Soitec cuts 2025 guidance due to weak automotive market

By Ozan Ergenay

(Reuters) - French semiconductor materials supplier Soitec on Wednesday cut its sales forecast for 2025, citing a couple of customers asking to put some deliveries on hold due to worsening conditions in automotive and consumer markets.

The company now expects 2025 revenue to fall by a high-single-digit percentage year-on-year at constant exchange rates and on a comparable business basis, having previously forecast full-year sales to be stable.

Soitec also expects a margin on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of between 32% and 34% this year, down from around 35% previously.

Chip stocks have come under pressure as higher demand from artificial intelligence (AI) has failed to make up for weak demand for automotive, PC and memory chips.

Concerns about inflation and reduced demand have mounted after U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs against Canada, China and Mexico, although he paused them for one month except for China.

"Despite seasonal restocking in the second half of the fiscal year, customers continue to optimize RF-SOI inventory levels based on seasonality and market conditions, which will keep driving fluctuations over the next few quarters," Soitec's CEO Pierre Barnabé said in a statement, adding the automotive and industrial division continued to be impacted by a weak auto market.

With a lack of visibility on end-markets for now, it was also too early to provide specific guidance for 2026, he added.

The French company, whose customers include sector majors such as TSMC, UMC, Sony, Global Foundries, and STMicroelectronics, expects at this stage quite limited growth for the next year, given current market conditions, it said in a statement.

Its quarterly revenue dropped 10% at constant exchange rates and perimeter to 226 million euros ($236 million), compared with 240 million euros a year earlier.

($1 = 0.9595 euros)

(Reporting by Ozan Ergenay; Editing by Mark Potter)