Celestica Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Q2 revenue of $2.89 billion and adjusted EPS of $1.39 exceeded the high end of guidance, with a record 7.4% adjusted operating margin.
  • Positive Sentiment: CCS segment revenue grew 28% year-over-year, driven by a 75% jump in the communications end market and strong ramps of 400G and 800G networking programs for hyperscalers.
  • Negative Sentiment: Q3 ATS segment revenue is expected to decline in the low single-digit range as growth in industrial is offset by exiting a margin-dilutive aerospace and defense program.
  • Positive Sentiment: Raised full-year 2025 outlook, boosting revenue guidance from $10.85 billion to $11.55 billion (20% growth), adjusted EPS to $5.50, and free cash flow target to $400 million.
  • Positive Sentiment: Generated $120 million of free cash flow in Q2, maintains approximately $1 billion in liquidity, and repurchased 600,000 shares for $40 million year-to-date.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Celestica Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Celestica Q2 twenty twenty five Financial Results and Conference Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. I will now hand the conference over to Matthew Pilotta, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Matthew Pallotta
Matthew Pallotta
Head - IR & Senior Director - Finance at Celestica

Good morning, and thank you for joining us on Celestica's Q2 twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. On the call today, we have Rob Mayonis, President and Chief Executive Officer and Mandeep Chawla, Chief Financial Officer. Please note that during the course of this call, we will make forward looking statements relating to the future performance of Celestica, which are based on management's current expectations, forecasts and assumptions. While these forward looking statements represent our current judgment, actual results could differ materially from a conclusion, forecast or projection in the forward looking statements made today. Certain material factors and assumptions are applied in drawing any such statement.

Matthew Pallotta
Matthew Pallotta
Head - IR & Senior Director - Finance at Celestica

For identification and discussion of such factors and assumptions as well as risk factors that may impact future performance and results of Celestica, please refer to our public filings available at www.sec.gov and www.cedarplus.ca as well as the Investor Relations section on our website. We undertake no obligation to update these forward looking statements unless expressly required to do so by law. In addition, during this call, we will refer to various non GAAP financial measures, including adjusted operating margin, adjusted gross margin, adjusted return on invested capital or adjusted ROIC, free cash flow, gross debt to trailing twelve month TTM adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio, adjusted earnings per share or adjusted EPS and adjusted effective tax rate. We have included in our earnings release found in the Investor Relations section of our a reconciliation of non GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures. With respect to our Q3 twenty twenty five guidance and 2025 annual outlook, our earnings release does not include a reconciliation of forward looking non GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures on a forward looking basis as items that we exclude from GAAP to calculate these comparable non GAAP measures are dependent on future events that are not able to be reliably predicted by management and are not part of our routine operating activities.

Matthew Pallotta
Matthew Pallotta
Head - IR & Senior Director - Finance at Celestica

We are unable to provide such reconciliation without unreasonable effort due to the uncertainty and inherent difficulty in predicting the occurrence, the financial impact and the periods in which may be recognized. The occurrence, timing and amount of any of the items excluded from GAAP to calculate non GAAP could significantly impact our Q3 twenty twenty five and 2025 GAAP results. Unless otherwise specified, all references to dollars on this call are to U. S. Dollars, all per share information is based on diluted shares outstanding and all references to comparative figures are a year over year comparison. Let me now turn the call over to Rob.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. We saw solid demand across our portfolio in the second quarter, which drove very strong performance. We achieved revenues of $2,890,000,000 and adjusted EPS of $1.39 with both metrics exceeding the high end of our guidance ranges. Our adjusted operating margin of 7.4% once again marked the highest performance in the company history. Our CCS segment continues to experience very strong growth driven by the demand for networking products from our hyperscale customers as they pursue significant expansions of their data center infrastructure to support new AI applications.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

