KLA Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript
KLA (NASDAQ:KLAC) reported first-quarter financial results on Wednesday. The transcript from the company’s first-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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View the webcast at https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/5509900/795EF453924CB9D47107F3B2D82545FC
Summary
KLA Corporation’s September quarter exceeded the midpoint of guidance ranges with revenue of $4.7 billion, demonstrating planned growth for the second half of 2026.
The company reported gross margins of 62.7% and operating margins above 46% for the first time, supported by AI infrastructure investments and process control intensity in advanced packaging.
KLA’s backlog and sales funnel forecast indicate a strong outlook for 2027, with expectations for the wafer equipment market to exceed $200 billion.
KLA is investing in its supply chain and facilities to meet increasing demand, particularly in advanced packaging and semiconductor process control systems.
The company achieved a non-GAAP EPS of $1.22 and GAAP EPS of $1.18, with expectations for continued growth and margin improvements in 2027.
Full Transcript
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
Good afternoon, my name is Stephanie and I’ll be your conference operator today. At this time, I’d like to welcome everyone to the KLA Corporation September Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. All participant lines have been placed in listen-only mode to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you’d like to ask a question at that time, please press star-1 on your telephone keypad. If you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press … Limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Lastly, should you need operator assistance, please press star-zero. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Kevin Kessel, Vice President of Investor Relations and Market Analytics.
Please go ahead.
Kevin Kessel (Vice President of Investor Relations and Market Analytics)
Welcome to the September 2026 quarterly earnings call. Joining me are our CEO Rick Wallace and our CFO Bren Higgins. We will discuss today’s results as well as our outlook, which we released after the market close, and it is available on our website along with supplemental materials. We are presenting today’s discussion and metrics on a non-GAAP financial basis. Unless otherwise specified, all full-year references we make always refer to calendar years.
Reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results. Our comments today are subject to risks and uncertainties reflected in the disclosure of the risk factors in our SEC filings. Any forward-looking statements, including those we make on the call today, are also subject to those risks and KLA cannot guarantee those forward-looking statements will come true. Our actual results may be forward-looking statements. For any subsequent updates, please refer to KLA’s IR website, which also contains investor events, presentations, corporate governance information, and links to our SEC filings.
We will begin the call with Rick providing commentary on the quarter and our overall environment, followed by Bren with financial highlights and our outlook. I’ll pass the call now to Rick.
Rick Wallace (President and CEO)
Thanks, Kevin. KLA’s September quarter beat the midpoint of our guidance ranges across all key metrics. Revenue was billion dollars. This, coupled with our December quarter revenue guidance of approximately $4.7 billion, demonstrates the growth duration we planned for the second half of 2026. KLA’s performance in the quarter was supported by continued strength in leading-edge foundry/logic related to AI infrastructure investments and increasing process control intensity across leading-edge devices and advanced packaging. Other highlights of the quarter include KLA delivering operating margins above 46% for the first quarter, gross margin was 62.7%, and free cash flow was $1.34 billion. Over the course of calendar 2026, the AI demand environment has continued to strengthen as reflected in our performance.
Additionally, our strong customer engagement has provided visibility into a more favorable outlook for wafer equipment investment for calendar 2026 and 2027. We see this reflected in our backlog and sales funnel forecast. We expect momentum across our business to continue into the December quarter, and we’re positioned to deliver significant growth in calendar 2027. We have been proactively working with our strategic supply chain partners over the past year to increase their capacity in order to keep up with our demand. Advanced packaging remains increasingly critical to AI infrastructure expansion and advanced incorporates more sophisticated wafer front-end processes which drive additional process control requirements. KLA’s leading process control portfolio enables the company to address these requirements across a growing range of applications.
For calendar 2026, advanced packaging process control systems revenue remains on track to hit approximately $1.1 billion, or more than year-over-year growth, nearly twice the growth rate of the advanced packaging market. The growing complexity of KLA’s installed base and lengthening tool life demand for services. KLA services revenue was $850 million in the quarter, up 14% year over year, supported by a growing installed base and continued customer focus on tool performance, productivity, and availability in this tight system utilization environment. Finally, KLA’s process, PCB, and component inspection businesses are also benefiting from technology transitions and the rigorous performance requirements of high-performance computing.
Summary: KLA is experiencing strengthening momentum driven by growth across the semiconductor ecosystem. The pace of our backlog growth is a key signal of accelerating momentum and provides confidence in our visibility into calendar 2027. Our September quarter results demonstrate the strength of KLA’s market position and operating model execution. Semiconductors continue to play an increasingly important role across global industries with growth driven by investment in AI infrastructure and expanding demand across a broader range of applications and end markets.
Together, these trends are supporting stronger, more durable, and more diversified long-term growth for the industry. Additionally, the growing complexity of AI-enabled semiconductors is increasing process control intensity throughout the manufacturing flow, reinforcing KLA’s long-term growth opportunity. KLA’s differentiated portfolio is uniquely positioned to address these requirements, while sustained AI data center investment and broader adoption of advanced packaging architectures continue to expand the company’s addressable market. As we look ahead, we remain focused on supporting customer roadmaps, investing in innovation, and scaling our global capabilities to meet expected demand growth through calendar 2027. As we progress toward our 2030 market model, we remain committed to disciplined execution, technology leadership, and our proven capital allocation strategy, which will allow us to create durable shareholder value.
