ASML’s third-quarter results point to a semiconductor-equipment market constrained less by customer appetite than by the industry’s ability to build advanced tools quickly enough. The Dutch lithography supplier reported €11.662 billion in net sales and said customer requests now extend into 2029 and 2030, while its planned output for 2027 and 2028 cannot fully cover expected demand.
The company’s outlook reinforced that message. ASML guided for fourth-quarter revenue of €14.2 billion to €15.2 billion, implying a midpoint of €14.7 billion, and raised the lower end of its full-year revenue forecast to €44 billion from €43 billion. The new full-year range stands at €44 billion to €45 billion, compared with €43 billion to €45 billion previously.
Third-quarter net profit reached €4.960 billion, up about 133% from a year earlier, while basic earnings per share came to €12.95. Net sales were about 55% higher year on year and landed near the top of ASML’s €11 billion to €12 billion guidance range.
A portion of the profit surge came from outside ASML’s core equipment business. The company said net income included roughly €500 million from an increased valuation of its initial investment in French artificial-intelligence company Mistral AI. That contribution lifts reported earnings, while the revenue outlook and order requests offer a clearer measure of demand for ASML’s chipmaking systems.
Tool shipments and margins exceed prior expectations
ASML recognized revenue from 113 new lithography systems during the quarter, up from 86 systems in the second quarter. Net system sales totaled €8.4 billion, evenly divided in broad terms between €4.1 billion in extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, systems and €4.3 billion in non-EUV equipment.
EUV tools are ASML’s highest-end systems and are used to print the smallest features on leading-edge chips. The €4.1 billion EUV total included revenue from one High-NA EUV machine, a newer generation of equipment designed to enable further transistor scaling.
Installed base management and services brought in €3.289 billion, exceeding ASML’s earlier expectation by approximately €400 million. The segment includes maintenance, upgrades and services for the large number of systems already operating at chip plants. Its revenue rose 19.1% from the second quarter, giving ASML an additional source of growth beyond shipments of new tools.
Gross profit reached €6.7 billion, producing a gross margin of 57.5%, up 3.5 percentage points from the prior quarter. ASML expects gross margin of around 57% in the fourth quarter and approximately 56% for the full year. Those levels suggest the company is preserving profitability even as it works to expand capacity and fulfill a growing mix of highly complex system orders.
ASML said it expects 2026 revenue to rise about 36% from the prior year. It forecast more than 45% growth in full-year EUV revenue, roughly 20% growth in non-EUV system revenue, and about 50% growth in installed base management revenue.
Memory demand narrows the gap with logic
Logic-chip customers accounted for 54% of ASML’s third-quarter system revenue, with memory manufacturers making up the remaining 46%. The near-even split marks a more balanced revenue mix than a cycle led solely by advanced logic production.
ASML expects memory-system revenue to grow by roughly 75% in 2026, compared with about 10% growth for logic-system revenue. Memory producers appear to be expanding spending more quickly as demand for AI-related computing infrastructure drives requirements for high-bandwidth memory and other advanced memory products.
The company expects China to account for about 20% of its 2026 revenue. That forecast places China among ASML’s major markets even as export restrictions continue to shape which systems can be shipped to Chinese customers. ASML did not provide further details in the supplied figures on the mix of tools expected to be sold there.
Third-quarter free cash flow reached €11.4 billion, a figure ASML said included customer prepayments for future orders. Such prepayments give the company substantial liquidity and reflect customers’ efforts to secure production slots for systems that can take years to manufacture and install.
ASML repurchased about €4.1 billion of shares during the quarter and plans to pay an interim dividend of €1.88 per share.
High-NA adoption moves from testing toward production
High-NA EUV remains an important indicator of how quickly leading chipmakers plan to move to the next generation of manufacturing. ASML said Intel has exposed more than one million wafers using High-NA systems, showing that the equipment has advanced beyond limited early trials.
Samsung plans to introduce High-NA technology into mass production in 2028, according to ASML, while TSMC has targeted 2030. ASML said availability across the current High-NA fleet is close to 90%, a performance measure that supports customers’ efforts to qualify the machines for production use.
The different adoption schedules underline a practical constraint in the semiconductor supply chain: the most advanced equipment can be available before every customer is ready to deploy it at scale. Chipmakers must align the systems with process development, factory capacity and the economics of their own product roadmaps.
ASML’s shares moved lower after the report, with its US-listed ADR down about 3.9% as the Nasdaq fell 1.9% during the session. The decline came despite results that exceeded the company’s own quarterly sales guidance and a higher full-year revenue floor.
The market reaction leaves a distinction between ASML’s operating performance and expectations embedded in its valuation. ASML has delivered rising sales, expanding margins, heavy customer prepayments and a backlog that reaches toward the end of the decade. Yet the company’s disclosure that supply will remain insufficient through 2028 also means revenue growth depends on how rapidly it can add manufacturing capacity, not solely on the strength of demand.
Riding ASML’s semiconductor boom? Explore institutional-grade tokenized equity opportunities bridging advanced chipmakers with on-chain trading access.
Disclaimer: The content on this page is provided for general informational purposes only and does not represent the views or financial advice of Toobit. We make no guarantees regarding the accuracy or completeness of this information and shall not be held liable for any errors, omissions, or outcomes resulting from its use. Investing in digital assets involves risk; users should independently evaluate their financial situation and the risks involved. For further details, please consult our Terms of Service and Risk Disclosure.
