ASML Holding NV booked more than twice as many orders as analysts expected in the fourth quarter of last year, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom drove demand for its chipmaking machines.
The Dutch company reported order bookings of 7.09 billion euros (US$7.4 billion) in the fourth quarter, it said in a statement yesterday. That compares with an average estimate of 3.53 billion euros by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
“AI is the clear driver,” ASML chief executive officer Christophe Fouquet said. “We really believe that AI is creating a shift in the market and we have seen customers benefiting from it very strongly.”
Photo: Reuters
The results came as the company reported a drop in annual net profit for last year at 7.6 billion euros, compared with 7.8 billion euros the previous year. Total net sales last year were 28.3 billion euros, a slight gain on the company’s forecast of 28 billion euros. In 2023, ASML booked sales of 27.6 billion euros.
ASML left its annual sales forecast of between 30 billion euros to 35 billion euros for this year unchanged since its last guidance in October last year.
Net bookings were driven by demand for ASML’s most advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, for which 3 billion euros of orders were placed in the fourth quarter.
Despite the growing number of restrictions, ASML benefited from strong demand from China last year as chipmakers there bought up older kits used to make more mature types of semiconductors.
China accounted for 1.92 billion euros of sales in the fourth quarter, 27 percent of ASML’s total. The company expects China sales to fall to about 20 percent of total revenue this year.
“2025 will be a year where we see China going back to a more normal ratio in our business,” the company said in a statement.
ASML’s market capitalization fell by more than 19 billion euros on Monday on concern that a new AI model by Chinese start-up DeepSeek (深度求索) 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.
US pressure on ASML to further restrict sales of semiconductor technology to Beijing will likely grow under US President Donald Trump, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said in an interview with Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum last week in Davos.
However, 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.
However, Fouquet welcomed the emergence of DeepSeek and predicted others would disrupt the sector.
"If you ask me, for us, anyone that lowers cost is in fact good news for ASML," Fouquet told reporters yesterday.
"Because lower cost means AI can be used in more applications. More applications mean more chips. And we are in the business of providing equipment to people to make chips," he said.
Given the potential size of the AI market, Fouquet said more upstarts would likely explode onto the scene in coming months.
Asked about DeepSeek as the "elephant in the room", Fouquet quipped: "You should expect to see a few elephants in the room in the next few months or few years."
"And I think the competition, especially when it comes to software... will be very high."
Additional reporting by AFP
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