With that, I’ll turn the call over to Bren to discuss the quarter’s financial highlights.
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
Thank you, Rick. KLA delivered strong sequential and year-over-year growth in the September quarter. For the first time in our company history, KLA delivered operating margins over 46%. These results reflect our market leadership and disciplined execution supported by our global dedication and focus on customer success was above the midpoint of guidance and rose 13% sequentially and 29% year over year. Non-GAAP diluted EPS was $1.22 and GAAP diluted EPS was $1.18, each above the midpoint of the respective guidance ranges.
Gross margin was 62.7%, slightly above the midpoint of the guidance range. Operating expenses were $688 million, including $395 million in R&D and $293 million in SG&A. Operating margin rose 240 basis points sequentially to 46.1%. Net income was $1.60 billion, cash flow from operations was $1.53 billion, and free cash flow was $1.311 billion. Diluted weighted average shares outstanding for the quarter. The breakdown of revenue by reportable segments, end markets, major products, and regions can be found within the shareholder letter and slides. Moving to the balance sheet, KLA ended the quarter with $4.7 billion in total cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities and $5.95 billion of debt.
The company maintains a flexible and attractive bond maturity profile supported by investment-grade ratings from all three major rating agencies. The industry outlook strength with visibility improving has come long term as a plan. Despite these fast-paced limitations, customers have been very resourceful and are accelerating delivery expectations across all segments. We are therefore raising our expectation of the wafer equipment market, including advanced packaging, to approximately the mid-$150 billion range in calendar 2026. KLA backlog continues to grow and our sales funnel visibility is unprecedented, supported by new fab investments by a broad base of customers.
We continue to plan for significant growth in calendar 2027. While we’ll have more to say about market and customer segment expectations for next year in our earnings call in late January, we currently expect the wafer equipment market to exceed $200 billion in calendar 2027. Customer engagement remains robust, with numerous new fab projects and greenfield facilities scheduled to come online in the quarters ahead. The primary area of focus for our customers is on delivery urgency, aligned with new project plans.
Against this backdrop, KLA’s business momentum and critical role in leading-edge process control positions us to deliver accelerating growth for the remainder of calendar ’26 and continuing into 2027. Our expectations of revenue growth acceleration in 2H26 are playing out as more capacity comes online in our long lead-time supply chain areas. This is resulting in growth in the second half of calendar year ’26 over the first half of approximately 25% and positions the company for continued sequential growth into calendar 2027. The December quarter guidance is for revenue of $4.7 billion, plus or minus $200 million. Foundry/Logic revenue for semiconductor customers is forecasted to be approximately 60%, and memory is expected to be about 40% of semiconductor process control systems revenue.
Within memory, DRAM is expected to account for approximately 84%, with NAND the remainder. As a reminder, these business mix approximations pertain solely to our semiconductor customers and do not fully reflect our total semiconductor process control systems revenue. Gross margin for the December quarter is forecasted to be 62.5%, plus or minus 1 percentage point. While the company is demonstrating expected operating leverage across the business as it grows, this is being offset by persistently high memory costs for our system image processing requirements. As we have discussed in prior quarters, we’re actively engaged across the portfolio to optimize memory in our systems along with other product cost reductions, coupled with driving our usual returns-based value sharing with our customers, which should offset this headwind over time.
Operating expenses are forecast to be approximately $710 million in the December quarter. We will continue to prioritize next-generation product development, scaling our business execution, and company infrastructure. Several years and we anticipate these expenses to grow sequentially through 2027, but at a much slower pace than revenue growth and consistent with our business model for operating margin leverage. As a reminder, our business model is designed to deliver 40 to 50% incremental operating margin leverage on revenue growth over the long run. Other model assumptions include other income and expense, net, of approximately $25 million expense for the December quarter, and we expect to remain at approximately this quarterly level.
Planning tax rate is 14.5%. Our tax rate will vary quarter to quarter due to the geographic distribution of profit and various discrete items. For the December quarter, non-GAAP diluted EPS is expected to be $1.44 plus or minus $0.10 and GAAP diluted EPS expected to be $1.41 plus or minus $0.11. EPS guidance is based on fully diluted share count of approximately 1.306 billion shares. In conclusion, process control and KLA in particular remain critical to the AI ecosystem buildout and benefit from numerous ongoing relevance inflections including increases in leading-edge designs across foundry and logic, device size and value, rising complexity and performance requirements, and the growing importance of advanced packaging. KLA is experiencing strengthening momentum and a broader set of growth drivers across the semiconductor ecosystem.
The rate and pace of our backlog of our accelerating momentum increased confidence in our visibility leading into calendar 2027. Our September quarter results demonstrate the strength of KLA’s market position and operating model execution and support continued confidence in our performance moving forward. These recent results also illustrate the strength of KLA’s market-leading portfolio, disciplined operating model execution, and key confidence in improving our performance moving forward.
