Teleconferência de Resultados do 4º Trimestre do Ano Fiscal de 2026 da Wolfspeed (WOLF): Receita de Data Centers de IA Dobra

Principais destaques

• A Wolfspeed divulgou receita de US$ 150 milhões no 4º trimestre fiscal de 2026, no ponto médio da faixa de projeção da administração.
• A receita da divisão Power atingiu aproximadamente US$ 106 milhões, alta de 6% na comparação trimestral, enquanto a receita da divisão Materials foi de aproximadamente US$ 43 milhões.
• A receita com data centers de IA cresceu cerca de 20% em relação ao 3º trimestre fiscal e mais que dobrou do ano fiscal de 2025 para o de 2026, compensando parcialmente os resultados mais fracos do setor automotivo.
• A margem bruta ajustada não GAAP avançou 70 pontos-base na comparação trimestral, ficando em 19,9% negativos. A administração apontou a utilização das fábricas como a principal limitação e estimou o ponto de equilíbrio (breakeven) da margem bruta próximo a uma taxa de execução de receita anual de US$ 800 milhões, a depender do mix de produtos.
• A Wolfspeed encerrou o trimestre com aproximadamente US$ 1,1 bilhão em caixa e investimentos de curto prazo. O fluxo de caixa operacional foi negativo em US$ 54 milhões, incluindo um benefício de US$ 41 milhões decorrente da redução de estoques.
• Para o 1º trimestre fiscal de 2027, a administração projetou receita entre US$ 140 milhões e US$ 160 milhões, margem bruta não GAAP negativa e despesas operacionais não GAAP entre US$ 62 milhões e US$ 66 milhões.

Principais dados financeiros

Desempenho operacional e dos negócios

Os data centers de IA continuaram sendo o mercado final de maior crescimento da Wolfspeed. A receita dessa divisão subiu aproximadamente 20% na comparação trimestral e mais que dobrou em relação ao ano anterior no ano fiscal de 2026. A empresa citou conquistas de projetos (design wins) junto a fornecedores de fontes de alimentação, incluindo LITEON e MacMic, atendendo a múltiplos clientes hyperscalers.

A administração afirmou que a migração para arquiteturas de data center de 800 volts está aumentando o conteúdo de carboneto de silício nos sistemas de energia. A Wolfspeed está buscando oportunidades em fontes de alimentação AC/DC, unidades de energia ininterrupta/bateria de backup, supercapacitores, fusíveis eletrônicos (e-fuses), conversão DC/DC de alta tensão e transformadores de estado sólido. Seus projetos abrangem dispositivos de 750 volts, 1.200 volts, 2,3 kilovolts e 3,3 kilovolts.

No segmento automotivo, a empresa destacou a parceria anunciada anteriormente com a Toyota para sistemas de carregamento de bordo e uma primeira conquista de contrato com um fornecedor Tier 1 europeu que atende a uma grande montadora (OEM) alemã. No entanto, a receita automotiva foi mais fraca durante o trimestre, e a administração afirmou que a demanda dos clientes e as mudanças no mix de produtos continuam difíceis de prever.

A Wolfspeed também apresentou sua tecnologia MOSFET de carboneto de silício de quinta geração e anunciou a prontidão comercial de seu MOSFET de 10 kilovolts. A geração 5 está sendo produzida na fábrica automatizada de 200 mm de Mohawk Valley. A empresa também assinou um memorando de entendimento com a GE Aerospace cobrindo a adoção de carboneto de silício de alta tensão e formatos padronizados de módulos de potência.

Na divisão Materials, a Wolfspeed continuou atendendo a clientes com acordos de longo prazo de 150 mm, enquanto apoiava sua transição para substratos de 200 mm. A empresa começou a enviar amostras iniciais de engenharia de 200 mm para múltiplos clientes para avaliação interna, mas a administração descreveu isso como uma oportunidade de crescimento no longo prazo.

