Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to the Elmos Semiconductor SE Analysts conference call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Dr. Arne Schneider, CEO. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our Virtual Analyst conference and earnings webcast for the fiscal year 2024, and it's actually the first time that we are talking to you from our new Leverkusen office today. I'm very happy to present to you the highlights and preliminary financial results of a very eventful and, once again, successful year for Elmos, both financially as well as structurally. As usual, you have the opportunity to ask questions via telephone at the end of my presentation, which is also available in the IR section on our website. Let me start with a very brief overview for all of you who are new to Elmos. Last year, Elmos celebrated its 40th anniversary. Since its foundation in 1984 in Dortmund, Elmos has developed from a small startup to a leading and one of the most experienced suppliers of automotive mixed-signal semiconductors worldwide. Our ICs measure and control many different functions and systems in the car and enable electronic intelligence at the edge of the vehicle. Our innovative solutions address several key automotive megatrends, such as electrification, autonomous driving, ADAS, safety, interior comfort, digitization, and software-defined vehicles o r simply, Elmos ICs make our mobility safer, more comfortable, more intelligent, and more sustainable. As a fabless niche player specializing in analog mixed signal chips, we have established a global leading position in all of our attractive application fields and continuously develop the cutting-edge IC generations that provide added value for our customers and end users. We estimate that, on average, eight Elmos ICs are installed in every newly produced car worldwide in 2024. However, this is a very broad spectrum of vehicles, you know. You can easily imagine that the content of Elmos ICs in a fully equipped premium model or a modern EV is, of course, significantly higher. We have continuously expanded our international presence. With more than 1,100 employees in our 19 locations worldwide, we are always close to our custom ers. More than 450 hardware and software engineers, chip designers, and semiconductor specialists located in our R&D centers worldwide turn our deep understanding of our customers' needs and future trends into innovative microelectronics. Many of the global leading Tier 1s are our direct customers. More than 50% of our sales are generated in Asia, where our ICs are assembled into the specific systems and then shipped to car factories around the world. Elmos chips can be found in many models of all major OEM brands worldwide, in premium vehicle brands as well as entry-level car platforms, from traditional European OEMs to car manufacturers on the East and West Coast of the U.S., and local OEMs in Asia, including many new brands and predominant brands in China. You can say that our product distribution on OEM level is relatively close to being a mirror of the global car markets. Together with our global leading Tier 1 and OEM partners, Elmos is a driving force for the mobility of the future. IC solutions enable intelligent electronics and a large share of all innovations in modern cars. Let me give you just a few examples. An especially strong product focus for Elmos are applications in the field of safety for vehicle passengers and other road users. Ultrasonic ranging sensors built with Elmos chips detect the 360-degree environment around the car very precisely and deliver crucial sensor data for assisted driving in the city or at slow speeds. With the support of AI, the next generation of our sensors will be able to classify objects and enable height discrimination, thus enabling further ADAS and safety functions for assisted and autonomous driving. By the way, all major OEMs in China are currently upgrading their ultrasonic systems to the new DSI3 standard to offer improved ADAS functionality. You may have read about it in the news, actually. A great opportunity for Elmos as the market and innovation leader in ultrasonic ICs. Another important topic for modern cars is a striking design and the well-being of the occupants, enabled by exterior and interior lighting solutions. Ambient interior lighting is a fantastic success story, increasingly popular and an integral part in modern vehicles of all segments, and there are new and exciting applications in both interior and exterior lighting on the horizons. Elmos LED control ICs enable illuminated front grilles with multi-pixel LED surfaces, all the illumination of the roof surface or glass roof with colored and mood-adapted dynamic ambient lighting. With the ongoing electrification of the drivetrain, the demand for intelligent electromechanical components such as actuators, vents, fans, pumps, valves, and shutters is growing. In modern vehicles, several dozens of these little helpers make it possible to control a wide range of systems electronically and fully automatically. This trend is primarily driven by comfort functions and the thermal management system, which is, of course, essential for EVs to increase efficiency and range. Already today, Elmos is the market leader in relevant application