Over the course of 50 years we have grown to become a global company that develops innovative solutions for our customers, and manages the best interests of our investors, our employees, society and other stakeholders. Read on to discover what we achieved in 2018.
The demand for smaller, faster and cheaper semiconductor chips continues to rise, driven by advancements in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, smartphones and the Internet of Things.
Our technology is the first step towards making it all possible, as our R&D investment in new materials, new products and new processes means we can help our customers develop their technology roadmap, and further extend Moore’s Law.
In 2018, this led to the introduction of the Synergis ALD tool, which leverages the core technologies from our Pulsar and EmerALD ALD products for high productivity thermal ALD applications. The new Synergis tool allows us to address more ALD applications and therefore increases our served market. Together with our other products and services, this contributed to our strong financial results, which included:
We operate in a fast-paced industry that continues to reshape the world, and our innovative technology enables the semiconductor industry to achieve advancements in computing, communications, energy, transportation, medicine and beyond.
To ensure that we can continue to make a difference to our customers, employees, and company stakeholders, in 2018 we concentrated on the following three key elements of our strategy.
In addition to our fundamental R&D efforts, we continuously expand and deepen our strategic cooperation with key customers, suppliers, chemical manufacturers, and research institutes. This approach enables us to remain innovative and swiftly meet the changing demands of our customers.
We are a key player in the deposition equipment segments for ALD and epitaxy, and a focused niche player for PECVD and vertical furnaces. As a leader in the segment, ALD has turned into a key growth driver for our business, from which we support virtually all of the leading customers in the semiconductor industry. Our newest ALD tool, Synergis, is designed to address a wide range of existing and new ALD applications, effectively increasing the market we serve.
In addition to our internal optimization programs, we are working with our suppliers to improve fundamental quality through statistical methods and process controls. In addition to addressing the technology needs of our customers, we also focus on further increasing equipment throughput and equipment reliability, thereby lowering the cost per wafer of our wafer processing systems.
In 2018, we achieved revenue growth of 11% reaching a record high revenue of €818 million, with sales increasing mainly in the logic, DRAM and analog segments. By industry segment, our 2018 revenue stream was led by memory, closely followed by the logic and foundry segments.
While our ALD product lines continued to be our key sales driver in 2018, accounting for more than half of total equipment revenue, our other product lines also contributed strongly. In our epitaxy product line we increased sales, following the strong growth we achieved in 2017, and we saw additional sales increases in PECVD and vertical furnaces.
Our industry experienced continued growth in 2018, with worldwide semiconductor industry sales increasing by around 14%. This was driven by high memory prices and broad-based electronics demand for cloud services, mobile devices, automotive and industrial applications. These drivers helped the wafer fab equipment market grow by around 10% in 2018.
Our 2018 sales grew to record levels, reaching €818 million. ALD continued to be the key driver, although the other product lines also made a strong contribution.
We benefited from a further increase in wafer fab equipment spending following the very strong market growth in 2017. Our operating profit increased to €124.3 million from €113.2 million in 2017, while the operating profit margin remained stable.
New bookings increased by 22% in 2018 to €942 million, with equipment bookings for ASMI as a whole led by logic, followed by foundry and then memory. Total research and development (R&D) expenses, excluding impairment charges, decreased by 1% in 2018 compared to 2017, mainly as a result of higher capitalization of development expenses.
Our 2018 sales grew to record levels, reaching €818 million. ALD continued to be the key driver, although the other product lines also made a strong contribution.
We benefited from a further increase in wafer fab equipment spending following the very strong market growth in 2017. Our operating profit increased to €124.3 million from €113.2 million in 2017, while the operating profit margin remained stable.
New bookings increased by 22% in 2018 to €942 million, with equipment bookings for ASMI as a whole led by logic, followed by foundry and then memory. Total research and development (R&D) expenses, excluding impairment charges, decreased by 1% in 2018 compared to 2017, mainly as a result of higher capitalization of development expenses.
During 2018, we returned approximately €607 million to shareholders in the form of dividends, share buybacks and the capital return. This was up from €281 million in 2017 and €140 million in 2016.
Over the 2010-2018 period, we returned more than €1.6 billion to the financial markets through dividends, share buybacks, return of capital, and buyback of convertible bonds.
