Applied Materials, Inc.

What does Applied Materials own?
Applied Materials owns its core equipment business sold under the Applied Materials name and the Applied Global Services unit, which sells parts, services, and fab automation software. Its portfolio also includes product families such as Endura, Producer, Sym3, Reflexion, and eBeam, plus the ion implantation technology it acquired with Varian Semiconductor in 2011.

Is Applied Materials publicly traded?
Yes. Applied Materials trades on NASDAQ under the ticker AMAT and is a component of the S&P 500 and NASDAQ-100. The company went public in 1972, five years after its founding.

Who founded Applied Materials?
Michael A. McNeilly founded Applied Materials in Santa Clara, California in 1967. James C. Morgan, who joined in 1976 and served as CEO for over 25 years, built it into the industry's largest equipment supplier.

Where is Applied Materials headquartered?
Applied Materials is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA, in the heart of Silicon Valley. The company employs approximately 36,500 people across 25 countries, with major operations in the United States, Singapore, Israel, Germany, and Taiwan.

How many brands does Applied Materials own?
Applied operates primarily under two customer-facing brands: Applied Materials for equipment and Applied Global Services for parts, service, and software. Product families like Endura and Producer are product line names rather than independent brands.

Who owns Applied Materials?
Applied Materials is owned by its public shareholders. Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street are the largest institutional holders. No founder family, government, or parent company controls the company.

What does Applied Materials actually make?
Applied makes the machines used to manufacture semiconductors and displays: systems that deposit thin films, etch circuit patterns, implant ions, polish wafers flat, and inspect results for defects. Chipmakers buy the equipment and operate it inside their own fabrication plants.

Michael McNeilly founded Applied Materials in Santa Clara in 1967, starting the company in a small office with a focus on chemical vapor deposition equipment for the young semiconductor industry. The first products were epitaxy and oxidation systems sold to early Silicon Valley chipmakers. Applied went public on NASDAQ in 1972.

A near-death moment came in the mid-1970s when McNeilly diversified into unrelated businesses that drained cash. In 1976 the board brought in James C. Morgan, who refocused the company on semiconductor equipment. Morgan ran Applied for over 25 years as CEO and presided over its transformation into the industry's dominant equipment supplier. Under Morgan, Applied introduced the Precision 5000 platform in 1987, a single-wafer multi-chamber design that changed how fabs processed wafers and became the best-selling system in the industry's history.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, Applied expanded its product lines from deposition into etch, ion implantation, planarization, and process control. It became the first semiconductor equipment company to reach $1 billion in annual revenue, then $5 billion, riding the industry's migration to Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. International expansion was deliberate: Applied opened offices near customers in every major fab region, a model that later defined the AGS service business.

The 2000s brought both opportunity and cyclical shocks. Applied benefited from the transition to 300mm wafers and copper interconnects, then suffered deep revenue declines in the 2001 downturn and again in 2009. The company diversified into solar panel manufacturing equipment and display systems; the display business survived, the solar push mostly did not.

Gary Dickerson became CEO in 2013 after Applied acquired Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates in 2011 for approximately $4.9 billion, a deal that added ion implantation to the product line and brought Dickerson into the company. His tenure has emphasized materials engineering, the use of deposition and etch to shape transistor and interconnect structures at the atomic scale, as lithography alone became insufficient for advanced nodes.

Two large deals defined the decade's limits. In 2013 Applied agreed to merge with Tokyo Electron in an all-stock combination that would have created the dominant equipment supplier across nearly every product category. The companies abandoned the merger in April 2015 after US antitrust regulators signaled opposition. In 2019 Applied agreed to buy Kokusai Electric from KKR for $2.2 billion, later raising the offer to $3.5 billion, but walked away in 2021 when Chinese regulators did not approve the deal before the deadline, paying a $154 million termination fee.

Export controls became a structural factor from 2019 onward as Washington restricted sales of advanced equipment to China. Applied's China revenue share, once above 30 percent, compressed as new rules took effect and as the company redirected sales toward Taiwan, Korea, and US customers building domestic capacity under the CHIPS Act.

Fiscal 2025 set records across the board: $28.37 billion in revenue, $6,998 million in net income, and an installed service business where more than two-thirds of core recurring revenue came from subscriptions. Fiscal 2026 opened even stronger, with record Q3 revenue of $9.12 billion driven by demand for leading-edge logic, DRAM, and advanced packaging tools tied to AI chip production.

Applied publishes an annual sustainability report organized around its Net Zero 2040 Playbook, which commits the company to net-zero Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2040 and sets interim goals the company calls 3x30: 100 percent renewable electricity, 30 percent reduction in semiconductor tool energy consumption, and 30 percent reduction in chemical usage per wafer pass, each targeted for 2030. The company's near-term emissions targets have been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative.

On ethics and labor, Applied follows the Responsible Business Alliance code of conduct across its supply chain and reports workforce data annually. As of October 26, 2025, roughly 46 percent of employees were in the Asia-Pacific region, 42 percent in North America, and 12 percent in Europe and the Middle East. None of the company's environmental claims carry consumer-facing certifications, since its products are industrial capital equipment rather than consumer goods.

China Export Controls Investigation: US authorities investigated whether Applied shipped equipment to China through South Korea without required licenses after export rules tightened in 2022 and 2023. The company disclosed subpoenas from federal agencies beginning in 2023 and recorded a $253 million legal settlement charge in the first nine months of fiscal 2026, consistent with reports that it was resolving the matter.

Tokyo Electron Merger Blocked (2015): Antitrust opposition from the US Department of Justice forced Applied and Tokyo Electron to abandon their proposed merger, a roughly $29 billion combination, in April 2015. The companies terminated the agreement rather than contest the regulatory position.

Kokusai Electric Deal Collapse (2021): Applied's planned acquisition of Kokusai Electric ended without Chinese regulatory approval. Applied paid KKR a $154 million termination fee. Kokusai later went public in Tokyo in 2023.