fields, and our product portfolio for specific EV applications is growing steadily. We are also working on new and promising applications such as eFuses for modern vehicle board net architectures and software-defined vehicles or sensor signal ICs in new brake-by-wire applications for higher functio nal safety. With our innovative product roadmap, four decades of experience, and an outstanding R&D and sales team, we will greatly benefit from the structural growth driven by a higher IC content in modern cars. We are convinced that a successful and very relevant supplier of automotive chip solutions will have to be visible as a clear market and innovation leader in our focus applications. This is crucial to understand market trends early on and to interact with OEMs and Tier 1s on an eye-to-eye level to be able to create innovation that offers improved functionality, better performance, and added value. If we look at our high-volume applications, you can see that we have already succeeded in achieving the number one position in three of those five application areas. Furthermore, we are also on a promising path in pressure sensors for brake systems and in airbag firing ICs. Here, we will continue to improve our market position through new business wins we have successfully acquired in the last years, but also through promising new projects we are quoting on and may win this year. New focus applications such as E-Fuse control ICs for the protection of zonal board nets and motor control ICs for thermal management systems of batteries and e-motors will soon be added to this impressive list. For our products, we see the increasing electrification of car platforms, higher ADAS levels, new board net architectures, and the trend towards software-defined vehicles as a continuous growth driver because many of tomorrow's vehicles will contain even more mixed signal ICs from Elmos. A lot of our applications are completely independent of the vehicle drivetrain, be it an internal combustion engine, a plug-in hybrid, or a fully battery-powered electric vehicle. Although Elmos supplies some components that are dedicated to pure combustion engine applications, the revenue generated from such functions makes up only a very small single-digit percentage of our total turnover. The vast majority of our focus applications in efficiency, comfort, and safety is fully agnostic of the drivetrain type. In pure battery electric vehicles, on the other hand, there are additional upcoming application areas that generate further growth opportunities for our products in thermal management, securing the high-voltage board net, improving aerodynamics, sensing battery health state, and so on. Every new car produced globally today contains, on average, eight Elmos ICs. In some state-of-the-art premium combustion engine vehicles, up to 70 Elmos ICs can be found already today. Tomorrow's premium battery electric vehicles with a new software-defined architecture contain even up to 150 Elmos chips per car, and, of course, these trends will support our future growth. Our products do not only support the transformation of automotive mobility. They also make a major contribution to greater environmental protection and efficiency, safety, and health, as well as comfort and well-being. Most of the Elmos products can be attributed to multiple purposes: safety, comfort, and environmental protection simultaneously. Based on the 2024 ESG product matrix, around 69% of group sales make a substantial contribution to increased environmental protection and higher efficiency. More than 77% of sales enhance safety and health and are crucial for higher road safety. Last but not least, around 60% of group sales increase the comfort and well-being of drivers and passengers. Besides the positive environmental contribution of our product portfolio, we are also reducing our own carbon footprint. We have set ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions for our own activities by 40% until 2026, compared to the base year 2022, with an annual reduction of 10%. So these 10% accumulate to be 40%. Elmos aims for its own activities to be completely climate neutral by 2035. For the year 2024, we have achieved our reduction target. All of our 2024 ESG KPIs, policies, and the ESG report based on the new CSRD reporting standards will be available on our website as of March 20, together with the publication of the Elmos annual report. The automotive megatrends create a highly favorable and long-term growth scenario for the automotive semiconductor market, despite ongoing restocking effects and limited visibility in the short term. These trends expand the role of smart electronics in all aspects of modern vehicles and drive the content of semiconductors in all systems and functions. For Elmos, as an innovative, agile, and reliable semiconductor specialist, the long-term growth projections for the automotive semiconductor market are very promising. The forecasted development of the global automotive market in the short term is not as dynamic as the projections of the automotive semiconductor market. However, the demand for individual mobility and shared mobility is expected to continue to grow. S&P is forecasting around 97 million new vehicles to be built in 2030. This corresponds to an annual growth