In our ATS segment, solid demand in our capital equipment business and industrial businesses drove higher than expected revenues, while segment margins of 5.3% continue to improve meaningfully. In the second quarter, the impact from tariffs on our financial results was minimal as the pause on reciprocal tariffs and exemptions on electronics goods, data center hardware insulated the majority of our portfolio. Before I provide you with our updated annual financial outlook and some additional color on our businesses, I would like to turn the call over to Mandeep, who will discuss our second quarter financial performance and our guidance for the 2025. Mandeep, over to you.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Second quarter revenue of $2,890,000,000 was up 21 and above the high end of our guidance range, driven primarily by very strong demand in our communications end market from hyperscaler customers. Adjusted gross margin for the second quarter was 11.7%, up 110 basis points driven by higher volumes and improving mix in both segments. Our second quarter adjusted operating margin was 7.4%, up 110 basis points driven by higher margin across both our CCS and ATS segments. Our adjusted earnings per share for the second quarter was $1.39 exceeding the high end of our guidance range and an increase of $0.49 or 54%.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Our adjusted effective tax rate for the quarter was 20%. And finally, our second quarter adjusted ROIC was 35.5% compared to 26.6% a year ago, driven by higher operating profit and strong working capital management. Moving on to our segment performance. ATS segment revenue totaled $819,000,000 up 7% and above our guidance of being flat year over year. The higher revenue was primarily driven by strong demand in our capital equipment business and returning growth in our industrial business.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Our ATS segment accounted for 28% of total company revenue in the second quarter. Revenue in our CCS segment was CAD2.07 billion, up 28% driven once again by very strong growth in our communications end market. The CCS segment accounted for 72% of total company revenue in the quarter. Our communications end market revenues increased by 75% above our guidance of high 50s percentage growth, driven primarily by strong demand and ramping programs in our HPS networking business, complemented by strengthening demand in our optical programs. Revenue in our enterprise end market was 37% lower, which was better than our guidance of a low 40s percentage decline.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

The lower revenues were a result of an anticipated technology transition in an AIML compute program with one of our hyperscaler customers. HPS revenues of CAD1.2 billion in the second quarter were higher by 82% and accounted for 43% of total company revenue. This exceptional growth is being driven by the ramping of several 800 gs networking switch programs, complementing strong hyperscaler demand for our 400 gs switches. Moving on to segment margins. ACS segment margin in the second quarter rose to 5.3%, up 70 basis points, primarily driven by improved profitability in our A and D business.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

CCS segment margin in the second quarter was 8.3%, an improvement of 130 basis points driven by a higher mix of HPS revenues and strong productivity. During the quarter, we had two customers that each accounted for at least 10% of total revenue, representing 3113% of revenue respectively. Moving on to working capital. At the end of the second quarter, our inventory balance was $1,920,000,000 a sequential increase of $130,000,000 and a year over year increase of $74,000,000 Cash deposits were CAD397 million at the end of the second quarter, CAD75 million sequentially and down CAD179 million year over year. Cash cycle days during the second quarter were CAD66.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Turning to cash flows. Capital expenditures for the second quarter were CAD33 million or approximately 1.1% of revenue compared to 1.5% in the 2024. Year to date, our capital expenditures have been below our anticipated range of 1.5% to 2% of revenue due to stronger than expected revenue growth and timing of expenditures. However, we anticipate capital expenditures in the second half of the year to increase relative to the first half and for total annual spend to be within our annual range of 1.5% to 2% of revenues. During the second quarter, we generated $120,000,000 of free cash flow, 54,000,000 higher than the prior year period.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Our free cash flow year to date as of the end of the quarter totaled CAD214 million. Turning to our balance sheet and capital allocation. At the end of the second quarter, our cash balance was CAD314 million, Combined with CAD660 million of borrowing capacity under our revolver, we currently have approximately CAD1 billion in total liquidity, which we believe is sufficient to meet our projected business needs. Our gross debt at the end of the quarter was CAD823 million and our net debt position was CAD509 million. Our gross debt to non GAAP trailing 12 adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio was 0.9 turns, an improvement of 0.2 turns sequentially and 0.3 turns versus the prior year period.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

As of June 30, we were in compliance with all financial covenants under our credit agreement. During the second quarter, we repurchased approximately 600,000 shares for cancellation at a cost of $40,000,000 under our normal course issuer bid, bringing our total purchases under the NCIB to $115,000,000 year to date. We intend to remain opportunistic on share buybacks for the 2025. Now let's turn to our guidance for the 2025. Similar to last quarter, we highlight that our guidance figures assume no material changes to tariffs or trade restrictions compared to what is in effect as of July 28, as any changes to these policies and their potential impact on our results cannot be reliably predicted at this time.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

