ASML, the world’s largest supplier of chipmaking tools, today reported stronger-than-expected first-quarter earnings and lifted its 2026 revenue outlook as artificial intelligence boosts demand for its equipment.<\/p>\n
The stronger forecast reinforces ASML’s position as sole provider of the EUV lithography tools needed to print cutting-edge AI chips for firms like Nvidia, even as it points to potential bottlenecks as demand for computing capacity in data centres soars.<\/p>\n
“Demand for chips is outpacing supply,” CEO Christophe Fouquet said in a statement, adding ASML has seen an influx of new orders in the past quarter as a result. “Our customers are accelerating their capacity expansion plans for 2026 and beyond.”<\/p>\n
The Veldhoven, Netherlands-based firm, Europe’s most valuable by market capitalisation, said 2026 revenue will now be between \u20ac36 billion and \u20ac40 billion, up from \u20ac34-39 billion previously. Analysts had forecast the figure at \u20ac37.7 billion, LSEG data show.<\/p>\n
Investors say they view ASML as a “picks-and-shovels” play on AI, as it supplies key equipment to chipmakers such as TSMC, which in turn produces processors for Nvidia and Apple.<\/p>\n
ASML’s shares have risen 40% so far this year amid the rapid construction of data centres and a shortage of memory chips, both of which contribute to demand for ASML products. However, some analysts see its valuation as already high.<\/p>\n
The new guidance increases 2026 sales estimates by 4%, Degroof Petercam analyst Michael Roeg said, adding that ASML’s management has “smiles on their faces”.<\/p>\n
Addressing potential concerns about ASML’s ability to keep up with demand, CFO Roger Dassen said the company should be able to ship 60 of its bestselling low-NA EUV tools in 2026 – 25% more than in 2025 – and will have capacity to ship 80 in 2027.<\/p>\n
ASML is the only maker of these EUV, or extreme ultraviolet lithography tools, which can cost $300m each and use lasers to create the tiny circuitry of advanced chips. Other top ASML customers include Samsung and SK Hynix of South Korea.<\/p>\n
First-quarter earnings were \u20ac2.76 billion on sales of \u20ac8.76 billion. That was up from \u20ac2.36 billion on sales of \u20ac7.74 billion in the first quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n
One shadow hanging over the firm is the possibility of new restrictions on ASML’s ability to ship tools to China proposed by US Congress in legislation called the “MATCH Act”.<\/p>\n
“The upside seems to be coming mainly in immersion lithography, where ASML was previously expecting a decline due to a fall in China sales, but is now expecting an almost flattish trend,” said Jefferies analyst Janardan Menon in a note.<\/p>\n
“This could partially reflect MATCH Act-related accelerated buying” by Chinese customers, he said.<\/p>\n
In a discussion of the results, CFO Dassen said ASML’s new guidance takes account of “potential outcomes of the export control discussions that are currently ongoing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ASML, the world’s largest supplier of chipmaking tools, today reported stronger-than-expected first-quarter earnings and lifted its 2026 revenue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-399650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}