rate of almost 3%, with China solidifying its leading position as the world's largest automotive market, with an even more pronounced leading role in the EV market. Elmos has a very strong position in China already today, and with our ongoing localization activities based on our new local-for-local China strategy, we will further increase our standing as a highly competitive and much more local semiconductor player. As vehicles become more intelligent, loaded with digital electronic safety and autonomous technologies, the semiconductor content per vehicle is expected to grow significantly, as most of these functions are enabled by ICs. According to S&P and other research firms, the semiconductor content per vehicle is expected to grow from an average of $543 per car in 2020 - $1,428 per car in 2030. The automotive semiconductor market is expected to experience strong, sustained growth over the next decade, and Elmos is uniquely positioned to benefit from all these megatrends. Our deep expertise, broad portfolio, and commitment to innovation ensure that we are the partner of choice for automotive suppliers and automakers around the world as we enable this new era of mobility. Fiscal year 2024 was affected by a challenging economic market and geopolitical environment. GDP growth rates were weak in Europe, with a shrinking economy in Germany. For 2025, the global economic growth remains divergent, especially as a result of geopolitical uncertainty. The news flow by OEMs and Tier 1s in the second half of 2024 is reflecting the growing uncertainties about the development of the automotive market, especially for EVs in Europe, as well as potential impacts by new tariffs. In 2024, production of new cars has dropped by 1%. Only China recorded a higher number of new cars, whereas volumes in Europe, the U.S., and other Asian countries dropped quite substantially. Due to the existing uncertainties about the short-term development of the global automotive market, the slower progress in e-mobility, especially in Europe, and the overall weaker economic expectation, customers have adjusted their orders accordingly and are also placing orders at a much shorter notice. Many of our customers are still focusing on inventory and cost optimization. These inventory adjustments, which are taking much longer than actually expected, have influenced the automotive semi market in 2024 substantially, actually by around -7% according to S&P, and these adjustments are still ongoing and are visible at least in Q1 2025. Despite the effects of the normalization phase and lower growth rates, our performance was very resilient in 2024. We have no reason to be pessimistic about the future. On the contrary, the inventory destocking is a temporary phenomenon. After the allocation and the structural growth trend for the automotive semiconductors remains intact. With innovative IC solutions and a great product pipeline, the growth opportunities for innovative and agile players like Elmos remain high. Beyond our positive financial performance, we could initiate or successfully complete important strategic milestones. The acquisition of new projects has continued to develop positively, and our new design wins in 2024 are exceeding the high value of the previous year. We have been able to win numerous attractive new projects and are able to further expand our position in all of our application fields. The OEE, or Overall Equipment Effectiveness Program, in the testing area started successfully with positive results, which are already visible in our CapEx ratio in 2024. Increasing operational efficiency and test time optimization are key elements in a better utilization of a testing capacity, resulting in lower CapEx needs not only this year but also in the midterm. The transformation of Elmos into a fabless company is finally completed. Closing with the transfer of the remaining purchase price was at the end of December 2024. As you know, we sold the fab to the U.S. company Littelfuse for around EUR 93 million. As a fabless company, Elmos accesses modern technologies from our renowned foundry partners, and we can even better focus on utilizing our strong growth potential with highly innovative automotive IC applications without the burden of an own front-end fab. Our approach to increase our local presence in China is well on track, with first deliveries of ICs to Chinese customers at the end of 2024. Increasing our local presence and value chain in China is an important requirement for defending our strong market position in the world's largest automotive market. Our commitment in this region is highly appreciated by local customers, by OEMs, and, of course, by authorities. As of January 1st, 2025, we have also realigned our corporate structure with Elmos Semiconductor SE as a group holding company located in Leverkusen and four new operational entities at the main site in Dortmund. We are in the final stretch of upgrading our SAP system to S/4HANA, a pleasure that I believe most companies have to go through. These are all very important projects to make our structures, processes, and entire organization fit for the future. A big thanks to all team members for the successful execution of these important milestones. Let me now also comment on the key financial highlights of 