Earnings Call Transcript - STM Q1 2026

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the STMicroelectronics First Quarter 2026 Earnings Release Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Moira, the Chorus Call operator. The conference is being recorded. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Jerome Ramel, EVP, Corporate Development and Integrated External Communications. Please go ahead.

Jerome Ramel, EVP, Corporate Development and Integrated External Communications

Thank you, Moira. Thank you, everyone, for joining our first quarter 2026 financial results call. Hosting the call today is Jean-Marc Chery, ST President and Chief Executive Officer. Joining Jean-Marc on the call are Lorenzo Grandi, President and CFO; and Marco Cassis, President, Analog, Power and Discrete, MEMS and Sensor Group, and Head of STMicroelectronics Strategy, System Research and Applications and Innovation Office. This live webcast and presentation materials can be accessed on ST Investor Relations website. A replay will be available shortly after the conclusion of this call. This call will include forward-looking statements that involve risk factors that could cause ST results to differ materially from management expectations and plans. We encourage you to review the safe harbor statement contained in the press release that was issued with the results this morning and also in ST's most recent regulatory filings for a full description of these risk factors. Also, to ensure all participants have an opportunity to ask questions during the Q&A session, please limit yourself to one question and a brief follow-up. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Jean-Marc Chery, ST President and CEO.

Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Thank you, Jerome. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining ST for our Q1 2026 earnings conference call. I will start with an overview of the first quarter, including business dynamics, and I will hand over to Lorenzo for the detailed financial overview. I will then comment on the outlook and conclude before answering your questions. So starting with Q1. Our first quarter net revenues were $3.1 billion, including about $40 million revenues associated with NXP's MEMS sensor business, which we acquired during the quarter. Excluding this contribution on a sequential basis, net revenues were above the midpoint of our business outlook range, driven mainly by higher revenues in our engaged customer programs in Personal Electronics and in Communication Equipment and Computer Peripherals. Gross margin was 33.8% or 34.1%, excluding the impact of the purchase price allocation, so-called PPA, following our acquisition of NXP's MEMS sensor business. Excluding impairment, restructuring charges and other related phase-out costs and purchase price allocation PPA effects from our acquisition of NXP's MEMS sensor business, non-U.S. GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.30. During the first quarter, inventory in our balance sheet increased slightly, and we continue to work down inventories in distribution. They are now normalized. We generated a negative $720 million free cash flow, including $895 million cash out related to the payment of our acquisition of NXP's MEMS sensor business. Let's now discuss our business dynamics during Q1. First, we had a strong booking momentum during Q1 with book-to-bill well above 1 across all end markets and regions. In Automotive, during the quarter, revenue declined 10% sequentially. Year-over-year, revenues increased 15%, marking the return to year-over-year growth. Automotive design momentum progressed with various OEM and Tier 1 ecosystems. We had design wins across electric, hybrid and traditional vehicles, spanning onboard chargers, DC-DC converters, powertrain active suspension and vehicle control electronics. Key products include power semiconductors, smart power devices, automotive microcontrollers, analog devices and sensors. In February, we completed the acquisition of NXP's MEMS sensor business. The acquired technology and product portfolio are highly complementary to ST's and strengthen our automotive sensor business. We are progressing as planned with the integration into our portfolio and operational flows. Industrial decreased by 1% sequentially and improved 26% year-over-year. Importantly, inventories in distribution further decreased and are now normalized. In Industrial, our broad portfolio of microcontrollers, sensing, analog and power devices is strongly aligned with industrial transformation trends and the evolving needs of physical AI. During the quarter, we saw design wins across industrial automation and robotics, building automation, power systems, health care and home appliances. We announced our collaboration with NVIDIA to integrate ST sensors, microcontrollers and motor control solutions with the NVIDIA Robotics ecosystem. This aims to help developers design, train and deploy humanoid robots and other physical AI systems with higher efficiency, reliability and scalability. We are also proud to have been ranked the #1 vendor worldwide for general purpose microcontrollers for the fifth consecutive year based on research by Omdia. During March, we announced that the first batch of STM32 wafers fully produced in China for ST by our partner, Huahong, has been delivered to customers in China. This was a major step forward in ST China for China supply chain strategy. For Personal Electronics, first quarter revenues were down 14% sequentially, reflecting the seasonality of our engaged customer programs and up 21% year-over-year, reflecting increasing content. During the quarter, we reinforced our position in mobile platforms and connected consumer devices, supported by both engaged programs and a broad open market portfolio spanning sensors, secure solutions and power management. We announced support for motion sensing and secure wireless technology on Qualcomm Technologies' newly launched Personal AI platform based on ST smart sensor and secure NFC controllers. For Communications Equipment and Computer Peripherals, first quarter revenues were above our expectations, up 3% sequentially and 41% year-over-year. We continue to reinforce our position as a supplier of critical semiconductors that power, cool and connect AI data centers from the grid to the core and from the core to the user. ST is now strategically positioned to capture upside from new AI-driven programs, leveraging specialized technologies to enable the evolving AI infrastructure. We confirm our data centers revenue expectation to be nicely above USD 500 million for 2026 and well above $1 billion for 2027. In a major development, we expanded our strategic engagement with Amazon Web Services through a multiyear multibillion U.S. dollar commercial engagement to enable new high-performance compute infrastructure for cloud and AI data centers. This engagement covers a broad range of semiconductor solutions, leveraging ST's portfolio of proprietary technologies. During the quarter, we secured multiple design wins for silicon and silicon carbide-based power solutions. These support the drive for higher power density and increased energy efficiency for next-generation AI compute and data center architectures. We announced the expansion of our 800-volt DC AI data center power conversion portfolio with new 12-volt and 6-volt architectures in collaboration with NVIDIA. With this, ST now provides a complete portfolio for the 800-volt VDC power distribution inside gigawatt scale compute infrastructure, leveraging ST power, analog and mixed signal and microcontroller products. We also announced the start of high-volume production for our silicon photonics-based photonics ICs PIC100 platform used by hyperscalers for optical interconnect for data centers and AI clusters. The technology enables higher bandwidth, low latency and greater energy efficiency. As I mentioned last quarter, the momentum in optical interconnect technologies is also driving demand growth for our high-performance microcontrollers in pluggable optics. We are also seeing initial demand for our secure element in data server power supply units to support authentication and detect data manipulation attacks. Our low-earth-orbit satellite business based mainly on our BiCMOS and panel-level packaging technologies strongly progressed during the quarter. We were selected to develop a power amplifier controller for direct-to-cell satellites based on our proprietary BCD technology by our main low earth orbit customer, and we continued to ramp shipments to our second largest customer. For sustainability, we issued our annual integrated report during the quarter. This report integrates our sustainability statement detailing our performance in 2025. We made further progress and remain on track for our commitment to becoming carbon neutral by '27 on Scopes 1 and 2 and on product transportation, business travel and employee commuting for Scope 3. We also target the sourcing of 100% renewable electricity by 2027 and achieved 86% in 2025. Now over to Lorenzo, who will present our key financial figures.