Looking ahead, we remain focused on supporting customer roadmaps, investing in innovation, and scaling our global capabilities to meet expected demand growth throughout calendar ’27 and beyond. As we progress towards our 2030 target model, we remain committed to disciplined execution, technology leadership, and our proven capital allocation strategy for value. That concludes my prepared remarks. Kevin, please begin the Q&A.
Kevin Kessel (Vice President of Investor Relations and Market Analytics)
Thank you. At this time, Operator, can you please give the instructions? Sorry, can you just give the instructions and we’ll get started?
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
Thank you, Kevin. At this time, if you’d like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to remove yourself from the queue, you may do so by pressing star two. We remind you to please unmute your line when introduced and, if possible, for optimal sound quality. In the interest of time, we ask you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We’ll now take our first question from Jim Schneider with Goldman Sachs.
Please go ahead.
Jim Schneider (Analyst)
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Good to see the accelerated growth in the back half relative to calendar 2027. In your view of $200 billion in WFE, obviously you have some good things going for you with advanced packaging growth and so on. So can you kind of articulate how you’re thinking about the way calendar ’20 shapes up and your level of confidence in your ability to outgrow that 30% rough market number for 2027?
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
Thank you, Jim. Thanks for the question. We’ve been saying this for quite some time as we think the construct for ’27 sets up pretty favorably for us. First, we feel very good about our supply situation. We’ve been working at it for the last 12 months. We indicated we see an acceleration in the second half. Certain components have very long lead times and so getting that to come online was a bit of a challenge in the first half, and we’re seeing that through, and that certainly informs our confidence in the December quarter.
But also our views to ’27: the setup for ’27 around the leading edge, both in terms of the breadth of investment, the leading-edge new node investment, we think that sets up very well for the company; greenfield investment in DRAM, the HBM dynamics and how that’s affecting process control intensity. We’re also seeing uplifts in process control intensity in conventional memory. Advanced packaging has been a nice growth driver. I don’t see any reason why, as we look at next year, that that part of our business wouldn’t continue to grow faster than the market.
So we feel overall that the setup is very leading-edge-centric. Packaging is augmenting the growth, and we think we’re well positioned and our supply should be there to be able to enable us to meet the demand. The demand is strong. I would say that we’re—I’m still behind the line, but I still think that the trajectory is good, and I feel pretty confident about the guidance we’ve given.
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
Thank you. We’ll take our next question.
Jim Schneider (Analyst)
Sorry, and sorry, just one quick follow-up. As you think about the way the shape of starts to finalize, anything to call out in terms of, you know, the back half of 2026 was certainly a much stronger first half. Do you think it’s going to be more ratable through 2027 or, again, maybe being a little more back-half loaded? Thank you.
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
Right now, I would say for the next several quarters, given the backlog growth and the visibility in the funnel, that we’ll see growth. The numbers sort of imply second half stronger. I think it’s more linear. Won’t have the same, I don’t think as of now, the same significant uptick in half-to-half growth, sequential growth, moving forward.
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from Harlan at J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Harlan Sur (Analyst)
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. On the gross margin front, I know the team had some cost headwinds this year—memory pricing headwinds, maybe GPU/CPU pricing headwinds as well. Moving into next year, I know the team has the benefit of new platforms which carry higher pricing. Obviously you’re going to be driving higher volumes. Maybe you’ve got other value-pricing initiatives taking place. Can we expect the team to drive back into that sort of 63% plus range on a strong WFE outlook in 2027?
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
It’s a good question. As you said, there’s some moving parts in it. When you look at the target range that we outlined back in March in Investor Day, it was 63 to 64%. Certainly some of the cost inputs have been challenging. We’re doing a lot of work inside the company, both in terms of broader costs but also memory—I’ll call memory optimization work—in terms of our use of memory in our systems. There’ll be some mix dynamics looking forward. We do have more advanced packaging growth.
We have growth in our non-semi PC businesses. So that tends to be a bit of a headwind to the overall margin, although a contributor to both revenue growth and gross margin growth. Scale will offset some of that. We’ll see some manufacturing scale given the strong revenue growth environment, and some of our pricing initiatives—we think, similar to what we’re hearing from peers—we think that that will play through as we introduce new capabilities and we’re able to share in the value of those new capabilities with our customers.
So I think, as we move, the memory environment will continue to be challenging, but I think as we go forward we’ll see improvement. I don’t know exactly when we’ll start to see it, but I think as we move through ’27, certainly as we move into the middle to the back half of ’27 into ’28, we’ll be, I think, consistent with the operating model or gross margin that we laid out back in March.
Harlan Sur (Analyst)
I appreciate that. And then non-AI legacy node segments—auto, industrial, IoT—obviously cyclical dynamics are strong, seen at a very, very rapid pace, and we are seeing new capacity addition analysis. Is this contributing, and maybe what percentage of your process control systems business is mature and specialties? Thank you.
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
Say around power: I mean power is certainly something that is an area of focus in the industry, and you know, there was obviously a period of time where there was some overinvestment there, but I’m starting to see some indications of some recovery in that part of the market. Obviously what’s driving the business in a more significant way—everything related to high performance. If you want to get customers that are serving the more legacy-centric markets, I do think that I’m seeing some improvement.