Projeções da administração

Para o 1º trimestre fiscal de 2027, a Wolfspeed espera:

• Receita de US$ 140 milhões a US$ 160 milhões.
• Margem bruta não GAAP continuando negativa.
• Despesas operacionais não GAAP de US$ 62 milhões a US$ 66 milhões.

A administração informou que o crescimento da receita e a maior utilização das fábricas são os principais caminhos para a melhoria da margem bruta. A empresa estimou que o ponto de equilíbrio (breakeven) da margem bruta atualmente está próximo de uma taxa de execução de receita anual de US$ 800 milhões, embora o patamar possa variar em alguns milhões de dólares dependendo do mix de dispositivos, materiais e mercados finais.

Riscos e pontos de atenção

A subutilização das fábricas continua sendo a principal pressão sobre a margem bruta devido à estrutura de custos fixos elevados da Wolfspeed. Portanto, a melhoria das margens no curto prazo depende fortemente do crescimento da receita e da utilização da capacidade fabril.

A demanda do setor automotivo permanece incerta. A administração recusou-se a confirmar se o 4º trimestre fiscal representou o fundo do poço, citando visibilidade limitada quanto à demanda dos clientes finais e às mudanças no mix de produtos entre os clientes automotivos.

A divisão de Materials está lidando com a transição de substratos de 150 mm para 200 mm enquanto alguns clientes absorvem estoques e determinados acordos de longo prazo de 150 mm vencem ou continuam.

Os custos da dívida também permanecem significativos. A administração informou que aproximadamente US$ 630 milhões de dívida com garantia prioritária (first-lien) carregam juros de cerca de 16% e continuam sendo a prioridade máxima para refinanciamento. Qualquer economia dependerá da estrutura de um refinanciamento ou quitação.

Destaques da sessão de perguntas e respostas com analistas

• Prazo para data centers: A administração não forneceu uma data para que a receita de data centers de IA se torne materialmente maior. Ela apontou as implantações de 800 volts e a adoção de transformadores de estado sólido como os principais catalisadores da demanda.
• Breakeven da margem bruta: A administração situou o patamar aproximado atual em uma taxa de execução de receita anual de US$ 800 milhões, com o mix de produtos afetando o nível exato.
• Estrutura de capital: Durante o 4º trimestre fiscal, os detentores converteram US$ 46 milhões em notas conversíveis de segundo penhor em ações, reduzindo as despesas anuais com juros em aproximadamente US$ 1 milhão.
• Integração vertical: A administração afirmou que não tem interesse em separar as divisões Materials e Power, argumentando que a integração vertical contribui para o desempenho dos dispositivos e a capacidade de fornecimento.
• Materiais de 200 mm: A Wolfspeed está qualificando substratos de 200 mm com grandes clientes, mas a administração espera que a transição de 150 mm para 200 mm continue ao longo do ano atual.

Transcrição completa da teleconferência de resultados

Transcrição completa da teleconferência de resultados

Comentários da administração

Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Wolfspeed, Inc. Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2026 Earnings Call. On the call today from the Wolfspeed team is Chief Executive Officer, Robert Feurle; Chief Financial Officer, Gregor Van Issum; and Dan Whalen, Vice President, Investor Relations. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question-and-answer session. I will now hand the conference over to Dan Whalen. Dan, please go ahead.

Dan Whalen

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Wolfspeed's Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2026 Conference Call. We encourage you to reference the slides that were published on our IR website today. Please note that we will be presenting non-GAAP financial results during today's call, which we believe provide useful information to our investors. Non-GAAP results are not in accordance with GAAP and may not be comparable to non-GAAP information provided by other companies. Non-GAAP information should be considered as a supplement to and not a substitute for financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP.

A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is in our press release and posted in the Investor Relations section of our website, along with a historical summary of our other key metrics. Today's discussion includes forward-looking statements about our business outlook, and we may make other forward-looking statements during the call. Such forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties. Our press release today and the SEC filings noted in the release mention important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. With that, I will turn the call over to Robert.

