The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: Sebastian Kuenne - RBC Capital Markets, Research Division - Analyst
: Three questions here. First of all, your comments on preorders, you said 20% of the orders in Q4 are preorders, so roughly CHF 100 million. How
do you define that preorders? Would that basically mean that the remainder of the orders has the usual delivery times of 2 to 6 weeks? And then
the remainder is basically pushed into Q3, Q4. I would like to have some clarification on that.
My second question, on Malaysia, you are planning the new plant, the extension basically of your new plant there. Could you tell us again what
the current staff costs are compared to assembly workers in Switzerland? And you also mentioned that the selling prices there for your valves in
Malaysia are lower. You mentioned that in the conference call and I would just like to find out or have some detail on how much lower the prices
are locally for basically your selling prices.
And finally, on the -- so the semi organization mentioned that they expect 10% of equipment growth this year for the entire semi equipment market
after 39% growth in 2021. Now this seems a bit odd given that the order backlogs of all these companies are so large and the run rate into Q1 and
Q2 is so massive, it would basically imply a very sharp drop off in the second half. Do you see the same thing? Are you very cautious on the second
half of the year in terms of order intake? That would be my questions.
Question: Sebastian Kuenne - RBC Capital Markets, Research Division - Analyst
: Yes, we had a discussion and either you or Michel was mentioning that the retail prices or the prices that you charge your customers locally in
Malaysia are lower than the prices you charge from Switzerland. So you have basically lower prices or different prices locally in Malaysia. Because
I want to know that you produced in a low-cost country, so there's kind of an adjustment for that? I just want to have some clarification.
Question: Timm Nikolaus Schulze-Melander - Redburn (Europe) Limited, Research Division - Analyst
: I just have 2. The first, could you perhaps just talk a little bit about your aftermarket business and the stocking and what kind of distribution of parts
you have and if there are any challenges there. It looks like it executed very well in 2021. It looks like it's going to execute well in 2022 despite the
challenges. And I just wanted to know if there are any sort of constraints or anything we need to be aware of there?
Question: Timm Nikolaus Schulze-Melander - Redburn (Europe) Limited, Research Division - Analyst
: Great. That's super helpful. And then just coming back to this challenging supply chain, I mean your comments around how proactive VAT has
been on the raw materials and the multi-sourcing and second or third supplier qualifications. It looks like actually investors probably shouldn't be
too worried about things from a VAT Group perspective. Have you seen any limitations of your ability to ship products because of supply chain
problems further down at your customer side, for example?
Question: Timm Nikolaus Schulze-Melander - Redburn (Europe) Limited, Research Division - Analyst
: That's great. Very helpful.
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