ASML Holding reported record quarterly sales and profit margins on Wednesday, and raised its full-year revenue outlook for the second time this year, as demand for the Dutch company's chipmaking machines continues to run ahead of what it says it can supply through at least 2028.
The world's only maker of the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems needed to produce the most advanced AI processors posted third-quarter net sales of €11.66 billion, up 55.2% from a year earlier and toward the top of its own guidance range. Net income came in at roughly €4.96 billion to €5.0 billion, and gross margin hit a record 57.5%, comfortably above the 55%-57% range management had forecast in July. ASML sold 113 new lithography systems during the quarter, up from 86 in the second quarter, plus eight used systems.
Guidance rises again, but capacity is the real constraint
ASML lifted its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to a range of €44 billion to €45 billion, up from the €43-45 billion range it set just three months ago, and pointed to roughly 56% gross margin for the year. For the fourth quarter, the company guided to net sales of €14.2 billion to €15.2 billion with margins near 57%, which would mark another sequential record.
What's striking is that the upgrade has little to do with new orders: ASML stopped publishing a quarterly bookings figure starting this year, a shift several sell-side analysts flagged as making it harder to gauge momentum in the order book from the outside. Instead, the company is pointing directly at capacity. ASML has said it will add roughly 30% to its 2026 EUV and deep ultraviolet immersion capacity for 2027, and is studying a further 30% increase for 2028 — and executives say that still will not be enough.
"Today, they expect that their supply will not meet the demand at least until 2028," ASML chief executive Christophe Fouquet told analysts on the earnings call, describing conversations with chipmakers who are now trying to lock in tool deliveries years in advance.
30% in 2027, 30% in 2028 will not allow us to meet our customer demand. We have to do more.
Christophe Fouquet, CEO, ASML
Fouquet said some customers now want to place orders for 2029, and "sometime even 2030" — an unusually long planning horizon for an industry that typically orders machines a year or two ahead of installation, and a sign of how aggressively chipmakers are trying to secure scarce lithography capacity to keep pace with AI accelerator demand from the likes of Nvidia, TSMC and the major hyperscalers.
Shares fall despite the beat
Even so, ASML shares slipped roughly 1.9% after the results, a reminder that in a sector pricing in years of AI-driven growth, a result that is merely excellent at the edges can disappoint a market that had priced in more. The revenue beat over the top end of guidance was modest in percentage terms relative to the scale of the AI narrative now attached to the stock, and some investors used the report to take profits after a strong run coming into the print, according to market commentary following the release.
ASML's results matter well beyond its own share price. As the sole supplier of EUV tools, the company sits at a genuine chokepoint in the global semiconductor supply chain, and its order book is one of the cleanest real-time reads on how seriously chipmakers are committing capital to AI-related capacity. The fact that customers are now negotiating multi-year-out delivery slots — rather than waiting to see how the AI capex cycle plays out — suggests chipmakers see sustained rather than transitory demand, even as some investors continue to debate whether the broader AI infrastructure buildout is overbuilding relative to near-term revenue.
Attention now turns to other equipment makers further down the reporting calendar, including Lam Research and KLA, for confirmation of whether ASML's capacity bottleneck is being felt industry-wide. ASML's next scheduled update, its fourth-quarter and full-year report in January, will show whether the company followed through on converting this quarter's order conversations into the formal capacity commitments Fouquet described, and whether the 2028 supply shortfall he flagged is narrowing or widening.