We also note that substantially all tariffs paid by Flessica are expected to be recovered from our customers and are not expected to materially impact our non GAAP adjusted operating earnings or our non GAAP adjusted net earnings. Third quarter revenue is projected to be between $2,875,000,000 and $3,125,000,000 representing growth of 20% at the midpoint. Adjusted earnings per share are anticipated to be between $1.37 and $1.53 representing an increase of $0.41 at the midpoint or 39%. Assuming the achievement of the midpoint of our revenue and adjusted EPS guidance ranges, our non GAAP operating margin would be 7.4%, an increase of 60 basis points over the prior year period. We expect our adjusted effective tax rate for the third quarter to be approximately 19%.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Finally, let's review our end market outlook for the third quarter. In our ATS segment, we anticipate revenue to be down in the low single digit percentage range as growth in our industrial business is being offset by lower volumes in our A and D business due to our previously announced decision not to renew a margin dilutive program. In our CCS segment, we project revenue in our communications end market to grow in the low 60s percentage range supported by continued demand strength for our networking switches including ongoing ramps in multiple 800 gs programs. In our enterprise end market, we expect a mid-20s percentage decrease in revenue driven primarily by technology transition in an AIML compute program with the latest generation program beginning to ramp in the third quarter. With that, I will now turn the call back over to Rob for an update on our latest financial outlook outlook for 2025 and to provide additional color on our business.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Thank you, Mandeep. Given our solid first half performance and the strengthening demand forecast for many of our customers, we are raising our 2025 annual financial outlook. We are increasing our revenue outlook for the year from $10,850,000,000 to $11,550,000,000 reflecting year over year growth of 20%. We are also increasing our non GAAP adjusted EPS outlook for the year from $5 per share to $5.5 per share, which represents year over year growth of 42%. Our adjusted EPS outlook reflects an anticipated non GAAP operating margin of 7.4%.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

With a higher anticipated profitability, we're also raising our free cash flow outlook for the year from $350,000,000 to $400,000,000 As with our quarterly guidance, these figures assume no material changes to tariffs or trade restrictions compared to those in effect as of July 28. Now moving on to some additional color on our businesses. In our CCS segment, we now anticipate growth of nearly 30% for the full year. In our communications end market, we continue to ramp multiple 800 gs programs while demand for our 400 gs programs remains strong. Overall, hyperscaler demand for our networking products is very robust as these customers continue to significantly invest in their data center infrastructure.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

In our enterprise end market, as anticipated, Q3 will see us begin to ramp volumes for our next generation AIML compute program with a large hyperscaler customer. We expect this to contribute to a strengthening of enterprise volumes in the second half of the year and into 2026. We also continue to pursue a robust pipeline of opportunities for new awards with hyperscaler and digital native customers across compute, storage and rack integration. Moving on to our ATS segment, we are maintaining our annual outlook for revenues to remain approximately flat to 2024. In our industrial business, the strength we saw return in the second quarter is expected to continue into the 2025 supported by several ramping programs.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

In A and D, we continue to see strong improvements in profitability driven by mix improvements, including our previously communicated decision not to renew a margin dilutive program. The revenue impact from this program began in Q2 and is expected to result in lower year over year revenues in A and D for the remainder of the year despite otherwise healthy demand across the rest of our A and D portfolio. In our capital equipment business, we achieved solid growth in the 2025, driven by strength in our base demand supported by new program ramps. As anticipated, some second half demand was pulled into the first half and consequently we expect demand to moderate. The second half revenue is expected to be lower than the first half.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Despite this, we anticipate full year growth approximately in line with market growth rates. Overall, we continue to anticipate another year of solid financial performance for Celestica in 2025. We remain confident in our ability to continue our strong momentum even with the uncertainty in the current macro environment. Our portfolio is strongly supported by enduring long term secular tailwinds. We believe Celestica is exceptionally well positioned to help our customers navigate today's uncertain landscape, backed by a globally diversified manufacturing network and our best in class supply chain and operations teams.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

As a company that thrives in managing complexity, we feel these challenges allow me further highlight the critical value we provide with our market leading capabilities and competitive positioning in key technologies, a disciplined approach to capital allocation and consistency in our operation execution, We believe we are positioned to continue to excel and to sustain this positive momentum into 2026 and over the long term. We look forward to updating you on our progress during the next call in October. And with that, I will now turn the call back to the operator to begin the Q and A session.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you'd like to ask a question, please raise your hand now. If you have dialed in to today's call, please press 9 to raise your hand and 6 to unmute.

Operator

Please standby while we compile the Q and A roster. And your first question comes from the line of Karl Ackerman with BNP Paribas. Karl, your line is unmuted. You may now go ahead.

Karl Ackerman
MD - Equity Research, Semiconductors & IT Hardware at BNP Paribas

Great. Thank you, gentlemen. I have two, please. Could you speak to the breadth of customers as well as the number of platforms that you have on 800 gig switch ports that are helping drive your upward revised outlook for CCS? In other words, I guess, how should investors gauge the breadth of design engagements you have on 800 gig and above relative to 400 gs? And I have a follow-up, please.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Hi, Paul. Yeah. On 800 g, in terms of the breadth we have versus 400 g, I would say every 400 g customer we had has turned into a 800 g customer. So the breadth of our our offering is quite large. Our market share also for 800 g is that much larger than market share for 400 g as well based on our early wins.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

So the breadths that we're seeing across a number of hyperscalers and the ramps we're seeing across a number of hyperscalers is great to see, and it's better pronounced.