Lorenzo Grandi, President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Thank you, Jean-Marc. Good morning, everyone. Let's start with a detailed review of the first quarter, starting with revenues on a year-over-year basis by reportable segment. Analog Products, MEMS and Sensors grew 23.2%, mainly due to Imaging and MEMS and to a lesser extent, Analog. Power and Discrete products decreased 1.8%. Embedded Processing revenues were up 31.3% due to general purpose MCU and to a lesser extent, custom processing, and RF and Optical Communication grew 33.9%. By end market, Communication Equipment and Computer Peripherals grew 41%; Industrial 26%; Personal Electronics 21%; and Automotive 15%. Year-over-year, sales to OEMs and distribution increased 24.5% and 19.2%, respectively. On a sequential basis, Analog Products, MEMS and Sensors decreased by 9.1%, Power and Discrete by 5.4%, Embedded Processing by 4% and RF & Optical Communication by 9%. By end market on a sequential basis, Communication Equipment and Computer Peripherals was up 3% while the other end markets declined: Industrial was down 1%, Automotive down 10% and Personal Electronics down 14%. Turning now to profitability. Gross profit in the first quarter was $1.05 billion, increasing 24.3% on a year-over-year basis. Gross margin was 33.8%, increasing 40 basis points year-over-year, mainly due to lower unused capacity charges and better product mix. On a sequential basis, gross margin decreased by 140 basis points. Gross profit included $11 million purchase price allocation PPA effects from our acquisition of NXP's MEMS sensor business. Non-U.S. GAAP gross margin, excluding this item, was 34.1%. Excluding the impact of NXP's MEMS sensor business and related PPA effects, gross margin stood at 33.9%, 20 basis points better than the midpoint of ST guidance, which did not include any impact related to our acquisition of NXP's MEMS sensor business. Q1 gross margin included about 50 basis points of negative impact resulting from a nonrecurring cost related to our manufacturing reshaping programs. The negative impact on gross margin from the just-mentioned nonrecurring cost is expected to remain at a similar level over the rest of the year. Total net operating expenses, excluding restructuring, amounted to $904 million in the first quarter. Excluding the purchase price allocation PPA effects from our acquisition of NXP's MEMS sensor business, non-U.S. GAAP OpEx stood at $885 million. Non-U.S. GAAP net OpEx included OpEx related to the acquired NXP MEMS sensor business and a one-off impact related to a settlement with a supplier. Excluding these two items, non-U.S. GAAP net OpEx was broadly in line with the expectations given in January, which did not include any impact related to our acquisition. For the second quarter of 2026, we expect non-U.S. GAAP net OpEx to stand between $950 million and $960 million. The sequential increase is mainly due to calendar base effect, start-up costs and one incremental month of OpEx related to the acquired NXP's MEMS sensor business. Excluding these items, Q2 2026 non-U.S. GAAP net OpEx would slightly decrease sequentially. In light of our acquisition of NXP's MEMS sensor business and the new AI revenues opportunity, let me give you some more color on the 2026 OpEx. For full year 2026, we now expect like-for-like net OpEx to be up mid- to high-single digit year-over-year versus our previous expectation for a low single-digit increase as we are accelerating our investment in new business opportunities, including NXP's MEMS sensor business acquisition. Including the exchange rate impact, net OpEx should be up low double digit year-over-year. In the first quarter, we reported $70 million of operating income, which includes $71 million for impairment, restructuring charges and other related phase-out costs. These charges are related to the execution of the previously announced company-wide program to reshape our manufacturing footprint and resize our global cost base. Q1 operating income also included $30 million purchase price allocation effects from our acquisition of NXP's MEMS sensor business. Excluding these items, Q1 non-U.S. GAAP operating income stood at $171 million and non-U.S. GAAP operating margin was 5.5% with Analog Products, MEMS and Sensors at 12.2%, Power and Discrete negative 21.5%, Embedded Processing at 16.9% and RF & Optical Communication at 14.9%. First quarter 2026 net income was $37 million compared to a net income of $56 million in the year-ago quarter. Diluted earnings per share were $0.04 compared to $0.06 one year ago. Non-U.S. GAAP net income stood at $122 million and non-U.S. GAAP diluted earnings per share stood at $0.13. Net cash from operating activities totaled $534 million in the first quarter compared to $574 million in the year-ago quarter. Net CapEx was $362 million in the first quarter compared to $530 million in the year-ago quarter. Free cash flow was negative at $723 million in the first quarter compared to a positive $30 million in Q1 2025. Q1 2026 free cash flow includes $895 million cash out related to the payment for the acquisition of NXP's MEMS sensor business. Inventory at the end of this quarter was $3.17 billion compared to $3.14 billion in Q4 2025 and $3.01 billion in Q1 2025. Days sales of inventory at quarter end were 140 days, in line with our expectation compared to 130 days of the previous quarter and 167 days in the year-ago quarter. Cash dividend paid to stakeholders in the first quarter of 2026 totaled $71 million. ST maintained its financial strength with a net financial position that remained solid at $2 billion as of March 28, 2026, reflecting total liquidity of $4.57 billion and total financial debt of $2.57 billion. Now back to Jean-Marc, who will comment on our outlook.

Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Thank you, Lorenzo. Now let's move to our business outlook for Q2 2026. We are expecting Q2 2026 revenues at $3.45 billion, plus/minus 350 basis points. At the midpoint, our Q2 2026 net revenues will increase 11.6% sequentially and by 24.9% year-over-year. We expect our gross margin to be about 34.8%, plus/minus 200 basis points, including about 100 basis points of unused capacity charges. Non-U.S. GAAP gross margin is expected to be about 35.2%. This business outlook does not include any impact for potential further changes to global trade tariffs compared to the current situation. To conclude, in the first quarter, despite the macroeconomic uncertainty, we saw improving demand with strong booking and normalized inventory in distribution. In the second quarter, we expect revenues well above average seasonality as well as an increased gross margin. We have a clear path to improve gross margin while staying at the forefront of innovation. We expect 2026 revenues to show double-digit growth beyond our addressable market dynamics and our already engaged customer programs. This growth will be driven by new AI programs for which we leverage our specialized technologies to enable the evolving AI infrastructure. Before handing over to Jerome, I am pleased to announce that as we did in March for Cloud AI and intelligent sensing, on May 4, we will host a dedicated call on ST's low-earth-orbit satellites, explaining how we are going to achieve our ambition of well above $3 billion cumulative revenues over the period 2026 to 2028 for this opportunity. You will receive the invitation today. Thank you, and we are now ready to answer your questions.

Operator, Operator

The first question comes from the line of Joshua Buchalter from TD Securities.

Joshua Buchalter, Analyst, TD Securities

Congrats on the very solid results. So you have a lot of idiosyncratic growth drivers hitting this year across data center, silicon photonics, LEO satellite and then your largest customers' normal seasonal ramp. Can you help us with the shape of the year and how we should expect them to layer into the model? Should we expect Q3 and Q4 this year to also be above seasonal because of these company-specific growth drivers?

Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

I am taking the question. Of course, I will not guide on the full year 2026, but I can share a few elements. First, the strong bookings of Q1 have shown absolutely no pull-in order; it is a well-balanced loading across the 2026 quarters. The billable portion in 2026 from the bookings we received in Q1 represents approximately 85% to 90% of the bookings we received. This gives us confidence that in H2 we could achieve the usual seasonality of H2 versus H1. Looking at the current dynamics for 2026, Automotive will grow for ADAS and sensors, supported by the boost from the acquisition of NXP's MEMS and for silicon carbide. In Industrial, we will see solid and strong growth in general purpose microcontrollers. In Personal Electronics, as we saw in Q1, our engaged customer programs in Sensor and Analog will contribute to growth but not be a large contributor in H2 because of the introduction profile of new devices. In Data Center, we are seeing very strong demand acceleration, including cloud optical interconnect, photonics via PIC100, BiCMOS and also demand for our general purpose microcontrollers, analog and power discrete. We confirm the data centers revenue expectation to be nicely above USD 500 million for 2026. One negative aspect for revenue in 2026 versus 2025 is that capacity reservation fees will decrease by about $140 million compared to last year. That said, our backlog is well loaded and we have a strong confidence level to have H2 perform with usual seasonality on top of ADAS, SiC, sensors, general purpose microcontrollers, AI infrastructure and low-earth-orbit satellites, which will be very strong contributors to ST's performance in 2026.

Joshua Buchalter, Analyst, TD Securities

I appreciate it. Could you comment on the pricing backdrop? One of your large competitors said pricing was coming in a bit better than they planned and now expect flat pricing. Have you seen changes in the pricing environment over the last three months? What are your expectations on pricing for the year?

Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

I'll let Lorenzo comment on that.

Lorenzo Grandi, President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

If you remember last quarter, we were talking about price declines in the low to mid-single-digit range. There has been some evolution since then. In Q1, our price decline was as expected, in the low single-digit. Today we see an environment with some selective price increases that we also expect. At this point, I would say our expectation is to have a very low single-digit price decline for the year. So overall, pricing looks better than it did a few months ago.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from Francois Bouvignies from UBS.