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In 2018, we paid a dividend of €0.80 per common share and we will propose to the forthcoming AGM to declare a dividend of €1.00 per share for 2019. The proposed 2019 dividend will mark the ninth consecutive year that we have paid a dividend.
All boundary scopes are for ASMI Front-end unless noted
INDICATORS | DEFINITIONS | SECTION COVERED | |
Staff (Employee) | Employee is a person with a fixed contract, excluding temporary labor. Definition may be varied by country per local and country labor law. The number of employees at the last day of the reporting period | People and society | |
Employees in R&D | The number of employees on the last day of the reporting period whose work is directly related to the research and development of the product during the reporting year | Research and development | |
Patent filings | The total number of patent applications filed and applied with patent offices globally by ASMI for the invention described | Research and development | |
Employees based on nationalities | The number of nationalities of employees on the last reporting day of the period | People and society | |
Employees covered by collective bargaining agreements | The percentage of employees that are covered by collective bargaining agreements per local labor requirement divided by the total number of employees at reporting year-end | People and society | |
Reported concerns from anonymous global reporting program SpeakUp! | The number of questions, remarks and/or concerns reported to the Ethics Office related to a potential violation of the Code of Conduct and Business Policies via reporting tool SpeakUp! in the reporting period | People and society | |
Voluntary Turnover rate | The percentage of employees in a workforce that leave voluntarily during this reporting period | People and society | |
Recordable injury rate | The Recordable Injury Rate measures cases that require a response greater than first aid (or serious injuries) per 100 employees in reporting period | People and society | |
Injury rate | The Injury Rate is a measure of all first aid or greater injuries per every 100 employees in reporting period | People and society | |
Number (#) of employees completing bi-annual Ethics training | All employees completing the online compliance training courses bi-annually during our compliance month within the reporting year. We track # of employees and % of the total that completed the training. It is applicable to all employees | People and society | |
Ethics concerns reported from anonymous global reporting program SpeakUp! | The number of any ethics concerns reported by employees through our anonymous employee reporting channel SpeakUp!; that may be related to a potential violation of the Code of Conduct and Business Principles or Policies in the reporting year | People and society | |
Ethics concerns reported through other channels | The number of any ethics concerns reported by employees through other means including directly to management or the Compliance Officer, that may be related to a potential violation of the Code of Ethics and Business Principles or Policies in the reporting year | People and society | |
Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) | We adopted the industry standard RBA Code of Conduct. More detail about the code can be find at http://www.responsiblebusiness.org/standards/code-of-conduct/ | Corporate Responsibility Strategy | |
Self-assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) risk rating/result | We adopted the RBA standard tool for risk assessment Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) to assess our own and supply chain risk. This rate apply to our own operation SAQ results with our major sites | Corporate Responsibility Strategy | |
Critical and Strategic Suppliers | Suppliers that are determined to be critical to our business either because the business spends, or critical components or critical materials, or strategic technical partnership | Supply chain | |
Supply chain spend by region | Total amount of Euro spent with our global suppliers for the materials, components and services that are used to produce our products and services for our customers and for non-product related products services that enable our operations globally in the reporting period | Supply chain | |
Critical Supplier Commitment % | The percent of critical suppliers that have acknowledged their commitment to RBA code or whose code of conduct is assessed to be acceptable as it covers the similar principles of the RBA Code of Conduct | Supply chain | |
Critical suppliers’ low medium risk rank based on Self-assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) result | The percent of critical supplies who completed the required Supplier Self-Assessment Questionnaire and resulted with low and medium risks | Supply chain | |
Supply Chain spends per region (in Euro and %) | Total Euro amount we spent and equivalent to the % of total spends with suppliers by each region | Supply chain | |
Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions | The number of metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions including both the direct CO2 equivalent emissions (scope 1) and indirect CO2 equivalent emissions (scope 2) in the reporting period | Environment | |
Water consumption | The total amount of water consumption in cubic meters for the reporting period | Environment | |
Landfill diversion rate | The percentage of solid waste diverted from landfill via recycling and reuse efforts in the reporting period as generated at ASMI major Manufacturing, Engineering and R&D sites. | Environment |