ASML orders beat estimates as AI investments drive demand

Key topics.ASML orders soared to €7.09B, driven by AI demand for chipmaking machines.China's role in ASML's sales shrank, now accounting for 27% of total revenue.ASML expects strong AI investments but faces growing US pressure on China sales..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here..The seventh BizNews Conference, BNC#7, is to be held in Hermanus from March 11 to 13, 2025. The 2025 BizNews Conference is designed to provide an excellent opportunity for members of the BizNews community to interact directly with the keynote speakers, old (and new) friends from previous BNC events – and to interact with members of the BizNews team. Register for BNC#7 here..If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..*By Cagan Koc ___STEADY_PAYWALL___.ASML Holding NV booked more than twice as many orders as analysts expected in the fourth quarter, as the artificial intelligence boom drove demand for its chipmaking machines..The Dutch company reported order bookings of €7.09 billion ($7.4 billion) in the fourth quarter, it said in a statement on Wednesday. That compares with an average estimate of €3.53 billion by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. .ASML shares rose as much as 12% to €722.10 in Amsterdam, the biggest gain since March 2020. They more than fully recovered from a drop earlier in the week on concern that a new AI model by Chinese startup DeepSeek can provide comparable performance to Western chatbots at a fraction of the price. ASML makes machines needed to produce some high-end chips that the Chinese company is barred from purchasing.."AI is the clear driver," Chief Executive Officer Christophe Fouquet said in a video accompanying the results. "We truly believe that AI is going to bring even more opportunity to this semiconductor industry." .Net bookings were driven by demand for ASML's most-advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography, or EUV, machines, for which €3 billion of orders were placed in the period. China, which had been the company's biggest market for five quarters, slipped to second place behind the US. .In a bid to stall China's progress in AI, the US has banned the export of advanced semiconductor technologies to its geopolitical rival. ASML has never been able to sell its EUV machines to China because of US-led restrictions. Last year, the Dutch government also blocked immersion deep ultraviolet lithography systems to the country after pressure from the Biden administration..DeepSeek's progress suggests Chinese AI engineers have found a way to work around the bans, focusing on greater efficiency with limited resources. Its latest model raised questions about the effectiveness of the trade curbs..Despite the growing number of restrictions, ASML benefited from strong demand from China last year as chipmakers there bought up older kit used to make more mature types of semiconductors..China accounted for €1.92 billion of sales in the fourth quarter, 27% of ASML's total. The company expects China sales to fall to about 20% of total revenue this year. ."2025 will be a year where we see China going back to a more normal ratio in our business," Fouquet said in the video..US pressure on ASML to further restrict sales of semiconductor technology to Beijing will likely grow under President Donald Trump, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said in an interview with Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum last week in Davos..ASML's shares are down more than 25% from a July peak and it has ceded the title of Europe's most valuable technology company to Germany's SAP SE..ASML could benefit from the billions of dollars companies have pledged to build up AI capacities. Meta Platforms Inc. announced plans on Friday to boost capital expenditures on AI projects this year by about half to as much as $65 billion. That came on the heels of OpenAI, SoftBank Group Corp. and Oracle Corp. announcing a $100 billion joint venture called Stargate to build out data centers and AI infrastructure projects around the US. .One of ASML's top customers, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., this month said it foresees spending $38 billion to $42 billion on technology and capacity in 2025, as much as 19% more than analysts expected. .ASML said it recognized revenue in the quarter on two high-NA EUV systems, which are its new state-of-the-art lithography machines that cost more than €350 million apiece. TSMC and Intel Corp. were expected to receive such machines by the end of last year. .ASML also said it will stop reporting order bookings after 2025, as "bookings can be lumpy and are not necessarily a good reflection or an accurate reflection of the business momentum." It will instead provide its total backlog on an annual basis..The company unveiled a total dividend for 2024 of €6.40 per ordinary share, which is about a 5% increase from the year before. ASML kept its net sales outlook for 2025 unchanged at €30 billion to €35 billion..Read also:.🔒 RW Johnson: How Davos investors would have questioned Cyril – if SA wasn't off their radar🔒 The Economist: DeepSeek sends a shockwave through marketsImmediate reform needed to fix SABC's TV licence crisis.© 2025 Bloomberg L.P.

ASML orders beat estimates as AI investments drive demand

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