Vishay Intertechnology Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 5, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Strong Q2 performance: Adjusted revenue rose 9.5% sequentially and 21% year over year to $919 million, exceeding guidance, while book-to-bill reached 1.32 and backlog increased 18% to $1.9 billion.
  • Positive Sentiment: Demand is broadening across industrial, AI, automotive, aerospace and defense, healthcare, and communications, with rising customer counts, market-share gains, and increasing demand for Western supply. AI-related orders and aerospace-defense programs are driving particularly strong bookings.
  • Positive Sentiment: Profitability improved as higher volumes, pricing, channel management, and cost initiatives lifted adjusted gross margin to 22.6% and adjusted operating margin to 5.8%; Vishay now expects to reach its 24% quarterly gross-margin goal in Q3, ahead of schedule.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company raised its Q3 outlook to $945 million–$975 million of revenue and expects continued capacity expansion, including foundry support for AI products, polymer capacitor investments, and progress toward production at its German 12-inch fab in mid-2027.
  • Negative Sentiment: Vishay expects negative free cash flow in 2026 because of heavy capacity-expansion spending, while its recent $830 million equity offering increased the share count and diluted existing shareholders; the company also continues to face elevated tax rates and rising metals, materials, and logistics costs.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Vishay Intertechnology Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Peter Henrici
Peter Henrici
EVP of Corporate Development at Vishay Intertechnology

Good morning. Welcome to Vishay Intertechnology's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. I am joined today by Joel Smejkal, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and by David McConnell, our Chief Financial Officer. This morning, we reported results for our second quarter 2026. A copy of our earnings release is available in the investor relations section of our website at ir.vishay.com.

Peter Henrici
Peter Henrici
EVP of Corporate Development at Vishay Intertechnology

This call is being broadcast live over the web and can be accessed through our website. In addition, today's call is being recorded and will be available via replay on our website. During the call, we will refer to a slide presentation which we also posted on ir.vishay.com. You should be aware that during today's conference call, we will be making certain forward-looking statements that discuss future events and performance.

Peter Henrici
Peter Henrici
EVP of Corporate Development at Vishay Intertechnology

These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the forward-looking statements. For a discussion of factors that could cause results to differ, please see today's press release and Vishay's Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We are including information in our press release and on this conference call on various GAAP and non-GAAP measures.

Peter Henrici
Peter Henrici
EVP of Corporate Development at Vishay Intertechnology

We have included full GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation in our press release and in the presentation posted on ir.vishay.com, which we believe will be useful when comparing our GAAP and non-GAAP results. We use non-GAAP measures because we believe they provide useful information about the operating performance of our businesses and should be considered by investors in conjunction with GAAP measures. Specifically, as it pertains to our tariff refunds, we are reporting GAAP and adjusted revenue for the second quarter.

Peter Henrici
Peter Henrici
EVP of Corporate Development at Vishay Intertechnology

The second quarter 2026 adjusted net revenues exclude $30.0 million for tariff refunds passed through to customers with no impact on gross profit. The tariff refunds are recognized as reductions of net revenues and costs of products sold in the second quarter 2026 GAAP results. Adjusted gross margin is calculated using adjusted net revenues.

Peter Henrici
Peter Henrici
EVP of Corporate Development at Vishay Intertechnology

Tariff refunds have not been allocated to a reportable segment, end market, sales channel, or region. All following second quarter 2026 measures presented exclude tariff refunds. Tariff refunds do not impact any other period presented. On today's conference call, management will refer to adjusted revenues in the analysis of results for the quarter. I turn the call over to President and Chief Executive, Joel Smejkal.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Thank you, Peter. Thank you, everyone, for joining our call this morning. Let's start the call with a review of the second quarter performance. Dave will take you through a detailed review of our financial results for the quarter and our guidance for the third quarter of 2026. After that, I'll update you on the strategic levers we are pulling to drive growth and profitability. Then we'd be happy to answer any of your questions.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