Robert Feurle

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. This quarter marks another step in building momentum since we substantially refreshed our leadership team and capital structure. The fourth quarter revenue results of $150 million represents another quarter of delivering results at the midpoint of the guidance range and further demonstrates we are delivering on our commitments. Reflecting on this past fiscal year, we have proactively taken aggressive actions, including recapitalizing the company to strengthen the balance sheet and bolstering our leadership team and our sales organization with seasoned industry veterans.

We have also adjusted our go-to-market sales strategy and positioned the company to refocus on our technology leadership and a customer-centric approach. While we have accomplished a lot as we continue to deliver on our commitments, we remain early in our transformation. And as each month and quarter passes, we continue to gain further confidence in our path to profitability as we execute our strategic priorities and navigate broader industry dynamics.

As I said on my very first earnings call leading the Wolfspeed team, we have enormous potential, underpinned by strong foundational elements. Since then, we've been proactive building upon these strengths while attracting and incorporating industry veterans with extensive customer relationships to leverage, optimize and capitalize on our physical, operational and intellectual assets. Most recently, as announced late July, Andy Mattes was appointed to our Board of Directors, as the former CEO of Coherent and Diebold Nixdorf with more than 40 years of leadership in semiconductor and advanced technology industries, brings a strong record of strategic leadership, operational excellence and industry relationships to further bolster and accelerate our path to profitability.

Also, in early June, we announced the launch of a dedicated data center solutions team to capitalize on the further growth in our fastest-growing end market. To lead this effort, we appointed 2 industry veterans in the San Francisco Bay area, the epicenter of Tech Innovation, who have extensive experience in high-voltage power architecture for AI and data center applications. Our investment and focus on AI data center applications is gaining momentum, reflected in both revenue growth and expanding customer traction. In fiscal 2026, revenue in this business more than doubled versus fiscal 2025, including increasing approximately 20% from the fiscal third quarter to the fourth quarter.

We continue to see encouraging progress as new design wins ramp at leading power supply companies, including LITEON, MacMic and others to support multiple hyperscaler customers. These wins span both established and emerging HPC AI architectures. The transition to 800-volt architectures is increasing silicon carbide content across the data center power ecosystem. As these next-generation power architectures become a critical enabler of AI infrastructure, hyperscaler customers are placing greater emphasis on system efficiency, quality and supply assurance. Beyond AC/DC power supplies, we are seeing opportunities emerge across battery backup units, super capacitors, e-fuses and high-voltage DC to DC conversion.

We're also pursuing opportunities on the secondary side of high-voltage DC to DC conversion systems, which could further expand our addressable market over time. While the market remains in its early stages, we believe our technology leadership and available manufacturing capacity position us well to participate in this long-term growth opportunity. With industry-leading SiC technology and differentiated vertically integrated 200-millimeter manufacturing capability, we are well positioned to support this transition as AI data center adoption continues to scale. These are all clear examples demonstrating the team is executing and delivering on the key strategic priorities we committed to.

I will also comment on a few updates regarding our commitment to technology leadership, another key strategic priority. This past June, we announced 2 significant achievements at PCIM, a leading power technology conference in Europe. Gen 5 MOSFET technology and 10-kilovolt MOSFET commercial readiness. At PCIM, we announced our fifth-generation silicon carbide MOSFET technology, marking another significant milestone in our innovation road map. Gen 5 MOSFETs deliver the best specific on-state resistance in the industry while maintaining the excellent switching behavior introduced in our Gen 4 MOSFET. This combination represents a substantial performance leap in efficiency over competitive solutions, giving our customers the option to maintain efficiency and reduce the overall size of their systems or maintain system size and achieve greater power density.

Gen 5 enables more compact tract inverters, extended EV driving range, right-sized battery systems and improved EV charging infrastructure, directly addressing the cost and efficiency pressures faced by automotive OEMs. Beyond automotive, Gen 5 also addresses several industrial power supply applications, demanding leading-edge performance, including AI data center power supplies, solid-state transformers and renewable energy conversion. Importantly, Gen 5 was developed and is running our highly automated 200-millimeter facility in Mohawk Valley in Upstate New York. This provides our automotive and industrial customers with a rapid low-risk path from design in to volume production.