Francois-Xavier Bouvignies, Analyst, UBS

Maybe just a follow-up on pricing. We have seen some announcements of price increases in April and you are not the only one. Can you give us an idea of how much of your revenues would be impacted by those increases? And Lorenzo, what about the gross margin impact? I imagine it takes some time to flow into your P&L. When should we expect some gross margin impact from these price increases?

Lorenzo Grandi, President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

When we look at the price environment, there are selective price increases; it's not across all customers and products. Looking at the dynamic from Q1 to Q2, pricing is largely neutral; it's not a boost but it's not a detractor, so gross margin is expected to remain substantially flat relative to this pricing effect. The sequential improvement in gross margin from Q1 to Q2 is driven by mix and lower unused capacity charges as fabs are better loaded. However, there remains a negative temporary impact on manufacturing efficiency due to our reshaping program: we are transferring production between process nodes and wafer sizes, such as from 200-millimeter to 300-millimeter and from 150-millimeter to 200-millimeter for silicon carbide. These transitions create suboptimal efficiency in the near term and are the main detractor on the sequential gross margin. Pricing is neutral at this stage.

Francois-Xavier Bouvignies, Analyst, UBS

Maybe one for Jean-Marc. If we look at your customer programs and exclude Personal Electronics — so silicon carbide, photonics and satellites — should we expect your revenues to grow quarter-on-quarter for the year? No seasonality; these programs should increase gradually. Is that the right assumption excluding Personal Electronics?

Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Excluding Personal Electronics, that is what we expect.

Operator, Operator

Next question comes from Janardan Menon from Jefferies.

Janardan Menon, Analyst, Jefferies

Just a follow-up on gross margin, Lorenzo. Looking into the second half, what are the various puts and takes on gross margin evolution? Your top line is growing possibly faster than previously expected. Will utilization and underused capacity charges reduce faster? There's normally a lag between revenue trends and gross margin. Can you comment qualitatively on the drivers in the second half? Also, how do you feel about the model of getting to 45% gross margin given the current strength in end markets and favorable product mix?

Lorenzo Grandi, President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

The gross margin will improve this year compared to last year and will improve sequentially from Q1 to Q2 to Q3 and Q4. Drivers include: improvement in unused capacity charges as revenues rise, though some unused capacity will remain, particularly on legacy technologies; progressive manufacturing efficiency improvements, although the main benefit of the transition will be more visible in 2027; and continued positive mix effects. Capacity reservation fees are now much lower compared to last year. There is a temporary cost related to the manufacturing transformation that will continue to affect efficiency in the near term. We may also see a slightly higher input cost for manufacturing in the second half, given the overall environment. Starting from our expected Q2 gross margin of about 35.2%, we expect progressive improvement in Q3 and Q4.

Janardan Menon, Analyst, Jefferies

On your Q2 outlook of 11.6% sequential growth, is there already a significant contribution from optical connectivity on the data center, which is driving that upside? Or is Q2 more driven by a pickup in industrial, general-purpose microcontrollers, etc., with optical kicking in more meaningfully in the second half?

Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Optical is starting to contribute. In Q1 it contributed mainly through high-performance microcontrollers. The main part of optical interconnect revenue via photonics and BiCMOS will be in H2, but microcontrollers are already participating in the growth.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from Gianmarco Bonacina from Banca Akros.

Gianmarco Bonacina, Analyst, Banca Akros

You gave some figures for AI revenues: nicely above $500 million for this year and well above $1 billion for next year. Regarding your commercial activity, you reported the AWS engagement. Are you working commercially to secure engagements with other hyperscalers? How confident are you that the opportunity with AWS can be replicated with other hyperscalers in the midterm?

Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

For the midterm, our hyperscaler strategy covers three main application domains: the network flow, power flow and cooling/thermal infrastructure. For network flow, which includes optical interconnect, we are engaging beyond AWS and ST is positioned to provide photonics and related solutions to other hyperscalers. For power flow, which covers the electronics that supply processors from high voltage down to low voltages, ST provides a broad product portfolio from power switches to microcontrollers, drivers and sensing; this extends beyond AWS to other hyperscalers. For thermal and cooling infrastructure, we are also positioned with power solutions, microcontrollers and analog. AWS will be a strong driver for ST's growth over the next several years, but our ambition is much broader thanks to our product portfolio. ST is uniquely capable of providing solutions across photonics, MEMS, microcontrollers, power switches, drivers, controllers and sensors, which positions us to be an important contributor to this market beyond any single hyperscaler.

