ASML’s record orders smash forecasts as AI drives chipmaker demand, to lay off 1,700
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
ASML said orders in the fourth quarter far exceeded analysts’ expectations, as as companies boosted investment in AI chipmaking capacity.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Amsterdam - ASML said orders in the fourth quarter far exceeded analysts’ expectations, as companies boosted investment in artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaking capacity.
The world’s largest supplier of computer chip equipment also said separately it would lay off 1,700 jobs, or 3.8 per cent of the total – mostly in the Netherlands and US and largely at the leadership level.
The cull is the largest the company has seen in absolute numbers, following prolonged expansion in the 2010s and 2020s, chief financial officer Roger Dassen said on a conference call.
Fourth-quarter bookings, the most watched metric in the industry, were a record €13.2 billion (S$20 billion), compared with €5.4 billion in the previous quarter and surpassing analyst expectations of €6.32 billion, according to researcher Visible Alpha.
“In the last months, many of our customers have shared a notably more positive assessment of the medium-term market situation, primarily based on more robust expectations of the sustainability of AI-related demand,” ASML’s chief executive Christophe Fouquet said in a statement.
Surge in AI chip demand
The orders beat comes as several of ASML’s chipmaker customers raise investment plans amid demand for AI logic and memory chips needed by cloud computing giants such as Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet’s Google.
The Dutch company also hiked its outlook for 2026.
It now expects full-year sales of between €34 billion and €39 billion, compared with analysts’ expectations of €35 billion, according to LSEG data. It has previously forecast flat-to-higher sales than in the previous year, which came in at 32.7 billion euros in 2025.
“We expect 2026 to be another growth year for ASML’s business,” Mr Fouquet said.
Analysts had expected the Dutch giant to benefit from the stronger demand of top customers such as TSMC and Samsung, as chipmakers increase capital spending to expand capacity for AI-related chips amid tight global supply of memory, and AI-accelerator chips.
ASML kept the long-term guidance to 2030 untouched, Mr Fouquet said in an internal interview published on its site, anticipating revenue to reach between €44 and €60 billion and a gross margin between 56 per cent and 60 per cent in 2030. REUTERS, BLOOMBERG