While we are diversifying our revenue and customer base beyond our historical core concentration as discussed above, we are also continuing to develop and improve our automotive customer relationships. To this point, our previously announced partnership with Toyota for onboard charging systems reflect the continued importance of silicon carbide and next-generation EV platforms. More recently, we were awarded first-time business from a European Tier 1 supplier supporting the onboard charger for a large German OEM. To touch on the aerospace and defense market briefly, our 10-kilovolt silicon carbide MOSFET was acknowledged at the PCIM as the Top Innovation at the conference.

We also recently announced a memorandum of understanding with GE Aerospace to accelerate the adoption of high-voltage silicon carbide across the industrial, aerospace and defense market. This technical partnership includes the supply of the industry's first commercially available 10-kilovolt SiC MOSFET from Wolfspeed and will ensure co-development of standard high-voltage power module formats. This domestic partnership strengthens our supply chain resilience and aligns with U.S. government priorities around critical technologies for AI, energy, defense and national security.

In our Materials business, we continue to serve a broad range of power and RF-based customers, including our 150-millimeter LTA customers. We are also working closely with them on their 200-millimeter transition by providing state-of-the-art samples and technical support. Our increased focus, customer-centric approach and operational discipline continue to be the backbone of these relationships. Regarding our 200-millimeter substrates, we continue to explore new opportunities and make steady progress. Since our last update, we've begun shipping the first engineering samples to multiple customers for the internal evaluation.

We continue to view this as a longer-term growth opportunity. Prior to turning it over to Gregor, I will close by saying thank you to the entire Wolfspeed team for their continued commitment, execution and drive. Our strategic alignment is significantly improved with new leadership and new sales strategy and a stronger capital structure, better positioning us to capitalize on long-term industry trends. This will continue to strengthen our earnings potential, and we believe will ultimately deliver significant value creation for shareholders.

Gregor Issum

Thank you, Robert, and good afternoon, everyone. In addition to the key strategic priorities reviewed by Robert, we have also made great strides with our operational excellence initiatives, which will continue to increase our earnings potential and differentiate us in the marketplace as partner of choice. I will turn to our fourth quarter results. We generated $150 million in total revenue for the quarter, in line with the midpoint of our guidance. Materials revenue was approximately $43 million, Power revenue was approximately $106 million, which represents 6% sequential growth as the quarter benefited from strength in AI data centers, which increased approximately 20% from Q3 to Q4 and more than doubled from fiscal 2025 to fiscal '26, which helped to compensate for the softer results in automotive.

Next, our adjusted non-GAAP gross margin for the quarter was minus 19.9%, reflecting a 70 basis point sequential improvement. This was driven primarily by product mix, including higher I&E sales in power and higher RF sales in materials. Fund utilization continues to be the primary driver of our gross margin profile and improving factory utilization remains one of the most important levers to drive margin expansion. As I mentioned during the third quarter earnings call, we continue to focus on producing the same revenue with less capacity consumed. These continued efforts position us to keep expanding our earnings potential per dollar of invested capital even if it makes the reported underutilization appear larger.

Non-GAAP operating expenses totaled $62 million in the quarter versus $61 million in the prior quarter, largely due to continued investment in R&D and marketing-related expenses. Adjusted non-GAAP EBITDA for the quarter was negative $62 million comparable to the prior quarter. Gross capital expenditures were only $5 million in the fourth quarter versus $38 million in the prior quarter. Changes in working capital contributed approximately $23 million to cash for Q4, driven primarily by continued reduction of inventory levels.

Now turning to cash flow, which remains one of our top priorities. Operating cash flow for Q4 was negative $54 million and included a $41 million benefit from further reduction of inventory levels in the quarter. We ended the quarter with approximately $1.1 billion in cash and short-term investments, allowing us to pursue our strategic priorities with confidence. We continue to pursue aggressive efforts to reduce our debt and cost of capital. During the fourth quarter, our capital structure further improved as holders of $46 million of our 2L convertible notes exercised a voluntary conversion of their debt to equity.

