Written by Toby Sterling and Nathan Vifflin
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Computer chip equipment maker ASML’s third-quarter results on Tuesday surprised the market with weak bookings and lower-than-expected 2025 revenue, sending the company’s stock plummeting. It was the biggest single-day decline since 1998.
The company said that despite the boom in AI-related chips, other parts of the semiconductor market remained depressed for longer than expected, with companies that make logic chips delaying orders and customers making memory chips with “limited” new customers. He said it was only able to add production capacity.
ASML, Europe’s largest high-tech company, is the largest supplier of equipment used in chip manufacturing, and its top customers include Taiwanese AI chipmaker TSMC, as well as Intel (INTC), Samsung, Micron (MU), and SK. This includes Hynix.
Quarterly results were mistakenly published on the company’s website one day earlier than expected.
CEO Christophe Fouquet said in a statement: “We expect total net sales in 2025 to be in the range of 30 billion to 35 billion euros, which is in line with the range we indicated at our Investor Day in 2022. It is the lower half of the
Trading in the stock was halted several times in Amsterdam, and the stock fell 16% to 668.10 euros at 1542 GMT.
The company’s profit came in at 2.1 billion euros on revenue of 7.5 billion euros ($8.2 billion), slightly higher than analysts expected.
However, the company’s bookings amounted to 2.6 billion euros, significantly lower than expectations, which had been in the 4 billion to 6 billion euro range.
ASML said demand for AI-related chips is strong, but other market segments are “slower to recover.”
“This situation is expected to continue into 2025, leading to customer caution.”
A company spokesperson said the company is working to fully explain and publish the results as soon as possible.
(1 dollar = 0.9172 euro)
(1 dollar = 0.9173 euro)
(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