Karl Ackerman
MD - Equity Research, Semiconductors & IT Hardware at BNP Paribas

Got it. Thanks for that.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

And Carl,

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

I'll just add on to that to say a little bit more color on four hundred and eight hundred. The 400 demand has been very strong now for quite some time. We saw a lot of strength in the first quarter. What was nice about the second quarter is the 800 gs now is ramping, and it's basically on parity with our 400 gs volumes in the second quarter. And now we see 800 gs continue to accelerate.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

So the point that Rob made, if you think about our top three hyperscaler customers, we're we've won 800 gs programs with all three of them. We saw an acceleration in demand in the second quarter with one in particular and the other two are now starting to catch up in the back half. So it is there's a lot of breadth, I would say.

Karl Ackerman
MD - Equity Research, Semiconductors & IT Hardware at BNP Paribas

Great. Thank you for that. I mean, just given the amount of revenue growth that you're seeing in the business, could you remind us on the manufacturing ripeness you have at your Monterey and Richardson campuses today to handle the growing demand of your CCS business? Thank you.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Can start off. Rob can add on to Pete's. From a capacity perspective, we're still very comfortable. We are seeing a significant amount of demand for Southeast Asia, both in Thailand as well as in Malaysia. Customers are continuing to want to invest in The United States in our Richardson, Texas facility And customers are continuing to look at Mexico.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

And so if you look at our capital plans as well, our CapEx spend, those are the locations where we're spending the money. And we're continuing to invest to support the growth. We have not run out of capacity. And as we commented last quarter, we have the ability to support, I would say, 3,000,000,000 to $4,000,000,000 of additional revenue should our customers want to continue to be in those geos.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

And I would add, Carl, that right now the majority of our networking is coming out of Thailand, but we also are producing networking products, eight energy products out of our Mexico facility as well.

Karl Ackerman
MD - Equity Research, Semiconductors & IT Hardware at BNP Paribas

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Ruben Roy with Stifel. Ruben, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Ruben Roy
Ruben Roy
MD - Equity Research at Stifel Financial Corp

Yes. Hi. Thank you for taking my question and congrats on the continued momentum. Mandeep, I wanted to zoom out maybe and given the Q3 guidance and the full year guidance, the implications for Q4, maybe a little decel coming in CCS and with enterprise coming back a little bit into year end. Just wondering if you can walk through some of the puts and takes on how to think about sort of the momentum into year end. Thank you.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Yes. Thanks, Ruben. I would say that we're pleased with the full year outlook. The 11,550 is 20% growth. We've been more or less that for Q1, Q2 and Q3.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

To your point, it implies Q4 would maybe grow at 18%. We're really just continuing to take into consideration the uncertainties that are out there. What I can tell you is this is our high confidence view. Our demand outlook is higher than the 11,550, but we're taking into account challenges such as material availability or situations where customers may choose to temporarily pause just given the continuing turmoil that's happening in the tariff environment. But the 11,550 is our highest confidence view at this point.

Ruben Roy
Ruben Roy
MD - Equity Research at Stifel Financial Corp

Got it. Thank you. And then as a follow-up for Rob perhaps. It seems like 400 gig is hanging in maybe for longer than you folks might have expected earlier this year. And obviously, 100 ramp is happening now.

Ruben Roy
Ruben Roy
MD - Equity Research at Stifel Financial Corp

I was wondering if you could maybe comment on updated thoughts around 1.6T timing now that we've got the official launch of the silicon. Just wondering how you're thinking about that as we look forward to 2026. Thank you.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Yes. Thanks, Ruben. Yeah. We received Tomahawk six samples in June, and we successfully brought up the first system within days of receiving that sample. So that bodes well for the silicon and bodes well for our engineering.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Right now, we have several new programs, dot Amox six programs, one dot 60 programs that will start generating some revenue in the 2026 and certainly into 2027. Again, this will all be paced by silicon availability.

Ruben Roy
Ruben Roy
MD - Equity Research at Stifel Financial Corp

Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of David Voigt with UBS. David, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

David Vogt
David Vogt
Managing Director at UBS Group

Great, guys. Thanks for taking my question. So maybe two for me also. So maybe, Rob, can you dig in a little bit on the 800 ramp that you referenced or Mandy preference? Looks like Google, if I strip out sort of what's going on with TPU, was probably incredibly strong from an 800 ramp.

