ASML Q4 2024 Pre Recorded Earnings Report

ASML EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $7.30
• Consensus EPS: $7.67
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.37
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

ASML Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: $9.84 billion
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

ASML Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024 Pre Recorded
• Date: 1/29/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, January 29, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 1:00AM ET

ASML (NASDAQ:ASML) develops, produces, markets, sells, and services advanced semiconductor equipment systems for chipmakers. It offers advanced semiconductor equipment systems, including lithography, metrology, and inspection systems. The company also provides extreme ultraviolet lithography systems; and deep ultraviolet lithography systems comprising immersion and dry lithography solutions to manufacture various range of semiconductor nodes and technologies. In addition, it offers metrology and inspection systems, including YieldStar optical metrology systems to assess the quality of patterns on the wafers; and HMI electron beam solutions to locate and analyze individual chip defects. Further, the company provides computational lithography solutions, and lithography systems and control software solutions; and refurbishes and upgrades lithography systems, as well as offers customer support and related services. It operates in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, China, rest of Asia, the Netherlands, rest of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the United States. The company was formerly known as ASM Lithography Holding N.V. and changed its name to ASML Holding N.V. in 2001. ASML Holding N.V. was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Veldhoven, the Netherlands.

ASML Q4 2024 Pre Recorded Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Record Q4 net sales of CHF 9.3 B and full-year revenues of SEK 28.3 B, driven by a 16% year-over-year growth in the installed-base business.
• Q4 gross margin beat guidance at 51.7%, with full-year margin at 51.3%, thanks to stronger upgrade sales and lower-than-planned costs on high-NA tool revenue recognition.
• For 2025, ASML forecasts revenue of €30–35 B and a gross margin of 51–53%, noting AI demand could push results toward the high end but offset by broader market uncertainties and export controls.
• China revenues are expected to normalize in 2025 to pre-2023 ratios, indicating a slowdown from the elevated levels seen last year.
• Key technology milestones include full-spec demonstration of the EUV low-NA NXE3800, first customer acceptances of high-NA and multibeam products, and shipments of advanced DUV platforms.

Presentation

[Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations at ASML]

If I can start with you, Roger, can you give us an overview of Q4 and full year 2024 results?

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

Absolutely, Jim. So Q4 net sales came in at CHF 9,300,000,000 which is a bit higher than we guided, primarily driven by installed base business, which came in at SEK 2,100,000,000. So that was quite a bit higher than we guided. For the full year, we're looking at SEK 28,300,000,000 of revenue, Again, higher than last year. And primarily driven, I would say, by the installed base business, which in total came at €6,500,000,000 which is about 16% growth in comparison to 2023.

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

Gross margin for the quarter came in at 51.7 percent, again, ahead of guidance, primarily because of additional upgrade business that we were able to record in the Q4. And also because, as you know, we have the revenue recognition for the first high NA tools. So we had 2 high NA tools where we were able to recognize revenue for in the quarter because the customer accepted the 2 tools. And that is recognizing high NA revenue, as you know, is detrimental to the gross margin. But in fact, the cost that we needed to incur in order to make the systems work were actually lower than planned.

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

So that was also one of the reasons why the gross margin for the quarter came in a bit better than we anticipated. Gross margin for the year, 51.3 percent, which is similar to the gross margin that we had in 2023. If you look at net income for the quarter, euros 2,700,000,000 for the full year, euros 7,600,000,000 in terms of total net income. Net system bookings for the quarter, euros 7,100,000,000 of which a €3,000,000,000 EUV and got us to a backlog for at the end of the year of approximately €36,000,000,000 dollars Talking about net bookings. The net bookings and we said this before, net bookings can be lumpy, particularly if you look at it from 1 quarter to the other.

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

And in fact, the way we do it, the way we work with our customers and the way we come up with our expectations for the business really is based on an ongoing review cycle that we have with customers. So it's much less influenced, I would say, by bookings. It's much more based on regular reviews that we have with customers. So recognizing that, recognizing that PO bookings can be lumpy and are not necessarily, we would say, a good reflection or accurate reflection of the business momentum. We said we'll continue to provide a number throughout this year.