So I think year to year there’s some growth. I don’t think it’ll be at the level of what we expect from the leading edge. And you have activities in China which will grow, but I don’t think will grow—it will grow at a much slower rate. And so I think when you look at the overall legacy, would expect to see some growth there. But the business is really being driven by what’s happening at the leading edge. I think that there’s opportunities for us to augment growth moving forward from some more business in that part of the market. Process control intensity tends to be lower in legacy nodes. If it’s an established node, it’s fairly mature. Unless our customers are changing designs or design rules or have new reliability requirements, that could drive inflections in intensity. But the intensity levels in legacy are lower than what they are at the leading edge.
Harlan Sur (Analyst)
Thank you, Bren.
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
Thank you. We will take our next question from CJ Muse with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
CJ Muse (Analyst)
Yeah, good afternoon. Thank you for taking the question. I guess a follow-up, Bren, on the gross margin side: if we isolate just to process control, you know, you were north of 65% in June of ’25 and obviously, as you talk about, major headwinds from DRAM in particular. But curious, as those contracts roll off and you kind of move to new contracts, should we start to see better pricing as you pass that incremental along, and is there kind of a time frame where you see process control getting back to kind of that mid-60s level on a consistent mix?
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
I could see it trending there as we move into 2H ’27. We start to do deals around new products beyond the existing business that we have. It’s very difficult to go increase prices when you have a deal in place on existing backlog. So I think as we move forward I don’t see any reason why, assuming mix is consistent, that we won’t start to see some improvement in the process control parts of the business.
Rick Wallace (President and CEO)
And also, CJ, Bren mentioned the last answer, but I’m not sure you—there is work going on to utilize less memory in the system—engineering work which takes some time to do it. But you know, when we design these systems nobody really imagined the kind of increase in memory cost. And I think the common response to that is to make the systems more efficient around using memory. Therefore that will drive that percent content down over time. It takes a while for those to get very helpful.
CJ Muse (Analyst)
I guess as a follow-up, can you kind of talk about what you’ve seen in the last three to six months from a lead time perspective and how that informs kind of your outlook into 2028, and how you’re thinking about hiring and what kind of work specifically on the supply chain to get ready for this multi-year growth cycle? Thank you.
Rick Wallace (President and CEO)
Yeah. C.J., customers last few months have been very consistent in that there’s a huge request that we prioritize their projects, and they’re laying out multiple-year investment cycles with an expectation that we’ll support them through those ramps. So when we look out at the 2030 model that we laid out before, obviously the assumptions in that model are going to see the core 2030. So there is a significant amount of investment that we need to do pretty much across the board with talent, but also with facilities and our investment in supply chain.
And so Bren can share some of his perspective on that.
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
Yes, on lead times, I would say Lead times, they vary by product, but we’re averaging right around 12 months or so. And I would say that on the margin they’re extending; certain products it can be even further out than that. For example, Gen 4 and Gen 5 product lines will have longer lead times. So it does vary. But I think we’re in a pretty good position, as Rick said, to support it. I mean we’re making investments across the board. We will add headcount both in manufacturing and service, in the volume-centric parts of the business and applications and engineering over the course of the next 12 months.
We’re investing in every factory we have and so there are expansion plans, not only near-term requirements and doing things quickly but also supporting what we believe will be a multi-year investment cycle here. So we’re encouraged by that in supply chain, particularly in those areas of long-term or lead-time items, particularly in the optics area. We are working with our key suppliers to make investment but also investing to support. We expect a very strong outlook over the next several years.
So there’s a lot of activity going on, obviously, that flows through our numbers—activity that’s supporting future revenue streams. But, you know, we think that, you know, first of all contemplated model and the guidance we’ve given, but certainly a lot of focus in those areas.
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from Timothy Arcuri with UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Timothy Arcuri (Analyst)
Thanks a lot. Bren, you did a really nice job this year, only losing like 20 basis points worth of WFE share despite what was a pretty bad mix actually. It sounds like you think WFE is going to grow like low to mid-30s next year and your lead times are 12 plus months. So you know exactly what you’re going to ship next year. So are you going to grow more than that? Will you grow more than low to mid-30s so you’ll gain share next year? Gain share?
Rick Wallace (President and CEO)
Yes. On ’26. I think the second half momentum highlights where I think the business is trending now. I mean the first half was weaker and wasn’t so much mix of business as much as it was just our ability to supply it. The backlog is pretty significant. If I had, I’ve been short all year, same short now. So I feel that as we look at 2027, we feel pretty good. I talked about the setup which I think is encouraging, but we feel pretty good about our ability to maintain and drive the growing KLA relevance story that we outlined in Investor Day.
The parts of the market that are inflecting are very good for process control. We think uniquely benefit process control. And we think that as we are in a better position to supply into demand that we can maintain the trajectory that we laid out. Doesn’t mean it happens in every six-month period or every quarter, but we think over time similar to what we saw over the last five years. The next five setup is pretty strong and we feel pretty comfortable about our views of share of market growth over the next between now and 2030.
