AIXTRON: Continued growth in all dimensions

65% more orders and 59% higher revenues in 2021 / Record shipments in fourth quarter / Double-digit growth expected in 2022 / High EU taxonomy aligned figures / KPMG new auditor

Herzogenrath, 24. February 2022 - AIXTRON SE (FSE: AIXA, ISIN DE000A0WMPJ6) achieved strong growth in fiscal year 2021. Orders, revenues, and earnings increased significantly. AIXTRON reported record fourth quarter shipments of EUR 181 million in revenues, demonstrating the flexibility of its production model. The raised guidance for fiscal year 2021 was fully met. Double-digit growth is again expected for 2022.

Order boom on a broad basis

The order intake of EUR 497.3 million in the fiscal year 2021 exceeded the previous year's figure by 65%. In the fourth quarter, AIXTRON received orders amounting to EUR 119.7 million, representing a growth of 30% vs. the fourth quarter of the previous year. Power electronics applications are the main growth driver, namely the Gallium Nitride (GaN) and Silicon Carbide (SiC) material systems. Orders in Power Electronics overall tripled in a year-on-year comparison, now accounting for almost 45% of order intake. Demand for SiC deposition equipment developed positively, particularly in the fourth quarter, and now amounts to a relevant share. In addition, continued strong demand from the data communications and LED display sectors ensured full order books.

Record deliveries and growing order backlog

Driven by the positive order development, the order backlog of AIXTRON increased by 42% to EUR 214.6 million in the reporting year 2021.

Revenues increased by 59% to EUR 429.0 million in 2021 (2020: EUR 269.2 million). This is driven by the global megatrends of sustainability, electrification, and digitalization. In the fourth quarter of 2021, a 10-year record in shipments was achieved. As a result, quarterly revenues of EUR 180.9 million were recorded. This corresponds to an increase of 67% compared to the same quarter of the previous year (Q4/2021: EUR 108.1 million).

Power electronics equipment (GaN and SiC) with 38% accounted for the largest share, followed by optoelectronics with 37% and LEDs with 23% of equipment sales. This corresponds to a doubling of sales of systems for power electronics compared to the previous year. The optoelectronics segment (data transmission, 3D sensing technology and solar) also recorded strong growth with an increase of 87% compared to the previous year.

Dynamic earnings growth

AIXTRON also achieved strong growth (+68%) in gross profit in 2021, increasing from EUR 108.3 million in the previous year to EUR 181.5 million. The high momentum was particularly evident in the year-end quarter, where a gross profit of EUR 80.0 million was achieved.

In the past fiscal year, AIXTRON maintained its research and development (R&D) expenses at a high level of EUR 56.8 million (previous year: EUR 58.4 million), in particular to develop next generation deposition equipment for various applications.

The operating result (EBIT) increased by 184% year-on-year to EUR 99.0 million (2020: EUR 34.8 million) - this corresponds to a threefold increase. In Q4/2021, AIXTRON was able to more than double the operating result year-on-year to EUR 57.9 million (Q4/2020: EUR 24.5 million).

Consolidated net profit for the full year 2021 grew by 175% year-on-year to EUR 94.8 million (2020: EUR 34.5 million). In the fourth quarter, growth was +108% (Q4/2021: EUR 51.9 million vs. Q4/2020: EUR 24.9 million) year-on-year. Earnings per share almost tripled and rose to EUR 0.85 (2020: EUR 0.31).

AIXTRON was able to increase its gross margin by two percentage points to 42% in the fiscal year 2021 (previous year: 40%). The increase of the EBIT margin to 22% (previous year: 13%) demonstrates AIXTRON's high profitability.

Strong financial position

Free cash flow increased to EUR 48.7 million in the past fiscal year (previous year: EUR 14.0 million). Cash and cash equivalents including financial assets amounted to EUR 352.5 million as of December 31, 2021 (previous year: EUR 309.7 million).

The high equity ratio of 80% (as of December 31, 2021; previous year 84%) underlines AIXTRON's financial strength.