2024 shown on pages 9 - 12 of the presentation. In its 40th year, Elmos could continue its positive economic and structural development. We were able to meet our sales guidance in 2024, and the small growth of 1% to EUR 581.1 million marks the fourth consecutive year with a new sales record. It is a very challenging market environment characterized by destocking and short-term visibility, and in this market, we have performed well and better than most of our peers. The decline in Q4 to EUR 145.7 million reflects the ongoing destocking activities and short-term order behavior of a good share of our customers. The gross margin in fiscal year 2024 reached 44%, more or less on the level expected. Pricing was flattish overall during the last year. Gross profit in Q4 was somewhat lower due to year-end cut-off, accounting and valuation effects, where we have chosen a conservative approach, as you know we usually do. Despite a slowdown in the top-line growth momentum, the operating EBIT margin in 2024 reached the high target level of 25.1% and was also in line with our guidance. This is an impressive performance, again much better than most of our peers and a real first test of the resilience of our operating model. Including special items, which are the extraordinary gain from the fab sale and provisions for cost optimization programs, the reported EBIT reached EUR 172.6 million or 29.7% of sales. The CapEx reduction versus the high levels of the last year has been achieved as planned. Investment in fiscal year 2024 reached a low level of 7.6% versus 20% in the last year. The even further CapEx reduction compared to our guidance is a result of the limited growth in the last year and a better utilization of our testing equipment as part of our OEE project. With 59.1 million EUR, R&D expenses were lower in 2024, and the R&D ratio actually decreased to 10.2%. The reduction is due to a better R&D efficiency, lower external R&D services, higher capitalized development costs as a result of a higher number of development projects, as well as higher R&D grants, so for that, thank you to the various authorities. As expected, the adjusted free cash flow was positive at 5.1 million EUR in fiscal year 2024. In addition to the final payment of 55.4 million EUR after the closing of the sale of the Dortmund Wafer Factory Littelfuse, adjusted free cash flow in the fourth quarter was significantly influenced by tax payments. The tax payments for corporate and business tax of more than EUR 100 million in the last quarter resulted from the strong increases in profits in the last three financial years, 2022 to 2024, which later lead, of course, to tax payments. So actually, if anyone would question the relocation of the Elmos Holding Company to Leverkusen, I'm very happy to send a copy of the final tax assessment. So by looking at the Q4 cash flow statement, it is quite obvious why we had to relocate to a more tax-attractive city, which is, by the way, and all of you know, of course, only one hour by car from Dortmund and in the same state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Car production volumes dropped by around one million or 1% - 89.4 million newly produced vehicles. China continued to overperform, reaching more than one-third of the global output. Europe and Japan took the big hit last year. Battery electric vehicles continue to gain share, but the adoption rate is slowing, with the exception of China, where new energy vehicles saw a strong growth. For 2025, S&P is forecasting another slight reduction of global production volumes to around 89 million light vehicles, with 2025 full-year volumes expected to remain at the level reached in the second half of 2024. Similar to the previous year, Europe might face the biggest decline with 3% lower volumes year over year. Based on very slightly lower automotive market projections, growing economic and geopolitical uncertainties, as well as the ongoing destocking, at least in the beginning of the year, we assume a more muted development of the automotive semiconductor market this year, especially in the first half. This assumption is also supported by the forecast and consensus estimates of our closest peers, averaging a decline in the automotive revenues of 8% in 2025. However, at some point during 2025, order rates will return to normal levels, reflecting the real demand for automotive IC applications. But at this point, it is, of course, hard to say when exactly this recovery will gain speed. Despite these temporary inventory adjustments and muted market expectations in the short term, the structural trend based on more intelligent electronics and modern cars, independent of the drivetrain concept, remains very valid. The higher IC content, combined with our very successful new design wins over the last years, is a very promising basis for ongoing growth in the future. At the end of my presentation on page 14, I would like to give you our outlook for 2025. As already highlighted, the inventory digestion of our customers is still ongoing, and short-term order patterns are continuing. The outlook for our key markets reflects this temporary situation as shown before. In addition, GDP growth and the global car markets could be further impacted by tariffs and increasing trade conflicts with the U.S. In