AI foundry and advanced packaging dual inflection points join forces, KLA (KLAC.US) revenue grows for ten consecutive quarters, Q2 guidance beats expectations.

KLA (KLAC.US), the leading semiconductor process control equipment maker, reported its fiscal 2027 first-quarter results after the U.S. market close on October 28 (early morning Beijing time on October 29). Quarterly revenue was $4.136 billion, up 28.9% year-over-year and above the market expectation of $4.04 billion; non-GAAP diluted earnings per share were $1.22, above the expected $1.18. Quarterly net income was $1.549 billion, with diluted earnings per share of $1.18. KLA's revenue has now grown year-over-year for 10 consecutive quarters. After the earnings release, KLA rose about 3.2% in after-hours trading. The company generated $1.53 billion in operating cash flow and $1.34 billion in free cash flow in the quarter, with a free cash flow margin of 32.3%; shareholder returns in the quarter were $1.24 billion. To $163.90. Guidance was the biggest highlight of this earnings report: the company expects December-quarter revenue of $4.7 billion $200 million, with the midpoint about 4.8% above the market consensus and implying year-over-year growth of about 42.5%; non-GAAP diluted earnings per share guidance is $1.44 $0.11, also above expectations. The midpoint of the guidance implies roughly 14% sequential growth from this quarter's revenue, showing the company has strong confidence in the sustainability of AI-driven demand. CEO Rick Wallace said, "KLA's September-quarter results exceeded the midpoint of guidance across all key metrics, demonstrating the acceleration in growth we expected in the second half of 2026. Process control, and KLA in particular, remains critical to building the AI ecosystem and is benefiting from several ongoing technology inflections, including increasing design starts for advanced-node foundry/logic chips, rising device complexity and value, higher memory complexity and performance requirements, and the growing importance of advanced packaging." Analysts noted that as the world's top player by market share in semiconductor process control inspection equipment, KLA continues to benefit from the massive buildout of AI computing infrastructurehigher yield requirements for leading-edge chips, capacity expansion in advanced memory such as HBM, and rising penetration of Chiplet advanced packaging all directly drive demand for process control inspection equipment. Both quarterly results and next-quarter guidance beat expectations, further confirming the strong prosperity of the semiconductor equipment sector in this AI cycle.