So we think we can outgrow next year. Tim.
Timothy Arcuri (Analyst)
Got it, Rick. Thanks for that. Thanks. And then Rick, so I wanted to ask you about DRAM. So it’s up like $50 million in December. I mean that’s a ton. Your DRAM share’s like 6% of WFE share. So that’s like $10 billion of DRAM WFE right there. Is there something unique going on? I know there’s some big new fabs that are starting to get equipped. Is it as simple as that? Or is maybe your, you know, your inspection intensity going up in DRAM? I mean that’s just, you know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you grow, you know, DRAM systems that much.
So can you speak to that? Thanks.
Rick Wallace (President and CEO)
Yeah. There’s no question that we started seeing this a while ago and I think it took a little while for our customers to fully understand and appreciate the challenges and given their support of the value of yield. And so if you think back to how memory worked years ago, it’s a pretty different world where anything they can squeeze out in terms of yield, but also the performance expectations are much higher as these go into these mostly commercial operations.
So yeah, it’s an intensity, it’s intensity improving and we see that continuing as we go forward.
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
I think the greenfield opportunity is also driving a retooling of fabs and retooling in a way where to Rick’s point, our customers’ profitability levels are pretty high and so yield is earning money in some ways. So I think there’s renewed focus there. I think that the roadmaps are driving the need for more investment. The performance requirements are more stringent, particularly when you look at like HBM for example, and less redundancy, I/O counts, logic in base die, all these things driving opportunities in this part of the market.
In some products we see intensity levels in DRAM that are similar to leading-edge logic. So the market is definitely shifting there. And I think the new fabs is an accelerant to our views of growth. If you look at the second in ’27, we’d expect overall memory to be about 60% of the business and in an environment where, to Rick’s point, we feel pretty confident about our ability to perform. So it’s definitely changing in terms of the way you used to think about the business historically and at least in terms of the VBRAM impact.
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
Okay, Dan, thank you. Jim Carr with TD Cowen, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Jim Carr (Analyst)
Yeah, thanks for taking my question. Ricky, follow up on the last question on DRAM. You know you said you’re going to outperform by the fee next year. The two big drivers this year were DRAM and leading-edge foundry. They’re going to be the same. I understand. So is it mainly because greenfield in DRAM is coming in and leading-edge foundry logic is going to 2 nanometer—are those are two key specific drivers for outperformance next year besides advanced package and then a follow up.
Rick Wallace (President and CEO)
So Chris, let me clarify. You’re saying if the same, if the drivers are the same, why would it be different? Is that your question?
Jim Carr (Analyst)
Yeah, I’m just wondering if going from DRAM to brownfield to greenfield and logic going to two.
Rick Wallace (President and CEO)
Okay, so I think yes, those are drivers, but the other thing is we just weren’t set up in the first half to be able to support, you know, assumptions. If you go back 12 months were not for the kind of growth rate we saw. In fact we’d even talked about, we thought the growth was going to be happening in ’27, but ’26 was going to be pretty flat. So it took a little while to get things going in ’26, which is why you’re seeing our accelerated growth now.
The demand has been there and the demand will continue as the technology nodes continue and as we said, packaging is growing and it’ll outgrow the market next year. So I think it was more, it was not a demand question for us as much as in 1H26 a supply question?
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
No, I think you covered it, Rick. Look, the new facilities will I think create an opportunity for us that will drive some incremental as customers are setting up a new facility in a market environment that is both challenging from a complexity point of view but also where yield is critical.
Jim Carr (Analyst)
Got it. Super helpful and then I’ll follow up. I understand lead times are extending but in general besides ASML, one of those unique position that you always had long lead times. I’m just kind of curious. You know one of the views from some folks in the industry is that 300 billion could be the peak WFE. If you’re wondering from what you are seeing, given the fact that you have better visibility than us, kind of like how high do you think this WFE can grow?
I know obviously there’s like white cards like tennis, but obviously specific to how good the yield of your customers are. I’m just curious, from your vantage point, what do you see the WFE potential to get to?
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
Well, I’m not going to guide a new number for 2030. Look at Investor Day we talked about 220 plus or minus where a lot of folks I think thought generally that was generally a middle of the road kind of plan. I would say today it looks like a very conservative one. So, you know, we’re certainly more optimistic about higher levels of industry investment. We think a flow-through thesis in terms of KLA’s participation in that is the same. And as we think about these growth scenarios, certainly given the lead times on some of our products and the parts that go into them, we have to contemplate those in terms of preparing our supply chain for those outcomes. We are having deep conversations with some of our key suppliers about our needs in 2029 and 2030 in that time frame. So we’re trying to position the company to make sure that we can continue to drive the company consistent with the way we laid it out and support those higher-end scenarios that are being discussed in the industry.
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from Stacey Rasgon with Bernstein Research. Please go ahead.
Stacey Rasgon (Analyst)
Hi guys, thanks for taking my questions. So the first one to go back to that 2030 model. So, I mean, you’re basically there on WFE next year. You’re there at the high end or maybe a little above on the operating margin target. But what stops you in that WFE environment from getting to the revenue that you talked about in 2030 next year? At least on the equipment side I understand maybe services and some of the other stuff takes a little more time to ramp up.