For the second quarter, we are reporting adjusted revenue of $919 million, exceeding the top end of our revenue guidance. Revenues are growing faster over the past five quarters on strengthening demand, supported by the agility of Vishay 3.0. Compared to the first quarter, revenue grew 9.5%, 20.5% year-on-year, reflecting continued growth across all Vishay product technologies, our end markets, business channels, and regions.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Market share gains for both semis and passives came through higher consumption from increasing customer volume and increasing customer count, with increasing demand in the industrial segments, AI, aerospace, and automotive. In terms of demand dynamics, our Q2 results are a continuation of Q1. On a year-to-year basis, our results tell us that Vishay 3.0 is working as designed. With industry lead time stretching, pricing rising, and geopolitical tensions remaining, customers are concerned about the availability of products and assurance of supply.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

To secure supply, customers are placing orders showing longer visibility. Many customers are forecasting six months out with a desire to replenish their own inventories. Demand related to AI applications continues to accelerate, leading numerous customers to place orders beyond 52 weeks to make sure they have a place in our production loading. Book-to-bill for Q2 was 1.32, with semis at 1.23 and passives higher at 1.40.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Q2 is a record high bookings for resistors and inductors. As a result, our total backlog grew 18% to $1.9 billion, or 6.1 months. Having invested $900 million to expand capacity during the recent market trough years, we are reacting much faster than historically to serve more customers. We are demonstrating that we can scale with their volume production while maintaining competitive lead times.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Our book-to-bill is showing us that we are getting turns orders because of the first half 2026 improved delivery performance. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we began to announce price increases related to increasing cost of metals, materials, and logistics. Price increase announcements continued through Q1 and Q2 this year. At this point, about one-third of our running part numbers have announced price increases. We saw some of the price increases land in our Q2 financials. The attractiveness of our hybrid component business model grows.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Our volume manufacture of both discrete semis and passives helps customers as they search for greater supply of all of these components on their bill of materials. As a reminder, Vishay can populate more than 80% of the components on a board in a power application. Another point to share, customers are more frequently raising their requests for Western supply of electronic components, which fits very well with our geographical manufacturing footprint and further site optimization projects.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Vishay is a technically leading Western-located manufacturer. Now with our Vishay 3.0 mindset and customer-serving approach, we can supply them with the product they need. Let's turn to a review of Q2 revenue, starting with the revenue by end market on slide four. All end markets show positive revenue increase, with industrial accounting for more than half of the increase. Industrial revenue increased 16.2% versus Q1 and 30.1% versus prior year, reflecting higher consumption primarily for smart grid, AI power, and high voltage DC projects, as well as factory automation.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Bookings increased due to our ability to serve a growing POS through our distribution channel. New programs are launching the second half of 2026 and into 2027, with positive demand trends in industrial power for AI, especially as EMS customers accelerate investments in AI-related applications to support data center growth and high voltage DC transmission. We continue design discussions with customers for humanoids. To elaborate further on industrial, our bookings increased for industrial power applications for customers who are participating in power conversion and cooling projects for AI data centers. We are increasing our part count on new projects as customers add our passives to AI power management solutions.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Customers who are not AI-related, that demand is becoming increasingly concerning. These customers need to make sure they have a manufacturing spot in our queue. Escalations are increasing. In automotive, revenue increased 3.6% quarter-over-quarter and 10.1% versus prior year, reflecting ongoing demand as electronic content continues to increase for driver-assist and autonomous driving applications, plus the further adoption of hybrid and EV platforms. Bookings were strong in the Americas as customers are becoming more proactive to share their visibility and backlog placement. In some cases, customers are providing us with forecasts for the next 12-18 months. In Asia, we are seeing distributors and OEMs wanting to build safety stocks, but this is challenging in this high-demand market.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Aerospace defense revenue increased 4.2% versus the first quarter and 15.4% versus last year, reflecting increasing consumption by US Defense contractors related to programs that have been funded, including accelerated replenishment of components to support multiple missile programs. In Asia and Europe, we are seeing increasing demand from OEM customers and through EMS. Bookings increased sharply from distribution, driven by orders for resistors in preparation for escalating Department of Defense funding.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

