ASML NASDAQ: ASML used its Annual General Meeting in Veldhoven to highlight how surging artificial intelligence investment is reshaping semiconductor demand, while management also detailed 2025 financial performance, an improved outlook, and progress on capacity expansion and sustainability initiatives.
AI investment drives demand and capacity buildout
Chief Executive Officer Christophe Fouquet told shareholders that ASML believes “not only chips will be everywhere, but AI is going to be everywhere as well,” arguing that the technology is accelerating demand for both advanced and mature semiconductor tools. He pointed to customer and hyperscaler spending plans, saying the industry is looking at “more than $2.5 trillion” of AI infrastructure investment over the next two to three years, with “somewhere between 60%-70%” expected to occur in the U.S.
Fouquet said customers including “TSMC, Samsung, Micron, SK hynix” have announced major fab investments, adding that even with increased construction the market is “most probably still going to look at a supply-limited market for the years to come.” He also said AI is pushing chip density needs beyond traditional Moore’s Law expectations, citing an example of NVIDIA systems requiring more wafers per system over time.
Technology roadmap: EUV, High-NA, DUV and metrology
Fouquet said EUV wafer capacity at customers increased by “more than 30%” over the last 12 months. He said ASML made “huge progress” maturing the TWINSCAN NXE:3800 platform, and noted that by the end of 2025 the company had shipped “a total of eight High-NA systems.” He added that the second generation High-NA tool, the “EXE:5200B,” is now with a customer and is the system customers plan to use in high-volume manufacturing.
DUV remains a volume workhorse, Fouquet said, noting ASML “always ship[s] more DUV systems than EUV systems.” He highlighted developments including performance improvements in immersion, a new KrF tool “more than 400 wafers per hour,” and scanner shipments aimed at advanced packaging.
On holistic lithography and metrology, Fouquet said metrology has been growing strongly, while CFO Roger Dassen later quantified the metrology and inspection business rising 28% to EUR 825 million. Both executives emphasized momentum in Multi-Beam eBeam metrology; Dassen said 2025 showed “a breakthrough” in adoption, helped by increased productivity such as moving to “5 by 5 beams.”
Financial performance, shareholder returns, and raised outlook
Dassen reported 2025 sales of EUR 32.7 billion, up about 16% year over year, with gross margin of 52.8% and net income of EUR 9.6 billion. Earnings per share approached “EUR 25 per share,” and ASML returned EUR 8.5 billion to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks.
EUV sales (including Low-NA and High-NA) rose 39% to EUR 11.6 billion. Dassen said 48 EUV systems were recognized in revenue in 2025, consisting of “44 Low-NA systems” and “4 High-NA systems.” DUV sales decreased slightly, which Dassen attributed primarily to the dry business as customers prioritized “long lead time items,” particularly EUV and immersion.
For capital returns, Dassen said ASML would propose a total dividend for 2025 of EUR 7.50 per share, comprising interim dividends of EUR 1.60 already paid and a proposed final dividend of EUR 2.70. He also said ASML announced a new share buyback program of up to EUR 12 billion to be executed before the end of 2028, describing buybacks as a way to return excess cash not needed for strategic or operational purposes.
On 2026 expectations, Dassen said the company raised and narrowed its guidance range to EUR 36 billion to EUR 40 billion in sales, citing strengthening momentum that began in the fourth quarter of 2025 and continued into 2026 as customers gained confidence from longer-term contracts with their own customers. He also provided a second-quarter sales outlook of EUR 8.4 billion to EUR 9.0 billion, with gross margin between 51% and 52%.
Dassen said EUV Low-NA capacity is expected to be “at least 60” systems in 2026 and that ASML is “working on a capacity for next year of over 80,” while also emphasizing that tool productivity gains and installed base upgrades are an important part of customer capacity. Installed base revenue rose 26% in 2025, and he said quarterly installed base revenue was running around EUR 2.5 billion in Q1 and expected again in Q2.
Mistral partnership, ESG progress, and operational focus
Both executives discussed ASML’s partnership with Mistral AI. Dassen said ASML invested EUR 1.3 billion as part of the strategic partnership. Fouquet described the rationale as bringing AI into ASML quickly, supporting customers using shared fab data, and exploring potential new products. Dassen said the company plans to provide more detail in a future quarterly update and gave an example from field operations: a wafer stage failure diagnostic process that took “more than 10 hours” could be reduced to “eight minutes” using a model developed with Mistral, which he said reduces downtime for customers.
On ESG, Dassen said ASML achieved its “greenhouse gas neutral target” for its own operations in 2025, with electricity from renewable sources, and noted a shift to shipping systems by sea instead of air. He also highlighted an improved inflow of women into the organization at 29%, above a 24% target. He cited ESG benchmark results including a CDP climate “A” rating, an MSCI “triple A” rating, and a number two ranking in the industry from Sustainalytics.
In response to investor questions on hazardous substances, Fouquet said ASML aims to avoid or phase out substances of concern “whenever feasible” and pointed to PFAS as an example, describing an ambition to remove PFAS “from all new design by 2027,” with protocols for collecting and properly treating parts containing PFAS from the installed base.
Shareholder questions: competition, China exposure, margins, and governance items
Shareholders pressed management on competitive threats to ASML’s EUV leadership, supply constraints, and pricing. Fouquet said ASML focuses on capacity and innovation to avoid becoming a bottleneck and to maintain leadership, while Dassen argued the biggest bottleneck in the ecosystem can be “lack of transparency” in end demand, adding that longer-term customer contracts help improve planning.
On China, Dassen reiterated that China’s share of sales declined from 41% in 2024 to 33% in 2025 and said ASML expects approximately 20% in 2026 at the midpoint of guidance. He said export control risks remain because ASML “do[es]n’t write the rules,” but argued that in an undersupplied environment, constrained supply to one region would likely be offset by increased capacity investment elsewhere.
Asked to name a single most significant competitor, Fouquet said ASML’s primary competitive alternative is not another company but “Multi-Patterning,” describing it as a different method customers can use when advanced single-exposure lithography is not available.
The meeting also covered governance and voting items, including the appointment of Marco Pieters as Chief Technology Officer, the reappointment of CFO Roger Dassen and COO Frédéric Schneider-Maunoury, and the proposed appointment of Benjamin Loh to the Supervisory Board. Shareholders approved the agenda items by wide margins, including the dividend proposal and various capital authorizations.
About ASML NASDAQ: ASML
ASML Holding N.V. NASDAQ: ASML is a Dutch company that develops, manufactures and services advanced photolithography systems used to produce semiconductor chips. Headquartered in Veldhoven, Netherlands, ASML supplies capital equipment and associated software and services that enable semiconductor manufacturers to pattern the intricate circuits on silicon wafers. The company is widely recognized for its leadership in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography as well as its deep ultraviolet (DUV) platforms used across multiple process nodes.
ASML's product portfolio includes EUV and DUV lithography machines, light sources, imaging optics and control software, together with spare parts, upgrades and field services.
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