But is it just supply? Is it like the mix of demand? Like why shouldn’t I be looking at a 2030 model more into the ’27 time frame given where we’re running?
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
Well, so there were assumptions underneath it. First there was a growth rate assumption around service which to your point we won’t be there, that was based on aggregate install base growth that would contribute to that. You also have the non-Semi PC part of the business and the expected growth rate within Semi PC. Underneath the number was an expectation of share growth over the next few years of a few points and then overall share of market would slowly tick up to from 2025, which was about 7.5% of overall wafer fab equipment to closer to 9.
So we’re not there yet. But in terms of how the model works underneath it, I don’t see any reason why the financial model would not perform consistent with the way we laid it out. That growth is more demand from the same customers for a lot of the same products. So I think we feel pretty good about the way the financial model will perform. Obviously there are things like share count and other things that go into an EPS assessment, but at least from a top line point of view it’ll be more or less consistent with the way that I think there were some assumptions that were implicit in there that we’re going to drive to over the next few years that we’re not there yet. But in terms of the overall market and the current performance, I think that flows through.
Stacey Rasgon (Analyst)
My follow up maybe at the end of that financial model. So you’ve talked about 40 to 50% incremental operating margin. I think it called that out in the shareholder letter as well. But again you’re already running even close to the high end of that range. So to get operating leverage from here it sort of implies that the incremental operating margin needs to be above where you’re running today. So I mean into the high end of that or even higher. Is there any reason I shouldn’t think about that incremental operating margin range to be structurally higher given where things are running right now?
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
It depends a lot on year to year growth rates. So if you look at in a more normalized growth rate environment, we’ll perform at the midpoint or so of the range. If you look at over the last year with revenue growth at 25% and you take the guidance we gave for Q4, that puts you slightly above the top end of the range. And if you think about 2030, an expectation for growth in 2030, I would expect we’ll be beyond that. So it was more of a marker, give some sense to our shareholders and investors about how to think about how we’re going to scale the company, what kind of leverage we’ll drive through the model.
But if we’re looking at growth rates for the whole company that are closer to 20%, then I would expect we’ll perform more in line with the top end of the model or better. But that’s just, you know, long term how we think about it, how we make investment decisions, how we size it, and then if the industry turns out to be stronger, then that drives upside.
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from Joe Quattrochi with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Joe Quattrochi (Analyst at Wells Fargo)
Yeah, thanks for taking the question. I was curious, your capex, I think this quarter was the highest I think I’ve ever seen it. Wonder if you could just kind of give us some color on what was driving that. Just all related to supply chain dynamics or something else?
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
In the quarter, we made a significant land purchase in India to build a new campus there supporting our long term growth. So that was a large portion of capex. Now, I do expect our capex — I think as I laid out at Investor Day, I talked about 2% to 3% of revenue — but on a full-dollar basis, I would expect our capex to trend up over the next few years, somewhere between $600 million and $800 million per year. As I said earlier, we’re investing at every site and so I would expect capex to trend north. It’ll be mostly around our capacity. There will be some things, obviously, we’re doing in supply chain, but what the big needle mover is in the KLA space.
Joe Quattrochi (Analyst at Wells Fargo)
Thanks. And then the services business, I think you talked about operating at the high end of your long-term growth algo this year. Is there any reason that that wouldn’t be the case in ’27? How do we think about the growth in ’27 for services?
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
Yeah, no reason to think that that wouldn’t be the case. I think given the growth in the industry and what we’re adding to the install base, that our systems are running at very high utilization. The value of yield in this environment, service at the range we’re likely to operate here, moving forward towards the higher end of the range.
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
Thank you. We’ll take our next question.
Melissa (Analyst)
Hi. Thank you. I wanted to go back to the supply chain side of things. You guys are, as you said, you’ve been working on this for over a year. And maybe some of your competitors are just now starting to see some more acute shortages. So can you just — like what inning would you say we’re in in terms of you guys expanding your supply? Do you see risk of further tightening on the supply chain, or do you think we’re kind of through the worst of it? Just where do you think we are in that process?
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
Yeah. How about yesterday? I think when you look at our supply, given the nature of some of our components, what drives the ship is typically around optical components, and those have the longest lead time. Now, we run into all kinds of small issues, but the volumes get set by those high-end components. I think the supply chain team does an excellent job here managing all those little issues — issues that happen between the time that we get things scheduled and we ship tools — in an environment of very strong growth.
I think everybody runs into challenges of working through hedges and buffer stock and excess inventory. And then when you start living hand to mouth in terms of what your suppliers can provide and there’s a lot of demand, it starts to create challenges. I think for KLA, we don’t really compete for the things that matter the most to us. We don’t compete with any of our competitors. We compete within KLA sometimes for those components, but once we have visibility there, it tends to be pretty reliable, and then we manage all the small component issues that happen along the way.