David Vogt
David Vogt
Managing Director at UBS Group

And can you maybe talk to what you're seeing from the other two eight hundred gs customers in terms of how they're ramping in 2Q into 3Q? So it looks like maybe one of them might be a little bit more muted to start this 800 gs ramp. I wonder if that's just more timing. And then I'll give you my follow-up is when I think about the capital equipment business that had a little bit of a pull forward into H1, can you maybe shed some light on was that more on the lithography side, memory, logic, kind of what are you seeing by end vertical within capital equipment H1 versus H2? Thanks.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Okay. Let me start off with the capital equipment one, and I'll go to the networking one. So on capital equipment, Q2, very strong growth, 20% plus. It was really driven by normalization of inventory levels that we started seeing in the 2024. As we go into the third quarter, we are seeing some incremental demand from a couple of our customers, but we're also seeing that offset by a decrease in demand by others and hence kind of flattish as we go into the third quarter.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

And for those customers, we actually saw an acceleration and what we think is an acceleration of demand from the second half into the first half. And so I do think and we believe that capital equipment will have a growth year this year in line with market rates, but it'll be more front end focused than than back end focused relative to the the pulling that that we saw. And on the 400 g versus the 800 g, yeah, we, as Mandy mentioned earlier, you know, right now in the second quarter, we saw about a, I'll call it, a fifty fifty split between 400 g and 800 g networking volumes. As we get into the back half of the year, we certainly see 800 g ramping up in excess of that. But 400 g also has a very long tail through this year and certainly in connection with visibility right now.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

There will always be ebbs and flows, but, you know, across our customer base, there's certainly a couple of customers that are are ramping a lot harder and a lot faster than others on eight entry.

David Vogt
David Vogt
Managing Director at UBS Group

Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Thanos Moschopoulos with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanos Moschopoulos
Thanos Moschopoulos
Managing Director - Equity Research at BMO Capital Markets

Hi, good morning. On the cash cycle, is it reasonable to expect some ongoing improvements in cash cycle days just simply as CCS is becoming a bigger part of the mix relative to ATS?

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Hi Thanos, Mandy Pierre. It's certainly an area that we continue to work to improve. We're really happy with our cash generation. We've generated positive free cash flow every quarter for over five years and we're raising the outlook this year as you would expect from $350,000,000 to 400,000,000 The thing that I'll note is that we continue to have a lot of confidence in our cash generation ability even while we're growing our revenues at a 20% clip. And so you could think about the amount of working capital that we're investing in to support this growth.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

But that being said, we do think that we'll continue to have strong inventory turns, lead times on materials are steady, probably at around sixteen weeks, which is in line with what you would have seen pre COVID. And so we do expect to be able to continue to turn inventory quickly. 400, we think, is the right number for this year, and we would be targeting a higher number next year.

Thanos Moschopoulos
Thanos Moschopoulos
Managing Director - Equity Research at BMO Capital Markets

Great. And on the CCS margins, how should we think about the near to medium term trajectory just given that you'll have enterprise ramping back up, which might provide a negative mix dynamic there?

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Yes. I mean, going back to the outlook that we have, given the 11,550 implies about 18% growth in the CCS or excuse me, the total company. Our ATS growth is going to be muted because of the return of that unprofitable program to one of our customers. So it's really been driven by CCS. What I would say is to your point, the enterprise demand is starting to improve as we get into the fourth quarter, we will start to see enterprise come back to year to year growth.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

And right now the communications demand will continue to be strong driven by 800 I'll just say again though that our customer outlook is higher than that. And so we're just factoring in right now a lot of the uncertainties, but we would look to see very strong growth in both communications and enterprise.

Thanos Moschopoulos
Thanos Moschopoulos
Managing Director - Equity Research at BMO Capital Markets

That's fine. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Samik Chatterjee with JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Samik Chatterjee
Samik Chatterjee
MD & Equity Research Analyst at J.P. Morgan

Yep. Hi. And hope you can hear me. Strong print here, and maybe if I can start with your CCS guide, for the full year. You've raised that substantially, for the full year.

Samik Chatterjee
Samik Chatterjee
MD & Equity Research Analyst at J.P. Morgan

I'm just wondering when you call out strengthening demand for the second half, you're just calling that out more for the enterprise segment itself. Maybe if you can sort of dive into, is that the area that you're seeing more visibility from your customers? Or does that extend over to 800 gig in terms of volume expectations for the second half? Or is there really sort of the upside surprise on communication more from 400 gig demand being more resilient than you expected earlier? And I have a follow-up. Thank you.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Yes. Hi, Samik. So I'd say a couple of pieces. On the enterprise, as we've talked about and everyone is aware, we're going through a technology transition. That program is ramping nicely in the quarter right now.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

And so we're seeing a good contribution in the third quarter, and we will get more out of that in the fourth quarter. So while we are showing negative year over year growth rates in the second and third quarter, in the fourth quarter, we expect to start resuming growth. On the communication side, when we talked about acceleration of growth, it's in the 800 gig programs. To one of the questions that was given earlier, we saw it in the second quarter with our largest customer. We're now seeing it pick up with our other large hyperscaler customers as well.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

400 gs is moderating, still very strong demand, just not as strong as the first half because that's being replaced by 800 gs. And then again, if we saw demand strength across all the areas that we think we could see, we would hope that we could do more than what we've outlined.