This debt principal decrease resulted in approximately $1 million of annual interest expense savings. Net debt was approximately $600 million at the end of the quarter. Turning to our business outlook. We continue to see growth in our device business and are targeting revenue between $140 million and $160 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2027. We are expecting non-GAAP gross margin to remain negative. As we are entering the new year, we are now expanding our guidance to include non-GAAP operating expenses, and we expect them to be in the range of $62 million to $66 million in the fiscal first quarter of 2027.

Robert Feurle

Thank you, Gregor. Before we open the call up for questions, I will reiterate we are laser-focused on continuing to deliver on our key strategic initiatives, including technology leadership, diversifying our revenue and customer base, operational excellence and financial discipline. Cumulatively, this will cement our path to profitable growth, stronger earnings power and greater value creation for our shareholders. With that, operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Christopher Rolland with Susquehanna.

Perguntas e respostas

Christopher Rolland

I guess my first is just going to be a pretty simple near-term question. When it comes to automotive and industrial, your primary customers, what are you seeing? What does the outlook look like both for materials and devices? And are you confident that June is the bottom for this business?

Robert Feurle

Yes. I think -- thanks for the question. It's Robert here. So, what we see is that our diversification efforts in terms of broader customer structure globally is really starting to pay off, right? And then, of course, we cannot influence the demand of our end customers, but what we can clearly see is that pretty much both in the I&E space and also in the auto space, we see now really good traction. And again, we also announced here one additional design win now at a German car OEM for onboard charging, and we see really a broad engagement across the globe. How the overall demand will develop across these end verticals it's hard to predict, quite frankly speaking here, as also some of our customers are going through product mix changes, especially on the auto side here. So I think that's something which is rather hard to predict.

Christopher Rolland

Maybe as a follow-up, there's a ton of interest in AI. You've talked about AI revenue. I don't know if you have any projections perhaps for next year and where you might be. But if you could talk about the progression of products that you will be releasing to market and/or have design wins for. Obviously, you had the announcement with LITEON. I believe that's for PSUs for a side car. I don't know if there's any timing around that, but SSTs beyond that, perhaps even with your 10-kilovolt solutions. Maybe if you could talk about the progression and new product opportunities and what that time line might look like?

Robert Feurle

Absolutely. Great question. So [indiscernible] we doubled our revenue from FY '25 to '26. And that just shows you kind of the momentum this market segment has gained. And quite frankly speaking, this was not on anybody's radar screen a couple of years ago. In terms of the product portfolio, we are quite frankly looking into, again, like you said, on the PSU side, discrete devices here, we are engaged, and we named 2 of these companies, MacMic and LITEON in our press release also here. But of course, we are engaged with across the whole ecosystem on the power supply side.

And then working with the major solid-state transformer companies on the higher voltage devices, which are primarily 2.3 and 3.3 kilovolt modules. And here, it's around how do we get the end customers, which are the hyperscalers comfortable pretty much with the reliability aspect and also making sure that they are comfortable pretty much deploying these SSTs. So we're really engaged from 750-volt devices, 1,200-volt devices, 2.3 kilovolt devices, 3.3 kilovolt devices. And again, the higher the voltage comes, the more differentiated the product portfolio is. And we have the product, and we have this in our 200-millimeter Mohawk Valley Fab. So where we're getting a lot of requests from these customers is, okay, we're going to go deploy this now, are you ready to ramp. And the good news is with us having completed the 6- to 8-inch transition, I think this is a huge, huge asset for us as a company, right? And as you know, we're vertically integrated. It means we got the substrates, we got the product. And again, we all can serve them out of the Mohawk Valley fab.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Joshua Buchalter with TD Cowen.

Joshua Buchalter

Maybe following up on Chris' last one. So I think you called out -- great to see the data center business doubling, but it still remains modest. I guess any time line you're able to offer us on when you would expect data center revenue to become more meaningful? And I guess, how much of that is tied specifically to the 800-volt architecture versus broader compute and AI deployments?