Melissa (Analyst)
Thank you. So I guess your December quarter outlook, is that supply constrained at all? Could that — not that I’m complaining — but could that have been higher if you had more supply? And then same thing with the over $200 billion WFE outlook. Do you have line of sight to that supply at this moment, or like, I guess how…
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
Melissa, I kind of live in reality here. I don’t get wrapped up in the what-ifs. It’s what can we ship and how’s our supply chain positioned for that. And that then translates into how we provide the guidance. As I said earlier, move rates on key components are increasing month by month, and so that informs not only what we expected to see in December, but how we’re thinking about 2027. I would say over the course of this whole year I could absolutely have shipped more. My demand was ahead of my supply. But I do think we’re in a position where, moving forward, we’re seeing incremental supply come online, and that is informing the visibility and guidance that we’ve given.
Rick Wallace (President and CEO)
Yeah. I think, Melissa, one thing to add — this is Rick — I think that for some customers, they can say that they want deliveries, and then what they find is they’ve got delays themselves in terms of facilities. So it’s not just the equipment, it’s the readiness of the fabs. And so I think if you look out over time, could you ship? Yeah, maybe. But it doesn’t mean they could utilize it right away. So that’s why I think these — you know, when people talk about can you be there to support the industry, it’s really, you need all the equipment suppliers to be able to do it. You need the facilities you need to build. So it’s longer than just can the equipment guys ship? So there’s a couple customers right now that have asked for some deliveries, and then they’re on hold because they’re waiting for… Does that make sense?
Melissa (Analyst)
Yep, it does. Thank you, both.
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from Chris Cossett with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.
Chris Cossett (Analyst)
Yes, thank you. Good evening. I just want to ask a follow-on to the capacity question as well. And maybe in two parts, and one is, you know, as you look in the business and let’s say, let’s look into ’28, do you think that the bottlenecks are more on the KLA side or more on your supply chain? And then for ’28, you know, most of us are expecting a pretty significant acceleration in ’28 — well, continued growth in ’28 as customers have more clean room space. Are there any impediments to that that you see? You know, given, you know, we’ve got some preparation time here.
Rick Wallace (President and CEO)
Yeah. I think again, if you go and look at the history of a lot of these buildouts, people can have these plans, but then they get into delays — clean rooms. There can be delays in having enough power for those clean rooms. I mean, if you look across the supply chain over the last several years, there have been plans that have been delayed over time. Equipment can be part of it, but it’s only part of it. So our customers are sending very clear messages that they want to bring on these additional fab and to do these buildouts. But we have to kind of move in concert, which is why you often find we’re part of a group that will be at supplier days for all these customers, and they’ll be talking about those expansion plans so they can have… Right now it’s theoretical how big it’s going to be, but as you get closer to it, we’ll see it build out.
So it’s not as simple as we’re going to be late, because we’re working very closely with those customers as they’re building. As I mentioned, there’s one customer right now that’s desperate for more capacity and they can’t take equipment because their clean room is delayed. And that’s because the bottleneck moves around. The bottleneck could be construction, it could be the fact that they can’t get certain raw materials, or they can’t get power. So you kind of have to look at it collectively in terms of — it’s a little bit like the challenges associated with data centers.
It’s not just the data center, it’s the power for the data center. They have it. So that’s why I think in some ways it’s going to prolong the rate of growth because it’s harder to add on as much capacity as some people are envisioning, for example, for 2028. But it does, I think, mean we’re going to have a longer cycle in terms of the growth. So our motto is we’re not going to be the constraint. You know, we’ve said we’re not going to be the bottleneck.
We might have periods where we’re a little behind. As Bren said, we ship, but we’re doing everything we can working with our customers, with our suppliers, so that KLA is not the bottleneck. It doesn’t mean there won’t be bottlenecks. It’s just our goal is not to…
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
…and we can do anything inside the company generally within the time fence that gets established within our lead-time components. And what I mean by that is that we can hire the people we need, we can buy the facility utilization — obviously capex decisions around term process, which is why we’re making the investments. But you can also run extra shifts and so on to ensure that we’re driving facility utilization. So we are never in a situation where we’re the bottleneck, to Rick’s earlier point.
So I feel very good about how KLA is positioned, and we can do anything inside the company within the time fence that gets established by our long lead-time components.
Chris Cossett (Analyst)
Got it. That’s a helpful clarification. Thank you. As my follow-up, I’ll ask about China, and it looked like it was up significantly in the quarter. I know that revenue tends to be lumpy. Can you talk about what your expectations are for China, what’s embedded in the Q4 guidance, and what your thoughts are for the China business as you head into next year?
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
Yeah, it’ll come down in Q4, as I said. Actually, I think saying that since March is I thought that China percent of the total would be in the high 20th percentile — so we’ll call it somewhere between 27% and 29%. And I still believe that. That therefore implies that the fourth quarter is in that similar range given what we’ve done in the previous three quarters. So it did pop up a little bit in September, but China is growing at a much slower rate than the overall business, and so it’s coming down as a percent.
And I think in 2027 that will continue. I expect China will likely grow a little bit, but not at the same rate as the growth in wafer equipment outside of China. So we’re probably operating somewhere, I would say, in the low 20th percentile in 2027. Now within our numbers, there’s also our non-semi PC that also has business in China. There is more PCB-type investment that happens in China, component inspection in China. The number’s a bit up a little bit, but it’s a small percentage of the overall, so not much.