Gianmarco Bonacina, Analyst, Banca Akros

Just a quick follow-up for Lorenzo on the change in the OpEx guidance. You're referring to clean OpEx excluding PPA and restructuring, correct?

Lorenzo Grandi, President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Yes. We exclude PPA and restructuring. In addition, the NXP acquisition was not previously included in our guidance. We see significant revenue opportunity and are accelerating development programs, which increases expenses. That said, when looking at net OpEx as an expense-to-sales ratio, the ratio in 2026 is expected to materially decline compared to 2025.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from Andrew Gardiner from Citi.

Andrew Gardiner, Analyst, Citi

On the AI side, you've reiterated nicely above $500 million for this year and well above $1 billion for next year. Things are moving very quickly in this market. What is the potential for upside there? More importantly, where are you seeing capacity constraints that may limit upside relative to demand? And Lorenzo, could you provide the baseline for the OpEx increases you described earlier? I missed the specifics.

Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

On the technologies and components we provide for these AI solutions, we are in ramp-up mode, particularly on photonics and associated technologies. The unconstrained demand we see today for 2026 and 2027 is well above the nicely above $500 million for 2026 and well above $1 billion for 2027. Our ambition is to fulfill this unconstrained demand, but we need to ramp up the capacity already installed in the second half of the year and implement additional capacity. We aim to fulfill as much unconstrained demand as we can. We will provide more color in July at our next meeting, but I confirm that 2026 will show a significant breakthrough in AI data center–linked revenues.

Lorenzo Grandi, President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

For OpEx, net OpEx as a sales ratio will decrease in 2026 compared to 2025. When I say OpEx like-for-like I mean same FX and same perimeter, not including the NXP acquisition. Like-for-like OpEx is expected to be up mid-single-digit year-over-year in 2026 versus 2025. About half of this increase is related to start-up costs for 300-millimeter fabs and 200-millimeter silicon carbide fabs linked to our transfers. These are not structural increases and will not remain forever. If we include the NXP MEMS business acquisition and the impact of exchange rates, excluding restructuring, we should be up low double-digit versus 2025. This assumes an exchange rate of about 1.15–1.16 EUR/USD and includes roughly $50 million additional expenses related to NXP's MEMS business in 2026.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from Sébastien Sztabowicz from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Sébastien Sztabowicz, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

On the transformation program, where do you stand right now in terms of capacity build and when do you expect to have the full synergies benefit? Is it for 2027 or more 2028? And the second question: on silicon carbide and your JV with Sanan in China, where are you in ramp-up and when do you expect the first volumes to ramp meaningfully in China?

Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

For the transformation program, we are in the middle of execution. Customer qualification timelines are important, especially when moving analog technology from 200-millimeter to 300-millimeter. The full benefits of increased 300-millimeter capacity at Agrate will be more visible at the end of 2027 and into 2028, not because we are moving slowly internally, but because customers need time to qualify applications. For silicon carbide, the move from 6-inch to 8-inch is similar. We are not limited by our capabilities in Catania and in the JV with Sanan in Chongqing; the constraint is customer qualification time. We are engaged with a major European automotive platform that is experiencing strong success, and we must qualify carefully. We expect the benefits to be more visible at the end of 2027 and into 2028, and in Chongqing with Sanan we expect to start production and load the infrastructure starting at the end of 2026.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from Sandeep Deshpande from JPMorgan.

Sandeep Deshpande, Analyst, JPMorgan

Regarding the acquisition of NXP's sensors business, how did that business grow in the past and how will it contribute to growth this year? My follow-up is on gross margin: you said underutilization charges do not fully go away this year, but should we assume that in 2027, underutilization charges go away and, with mix shifting more to AI products and satellites, there could be a much bigger move in gross margin in full year 2027?

Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Marco will take the question on the historical growth and the contribution of the former NXP MEMS business, and Lorenzo will address the second question on gross margin.