More products will be needed to support missile programs and also next-generation radar platforms, high-energy weapons for drone defense and drone dominance projects, the Golden Dome, LEO constellations, and many more projects. Healthcare revenue increased 7% versus Q1 and 14.7% versus prior year, with longstanding customers in the Americas ramping production and EMS customers in Asia seeing improving demand and supply assurance uncertainties. We continue to identify opportunities to leverage the full Vishay portfolio in medical.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

In the other category, which includes telecom, computing, and consumer, revenue grew 11.3% quarter-over-quarter and 28.4% year-over-year. Share gains, higher consumption drove volume increases for AI-related programs in Asia, as did higher demand for AI optical communication network switches. In Europe, higher demand for 5G radio projects increased as customers ramp up production.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Memory shortages and higher component prices have tempered the consumer segment's demand strength a bit. Across other end markets and technologies, we continue to proactively tackle a wide array of opportunities to gain share, putting into practice the Vishay 3.0 business-minded approach. Historically, Vishay underserved or didn't serve high-margin customers during market up cycles. Vishay 3.0 has been working hard to regain these customers, where we had the print position but didn't have the capacity to fulfill orders.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

I'm pleased to report that we are succeeding at both regaining customers and adding new high-margin growth customers for an overall increase in customer count. We are winning back share and seeing increased design-in and quoting activity. Let's turn to slide five for a review of Q2 by channel. Revenue by channel was led by distribution, which increased from 55% of the total in Q1 to 58% in Q2.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Distribution revenue increased 15.6% versus Q1 and 24.2% versus last year, with gains in each region driven by broad-based consumption momentum and reflecting market share gains. Based on distribution reports, we are seeing consumption among existing, new, and returning customers. Distribution inventory overall decreased to 18 weeks at quarter end from 20 weeks last quarter, and POS increased 4.7% quarter-on-quarter and 20.5% year-on-year with growth in all regions.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Our initiative to expand distributor inventory by part number count and depth during the building of Vishay 3.0 is proving to bring very positive results as we provide strong support in the beginning of this market upcycle. Having a proactive business approach in tune with the availability of product is helping us to win. Strong bookings by distribution customers, particularly for industrial power, AI-related applications, and aerospace defense, reflect continued demand momentum amplified by the need to replenish inventory due to stretching lead times.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

In the Americas, numerous customers are discussing safety stock programs in support of escalating aerospace defense demand. Under Vishay 3.0, we are positioning ourselves to provide far more support to more customers, as reflected in our growing POS and increased SKU count. Good customer support opens up more and more new design opportunities for us. Increasing output to distribution is a top priority, we are committed to securing share gains and expanding share.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Our business unit leaders travel to distributors quarterly to be close to the pulse of the market, gain market visibility, and creating more accountability. OEM revenue was up 1.7% quarter-over-quarter and 16.8% year-over-year, reflecting solid demand related to smart grid and AI server power, as well as automotive and medical. EMS revenue increased 3.2% quarter-over-quarter and 10.8% year-over-year, reflecting industrial, aerospace, defense, and automotive program ramps in all regions, plus strengthening demand in AI. Let's go to slide six for the regions. Turning to the geographical mix on this slide, Asia accounted for over half of the revenue increase from the first quarter, increased 12.5% from increased consumption.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Sales grew 14.1% in the Americas on increased consumption, with orders for passives reaching the highest level we have seen in more than 20 years, and semi starting to accelerate as many customers move to volume production. Americas ended the quarter with a book to bill of 1.5. Before turning the call over to Dave, I want to thank the Vishay employees and our reps for their hard work as we continue to transform Vishay to perform positively in this upcycle and to support more customers. Their knowledge and contribution to the success of Vishay 3.0 is well done. Everyone recognizes that Vishay is growing because of our work as a team. The early stages of this upcycle are here, everyone is committed to taking full advantage of the opportunities to drive revenue growth and profitability. Dave, I'll pass the call to you.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