In view of the successful 2021 results, AIXTRON plans to pay a dividend. The Executive Board and the Supervisory Board will therefore propose to pay a dividend of 30 euro cents per share (2021: 11 euro cents per share) to the Annual General Meeting on May 25, 2022.

The number of employees in the Group totaled 718 as of December 31, 2021, compared to 728 at the end of the previous year. This is a result of the strong growth in the number of employees in the MOCVD core business and of the reduction of employees due to the restructuring of the APEVA Group. In 2021, it has become apparent that the market will opt for Micro LEDs as the technological basis for the development of next generation displays even faster than originally expected. Therefore, the shareholders of APEVA have decided not to invest further in APEVA and to wind down the APEVA Group.

High taxonomy-aligned figures according to new EU Taxonomy Regulation

AIXTRON is already voluntarily reporting taxonomy aligned figures in accordance with the new EU Taxonomy Regulation for the first time for fiscal year 2021. With taxonomy-aligned revenues of EUR 243 million (56.7%), the majority of AIXTRON's business activities are already environmentally sustainable in the sense of the EU taxonomy. At AIXTRON, the operating expenses (OpEx)* as defined by the EU Taxonomy Regulation correspond to research and development expenses. The very high value of EUR 43 million (75.6%) taxonomy-aligned operating expenses (OpEx)* is therefore particularly positive. A high value of EUR 8 million (39.2%) was reported for taxonomy-aligned capital expenditures (CapEx)*. The high results for the two key figures OpEx* and CapEx*, which are particularly relevant for the future development of the company, document the sustainability of AIXTRON's investment strategy very impressively, especially in research and development. This leads to the expectation of a further increase in environmentally sustainable revenues in the years to come as soon as the newly developed technologies will be widely adopted.

These taxonomy-aligned technologies are wide-band-gap (WBG) power semiconductors based on gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC) as the key to energy-efficient power electronics, Micro LEDs for the next generation of displays, lasers for data communication as key technology for the digitalization of our world. All these technologies have one thing in common: they are much more energy efficient compared to the current technologies available on the market and thus contribute significantly to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Among many other benefits of these technologies in their respective applications, they significantly support the fight against climate change. Further details can be found in our Sustainability Report 2021.

* In the sense of the EU Taxonomy Regulation

KPMG new auditor for the current fiscal year

On the recommendation of the Audit Committee and following an extensive tender process, the Supervisory Board resolved to propose KPMG AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft as new auditors to the upcoming Annual General Meeting. KPMG is to replace the previous long-standing auditor, Deloitte GmbH Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft. Deloitte has successfully audited AIXTRON's annual and consolidated financial statements with different teams since 1996.

2022 Guidance: Double-digit growth expected

For the year 2022, the Executive Board expects double-digit growth in order intake and revenues. Based on the current corporate structure, the assessment of the order situation and the budget rate of 1.20 USD/EUR (2021: 1.25 USD/EUR), Management expects order intake of EUR 520 million to 580 million (2021: EUR 497.3 million) and revenues of EUR 450 million to 500 million (2021: EUR 429.0 million). Furthermore, the Executive Board expects a gross margin of around 41% (2021: 42.3%) and an EBIT margin of 21% to 23% (2021: 23.1%). The expectations for 2022 are subject to the assumption that global crisis situations will not have a significant impact on the development of the business.

"Following the strong growth in 2021, we are looking forward to double-digit growth again in the current fiscal year. In our core markets, we continue to see growing demand driven by megatrends such as sustainability, electrification as well as digitalization," says Dr. Felix Grawert, CEO & President of AIXTRON SE. "With our sustainable leading-edge technologies, we serve the rapidly growing markets of today and tomorrow. "

"The topics of ESG and sustainability have the highest level of attention at our company and are an important part of the AIXTRON DNA," says Dr. Christian Danninger, CFO of AIXTRON SE, "as a result, we were able to report more than half of our revenues and around three quarters of our research & development expenses as green in the sense of the new EU Taxonomy Regulation in 2021. This documents very clearly how important the contribution of our technologies is to the achievement of global climate targets."

