KLA (KLAC) The Citigroup Global TMT Conference 2024 summary

Strategic leadership and organizational changes

• Transition in leadership with Oreste Donzella moving to Chief Strategy Officer, reflecting a focus on advanced packaging and growth areas.

• Organizational adjustments align with customer trends where back-end packaging increasingly resembles front-end processes.

Market outlook and business performance

• 2024 is described as a transition year, with WFE levels expected in the mid-$90 billion range and sequential growth anticipated.

• Leading-edge investments, particularly in N3 and upcoming N2 nodes, are major growth drivers, with memory spend expected to recover next year.

• China remains a stable market, with its share expected to decrease as non-China customer growth accelerates.

Advanced packaging and technology inflections

• Revenue from packaging is projected to exceed $500 million this year, a fivefold increase over five years.

• Complexity in packaging, driven by AI and data, is leading to higher demand for advanced inspection and metrology tools.

• KLA’s diversified portfolio allows participation in all major technology inflections, including lithography, transistor architecture, and packaging.