ASML Investors Press Executives on Outlook Despite Bookings Beat

(Bloomberg) -- ASML Holding NV failed to satisfy investors with record orders in the fourth quarter as analysts continued to question whether the Dutch semiconductor equipment maker can sustain its artificial intelligence-fueled momentum.  

The company’s bookings in the fourth quarter hit €13.2 billion ($15.8 billion) as AI infrastructure needs raised demand for its most sophisticated equipment, far exceeding the average analyst estimate of €6.85 billion, the Veldhoven, Netherlands-based company said in a statement on Wednesday. Even so, analysts raised concerns about the company’s ability to expand capacity and hit the high end of its revenue guidance for the year.   

“The last three months have brought a lot of clarity” about what AI means for the semiconductor industry, Chief Executive Officer Christophe Fouquet said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. Chief Financial Officer Roger Dassen separately said in a call with analysts that reaching the high end of the firm’s revenue range hinges on overcoming two constraints: customers’ ability to finish chipmaking plants in time to receive its tools and ASML’s own ability to ramp up capacity to meet soaring demand.

“We are ramping during the year to accommodate the demand,” Dassen said on the call. “But the demand is also a little bit dependent on the progress that our customers are making in terms of the completion of their” own chip plants during the year, he said. 

ASML’s shares fell 1.9% to €1,194.40 in Amsterdam. The stock had earlier risen to a record high on the strong bookings beat. The company, Europe’s most valuable firm, also announced it plans about 1,700 job cuts, mostly in the Netherlands with some in the US, as it seeks to streamline the organization. That represents about 4% of the company’s workforce.

Net income in the fourth quarter was €2.84 billion, the company said, missing estimates. 

During the call with analysts, Fouquet acknowledged the questions about the company’s manufacturing capacity for its top-end tools and how many extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, lithography machines it will sell. “I sense some concern that we may be the bottleneck for the customer,” he said. “This is not the case, certainly not this year and again for next year.”

ASML is the only producer of cutting-edge lithography machines that are needed to make advanced semiconductors, and counts all the leading chip manufacturers as customers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. and Intel Corp. Its machinery is integral to producing the Nvidia Corp. AI accelerators that are the backbone for training and running AI models in data centers. The Dutch company’s bookings are one signal of chipmakers’ confidence in future AI demand.

The AI boom has continued into 2026, defying concerns about overinvestment and helping push ASML’s market value over $500 billion this month. Meta Platforms Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are among the companies that are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into building data centers, driving chipmakers to increase capacity and in turn stoking demand for ASML’s products. TSMC said this month it anticipates capital spending of more than $52 billion in 2026, much of which will be toward advanced manufacturing techniques. 

More than half of last quarter’s bookings were for EUV, totaling €7.4 billion, ASML said. It recognized revenue in the period for two high NA EUV machines, a state-of-the-art tool that costs upwards of €350 million a piece.

Total net sales were €32.7 billion in 2025. Revenue is seen at between €34 billion and €39 billion this year, higher than previous guidance. 

“ASML has knocked it out of the park when it comes to order numbers,” said Ben Barringer, head of technology research at Quilter Cheviot. “Given the strength of the order book, we fully expect it to raise guidance throughout the year.”

The company also announced a new share buyback program of as much as €12 billion through the end of 2028. That amounts to about 2.5% of ASML’s current market capitalization.

What Bloomberg Intelligence Says

ASML could achieve the top of its just-announced €34-€39 billion sales goal in 2026, based on its strong orders in 4Q25 and order backlog for chipmaking-tool systems of €38.8 billion. TSMC’s strong capex plan in 2026 will contribute to ASML’s sales growth, as will robust capex among DRAM suppliers such as SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron. — BI analysts Masahiro Wakasugi and Takumi Okano 

Last week, Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang called the rush to build data centers that can power AI models the “largest infrastructure build-out in human history.” There is a need for “trillions of dollars” of additional investment in coming years, Huang said at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

China remained ASML’s biggest market in the fourth quarter, accounting for 36% of net system sales. The Chinese market is expected to fall to about 20% of revenue going forward, Dassen said in a call with reporters.  

ASML has never been able to sell its EUV lithography machines to China due to US-led restrictions aimed at curbing the Asian nation’s progress in the semiconductor sector. It’s also restricted from selling its most advanced deep ultraviolet, or DUV, tools to the country. The machines it ships to China are eight generations behind the most sophisticated model. Still, Chinese chipmakers have been buying up older equipment to make mature chips.

ASML won’t report bookings in future quarterly results because the company argues the metric doesn’t accurately capture business momentum. 

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.