Thanks, Joel, good morning, everyone. Let's start a review of the second quarter results with the highlights on slide seven. Second quarter GAAP revenue was $889 million. Adjusted revenue was $919 million, exceeding our guidance range and increasing 9.5% sequentially, driven by strong volume growth of 7% and an increase in Average Selling Prices of 2%. As a reminder, the difference between the GAAP and adjusted revenue represents the $30 million of tariff refunds received in the second quarter that will be passed through to our customers in the second half of 2026.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

Compared to the second quarter of 2025, adjusted revenue increased 21%, driven primarily by an 18% increase in volume and a 2% increase in Average Selling Prices. Favorable foreign currency, mainly from the euro, provided an additional 1% benefit. Moving on to the next slide, presenting the income statement highlights.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

Gross profit was $177 million, delivering a GAAP gross margin of 23.3% and an adjusted gross margin of 22.6%. The adjusted gross margin exceeded our guidance and represents an increase versus prior quarter. Higher volumes and improved pricing conditions drove margin expansion, helping to offset ongoing metals, materials, and logistic cost pressures. Depreciation expense was $53 million, relatively flat with quarter one. SG&A expenses were $154 million, flat versus quarter one, and in line with our guidance. GAAP operating margin was 6%.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

Adjusted operating margin was 5.8%, compared to 2.6% in the first quarter and 1.4% in the second quarter of 2025. EBITDA for the quarter was $105 million, for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.4%, up from 9.3% in the first quarter. Our GAAP effective tax rate is improving as profitability increases, but remains elevated, as items such as U.S. taxation of foreign earnings and repatriation taxes continue to have a disproportionate impact on the effective tax rate.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

Q2 effective tax rate of 33.7% came in below our guidance range as pre-tax earnings exceeded expectations. Earnings per share was $0.19 for both GAAP and adjusted, compared to $0.05 per share in Q1, and an adjusted loss per share of $0.07 in the second quarter of 2025. Moving on, slide nine provides a summary table detailing revenue, gross margin, and book-to-bill ratios across our reportable segments for quick reference. All reportable segments delivered revenue growth quarter-over-quarter and versus prior year. Turning to slide 10.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

In the second quarter, our cash conversion cycle improved to 110 days from 116 days in quarter one, in part due to our increased sales volume and our continued disciplined working capital management. DSO improved from 41 days in Q1 to 38 days, primarily due to higher revenues and the impact of our securitization program. Inventory days outstanding improved to 102 days due to increased sales volume. Overall inventory increased slightly to $807 million, mainly due to the building of safety stock and raw materials in WIP, as well as to support the increasing backlog.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

Continuing to slide 11. You can see we generated $105 million in operating cash from second quarter, which includes the tariff refunds received that we passed through to customers. We continued to deploy cash for capacity expansion projects. Total CapEx for the quarter was $95 million, including approximately $66 million for our new 12-inch wafer fab in Germany. On a trailing 12-month basis, capital intensity was 10.5%, which is a decrease from 11.3% in the prior year.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

Free cash flow for the quarter was $10 million, reflecting the increased operating income, as well as the tariff refunds received from the U.S. government and additional net cash inflows related to our accounts receivable securitization program. This compares to the -$47 million in the first quarter. Shareholder returns for the second quarter consisted of our $13.6 million quarterly dividend. We did not repurchase any shares in the quarter. During the quarter, though, we completed a public stock offering of 17.25 million shares of common stock and received cash of $830 million net of issuance costs.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

At the end of the quarter, our global cash and short-term investment balance was $1.3 billion, and we had $238 million outstanding on our revolver. We used a portion of the proceeds from our public stock offering to repay the outstanding balance on our revolver in July. Our cash and revolver capacity will be used to support an acceleration of our growth initiatives. At the end of the quarter, we had $423 million accessible in our revolving credit facility at the current EBITDA level. The accessible amount increased to approximately $661 million after the repayment of our credit facility in July.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

