Wafer foundry has the strongest investment demand? ASML expands production of EUV and DUV equipment

According to the Taiwan media "Economic Daily", the lithography giant ASML recently announced plans to expand production of EUV and DUV and even the next generation of EUV equipment. The industry expects that from the perspective of customer applications, the demand for wafer foundry is the strongest, especially the investment in advanced process technology is not easy to reduce, which will continue to drive the long-term growth of ASML.

According to ASML, although the current overall environment presents short-term uncertainties, there is still a healthy growth in wafer demand and production capacity in the long term. ASML mentioned that strong growth in various markets, continuous innovation, competition from more wafer foundries, and technological sovereignty competition drive the market's demand for advanced and mature processes, thus requiring more wafer production capacity.

In terms of production expansion, ASML plans to increase its annual production capacity to 90 EUV and 600 DUV systems (2025-2026), and 20 High-NA EUV systems (2027-2028). It is reported that at present, most of the first-line semiconductor manufacturers have pre-ordered High-NA EUV equipment. The company has successively received orders from major customers from the end of last year to the first half of this year. Among them, the first order for the latest High-NA EUV EXE: 5200 will be received in early 2022. , the single owner is Intel, and Intel aims to enter mass production of the device in 2025. The industry speculates that TSMC and Samsung also ordered EXE:5000 devices last year.

The financial report shows that in the third quarter of 2022, ASML achieved net sales of 5.8 billion euros, a gross profit margin of 51.8%, and a net profit of 1.7 billion euros. The amount of new orders in the third quarter of this year hit a record high, reaching 8.9 billion euros.

According to previous reports, ASML expects net sales in the fourth quarter of 2022 to be approximately 6.1 billion to 6.6 billion euros, with a gross profit margin of approximately 49%. Based on the mid-point of fourth-quarter expectations, 2022 revenue is expected to be around 21.1 billion euros. Revenue deferred to 2023 due to the expedited shipping process in 2022 is expected to be approximately EUR 2.2 billion.