Samik Chatterjee
Samik Chatterjee
MD & Equity Research Analyst at J.P. Morgan

Got it. Got it. And maybe for the follow-up, you just sort of highlighted this earlier to a question about sort of the 4Q run rate being around that sort of 18, let's call it, sort of ballpark 20%, which is what you've been running at. I mean, is that a fair way of thinking about sustainability of growth into next year as well, even as we layer on sort of some of these AIML projects that ramp further? Would you sort of look at that as a sustainable growth pace for investors to think about 2026 as a starting point? Thank you.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Yes. Samik, I think what you're also getting to is it's probably a bit early to give a full 2026 number. Customer outlooks just don't go that far at this point. In October, when we do our Investor Day, we will share our view of 2026. But what I can tell you right now is that the hyperscaler demand is very strong through the back end of this year, and we do have outlooks with our customers going into the first half of next year, and we're not seeing a slowdown.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

In addition to that, we have a number of programs that we've already won and are in the process of ramping, which gives us further confidence going into the first half right now. And then also as you think about next year, we do believe that ATS is going to grow in line with our targets that we set, which are typically around 10% over the long term. So right now the growth is continuing into the first half. We'll just wait to give a full year number. We just need a little bit more time to work with our customers.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

And Sumit, I would also add that we have the capacity to service growth north of 20% per year for sure.

Samik Chatterjee
Samik Chatterjee
MD & Equity Research Analyst at J.P. Morgan

Got it. Thank you. Thanks for the comments.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Paul Treiber with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Paul Treiber
Paul Treiber
Director & Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Yes. Thanks very much and good morning. Just could you speak to the new program pipeline that you're seeing right now and then the opportunity to expand further with existing hyperscalers, but then also additional hyperscalers beyond the top three that you have? And can you speak to it in terms of on the communication side, but then also the enterprise side?

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Sure. Yeah. So in terms of new programs, we're continuing to, I'll call, build the breadth that we have in terms of our offering with our existing hyperscalers. So in terms of all the hyperscalers, if we're if we're providing one with networking products for in conversations or doing proof of concepts or things like that to provide them with AI compute products and things on those lines. So, you know, our first order of business is to kinda increase our share of wallet with our hyperscalers, and those conversations are are mature and ongoing and and having some good traction.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

In terms of, you know, penetrating new hyperscalers, we're fairly penetrated. Our focus right now are in new regions or also with digital natives, as we mentioned, and we're having some very interesting conversations on why what the right entry point is for us to help support these customers moving forward. As we mentioned also in previous earnings calls with our recent digital native win, which includes the design manufacturing for a full orchestrated AI rack, not so not just a networking rack, but a full orchestrated rack. That really gives us incremental proof points to broaden our solutions for the whole plethora of additional customers out there.

Paul Treiber
Paul Treiber
Director & Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Thanks. And a follow-up for that is pricing factoring into discussions at this point? Or is it one of the items that's much lower down discussion point just given the demand environment at the moment?

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Yes. In our industry, pricing is always a factor, but it is really not the main factor right now. I think our customers are looking for certainly certainty of supply at scale. They're looking for best in class designs and technology leadership, and those are the top two on on the list. Competitive pricing will always be a factor in our industry, but if you have the first two, then the second one usually just falls in line because the customers understand the value that you actually are delivering to them.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Yes. Only thing I'd add to that one, Paul, is we constantly work with our customers on total cost of ownership. And we think that our footprint gives us a very sustainable advantage in this space whether customers need to be close to the deployment areas, whether they're looking for lower cost geographies. Being in 16 countries, we really are able to offer a wide variety of solutions to them. And because of our relative discipline on CapEx deployment, we aim to run our facilities at a high level of utilization. So we're looking to constantly drive productivity and pass those savings on to our customers as well.

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Atif Malik with Citi.

Atif Malik
Atif Malik
Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup

Nice results. My first question is on your 10% of sales and more customers. You had 3% in Q1, it dropped to 2%. How many are you expecting in the September? Hi, Tifa. It's

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

really nice to see Citibank back in the coverage universe for us. So welcome. We saw strong growth across our top three customers. As you've noted, one of them just fell under. Was just a smidgen under.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

It rounds to 10% still. And we are seeing both the good thing is that we still saw quarter to quarter growth with that customer. It's just frankly the base grew faster than they did. When you go into the following quarters, we do expect that we're going to have three customers above 10% going into the third and fourth quarter.