Moving on to slide 11 and the guidance. For the third quarter of 2026, revenues are expected to be between $945 million and $975 million. At the midpoint, this represents a 21.4% increase year-over-year and a 4.5% increase quarter-over-quarter, taking into account European seasonality. Gross margin is expected to be in the range of 24.0% ± 50 basis points, one quarter sooner than our goal of exiting the year at 24% quarterly gross margin.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

Depreciation expense is expected to be approximately $54 million for the third quarter and $215 million for the full year. SG&A expenses are expected to be $155 million ± $3 million. We're continuing to invest in R&D and customer-facing activities as the overall business environment improves. Interest expense is expected to be approximately $7 million for the third quarter. Our GAAP effective tax rate remains elevated at low levels of pre-tax income and loss. We expect the effective tax rate to become more predictable and in the range of our historical average as earnings grow. For the third quarter of 2026, we expect the effective tax rate to be between 35% and 40%.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

The expected share count for EPS purposes varies based on the average price of our stock during the quarter, primarily due to our convertible debt. Please refer to Slide 21 that displays the range of expected share counts in the third quarter. Finally, our Stockholder Return Policy calls for us to return at least 70% of our free cash flow to stockholders in the form of dividends and stock repurchases. For 2026, we once again expect negative free cash flow due to our capacity expansion plans. I'll now turn the call back to Joel.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

All right. Thanks, Dave. Let's turn to slide 13 for a review of the strategic levers we are pulling in our efforts to accelerate revenue growth, drive margin expansion, and enhance returns. With the proceeds from our recent equity raise, we have the resources to accelerate our growth plans, allowing us to invest across semis and passive technologies in parallel rather than sequentially. All of the strategic levers are in play. There are eight of them. Each supports our efforts to accelerate revenue growth and drive margin expansion and enhance returns. We plan to spend between $400 million and $440 million in CapEx in 2026, with about half of that earmarked for the investments we're making at our 12-inch fab in Germany.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

At our 12-inch fab in Germany, all of the equipment has been assembled, and we plan to complete installation in the third quarter, so we are ready to start running engineering wafers toward the end of the year. We remain on track with our goal of starting non-automotive production in mid-2027. At several foundries, we are now ramping up production, which will give us additional wafer capacity to support AI-related application demand starting in the second half of the year. To support the front-end wafer investments, we are working on an initiative to have more dedicated Vishay back-end capacity to reduce our dependency on multiple outside subcontractors. On the passive side, automotive qualifications at our La Laguna and Juarez facilities are ongoing.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

We are also increasing capacity on our polymer capacitor production by the end of the year, and we will have started an expansion of that capacity in La Laguna. With expanded capacity, we will be able to support more AI and automotive applications. Through our subcontractor initiatives, we continue to expand our portfolio available for distribution. This positions us to increase our share for the customer bill of materials and outsource low-margin commercial grade products.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Our equity raise also gives us more resources to expand our R&D activities and to reignite a disciplined value accretive M&A process. In terms of innovation and our new product development work, we are continuing to execute our silicon carbide strategy and development of GaN to participate in the wide bandgap market. To accelerate our innovation work, we are stepping up our evaluation of which technologies to acquire.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

At the same time, we continue to work on new applications at the component level. This quarter, we have won designs in the area of industrial power management, smart grid battery backup systems, energy storage systems, power modules for industrial heating, solar inverters, and ADAS systems. Our results here to date demonstrate the benefits of our Vishay 3.0 initiatives to put the customer first.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

We continue to work on the gross margin progression toward 30%, the target of our strategic plan. Channel management and product mix management are main priorities, where we proactively and deliberately direct capacity toward higher margin customers and products to improve mix as part of our business-minded approach under Vishay 3.0. We are no longer simply supporting specific large OEM accounts by taking orders to maximize factory utilization.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

In closing, our second quarter and first half results demonstrate that Vishay 3.0 is working and propelling us forward to not only take full advantage of the upcycle, outpacing industry growth rates, gaining market share, but also to lay the foundation for sustained growth, leveraging multiyear demand across these markets, and as a new company, expanding margins and enhancing shareholder returns. Olivia, we are now ready to open the call for the first question.

