ASML clean room. Image: Michel de Heer/ ASML
Some customers have already placed orders for 2029 and 2030, ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet said.
Skyrocketing AI-related investments is overwhelming the Dutch chip equipment maker ASML, which said that its planned supply for 2027 and 2028 will not fully meet the demands of its customers.
In its Q3 results, announced today (14 October), ASML reported total net sales of €11.7bn, with full year sales expected to be around €45bn – and Q4 at around €14.2bn to €15.2bn. Just this quarter, the company sold more than 120 of its sophisticated lithography machines. In the same time last year, ASML’s lithography machines sales stood at just more than 70.
ASML plays an extremely important role in the intricately connected global semiconductor supply chain, being the only company that makes equipment key to producing advanced chips.
“Our customers continue to increase their short and medium-term equipment demand forecasts with us, driven primarily by their views on the size and duration of AI-related investments,” said the company’s president and CEO Christophe Fouquet.
The company’s clientele spans major global companies, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, Apple and Intel – all of whom have committed billions to expand their manufacturing capacity to meet the general consumer and enterprise demand.
Last quarter, ASML announced that it planned to increase its supply capacity by 30pc in 2027 followed with a further 30pc in 2028. However, that is no longer enough, according to Fouquet, who said that the company is looking at ways to meet customer demand.
In September, the company began constructing its second major industrial campus in the Netherlands’ Brainport to complement its existing office space and manufacturing capacity in the region.
“A lot of our discussions with our customers now are shifting, in fact, beyond 2027. A lot of order intake for 2028. But also some strong interest to already place orders for 2029 and sometimes even 2030,” Fouquet said in the earnings call.
Last month, a senior executive from ASML said that the company sold nothing to European customers this past quarter, in what should be a worrying sign for the region as it attempts to catch up with the US and China.
“From factory to chip design to cloud computing, very little happens here,” ASML’s executive vice-president Frank Heemskerk told a panel.
This comes more than a year after an EU special report found that the region’s Chips Act was not enough to reach its Digital Decade goal, which targeted a 20pc share in the global semiconductor market by 2030, despite “reasonable progress” in implementing it.
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