Atif Malik
Atif Malik
Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup

Great. And as a follow-up, in your prepared remarks, you guys talked about strengthening in some optical projects. Can you kind of elaborate on what these projects are?

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Yes. We have a an enterprise customer that has been ramping some programs, and I'll call that in the data center interconnect area. Those products have been widely successful in the market, and we're supporting them in ramping those programs.

Atif Malik
Atif Malik
Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Todd Coupland with CIBC.

Todd Coupland
Managing Director at CIBC World Markets

Can you hear me okay? Yes. I wanted you to bridge what we hear from hyperscalers. Recently, we heard a big CapEx increase last week from a large hyperscaler. We're getting three other updates this week.

Todd Coupland
Managing Director at CIBC World Markets

And just bridge how we should think about those increases relative to your change in guidance?

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Why don't I start, Todd? Good morning to you. Look, there's always a little bit of a lag, if you will, between the announcements that the hyperscalers are making and the forecast that we're receiving from them. And so when we see these increases come through in prepared remarks from our customers often it's an affirmation of what we've already been seeing from a demand perspective. And so to the comment that I had made earlier, we're seeing very strong demand right now in the back half of this year.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

That demand outlook with our customers looking at their forecast is continuing into the first half. And so really we look at the announcements that have just been made and we expect will be made as an affirmation of the forecast that we've already received.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Todd I would add one of our leading indicators CapEx is certainly a leading indicator. Another leading indicator is also silicon, you know, because of the lead time associated with a lot of this silicon. We look as far ahead as we can and understand what our customers are putting on order, asking us to put an order, and that helps us align our longer term forecasts and long term financial and revenue outlooks as well.

Todd Coupland
Managing Director at CIBC World Markets

Great. Thanks for that color. There's been a number of questions on switch market share. I wanted to turn to server market share. Seemed like you had lost a little bit at the the end of last year.

Todd Coupland
Managing Director at CIBC World Markets

Now now it's coming back. Could you just frame up what your server market share trends are at the moment? Thanks a lot.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Yeah. Thanks. So, you know, I would say that we are gaining share with our largest customers with respect to AI server market share. Frankly, a lot of that is just due to strong execution and ability to build these very complex products at scale. And then deep mentioned, we just went through a technology transition.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

We see these programs starting to ramp in the third quarter and getting some significant momentum as we exit the year and also into next year. And we will also expect this product line to produce probably even more revenues based on that increased share as we get into twenty late 'twenty six and into 'twenty seven and beyond based on next generation programs.

Todd Coupland
Managing Director at CIBC World Markets

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Robert Young with Canaccord Genuity. Robert, your line is now open. Please go ahead. Robert, your line is now open.

Operator

Please go ahead or press 6 if you've dialed in.

Robert Young
Managing Director & Head of Research at Canaccord Genuity Inc

Can you hear me now?

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Yeah. I can hear you.

Robert Young
Managing Director & Head of Research at Canaccord Genuity Inc

Alright. Okay. I think you had, okay. So you've had some very strong momentum on 1.6 terabyte, and I'd love to get some context on, whether that has continued. I think earlier in the call, you said that the, full rack proof point was opening up new opportunities.

Robert Young
Managing Director & Head of Research at Canaccord Genuity Inc

And so if you can just talk about the halo that the relationship with the hyperscalers, this 1.6 terabyte, win rate and, maybe the full rack proof points. So what is that doing around the opportunity to grow white label opportunities along the ODM path?

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Yeah. Thanks, Rob. So on the on the one dot six, we continue to win, I'll call it, one dot six t variant. So we have one dot 60 awards with many of the large hyperscalers. There's a lot of variants, I.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Different types of one dot 60 silicon or different use cases in the rack. So we're continuing to kinda grow our our market share on these variants of those customers. In terms of the digital native win and doing that fully orchestrated rack, that is certainly opening up new doors and new conversations with people, even the hyperscalers. But the entry point on that might be next generation systems in terms of what more can we do. So those conversations are still, I'll call it, in the early stages, but producing a lot of interesting conversations.

Robert Young
Managing Director & Head of Research at Canaccord Genuity Inc

Okay. And then my second question, just on the the full wrap solution, as you add maintenance and service into the mix of services. I know that you acquired NCS Global, but do you need to acquire, or, are you well positioned for that shift? And then what's the potential timing? If you give any context around margin impact and timing, that would be helpful. I'll pass on.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Yeah. I'll start. I'll let Mandy finish on the M and A front. Yeah. Services is certainly a major focus area for us.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

The the South Africa and CS Global was a fantastic acquisition and is certainly supporting us. In order to really support the demand that we have from our customers on services we will need and are planning to expand our services footprint and offering. And with that I'll turn it over to Mandeep.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Yeah. Rob, so services is an area of focus for us. And the acquisition for SCS was able to bring in some good capabilities and a good foundation. We do have a very extensive partner network. And so we don't see any gaps in being able to support the customer wins that we've already received. But there are going to be opportunities along the way to vertically integrate. And so we do continue to look at various targets.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

And if we can see the synergies come to bear, then we will be comfortable to go ahead and act. But our funnel does continue to include service targets.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

And obviously, services margins would be north of the company margins as well and be accretive.

