ASML Smashes Its Own Forecast as AI Chip Frenzy Hits Fever Pitch
The Dutch chipmaking-equipment giant posted €11.7 billion in quarterly sales and nearly doubled its profit, then raised the bar again for the rest of the year — proof the AI building boom still has the semiconductor industry's most critical supplier running flat-out.
ASML Holding, the Dutch company that makes the machines without which no advanced computer chip on Earth gets built, blew past its own guidance Wednesday, reporting third-quarter net sales of €11.7 billion ($12.6 billion) and net income of nearly €5 billion — almost double the €2.9 billion it earned just one quarter earlier.
The results, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and posted on ASML's investor relations site, landed at the top of the €11.0-to-€12.0-billion range the company had guided to back in July, with gross margin coming in at 57.5% — above the 55%-to-57% band it had promised. ASML shipped 113 new lithography systems plus 8 used ones during the quarter and closed it holding €12.7 billion in cash and short-term investments.
Betting Bigger on 2027, 2028, 2029
It wasn't a one-quarter pop. ASML now expects fourth-quarter sales of €14.2 billion to €15.2 billion and nudged its full-year 2026 outlook up to €44 billion-to-€45 billion in net sales, from the €43-to-€45 billion range it set over the summer — itself a steep jump from the €36-to-€40 billion ASML was projecting as recently as early this year, according to AskTraders' earnings preview.
CEO Christophe Fouquet tied the acceleration directly to the artificial-intelligence buildout now reshaping the chip industry, saying customers' demand forecasts are "driven primarily by their views on the size and duration of AI-related investments" — with some chipmakers already asking to lock in machine orders for 2029 and 2030.
"Customers' demand forecasts are driven primarily by their views on the size and duration of AI-related investments." — ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet
ASML's extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines — which can run well over $200 million apiece — are the chokepoint technology required to etch the most advanced logic and memory chips used to train and run AI models. That monopoly-like position has made ASML a bellwether for the health of the broader AI infrastructure trade; when the company beat and raised guidance again after its second-quarter report in July, shares spiked as much as 7.8% intraday before settling to a roughly 2.8% gain, per Investing.com's coverage of that report.
The company also kept returning cash to shareholders, paying an interim dividend of €1.88 per share in the third quarter and buying back roughly €4.1 billion of its own stock.
What's next: investors will watch whether rival equipment makers and ASML's own customers — the TSMCs, Samsungs and Intels of the world — confirm the same AI-driven capacity crunch when they report in coming weeks, and whether ASML's talk of 2029-2030 bookings signals a durable multi-year upcycle or a forward-order bubble inflated by AI hype. ASML management holds its post-earnings call with analysts later Wednesday.