this challenging environment, visibility is, of course, limited, and order volatility is higher than in a normal year. Structurally, the demand for automotive semiconductors remains high, and the growth trend for more intelligent electronics in modern vehicles is stable. Since the beginning of destocking in early 2024, we believe that we are under-delivering, actually, against our customers' real demand and expect to return to more normalized levels once destocking is complete. We have based our outlook on the assumption that the second half of 2025 will be stronger, with increasing order levels compared to the first six months. As of today, we expect full-year sales in 2025 of EUR 580 million, with a range of ± EUR 30 million. With more or less flattish sales at the midpoint of our guidance, this would be a better performance than our closest peers. We are confident of our resilient operating model and plan to keep our strong profitability, with an EBIT margin that we guide at 23% ± 3 percentage points for the full year 2025. Again, this means a better year-over-year performance than most of our closest peers. As you can see, the broader range of our sales and EBIT guidance is a reflection of the current uncertain situation in our core markets and the low visibility. Similar to 2024, investments in new machinery will be limited, as we do not expect significant growth in 2025. We expect CapEx to be around 7% ± 2 points. In 2025, we expect a better cash generation due to lower working capital, low investments, and lower tax payments. We are forecasting a positive adjusted free cash flow in the fiscal year 2025 of 7% ± 2 percentage points of sales. Ladies and gentlemen, our strategy is designed to fully realize our growth potential with high profitability and improved free cash flows. We have developed a resilient operating model as a fabless player to achieve our ambitious midterm financial targets, focusing on profitable growth, cost discipline, and operational efficiency, combined with a clear focus on a much better cash generation. Our approach will enable us to create significant value for our shareholders, increasing the valuation of our company, and create attractive opportunities for capital allocation. So this is the end of my presentation. I would like to ask the host to open the line for questions. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you very much. Dear ladies and gentlemen, if you are dialed into the conference call and have a question for our speaker, please press nine, followed by the star key on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. The combination, one more time, is nine and the star key. Once your name has been announced, you can ask a question. So one moment for the first question, please. First question is from Finn Kemper of Hauck Aufhäuser. Over to you, Finn. Hello. Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. Great. Thanks for taking my question and congrats for the great result in 2024. So I have two questions. The first one being, what are the exact reasons why you're coping so much better than peers throughout 2024? Is it design wins, or is it contract structure with your customers? Second question I would have is regarding the trough of the cycle. I mean, you're saying that the second half of the year is going to be better than the first half of the year. That's in line with what your peers have been saying as well. But do you see that Q1 could be the potential trough, and we see already sequential growth in Q2 and then a pickup in Q3 a nd how do you expect the recovery to play out? Is it rather a gradual recovery or a hockey stick recovery? Thank you so much. We're looking at 2024. You see more growth with Elmos than with almost all of our peers, all of our peers. This is based on business that we won. It's actually, you could say, taking a little bit of share that was enabled by good performance in the allocation and an excellent product portfolio that we are very happy to offer to our customers. So this may well continue for a bit. You asked about the trough of the cycle in your second question, if we only had perfect foresight. But what we do see is that we have hot runs again in certain products, not all products, of course not, but it's kind of the first little light you see at the end of the tunnel when the first light of the day is visible. Maybe. I mean, in Germany, we say, "Eine Schwalbe macht noch keinen Sommer." So one summer bird returning from Africa to the northern Europe doesn't mean it's summer. Yeah, we can see some birds. But the bird accounting is a difficult thing to do. So then we look into our glass ball and think things won't get worse. They will get better. You asked for Q2. Q2 will likely see sequential growth versus Q1. Very much. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next question is from Johannes Ries of Apus Capital. Over to you. Yes, good morning. Also, my congratulations for a relatively strong performance. Like mostly, some questions from my side too. First, maybe the hot topic this morning is the cash flow development. As last year, a couple of positive and negative impacts, negative from the tax payment, positive from the payment for the fab. Maybe if we compare clean cash flow for last year without extraordinary impact with this year, how strong will be the improvement of the cash flow? Because a little bit difficult to calculate, and therefore there's maybe some confusion in the market and maybe some disappointments that the development of the cash flow is not stronger as it looks at first. Maybe give us a little bit more background on how we should calculate the cash flow. Yeah. I I mean, maybe the best background I can actually give is looking back at the past and taking, say, the average of the last 10 years or so, where we generated a cash flow of, I believe, 1% or so, without all the transactions, because you rightly say transactions should not be counted. They are non-recurring things. I don't know what to sell next time, to be frank. So coming from 1%, I believe we guide a very substantial improvement, a nd maybe this is not the end of what is possible. Elmos is not very much used to generating high free cash flows, so we always start in a conservative way, and then we see where the developments of the year take us. But as you move now to have moved to a fabless model and there is maybe no growth this year, some maybe forecasts have been even higher. What is maybe a reason that maybe working capital is not coming down more pronounced? Is it that you built, for example, now a new value chain or more local value chain in China and therefore has to maybe build up some stocks there only to why is this not more dynamic in this year? I f not this year, could we expect even a further jump upwards in the coming years, especially in 2026? Firstly, I do think that our cash flow performance may well accelerate if we look at this year and 2026. This is probably right. I mean, it's far off, but it is very likely a right assessment of the situation, and we are going into the year where we are in a very kind of cautious mood because we look around, we see the environment, we see all things that are happening, so we are generally in a cautious and conservative mood. Will it be the same at the year end? I don't know. Maybe we are in a lot more optimistic mood, but our guidance kind of reflects that cautious stance on things where we see multiple scenarios. You could see a lot higher working capital reduction than the one we baked into the guidance. You maybe see even less CapEx than the one we baked into the guidance. But in February, kind of the middle of the month, we also want to take a conservative approach on our guidance, and you can see that very much in our cash flow projection. Very clear. Thanks a lot. Another point, maybe you explained it partly in the presentation, is the gross margin development in Q4. First, maybe why is gross on the other side such a strong operating margin? Was the reduction in R&D very pronounced in the last quarter to counterbalance? W hat gross margin we should expect for this year? It's still in the 40s, I think. We see a pricing development that has low single-digit price declines this year. This may, of course, be reflected in the gross margin, but it's, of course, not what you see in Q4. Q4 was a situation where you have to take a look at the year and at all the kind of year-end accounting that you need to do, an d then you come to a conclusion what should be what. So if you want to see what the because there isn't anything changing in the business between the quarters, right? There's no price changes over individual quarters. I mean, if they are, they are super small. So if you want to have an assessment of where the current level of the gross margin is, you should always take the full year, not a single quarter that is influenced by the cycle of accounting that we just have. That the year ends after Q4, and then the last assessments are always done in Q4. So we are not so negative on the gross margin. Okay. Thanks. Finally, on the design win and surrounds, it was already mentioned in the question of my colleague before. You had another strong year of design wins. I remember the slide in the capital markets day of November 11th. I think it's right to have maybe some increase compared to last year and compared to the development compared to 2022 has come in like expected, or was it even better? M ore important, how strong is the ramp of the three years? Could we expect even more ramps in the second half, especially in 2026, of the design wins from the year 2023 and 2024? M aybe additional driver on top of the recovery of the market to normal demand. Last year's design win was the second best year, actually, in the comparison. 2022, and I probably have to say that for another two, three, or four years, is the best year in our design win history, a nd since it's so far off, it's kind of unrealistic to surpass it in the v ery short term. But we had a nice growth in 2024, and we have a level of design wins that is very, very satisfactory. Concerning the ramps this year, we are also again ramp projects this year. It'll already start a little bit in Q2, more pronounced in Q3 and Q4. So, the business cycle may support Q3 and Q4, potentially Q2 as well. There are better things to come than Q1, of course. The pipeline for new designs, how it is? Oh, there's a lot of activity in the industry. Everyone is working on having their cars more software-defined, of course, having their cars more electric. I mean, globally speaking, for some