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

But after this year, we will stop providing this number. What we will do is provide a backlog. So on an annual basis, we will provide you with the total backlog.

[Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations at ASML]

So all that said, how would you summarize Q4 and the full year in 2024?

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

Well, Q4 was a record quarter for ASML. 2024 is yet again a growth year and therefore yet again from a revenue perspective a record year for ASML. And I would say recognizing recognizing in the current very dynamic market circumstances, recognizing that we once again had a record quarter and a record year. I think kudos and a big thank you to the entire ASML family, both the employees and all the partners that we have within ASML to make that possible within this very dynamic environment.

[Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations at ASML]

If I can turn to you, Christophe, can you give us an outlook on 2025, how you see things?

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

Well, I think our outlook remain consistent with the view we gave last quarter. We see total revenue for 2025 between €30,000,000,000 €35,000,000,000 and the gross margin between 51% 50 3 percent. AI is the clear driver. I think we started to see that last year. In fact, at this point, we really believe that AI is creating a shift in the market.

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

And we have seen customer benefiting for it very strongly. Other maybe a bit less. So for AI, if the demand remains strong and our customer are capable to build some capacity, we see the opportunity toward the highest part of the range. On the other hand, there is still quite some uncertainty on the other customer, and this also justified the lowest part of the range.

[Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations at ASML]

If we look then at the different market segments, logic, memory, install base, how do you see that progressing through 2025?

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

So 2024 was strong for memory, and we remain we expect memory to remain strong. We expect logic to grow to basically fulfill the demand of AI.

[Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations at ASML]

And what about installed base?

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

Well, our number of system in the installed base continue to grow. We see an increased share of EUV as well, and we expect some more upgrades next year. So overall, we will see also an increase in our installed base business.

[Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations at ASML]

If we look then maybe at a topic that's on everybody's mind a lot of the time is China. How do you see China revenue progressing in 2025 versus 202023, 2024, for example?

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

Well, we had a lot of discussion about China in 2023, 2024 because our revenue in China was extremely high. I think we have explained that this was caused by the fact that we are still working on some backlog created in 2022 when our capacity was not big enough to fulfill the old market. 2025 will be a year where we see China going back to a more normal ratio in our business. So I think we're going to see again numbers people used to see before 2023.

[Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations at ASML]

If we turn back to you, Roger, we look at 2025 in terms of a numbers point of view, how do you see Q1 in terms of guidance?

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

For Q1, when it comes to net sales, we're looking at guidance between SEK 7,500,000,000 and SEK 8,000,000,000 Included in there would be SEK 2,100,000,000 that we expect for installed base business, which would be similar to the last quarter. And we'd be looking at a gross margin somewhere between 52% 53%.

[Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations at ASML]

So if I look at that gross margin in Q1, how should we expect things throughout the full year as a whole? Should we expect the high end

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

of the guidance there? So gross margin 52% to 53%. If you compare it a little bit to what we had in the last quarter, so where is the uptick from the last quarter? A number of moving parts, most significant moving parts. We do not expect to have revenue recognition for high and A in this quarter.

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

So that's a positive. On the other hand, also for Q1, there is a little bit less immersion sales in there, which is detrimental to gross margin. So net net, we still believe that we're going to have a little bit better gross margin in Q1 than we would have had in Q4. If you look at the full year, again, particularly in light of the high NA and high NA revenue recognition, we believe that is primarily skewed towards the second half of the year. As a result of that, I would expect that the gross margin in the first half is a little bit better than the gross margin in the second half.

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

Nonetheless, what we said before, the gross margin expectation for the year is between 51% and 53%.

[Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations at ASML]

Okay. And do you expect any additional impacts from the latest export control regulations that have been recently published?

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

Quite a few moving parts when it comes to export controls from the U. S. As you know, the U. S. Articulated a number of new regulations in December.

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

Actually, 2 big parts there. One was they included a number of new technologies on the list of restricted technologies. And they also added a number of fabs to the list of restricted fabs, so fab where restrictions apply. You also know that the Dutch government very recently came up with new regulation there as well. But I would say that the combination and the impact of those both U.