So I think the numbers I provided give you, I think, enough directional clarity about where the business is today and where it’s going.
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
Thank you. Operator. Can you take the next question please? Yes, my apologies. We will go next to Shane Bretton and Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Shane Bretton (Analyst)
The first question is on advanced packaging. At your Investor Day you mentioned that Kronos is the workhorse of packaging. We have the next three systems already ready. Just, are your customers requiring higher-sensitivity tools? And if so, can you talk about the competitive environment at these higher sensitivity levels? Thank you.
Rick Wallace (President and CEO)
Well, in advanced packaging it’s been flexing because of the move to more front-end-like processes. Most of it, to your point, has been in the macro products and we think the roadmap for those products were well positioned. There you are seeing more hybrid bonding in logic devices which is driving the need for greater levels of sensitivity. We also talked about that at Investor Day. So you start to move from micron-level sensitivity down to the 100-nanometer-type sensitivity.
It does drive the need for more advanced systems. So when we talk about our overall packaging exposure, the mix of systems is starting to trend more towards higher-end systems. So the macro products are still, to use your words, the workhorse. But we’re seeing more laser scanning and even in some cases some Gen 4 deployment for packaging requirements. So we think this part of the market continues to be an opportunity for KLA. We’ve been able to leverage a lot of the R&D that we’ve done across the more advanced platforms. And so we think we’re very well positioned with proven prod and our customers understand that capability well. So we think we’re pretty well positioned in terms of the growth opportunities in that part of the market.
Shane Bretton (Analyst)
Got it, thank you. And my follow-up’s on logic. I know you assessed node-to-node share gain after certain wafer start volumes installed, but internally is there a preliminary expectation on your share gains from 2 nanometer to 1.4 nanometer? Are there any part of your product portfolio where you think the financial market would be surprised on just the magnitude of share gains? Thank you.
Rick Wallace (President and CEO)
Yeah, we think the trend is in the right direction. I mean one thing about the next generation nodes is they’re starting to tune those nodes for high performance compute requirements and those required some of the more advanced capabilities and more sampling steps because of the value of the die. So with high performance compute you have large die. They’re very valuable. Defect density is a challenge. You also have a very rich design environment.
All those are good contributing factors. I don’t have a point position to give you in terms of the directional trend, but we feel pretty good about the ability to continue to grow our share of the market. Node to node and I think our relevancy with E-beam inspection capability and the linkage we have to our optical becomes more pronounced and so not as much share as it is adoption. But those investments were made to show up more as we go to smaller designs.
Shane Bretton (Analyst)
Got it. Thank you very much.
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
And we will take our final question from Tim Schultz Malander with Rothschild Co. Redburn. Please go ahead.
Tim Schultz Malander (Analyst)
Yeah, hi there. Thanks for working my questions. I had one for Rick and one for Brent. Maybe the first one. Just comparing 27 to 2026. When you look at the capex that was spent on it or is being spent on established nodes this year as a percent of the total market and you look forward to 2027. Could you maybe describe how that ratio changes? And then I had a follow up.
Rick Wallace (President and CEO)
We see more investment in 2 nanometers. I mean look at, I think 2 nanometer and 3 nanometer investments will be the focus in logic. You’ll see more there. You’ll also see some investment in the next generation node. So 1.4. So it’s different. You didn’t have any of that, that more advanced investment and it was more 3 nanometer centric in 26. So I think it sets up, I think good for us just more 2 nanometer and, and, you know, more leading edge investment in 1.4.
Tim Schultz Malander (Analyst)
Very clear. And maybe just. Thank you. And then maybe one on memory in 2027. You’ve discussed your engineering strategy about how you’re going to address that memory kind of impact to your bill of materials. Can you just maybe talk about what your purchasing strategy is for 27 for memory? Thank you.
Bren Higgins (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Head of Global Operations)
Well, certainly our focus early on and through this year has been mostly around securing supply. Look, when things started to ramp in early 26, we felt pretty good about ensuring we had the supply, which was no easy feat generally because of the constraints in the overall industry. And as demand has strengthened, we’ve had to go out and buy more at higher prices, less concerned about supply. But certainly we’re exposed to the pricing market and that’s informing the commentary that we provided.
But I think from a supply point of view, we feel pretty good about the supply we’ve secured to meet the requirements we have going forward.
Tim Schultz Malander (Analyst)
That’s very helpful. Thank you.
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
This does conclude our question and answer session. I’d like to turn the program back over to Kevin Kessel for any closing remarks.
Kevin Kessel (Vice President of Investor Relations and Market Analytics)
Yes. Thank you. Thank you everyone again for your interest in KLA. We know it’s a very busy earnings day, busy earnings week, so we appreciate it if we can get your questions. Hopefully we can connect here after the call in our callbacks. And with that, I’ll turn it back to the operator to formally close out the call.
Stephanie (Conference Operator)
Thank you. This concludes the KLA Corporation September Quarter 2026 earnings call and webcast. Please disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.
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