of our big customers, it's not even a question, right? I mean, to ask the leading Chinese car maker whether they want to go electric is, of course, the wrong question. They are electric, and there's a lot of ADAS upgrades. You may have read in the press about them, and they are very confident about it, and it's nice. I'm already looking forward to driving these things in the second half in China, so there's a lot of things happening, not only in Europe, but also in the rest of the world. The U.S. is pushing forward. Asia is pushing forward, particularly China, but also in Japan. There's great activity on making the cars smarter and more intelligent. In development and R&D at the OEMs and Tier 1s, there's as much activity as people can afford. Okay. Thanks a lot, and good luck and a great recovery in the second half. Thank you, Mr. Ries. Thanks a lot, also, from my side. Dear ladies and gentlemen, just a small reminder. To state your question, please press nine star. The next question is from Malte Schaumann of Warburg Research. Yes, good morning. I apologize for touching on the same topics as Johannes did, but again, on the gross margin, you indicated that there had been one-off effects, some cautious approaches. So maybe you can give us a number excluding these effects where the Q4 gross margin would have been? T hen starting at this almost around 44% level you reached in 2024, and given that you have a new structure with the fab, no additional fuse, and some pricing headwind, would you still say that, and you feel quite confident about gross margin development, would you still then expect kind of a stable gross margin in 2024, or should we kind of expect some pressure here, even if it's maybe minor? Yeah. I mean, you know that we are very much used to gross margins in the 40s or mid-40s. So if there's a 30, this somehow indicates extraordinary effects. If we look at this year, the same is true. We're used to gross margins in the 40s and very much closer to the mid-40s than to anything else. If we kind of are a point up or down on the gross margin, we will only know at the end of the year. But generally, of course, it is a challenge to keep profitability high. It is a challenge to keep our 25% target. You've seen it's within the guidance range, but it's not the midpoint of the guidance. We are working very hard on our cost measures, which includes not only purchasing items, it includes also personnel. You've seen some restructuring charges we booked into last year because we already made the decision to offer a certain number of employees packages to leave Elmos. So there are quite some cost measures going on. S o far, this is developing very well. So this supports our thesis that we can, at least for a single year of not so much growth like we see in 2025, that we can quite substantially support our margin. Of course, this can't go on for five years or ten years, but actually saving and focusing on cost and efficiency is a healthy thing to do this year because once we come out of this kind of business cycle or post-allocation slump, we do want to be very much prepared for excellent years. T his means that we have to adjust our cost base now a little bit such that we do not have to wait for excellent years for too long. We don't want to wait at all. So there's a lot of work this year that is done by the teams, and it's necessary and good work. Do you have a target that you can share? Maybe if you look at the OpEx, do you intend to reduce them by X%, something like mid-single digit, something you can mention? There may be targets, but they are not ready for external communication. Okay. Fair enough. D o you expect further costs to impact the P&R, which are baked into the guidance for these measures, or do you have made kind of provisions for these things in the last year? The last sentence is true. We made provisions for everything that we thought will happen and will cost money this year. Because, I mean, this is, of course, the prudent, conservative, and the right thing to do. If you know something happens, then you should have a provision at the year-end when you already know. I believe there has been a change of plans. So all that we really know is baked into existing provisions. Okay. Good. T hen in terms of the R&D budget, I mean, that came down quite significantly in comparison to 2023. So has that been a phase we should expect also for 2025 in a low-growth scenario, or how should we read that number? I would rather think we will be in the 10%-12% range. We rather think that 12% is also not a wrong number. We may not reach it this year. We still have to see, but the coming down of the R&D ratio was also an effect of 130 nanometer technologies coming, and there were quite some projects coming into the capitalization phase, and at some point, you have to capitalize. You can't just say 130 nanometer may not work. It does work for us. We have it in the market large scale. So there is no other decision you can have there. The other thing is, of course, and thank you again to all authorities that helped the public money we got, and this is also a substantial helper in getting the R&D quota down. It may be actually more than a percent, closer to 1.5%, I believe. Since the EU allowed these IPCEI programs, this is for the first time it is really possible to have a significant impact of government money outside of building super large structures and fabs, so that helped us. Do you expect that to recur in this year? It had been exceptionally high last year, if we can only count? T here is some element that may well happen again. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. T hen also again, on the free cash flow, I mean, your guidance kind of implies about EUR 100 million in net income this year, close to EUR 100 million. So CapEx is just slightly ahead of D&A. On the other hand, you expect a slight reduction in working capital, so that maybe evens out each other, a nd still, you're guiding for kind of a EUR 40 million free cash flow at the end of the year. So that leaves a huge gap of maybe around EUR 50 million between where the cash flow should be and what you're guiding for. So maybe you can explain if there's a residual payment for the tax liability you had and what you see. I mean, there will be probably cash out for the cost measures that might be, but definitely this will be not in the mid-double digit region. So maybe you can shed some further light on the cash flow and what you see as potential cash out items that are not yet seen by the market? As I said, we want to do a little bit not overstate things on the cash flow because our history kind of points us towards a conservative approach. But you calculate, and of course, you calculate generally rightly that there is some potential to be even better than our guidance. We have a working capital development that is still a little bit uncertain. We have to get some things negotiated and some things done. So there we have a very cautious approach baked into the guidance. Let's see what we can get done over the year. Certainly, we are working for more, but this is not all on the contract level done. A little bit what we, of course, have to do is we have to pay for some restructuring. This is true. What we also did is we bought a building. It's not huge. It's kind of around EUR 6 or EUR 7 million cash impact. But we paid it this year, so this will not be in this year's cash flow. So there are some small things that actually reduce cash flow a little bit. But I believe the most part of the gap that you see is that we still have to be careful how the year develops. Yeah. Okay. Understood. Maybe in terms of working capital, so what's baked into your guidance actually from maybe inventory reduction? I mean, that's always a cut-off date difficult to project. But so what's your maybe top-level view expectation for the working capital, especially at the inventory level, how much you want to reduce net position during the course of the year? Yeah. We will not guide inventory development in detail now, but all of you know that we think that we should get inventory in general down over the course of time. I think in Q1, there will be a little effect, but this, again, is hugely dependent on the revenue development that we will see during this year. It's also a little bit dependent on a mix effect in our product revenue. So that's why we're not so confident that we could already guide the working capital or net working capital number. Understood. F inal question regarding the tax payment, net tax liability not fully paid, or is there still a payment to come? No. No. Actually, we may even get a little tax. But by and large, this is fully paid, a nd as you see, we are having the conference call now in Leverkusen, which is, of course, a critical thing to do. You will find in the AGM invitation that will go out, I don't know, in four weeks or so, six weeks, end of March. Yeah. That we also want to change our Sitz, so the registered office of Elmos to Leverkusen, b ut for tax purposes, this is actually not that important. It's important where the actual decisions are taken and where management sits. So we had our first board meeting on the 2nd of January in Leverkusen, and since then, we happily inhabit our new offices here. So this gives an indication that we, of course, have the clear opinion that we changed our residence with the change of the year, which gives then a very clean and a very full year tax effect. Yeah. That's good. Okay. Many thanks. Thank you, Mr. Schaumann. Thank you very much also from my side. There just came in another question from Abed Jarad of MWB Research. Over to you. Greetings, everyone. So I just have a quick question regarding the tax rate. Do you expect it to be around 27% this year as a result of the relocation, or is it too low at the moment for 2025? We think the tax rate should be in the range of 25%-27% for this year. 25% is not a bad number. 25? Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Since there are no more questions, I would like to close the Q&A session with that, and I'm handing the floor back over to you, Mr. Schneider. So at the end, I would like to remind you that we will publish our final results and our annual report with the new CSRD sustainability report. Please do read it. It made a lot of work on March 20, 2025. The conference call for the Q1 results is scheduled for May the 6th, 2025, and the AGM will take place on May 15, 2025. So for now, thank you very much for your participation and your interest in Elmos. Goodbye from Leverkusen. Take care and stay confident.