Letter to Shareholders

Dear Shareholders, Ladies and Gentlemen

We are pleased to announce that AIXTRON took another big step forward in the 2023 financial year and continued its successful growth path. We have fully achieved our ambitious growth targets, fully met our forecast, and further expanded our technological leadership and competitive position in all of our material systems. AIXTRON achieved sales of EUR 629.9 million (+36%) and achieved an operating result of EUR 156.8 million (+50%). This means that AIXTRON's sales have increased by more than 30 percent per year on average since 2020. Order intake also grew significantly again in 2023 to EUR 640.7 million (+9%).

Our strong growth in 2023 was primarily driven by the sharp increase in demand for compound semiconductors for efficient power electronics. The materials silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) are being used in more and more technological applications due to their outstanding material properties. Optoelectronics and display technology applications contributed a smaller share of sales in 2023 but will increase strongly again in the current financial year. Our strategy of serving various uncorrelated end markets with our systems was successful again in 2023.

AIXTRON played a decisive role in driving forward the dynamics in the market with the successful launch of the G10 product family. In just one year, we have renewed AIXTRON's entire product portfolio - starting with the introduction of our G10-SiC, continued with the G10-AsP and concluded in September 2023 with the G10-GaN. All these solutions succeeded in taking the strong performance indicators of the already very successful predecessor products to the next level.

With its dual wafer size capability (usable for 150 mm as well as 200 mm wafers), the G10-SiC significantly supports the transition of SiC power electronics to 200 mm wafers. The G10-SiC was met with great response from our customers driving the proportion to sales to around 30%, made possible as we were able to scale into volume production within a very short time. Over the course of 2023, we were able to further improve the already strong performance and productivity of this system, so that the G10-SiC now sets standards in terms of performance, stability, productivity and unit costs.

The G10-GaN ushered in the era of volume production in the field of GaN power semiconductors. Not only does this system offer further improvements in performance, but above all it addresses the needs of modern mass production: increased productivity, reduced space consumption, longer maintenance intervals with reduced maintenance effort and a further significant reduction in production costs per wafer.

The G10-AsP, which was introduced at the beginning of the year, is the first system to enable robust large-scale production of micro LED and laser components. In doing so, we have remained true to our original market – optoelectronics. This system has set standards particularly in the areas of particle reduction, automation and wafer size. Numerous customers with innovative applications have already chosen this system.

The outstanding performance and high level of maturity of our systems are arguments for many of our customers to choose AIXTRON technology: in many segments, AIXTRON plays a key role in the production of compound semiconductors in large volumes. However, our global customer service, which we have further expanded in a targeted manner in 2023, is at least just as important for our customers. Our engineers and technicians not only support customers with installation, commissioning and process start-up: they also advise them on how to achieve the best possible results with our systems and help to further increase operational productivity. This was also officially recognized by our customers: in 2023 we received Supplier Excellence Awards from several major semiconductor producers, including Texas Instruments and tsmc.

In addition to the sales achieved, these awards are another indication of AIXTRON's successful strategy and orientation: We grew from being a specialist provider into a key partner in the modern semiconductor industry. In recent years, we have steadily increased the company's level of maturity in all areas, from quality to production to service. At the same time, we have optimized our internal structures and processes to achieve scalability for further growth.

Together with our technology partners, we are already working on the innovations and products of tomorrow today. We have laid an important foundation for this with the decision to build the new innovation center at our headquarters in Herzogenrath in 2023. We are expanding the current clean room with a new building by 1,000 m² of space in class ISO 6, expandable up to ISO 4, and creating additional office space for a further 100 employees. The investment of around EUR 100 million gives us space for our next product generations, to develop technologies with customers and partners and to develop new applications. The construction project is progressing at lightning speed and is fully on schedule at the time of reporting: after the final construction decision in May 2023, all permits were received in August 2023, and the floor slab of the main building was completed at the turn of the year.

AIXTRON's extensive growth is supported by our talented workforce, which we further strengthened in 2023. It forms the backbone of our success. Only with their tireless commitment, their belief in our strategy and vision, their creativity and performance were we able to secure and further expand our position as a global market leader. In a market environment with great competition in the search for talented employees, we managed to recruit a further round 200 employees worldwide, so that we had 1,086 colleagues at AIXTRON at the end of the year: AIXTRON offers extremely exciting tasks and content, but also a modern working environment and a very good working atmosphere.