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

S. And Dutch measures has been appropriately reflected in the guidance that we've given before. So the €30,000,000,000 to €35,000,000,000 property reflects the limitations that we see from an export controls perspective.

[Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations at ASML]

Christoph, if I can switch to our technology. Can you give us updates on the latest progress when it comes to low NA, high NA, our DUV products as well as applications?

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

Well, if you look back at 2024, I think this has been a very rich year for technology at XML. We have started to ship some product that will be very, very critical for our customer volume ramp on AI, but also for their longer term roadmap. So let me start with EUV Low NA. This is our NXE3800. We started to ship this system last year, as you know.

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

We have achieved a very important milestone last quarter, which is to demonstrate basically the full capability of the tool, final specification here at ASML. And we are continuing to mature basically the platform with our customers, so that the shipment when it comes to low NA this year. Roger was referring to the margin. This is going to be a good contribution to that. I and A, we are very, very happy with our achievement on I and A.

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

Last year, we got the first two customer acceptance, which after so many years of development has been a major milestone. The feedback on the imaging performance from our DRAM customer, logic customer continue to be very, very positive. They like what they see. And the key discussion now is really when, how and in which volume, I would say, to insert this tool into volume manufacturing. And that's a discussion we're going to have with our customer.

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

DUV, still a lot happening on DUV. We have shipped our latest generation on Immersion, the NXT 2,150. We have shipped the latest generation on KRF, the NXT 870B, which can provide up to 400 wafer per hours speed, which is a major, major step compared to the previous platform. So a lot of good also progress on DPUV. And finally, I think also a big highlight when it comes to application.

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

You know that we have been working on E beam product for quite a few years after the HMI acquisition. Multibeam was a major reason to do this acquisition. And by the end of last year, we got also our first four customer acceptance on Multibeam, which is, of course, a major milestone for all of us at ASML.

[Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations at ASML]

We ended the year with a significant amount of cash on our balance sheet. Can you give us some more details on what you plan to do in terms of capital allocation going forward?

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

So you're right. A lot of cash generation in Q4. Particularly in the past in the last weeks of the quarter, a lot of cash came in. As you know, we first and foremost use the cash in our business, right, to make sure that the business goes on. And then as you also know, our policy is to have increasing dividends.

[Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO at ASML]

So the dividend the interim payment that we're going to make in this quarter will be €1.52 per ordinary share, which is in line with what we had last quarter. The final dividend that we proposed to the AGM is SEK 1.84 per ordinary share. So that gets total dividends for the year to SEK 6.40 per ordinary share, which is about a 5% increase from the year before. So I think you see the continuous improvement and increase in dividends right there. Whatever is left can be used for share buybacks, and we should continue to see that throughout the planned period.

[Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations at ASML]

We've just finished our Investor Day back in November of last year. Can you give us a more long term outlook of how you see both the market and ASML between now and beyond 2025?

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

Well, I think our view on the long term is still, I would say, very positive. And we used to talk about semiconductor everywhere. I think since November, we start to talk about AI everywhere. And we truly believe that AI is going to bring even more opportunity to this semiconductor industry. That's the first thing.

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

The second thing is that AI is going to drive more advanced technology to address some of the challenges on cost on power consumption. We believe that this will drive more advanced DRAM logic technology, so more appetite for an aggressive roadmap. This is, of course, good for lithography. We also believe that the solution we can provide our customer will secure that lithography remains at the core of the solution they want to use basically to execute on this very aggressive road map. And this is why, as we have said in November, we expect the number of lithography layers to continue to increase on all application.

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

And to translate that into numbers, I think, again, very consistent to the view we presented in November, total revenue for 2,030 will be between €44,000,000,000 €60,000,000,000 Our gross margin will be somewhere between 56% 60%.

[Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations at ASML]

Very clear. Thank you, Christophe, and thank you, Roger. Pleasure.

[Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board at ASML]

Pleasure. Thank you, Jim.

Participants

Executives

• Jim Kavanagh, VP Investor Relations
• Roger Dassen, Executive VP & CFO
• Christophe Fouquet, President, CEO & Member of Management Board