Operator

Thank you, Joel. At this time, we will conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Ruplu Bhattacharya from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Ruplu, your line is now open.

Ruplu Bhattacharya
Ruplu Bhattacharya
Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Joel, maybe can you talk a little bit more about the use of foundries? What utilization are your fabs running at today, and what percent of your manufacturing is at foundries? Can you weave in your expectations for the Newport fab in terms of wafers per month you expect by the end of this year? Same for the fab that's coming up in Germany, what wafers per month capacity are you targeting for 2028?

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Hi, Ruplu. Use of foundries. We had spoke previously about in putting our technology structures at foundries in Korea. We have two that we're working with. Additional one in China. Those are coming on board here in the third quarter. That's going to help us increase our capacity for AI wafers and AI end products. The Newport fab, we continue to have the automotive audits.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

We're well into the single digits of nine and 10 customer audits have been completed. A couple more to go. Getting the customer programs to accept the PCNs is the next step, and this is taking a little time. We're working with the customer closely. When we get the Tier 1 customer programs approved, the utilization of the Newport fab will increase. We're expecting to see more and more programs approved every month through the end of the year.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

By having those programs approved in Newport, we're able to open capacity in the Idaho eight-inch fab, which is going to help us. The capacity increase second half and into the first half of 2027 will be Idaho, eight-inch, Korea, two foundries, and another foundry in China. The 12-inch fab, we talk about first qualifying the non-automotive commercial parts so we can run the fab much faster than Newport was started. That is still on target for mid 2027. As far as wafer counts, we're not ready to share that at this time. We are making good progress wit h the fabs and capacity.

Ruplu Bhattacharya
Ruplu Bhattacharya
Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Okay. Thanks for that. There have been some media reports that for AI applications or power applications, maybe some vendors want to use more MLCCs versus polymer tantalum. Can you give us your thoughts on Vishay's exposure to MLCC, and is that something that you would want to increase over time? Or do you think the exposure to polymer tantalum is more important? And what is your current percent of revenue from polymer tantalum, and do you plan to expand that? Just MLCC versus polymer tantalum use and your exposure to those.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

MLCC, we have products which are more specialized. The MLCCs that we have is more for military and more for medical. We do get some orders for AI or compute programs when the lead times are long from other MLCC suppliers. We still see the demand for polymer tantalum. Polymer tantalum in automotive, polymer tantalum in AI. I know there's some talk about MLCCs versus polymer, we're still seeing demand grow for polymer. We're expanding our polymer output through the end of this year at the current locations that we're in, and we'll be expanding capacity at a new site in La Laguna, Mexico. Polymer will be a growing part of our portfolio. We see very long lead times from competition, the interest from customers is still very strong to add Vishay to this product set.

Ruplu Bhattacharya
Ruplu Bhattacharya
Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Okay. If I can just squeeze one more in, Dave, can you talk about CapEx this year and versus next year? Do you think CapEx maintains at this level, or do you see that increasing or decreasing? Your spend on CapEx versus buybacks, how should we think about capital allocation, if you can give a general framework? Thanks so much for taking my questions.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

Okay. Yeah. Hi, Ruplu. I think we're sticking with the $400-$440 CapEx this year. We're halfway there through six months. Next year, we're not going to give you a number yet. I think what we would say though is our capital intensity will continue to drop back down to lower levels and not stay at the 11%-10% range. Absolute dollars is still maybe a fairly high number, as a percentage, as capital intensity number, it should drop.

Ruplu Bhattacharya
Ruplu Bhattacharya
Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Williams with Needham. David, your line is now open.

David Williams
David Williams
Analyst at Needham

Good morning, gentlemen. Congrats on the really solid progress here.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Thanks, David.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

Hi, Dave.