Marco Cassis, President, Analog, Power & Discrete, MEMS and Sensor Group; Head of Strategy, System Research and Applications and Innovation Office

On NXP's MEMS business, combining the capabilities of the two companies accelerates market opportunities, particularly in automotive safety applications, which move at the pace of the automotive industry but represent an acceleration in design-ins and design wins because we are putting together complementary strengths. NXP MEMS has a strong positioning in accelerometers using mono-silicon crystal technology, which delivers excellent temperature performance for automotive applications, and ST brings strong 6-axis capabilities. We expect the combined offering to grow faster than the historical market growth in safety applications and to contribute positively to the overall MEMS business growth.

Sandeep Deshpande, Analyst, JPMorgan

How much did that business grow in the past couple of years?

Marco Cassis, President, Analog, Power & Discrete, MEMS and Sensor Group; Head of Strategy, System Research and Applications and Innovation Office

Historically, NXP's MEMS business grew in the low single-digit range, which is typical for safety applications in automotive.

Sandeep Deshpande, Analyst, JPMorgan

Understood.

Lorenzo Grandi, President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

On gross margin, I confirm we expect gross margin to improve starting from Q2 and to continue improving sequentially through Q3 and Q4, driven by seasonal revenue patterns, continued reduction of unused capacity charges (although some will remain), and mix improvement. The temporary negative impact from our reshaping program will progressively decline as we complete transitions; we expect to see further benefits in 2027. Our target path toward above 40% gross margin is linked to higher revenue levels — specifically, when the company reaches quarterly revenues above $4 billion we would expect gross margin closer to 40% — and completion of the reshaping plan will further support margin expansion in 2027 and beyond.

Jerome Ramel, EVP, Corporate Development and Integrated External Communications

Thank you, Sandeep. We have time for a very last question.

Operator, Operator

The last question for today is from Lee Simpson from Morgan Stanley.

Lee Simpson, Analyst, Morgan Stanley

A couple of questions around data center power and photonics. On data center power, it sounded like you have design wins across silicon and silicon carbide in first stage. Can you give a sense for engagements around gallium nitride and where regionally that may emerge? And on voltage regulation in the second stage, is anything happening there that will be meaningful as we look out to 2027?

Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Marco will answer the details. For context, the nicely above USD 500 million revenue for 2026 is spread approximately 40% to analog and power and 60% to microcontroller and RF/optical connectivity. That gives you a sense of the composition.

Marco Cassis, President, Analog, Power & Discrete, MEMS and Sensor Group; Head of Strategy, System Research and Applications and Innovation Office

Regarding power, we've expanded the portfolio to cover from the grid down to driving GPUs. This includes silicon, silicon carbide with different voltage ratings and new packages where we are introducing offerings. GaN is important for some 800-volt applications, and we expect those to develop during this year and next year. Our expanded portfolio will translate into revenues in 2026 and more so in 2027. This engagement spans the ecosystem of power supply makers, many based in Taiwan and also across the U.S. ecosystem. Overall, the trend covers the full ST portfolio, which is now richer and covers all stages of power conversion.

Lee Simpson, Analyst, Morgan Stanley

On the photonics side, ST often secures a lead customer and helps develop the market. The transition to a standard product in the market is where the real ROI and accretive margins appear. Are we seeing that the PIC100 could become a standard product in the market?

Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

I wouldn't call PIC100 a pure standard product; it may become a standard for specific applications. ST is well positioned in silicon photonics: we are the only company capable of providing silicon photonics technology on 12-inch wafers, which enables us to scale capacity in Crolles and potentially later in Agrate. Many innovations will appear in optical solutions, including near-package optics and co-packaged optics, and silicon photonics is a key enabler for these technologies. ST will compete broadly in this market and has unique capabilities to scale.

Jerome Ramel, EVP, Corporate Development and Integrated External Communications

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. This is the end of this call. Thank you for joining us today, and we remain at your disposal if you have any follow-up questions. Sorry for those we couldn't squeeze into the question queue. Thank you very much. Have a good day.

Lorenzo Grandi, President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Thank you.

Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.