Robert Young
Managing Director & Head of Research at Canaccord Genuity Inc

Right. Is there any timing on the the rollout of that services offering? Is that happening today, or is it something like, how do we think about that, from a modeling perspective?

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

It is it is happening today. It is happening today, but, not at the scale where it would be moving, the company's, financials, I would say. Anything anything there?

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Would I would think about it, Rob, as Rob Young, as in terms of a materiality perspective is when we get into that large digital native one. That's where it's gonna be a larger part of the of the offering. That being said, we price and and look to support our customers holistically. And so they're you know, not everything is gonna always be accretive to the company services. Certainly, it will be.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

But there will be a variety of services we provide. So we're gonna be incrementally investing in this area, and I would say it has more of a materiality impact probably as we get to 2021.

Samik Chatterjee
Samik Chatterjee
MD & Equity Research Analyst at J.P. Morgan

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Your final question is a follow-up from David Voat from UBS. David, your line is open. Please go ahead.

David Vogt
David Vogt
Managing Director at UBS Group

Great. Thanks guys for taking my follow-up. Mandeep, this is a question for you. You mentioned that you have enough capacity or maybe Rob mentioned you have enough capacity for calendar year 2026 growth in CCS and you have basically a visibility for the next twelve months. Can you help us understand when you would need to make adjustments to your capacity as we move through 2025 into 2026 or the back half of 2026 and 2027? How should we think about that flowing through your capital priorities as demand strengthens or your visibility improves as we move forward? Thanks.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

Yes. Why don't I start off on the number side and Rob can jump in as needed. So we if you look at one of those large buildings that we were able to add on in Thailand, we were able to do it in about twelve months. And so expansions in areas like Mexico and Southeast Asia about twelve months lead time is required. This is a reminder on the approach that we take is we have a campus strategy the way our network is set up up and so we do have the ability to add on additional buildings within the campuses typically and then we can quickly fill it with equipment.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

We have already made decisions to expand capacity to support programs that we've won in areas such as Thailand, such as Richardson, Texas, such as in Mexico. You'll see the CapEx spend in the first half of this year being a little bit on the lighter side and that's just reflective of expenditures that we've actually incurred so far. But the back half of this year is going be a little bit more weighted. Just taking a step back from an overall CapEx intensity perspective 1.5 to 2% is still the right number for us. This year we'll be tracking towards $200,000,000 it just has been under 2%.

Mandeep Chawla
Mandeep Chawla
CFO at Celestica

But 1.5 to 2% of our revenues continues to be around the same amount that we would expect to spend. And I'll just highlight that only about 40 basis points of our CapEx spend is for maintenance and so the rest of it is to support growth programs which gives us a lot of discretion on where we put those dollars. But right now, we think that we can meet the demand for the programs we've already won with that amount spent.

David Vogt
David Vogt
Managing Director at UBS Group

Great. Thanks, Mandeep.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over Rob Mayonis for closing remarks.

Rob Mionis
Rob Mionis
President, CEO & Director at Celestica

Thank you, and thank you all for your time and engagement today. We're pleased to report a strong second quarter, demonstrating our resilience in a dynamic market. The upward revision of our full year outlook reflects the strength of our customer relationships and the confidence in the current demand environment. We value your ongoing support and look forward to sharing more positive updates with you next quarter. Thank you again for joining us this morning, and have a great day.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Matthew Pallotta
      Matthew Pallotta
      Head - IR & Senior Director - Finance
    • Rob Mionis
      Rob Mionis
      President, CEO & Director
Analysts
    • Karl Ackerman
      MD - Equity Research, Semiconductors & IT Hardware at BNP Paribas
    • Ruben Roy
      MD - Equity Research at Stifel Financial Corp
    • David Vogt
      Managing Director at UBS Group
    • Thanos Moschopoulos
      Managing Director - Equity Research at BMO Capital Markets
    • Samik Chatterjee
      MD & Equity Research Analyst at J.P. Morgan
    • Paul Treiber
      Director & Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
    • Atif Malik
      Equity Research Analyst at Citigroup
    • Todd Coupland
      Managing Director at CIBC World Markets
    • Robert Young
      Managing Director & Head of Research at Canaccord Genuity Inc