David Williams
David Williams
Analyst at Needham

I guess maybe first on the gross margin line, it seems like you've got some better leverage there as we've kind of inflected. Just kind of curious how you think about the gross margin. Obviously, we have your longer-term targets, you've pulled that forward a bit. You said in the script maybe a quarter on that 24%, do you think that we have more room here to grow? How should we think about this margin kind of going forward? What does that trajectory look like? Has it changed, are we still kind of where you thought we would be, at this point?

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

We're happy to accelerate that 24% that we said we were going to exit the fourth quarter. We say we can hit that in Q3. We've got a series of initiatives that are going to help the margin. The short-term is the volume, for sure. The volume helps us with the variable margin. ASPs, we're increasing ASPs, and that's also helping the variable and gross margin. The channel management, as we look at our backlog and we position our backlog to support higher-margin customers, that gives us an immediate short-term impact.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Each division has annual cost savings targets they need to hit, those will be rolling in quarter on quarter. They don't all happen in the first half of the year. It takes some time through the year to go. Maximizing the Newport fab. We increase the utilization there to carry cost away and make that even more and more accretive quarter on quarter with these automotive program approvals.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

The IItzehoe 12-inch, middle of the 2027, is going to start helping us there as well. We'll get the economies of a 12-inch wafer. Back end, the back end semiconductor finishing, putting that in a low-cost country and reducing our dependency on subcontractors. We've got quite a few of them that are building parts for us, this will be a help. We won't have to pay the margin of the subcontractor, we can have it in with Vishay. The factory optimization, we talked about footprint optimization. Got a lot of factories.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

This is another initiative which begins in 2027, staging in 2026, starting in 2027, 2028, which is another one of the eight, which is going to continue to give us the lift in gross margin. Got many levers to pull here, and all of them are active.

David McConnell
David McConnell
CFO at Vishay Intertechnology

Yeah, I think, David, I think to your point, though, I think what Joel just laid out is 2028 numbers still, not accelerating into the beginning of 2027, then we're going to reach the 30% from the investor day.

David Williams
David Williams
Analyst at Needham

Great. Thanks for that color. Excuse me. You talked a little bit about the escalations in the script as well. Just kind of curious if you could talk about how broad-based that was, and are there any concerns here potentially of getting to a point where we're double ordering or where things maybe are getting a little out of hand, or do you think we're still fairly rational in the ordering pace that we're seeing today?

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

I think at this point it's still fairly rational. We look at items like the POS. The POS is growing for Vishay, so consumption is going out the door at distribution. The weeks of inventory has gone down each of the quarters. The distributors, even though they speak about the need to replenish, they haven't been able to do it. People are placing orders farther out because of the concern of the high AI demand that they might miss, other market segments might miss the opportunity to get product. We're seeing those orders for positioning to their programs.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

When I talk to a lot of colleagues across the industry, not seeing the double ordering at this point. There's some long lead time products out there, but at this point, it's supporting consumption. It's supporting demand. We're going to watch it every quarter. We're going to keep watching our indices, our metrics. At this point, we say we're early. We're early in this upcycle.

David Williams
David Williams
Analyst at Needham

Right. If I could squeeze just one last one in. As you kind of think about the strength within the AI data center, how would you rank that in terms of the demand strength that you're seeing today relative to maybe how you entered the year and what your expectations were? Would you say it's significantly higher, about the same, or just maybe any color around that? Thanks for the-

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Demand for AI is growing with the hybrid model of semis and passives. We're getting more and more passives on the bill of materials, that's growing. The MOSFETs, the diodes, we've been on the bill of materials. We need to get the Korean foundry moving here in the third quarter with wafers, then we can support more of the AI MOSFETs and diodes in the later part of the year, that's growing. I think we're growing at a good rate, pushing for more, for sure. There's more that we could support short term. There's continued escalations, not just because of Vishay orders, but we also have opportunities where our competitors are not able to supply, and we're getting those escalation opportunities. AI is continued strong, and we're pushing to be even a bigger player than we are today.

