Okay. And then I don't know, any comment on the recent rumors of potentially selling the specialty coating divestiture?

John Lee, President and CEO

Well, we're aware of those articles, but we really don't comment on market speculation, Dave.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Joe Quatrochi with Wells Fargo.

Joseph Quatrochi, Analyst

Maybe one on the semi side. Given the entity list affiliate rule, it looks like it's delayed. Have you seen any change in order patterns or discussions with your customers?

John Lee, President and CEO

Thanks for the question, Joe. Not really, because when that rule was introduced, I don't think the industry had time to respond. Some of our customers have mentioned potential impacts, but now it's been postponed. As you know, the tariff landscape changes daily. We haven't had any different discussions with our customers regarding that specific rule.

Joseph Quatrochi, Analyst

Got it. And then just your, I guess, conservative comments in terms of looking at chemical growth into 2026. Is there a particular end market that you're maybe a little bit more conservative in the outlook for? Is it smartphones or PCs, something like that?

John Lee, President and CEO

I would say the PC and smartphone markets have been stable. However, there are factors that could potentially drive growth in the future, although it's uncertain if they will. One possibility is the introduction of new phone designs, particularly foldable models. Another aspect to consider is the impact of inferencing capabilities extending to phones and PCs, which could significantly alter the forecast, leaning towards a growth outlook for PCs rather than maintaining a more stable perspective, which has been our assumption.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Miller with the Benchmark Company.

Mark Miller, Analyst

You noted strength in dep and etch. Are you just getting share in those areas?

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes. I think we've had a traditional strength there in deposition and etch. That's kind of a legacy MKS business. I would say this, we've gained share in multiple areas. We talked a little bit about even dissolved gas. And as the industry moves towards more advanced nodes like 2-nanometer, the ability to clean wafers, the ability to do soft etching and soft cleaning. These are all things that are driving some of our subsystems in the reactive gas part of our business. So we've got a lot of good opportunities there that we've been capitalizing on. And of course, power for NAND is something that we are very confident we will hold that share and as that grows into higher aspect ratio etching for things like DRAM. And then we're working hard on conductor etch. And we have some great solutions there that our customers have told us are industry-leading.

Mark Miller, Analyst

I was wondering if you could give us some color on lasers and your outlook for next year from the laser business.

John Lee, President and CEO

Yes, Lasers has been a little muted because, as you know, lasers are used in industrial applications, and industrial applications have been more muted in the last couple of years. PMI is still kind of hovering around 50% or a little below. So I think we really have to see a change in that, Mark, before we would kind of see the lasers part of our business grow.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jim Schneider with Goldman Sachs.

James Schneider, Analyst

I was wondering if you could maybe kind of comment on, given all the things were covered earlier with respect to tariffs, how you expect your direct China business to trend directionally heading into next year? What do you expect it to be sort of up, down or flattish?

John Lee, President and CEO

In China, we have two markets that involve our business. The semiconductor equipment sold directly to China is not included in our numbers. We still make some sales there, within what's allowed, but that has been out of our numbers for a while. We do have indirect exposure to China through our OEM customers, which is well understood. Additionally, we sell advanced electronics packaging to customers in China, which continues to be a significant part of our business. However, many of those customers are also expanding their capacities in Southeast Asia, as we mentioned earlier. As a result, we expect that while China will remain important for our packaging business, the direct semiconductor aspect will be less significant, and we anticipate shifts towards packaging operations outside of China.

James Schneider, Analyst

And then maybe relative to your leverage target, you've talked consistently about 2x in 2027. Maybe talk about sort of the level of urgency to get there. Could you achieve it perhaps a little bit earlier than that? And maybe talk about some of the levers you might pull to sort of achieve it?

Ramakumar Mayampurath, Executive Vice President and CFO

Jim, this is Ram. I'll take that. So we have made great progress in keeping our focus on deleveraging. We paid down $400 million in prepayment this year. That's following $426 million of prepayment we did last year. And that remains our focus. Our capital allocation strategy has not changed, investing in our business and then paying our debt down. That's been our focus. In terms of accelerating that, the best way to do that will be with our current cost structures when we see the top line come back to more normal levels, we will be able to generate more cash and accelerate our debt payment. 2.5, you're right, is the net leverage target we want to get to, and that's our goal. I don't want to speculate on a time when we'll get there, but 2.5 is our net leverage target.

Operator, Operator

I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Paretosh Misra for closing remarks.

Paretosh Misra, Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you all for joining us today and for your interest in MKS. Kathy, you may close the call, please.