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Financial Tables

The presentation on the full-year 2021 results is available at:
https://www.aixtron.com/en/investors/publications/ir-presentations

The complete financial tables of the Group (income statement, other comprehensive income, balance sheet, cash flow statement and statement of changes in equity) for this press release are available as part of the Annual Report 2021 at:

https://www.aixtron.com/en/investors/publications

There, the non-financial Group Report (Sustainability Report) 2021 of AIXTRON SE including details on the application of the EU taxonomy is
also available.

Investor conference call

In conjunction with the release of full-year 2021 results, AIXTRON will host a conference call (in English) for analysts and investors on Thursday, February 24, 2021, at 15:00 CET (06:00 a.m. PST, 09:00 a.m. EST). You can dial into the conference from 14:45 CET (05:45 a.m. PST, 08:45 a.m. EST) on the following telephone number: +49 (30) 23 25 31 411 or +1 (862) 701-2734. An audio recording or transcript will be available after the conference at: https://www.aixtron.com/en/investors/events/conference-calls

Contact

Guido Pickert
Vice President Investor Relations & Corporate Communications
fon +49 (2407) 9030-444
e-mail [email protected]

Andrea Koegler-Ihler
Senior IR Manager

fon +49 (2407) 9030-6153

e-mail [email protected]

About AIXTRON
AIXTRON SE is a leading provider of deposition equipment to the semiconductor industry. The Company was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Herzogenrath (near Aachen), Germany, with subsidiaries and sales offices in Asia, United States and in Europe. AIXTRON's technology solutions are used by a diverse range of customers worldwide to build advanced components for electronic and optoelectronic applications based on compound semiconductor materials. Such components are used in a broad range of innovative applications, technologies, and industries. These include Laser and LED applications, display technologies, data transmission, SiC and GaN power management and conversion, communication, signaling and lighting as well as a range of other leading-edge applications.

Our registered trademarks: AIXACT(R), AIXTRON(R), Close Coupled Showerhead(R), Gas Foil Rotation(R), OVPD(R), Planetary Reactor(R), PVPD(R), TriJet(R)

For further information on AIXTRON (FSE: AIXA, ISIN DE000A0WMPJ6) please visit our website at: www.aixtron.com

Forward-Looking Statements

This document may contain forward-looking statements regarding the business, results of operations, financial condition and earnings outlook of AIXTRON. These statements may be identified by words such as "may", "will", "expect", "anticipate", "contemplate", "intend", "plan", "believe", "continue" and "estimate" and variations of such words or similar expressions. These forward-looking statements are based on our current assessments, expectations and assumptions, of which many are beyond control of AIXTRON, and are subject to risks and uncertainties. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Should these risks or uncertainties materialize or should underlying expectations not occur or assumptions prove incorrect, actual results, performance or achievements of AIXTRON may materially vary from those described explicitly or implicitly in the relevant forward-looking statement. This could result from a variety of factors, such as actual customer orders received by AIXTRON, the level of demand for deposition technology in the market, the timing of final acceptance of products by customers, the condition of financial markets and access to financing for AIXTRON, general conditions in the market for deposition plants and macroeconomic conditions, cancellations, rescheduling or delays in product shipments, production capacity constraints, extended sales and qualification cycles, difficulties in the production process, the general development in the semi-conductor industry, increased competition, fluctuations in exchange rates, availability of public funding, fluctuations and/or changes in interest rates, delays in developing and marketing new products, a deterioration of the general economic situation and any other factors discussed in any reports or other announcements , in particular in the chapter Risks in the Annual Report, filed by AIXTRON. Any forward-looking statements contained in this document are based on current expectations and projections of the executive board based on information available the date hereof. AIXTRON undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless expressly required to do so by law.

This document is an English language translation of a document in German language. In case of discrepancies, the German language document shall prevail and shall be the valid version.