David Williams
David Williams
Analyst at Needham

Thanks again.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Thanks, David.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Melissa Fairbanks with Raymond James. Melissa, your line is now open.

Melissa Fairbanks
Melissa Fairbanks
Analyst at Raymond James

Hey, guys. Thanks very much for taking my question.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Hi, Melissa. How are you?

Melissa Fairbanks
Melissa Fairbanks
Analyst at Raymond James

Hi. Good morning. Joel, you kind of provided a lot of color behind this already, I was kind of curious. This is a question that's been coming up on a lot of calls this quarter. You did communicate that there have been some price increases. You expect to see some price increases. It may not technically be double ordering yet, but are you seeing any pull forwards related to once you communicate these price increases, people are wanting to get the inventory or the capacity locked in?

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Yeah. We see the intention, the way we're doing the price increases, we are updating the backlog rather quickly.

Melissa Fairbanks
Melissa Fairbanks
Analyst at Raymond James

Okay.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

To be able to try and get ahead of the queue and have a ship within weeks, we're updating the backlog to the new price. We don't see that people are able to get ahead of it. We do see Tier 1 automotives trying to put inventory in place. OEMs are pushing them to get some inventory in place, but even that's a challenge because of the loads that are in our manufacturing lines, plus we believe our competitors, it's quite difficult for somebody to try and build inventory and get ahead of something. It's a pretty dynamic business we're in.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

It's growing in all market segments. Capacities are being filled quarter-on-quarter. As new capacities land, those are being loaded very quickly. I think the price increases are being implemented and not just a paper price increase. I think they're real, they're coming quick, and it's hard for somebody to pull anything ahead.

Melissa Fairbanks
Melissa Fairbanks
Analyst at Raymond James

Okay, great. I assume increase in turns business within the quarter reflects that as well, that's not happening. It would be great if the Tier 1 auto guys could have learned a lesson from the last supply chain crisis, here we are.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Yeah, we have this revolving thing going on here, don't we? Yeah.

Melissa Fairbanks
Melissa Fairbanks
Analyst at Raymond James

Yeah. One last question from me. You know, to the extent that you are expanding the portfolio available for distribution, that way you're going to capture more content on a board or more content in a design, is there an aspect of demand creation that we may need to think about in terms of impacting the margin, or is that just negligible as we look at increasing content?

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

For the most part, it's negligible.

Melissa Fairbanks
Melissa Fairbanks
Analyst at Raymond James

Okay.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Getting the strength of the distributor FAEs with their design registrations is a good benefit. We've got our Vishay FAEs out there, but when we can multiply the headcount with the distributor FAEs and incentivize them to go out and put Vishay on the bill of materials, it's a plus plus. The cost is negligible for us.

Melissa Fairbanks
Melissa Fairbanks
Analyst at Raymond James

Okay. Perfect. Thanks very much, guys.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

Thanks, Melissa. Appreciate it.

Melissa Fairbanks
Melissa Fairbanks
Analyst at Raymond James

That's okay.

Operator

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Joel for closing remarks.

Joel Smejkal
Joel Smejkal
President and CEO at Vishay Intertechnology

All right. Thank you, Olivia. To sum up today's call, our Q2 and first-half results demonstrate that Vishay 3.0 is working as intended and positioning Vishay to fully participate in the industry upcycle, outpacing industry growth while we continue to gain share, and to prepare Vishay for long-term sustainable growth. In the third quarter, we will be attending the Needham Virtual Semiconductor & SemiCap Conference on August 18th, and we'll also be in person at the Citi Global Conference on September 9th. Hope to see many of you there. Thank you very much for attending our call. Have a great week.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Peter Henrici
      Peter Henrici
      EVP of Corporate Development
    • Joel Smejkal
      Joel Smejkal
      President and CEO
    • David McConnell
      David McConnell
      CFO
Analysts
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