Shares of chip equipment maker ASML (ASML) rose about 5% premarket on Wednesday after the company’s record orders surpassed estimates in the fourth quarter.
Key Metrics
ASML — which makes extreme ultraviolet lithography, or EUV, and Deep Ultraviolet, or DUV, lithography system — saw fourth quarter net sales increase about 5% year-over-year to €9.72B.
“The fourth quarter was particularly strong: we reported record total net sales of €9.7 billion, including the revenue recognized for two High NA systems. Our gross margin for Q4 was in line with our guidance at 52.2%,” said ASML’s CEO Christophe Fouquet. “In the last months, many of our customers have shared a notably more positive assessment of the medium-term market situation, primarily based on more robust expectations of the sustainability of AI-related demand. This is reflected in a marked step-up in their medium-term capacity plans and in our record order intake.”
The Netherlands-based ASML reported net bookings of about €13.2B in the fourth quarter, beating an average estimate of €6.85B by analysts, Bloomberg News reported. Net bookings for EUV machines were €7.4B.
“It was a record quarter in terms of revenue. It was a record quarter in terms of order intake. It was a record quarter in terms of free cash flow generation,” said ASML’s CFO Roger Dassen.
Fouquet noted that the market outlook has notably improved in the last few months.
“This is especially true when it comes to the build-up of the capacity for AI applications, being data centers or other infrastructure. Now, we start to see that this build-up is also translating into need for capacity at our advanced customers. This is true for Logic. This is true for DRAM. This starts to translate also into orders for our most advanced technology, especially EUV,” Fouquet added.
ASML’s customers include leading chip manufacturers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) and Intel (INTC).
China Sales
China accounted for 36% of the total net system sales of about €7.58B in the fourth quarter of 2025, followed by South Korea at 22% and the U.S. at 17%. Taiwan accounted for 13% of shipments of total net system sales. China accounted for 42% of the total net system sales of about €5.552B in the third quarter of 2025, while Taiwan was second with a 30% share.
Outlook
Fouquet said, “we expect 2026 to be another growth year for ASML’s business, largely driven by a significant increase in EUV sales and growth in our installed base business sales.”
Fouquet noted that there is strong demand for High Bandwidth Memory, or HBM, chips and also for Double Data Rate, or DDR, memory. Fouquet added that this “probably will lead to a very tight supply, at least in 2026 and most probably beyond that.”
For the first-quarter of 2026, ASML expects total net sales to be between €8.2B and €8.9B with a gross margin between 51% and 53%.
For the full year 2026, the company expects total net sales to be between €34B and €39B, with a gross margin between 51% and 53%.
Fouquet maintained ASML’s long term, in line with what the company said in November 2024, noting that in 2030 ASML expects revenue between €44B and €60B and a gross margin between 56% and 60%.
Dividend and Buyback
ASML intends to declare a total dividend for the year 2025 of €7.50 per ordinary share, which is a 17% increase compared to 2024. An interim dividend of €1.60 per ordinary share will be made payable on Feb. 18. The company will make a final dividend proposal to the Annual General Meeting of €2.70 per ordinary share.
ASML announced a new share buyback program, effective Jan. 28 and to be executed by Dec. 31, 2028. The company intends to buy back shares worth up to €12B. The company expects a total of up to 2M shares will be used to cover employee share plans. ASML intends to cancel the remainder of the shares repurchased.
In the fourth quarter, ASML bought around €1.7B worth of shares under the 2022–2025 share buyback program. This program finished in December 2025, having repurchased a total of €7.6B out of the up to €12B program.
Shares of other chip equipment makers also rose premarket on Wednesday. Applied Materials (AMAT) about 4%, Lam Research (LRCX) around 5%, and KLA (KLAC) nearly 3%.