ASML Holding NV, a Dutch manufacturer of advanced chipmaking machines that are critical to global supply chains, yesterday reaffirmed its long-term revenue outlook as it bets on an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven boom in semiconductor demand.
The Dutch firm projected that sales in 2030 would range from 44 billion euros to 60 billion euros (US$46 billion to US$63 billion), in line with its previous forecast, according to a statement issued as part of the company’s investor day.
The outlook is meant to reassure investors after the company’s order intake significantly missed analysts’ estimates in the third quarter, sparking a selloff in its shares and those of other chip-related businesses. Chipmakers such as Nvidia Corp have enjoyed a boom in demand for their AI chips. However, sales to other key buyers, including automakers, and mobile phone and PC manufacturers, have remained mired in a prolonged slump.
Photo: Bloomberg
ASML expects growing AI demand would help boost global chip sales to over US$1 trillion by 2030, which it said represents an annual growth rate in the semiconductor market of about 9 percent.
ASML is the only company in the world that makes the kind of lithography machines that help semiconductor companies in turn produce the advanced chips powering everything from Apple Inc’s smartphones to Nvidia’s AI accelerators.
Manufacturing more cutting-edge AI chips would mean more of ASML’s advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines would be needed by semiconductor makers. The company foresees double-digit growth in EUV spending annually through 2030 for both advanced logic and DRAM.
The company forecast a gross margin of between approximately 56 percent and 60 percent in 2030.
While ASML last month cut its sales outlook for next year, it said yesterday it would maintain its spending priorities.
However, weighing on ASML’s prospects is the US government’s ongoing effort to limit China’s rise in the semiconductor sector, through repeated rounds of export controls that have targeted the sale of advanced AI chips and chipmaking equipment. The Dutch government has struggled to find a middle ground between its US ally and ASML’s biggest market.
Due to US pressure, ASML has never been able to sell its EUV machines to China and was restricted from shipping its second most-advanced tools from this year.
China accounted for 2.79 billion euros of sales in the third quarter, nearly half of ASML’s total. The company expects China sales to account for about 20 percent of total revenue next year.
US pressure on ASML to further restrict sales of semiconductor technology to Beijing would likely grow, ASML chief executive officer Christophe Fouquet said in an interview with Bloomberg last month.
Fouquet, who took the helm at ASML in April, told investors last month that he expects a slow chip market recovery to extend “well into 2025.”
Still, next year and 2026 would be growth years for the industry and ASML overall, he said.
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
DOLLAR SIGNS: The central bank rejected claims that the NT dollar had appreciated 10 percentage points more than the yen or the won against the greenback The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell for a sixth day to its weakest level in three months, driven by equity-related outflows and reactions to an economics official’s exchange rate remarks. The NT dollar slid NT$0.197, or 0.65 percent, to close at NT$30.505 per US dollar, central bank data showed. The local currency has depreciated 1.97 percent so far this month, ranking as the weakest performer among Asian currencies. Dealers attributed the retreat to foreign investors wiring capital gains and dividends abroad after taking profit in local shares. They also pointed to reports that Washington might consider taking equity stakes in chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor
A German company is putting used electric vehicle batteries to new use by stacking them into fridge-size units that homes and businesses can use to store their excess solar and wind energy. This week, the company Voltfang — which means “catching volts” — opened its first industrial site in Aachen, Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders. With about 100 staff, Voltfang says it is the biggest facility of its kind in Europe in the budding sector of refurbishing lithium-ion batteries. Its CEO David Oudsandji hopes it would help Europe’s biggest economy ween itself off fossil fuels and increasingly rely on climate-friendly renewables. While
RSS