Robert Feurle

Yes. So again, there are a couple of factors driving the demand. One is, of course, the 800-volt deployment. That's a big milestone here, which is going to happen. And we're working on various qualifications across the whole ecosystem. But then also the whole deployment of solid-state transformers, right? I mean this is where I talked about the 2.3 kilovolt, 3.3 kilovolt devices. are really important and us being able to deliver these devices from our Mohawk Valley factory is putting us in a really good situation to take advantage of that demand.

Joshua Buchalter

Got it. And then for my follow-up, any help you can give us on the gross margin trajectory, either near term or longer term? Like I guess, for the medium term, what level of Mohawk Valley utilization or revenue is needed for gross margins to flip positive?

Gregor Issum

Yes. Thanks for the question. I think, indeed, gross margin neutrality is the next big milestone for us to drive towards. That is particularly driven by volume growth. As you know, we have a high fixed cost nature in our business. Revenue expansion is the best way to improve our margins. Inherent profitability of the products is quite okay, I would say. So it's really about asset utilization. It greatly depends on the exact mix you have between devices and material, but also within material on the end market. So we are pretty happy to see that some of the industrial markets having a lot of traction, including the data center side. But in a ballpark, we would say on an $800 million annual run rate, that's probably the ballpark where a breakeven gross margin point lies right now. But again, that could be plus/minus several million depending on the mix.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jed Dorsheimer with William Blair.

Jonathan Dorsheimer

So my first is, could you just take a minute and maybe come back and talk about what you could do in terms of cash management and specifically around the L1 and what that would save in terms of interest. I believe that is callable at this point in time. What would that save you on annual interest? And what would that do to your cash burn? And then I have a follow-up.

Gregor Issum

Jed, thanks for the question. Obviously, the first lien debt is the highest priority debt to refinance. Right now, it's around 16% interest. Depending on the means of refinancing, you can calculate on the $630 million of outstanding debt, how much saving that would be. But again, it depends on what type of refinancing or repayment that would be. But it will be a meaningful contribution to the cash flow. In this particular quarter, overall, we have spent $32 million in cash out of the total $54 million in operating cash flow. So you can see it's a meaningful amount. Obviously, that's not all coming from the L1, but a significant portion of that.

Jonathan Dorsheimer

Got it. And then just as my follow-up question, that retiring the L1 would also unencumber the ability to break the business in two between materials and power. Is that still the case? I believe the covenants previously had maintained that Apollo would have to sign off on that. But I'm assuming if the L1 was taken care of, that would unlock that covenant. Not that you're planning on doing that. I just wanted to make sure that I had that correct.

Gregor Issum

I would say I don't go into that. We have absolutely no interest to break it in two. So whether that's allowed or not is quite irrelevant from our perspective. We believe that having a vertically integrated business drives really a performance differentiator when it comes to our device performance. I think when you look at the Gen 5 product performance that we have released at the PCIM, you have seen a leap in performance that others have not been able to achieve with the technology in play, and we are convinced that this is to a certain extent, contributed by the fact that we are vertically integrated. So whether that may or may not be true, I don't think really is relevant for us at all.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Joseph Cardoso with JPMorgan.

Unknown Analyst

This is [ Akash ] on for Joe Cardoso. Just had a broad question here related to materials revenue. It was $43 million this quarter, while you support 150-millimeter LTA customers through their 200-millimeter transition. How do we think about materials revenue from here? And when does 200 begin contributing more meaningfully to the overall number?

Robert Feurle

So we're working with all the major customers on qualifying the 8-inch to 200-millimeter materials as we speak. And some of them are digesting inventory levels. And I think it kind of -- we're exactly in this transition from 6- to 8-inch. Some LTAs are running out. Some LTAs on 150 are still continuing. And this is something I would say here which will continue for this year as we're seeing this transition here to happen. But as we see, of course, overall demand for silicon carbide and if you look into all the market studies, silicon carbide market is growing. This means also our customers on the material side will transition to 8-inch eventually. And then we clearly are in a very good position with leading-edge quality and leading-edge technology on the 8-inch side to take full advantage of that.

Operator

We have reached the end of the Q&A session. This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.