ASML Q3 earnings: profit beats, 2026 guide rises to €44B-€45B, and customers ask about 2029 and 2030 orders

ASML on Wednesday, Oct. 14, reported third-quarter net profit of €4.96 billion, well above the €4.1 billion analysts expected, and raised the bottom of its 2026 sales forecast, CNBC reported. The Dutch company now expects net sales of €44 billion to €45 billion this year, up from a previous low end of €43 billion. Quarterly net sales came in at €11.66 billion, a hair under the €11.72 billion LSEG consensus.

The bigger news was the calendar. CEO Christophe Fouquet said the supply ASML has planned for 2027 and 2028 “will not fully meet” what customers want, and that “some customers are expressing an interest in placing orders with us for 2029 and even 2030.”

ASML is the only company in the world that makes extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, or EUV, the tools that use very short wavelengths of light to print the smallest features on the most advanced chips. Chipmakers such as TSMC can’t make leading-edge processors without them.

What ASML said about demand

Fouquet said customers keep raising their short- and medium-term equipment forecasts, “driven primarily by their views on the size and duration of AI-related investments.”

The company is “investigating ways” to raise 2028 capacity beyond the 30% increase it had already forecast. In July, ASML said it planned to lift capacity by 30% next year for its low-NA EUV machine, its second-most advanced tool, taking annual shipments to about 85 units, Bloomberg reported via Yahoo Finance.

ASML also guided fourth-quarter net sales to €14.2 billion to €15.2 billion. This was the third time it updated guidance this year, according to CNBC. China still accounts for about 20% of sales, in line with its prior forecast. The stock rose about 2% in early European trading and is up 56% this year, per CNBC.

Why the order book matters this week

Chip stocks sold off earlier this week on worries that AI spending has run ahead of itself, Bloomberg noted. ASML’s tools have a lead time of more than a year between order and delivery, so its outlook is an early read on what TSMC, Samsung and Intel plan to spend.

What ASML described Wednesday is a seller that can’t build fast enough, and that changes where demand shows up. The 2026 range rose by a billion euros at the bottom and kept the same €45 billion top. Fouquet’s bigger statements were about 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030.

When the only supplier of a tool can’t make more of it this year, extra demand can’t land in this year’s sales. It lands in two other places: the length of the line and the price of a spot in it. ASML’s report showed both. Customers are asking to reserve years out, and the company has finished pricing talks with key customers, with the effect showing partly in 2027 and fully from 2028, according to TNW.

A request to reserve a lithography machine for 2030 is a chipmaker telling the only seller it wants a place in a line that is already years long.

None of that settles whether AI spending pays off for the companies buying the chips. It does show that the chipmakers, the customers closest to that spending, are planning further ahead than ASML can currently build for.

The next tool in line

ASML’s most advanced machine, High NA EUV, costs about $400 million a unit, Bloomberg reported, and top chipmakers announced plans last quarter to order it. Samsung and TSMC have said they will begin mass-producing chips with High NA tools by 2028 and 2030, respectively. Intel said in September it had already processed more than a million wafers using the technology.

ASML is also trying to ship faster by shortening the time between starting a machine in its clean rooms and sending it out the door.

The first phase of the new Dutch campus is due in 2029, the same year customers have started asking to book.

Sources

• CNBC: ASML says it’s getting order interest through 2030 as profit smashes expectations (Arjun Kharpal, Oct 14, 2026)
• Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance: ASML Raises Full-Year Sales Outlook as AI Boom Drives Demand (Sarah Jacob, Oct 14, 2026)
• TNW: ASML says it cannot meet chip tool demand in 2027 or 2028 (Alina Maria Stan, Oct 14, 2026)