ASML shares surged to a record high in late January 2026 after the Dutch chip-equipment maker forecast bumper sales on the back of the AI boom and reported blockbuster fourth-quarter orders, lifting the broader technology sector. The company’s grip on the market for lithography equipment needed to produce cutting-edge chips has made it Europe’s most valuable company and one of the biggest winners from surging AI investment.
Chief executive Christophe Fouquet said the group expects “significant growth” in sales of its extreme ultraviolet (EUV) machines this year after fourth-quarter orders comfortably beat analyst expectations. ASML guided for 2026 total net sales of between €34 billion and €39 billion, up from €32.7 billion in 2025 — a record year in which the company earned €9.6 billion in net income, according to its official results announcement.
Shares rose as much as 7 percent to a record in Amsterdam trading, extending the stock’s gain for the year to more than 20 percent and pushing ASML’s market value toward €500 billion.
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The rally spread across the sector: STMicroelectronics and Infineon both gained more than 6 percent, while Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.8 percent.
Customers preparing for real AI demand
Fouquet said customers hold “a strong belief that the demand for AI is real” and are preparing with a substantial near-term capacity build-out that starts in 2026 and runs beyond it — creating strong appetite for ASML’s latest technology. That spans equipment for manufacturing logic chips, such as the Nvidia GPUs produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), as well as memory and storage chips from companies including Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung.
The sales forecast implies revenue growth of roughly 19 percent this year at the midpoint — about 8 percent ahead of the €35.3 billion analyst consensus compiled by S&P Capital IQ. Net bookings, the closely watched order measure, more than doubled quarter-on-quarter to €13.2 billion — nearly twice the €6.9 billion analysts had forecast — leaving a year-end backlog of €38.8 billion.
ASML stock had already been boosted earlier in the month when TSMC, one of its largest customers, said it would rapidly expand chipmaking capacity in response to AI demand, with chief financial officer Wendell Huang saying the company would invest “significantly more” over the next three years than the $101 billion in capital spending of 2023–2025. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, called the AI boom the trigger for “the largest infrastructure build-out in human history,” pointing to hundreds of billions of dollars of current investment and trillions of dollars of infrastructure still to be built. The enterprise side of that build-out is examined in this analysis of the infrastructure driving enterprise AI.
China decline and restructuring
The strong outlook comes despite a sharp decline in revenue from China, expected to fall from about 50 percent of sales in 2025 to roughly 20 percent this year. US and Dutch officials have imposed limits on sales of ASML’s most advanced equipment to China as part of efforts to constrain Beijing’s development of domestic AI systems.
ASML also announced organizational changes, including streamlining its technology and IT units to sharpen its focus on engineering and innovation — a restructuring that could eliminate about 1,700 positions, roughly 4 percent of the workforce, mostly in the Netherlands. Alongside the cuts, the company raised its dividend 17 percent and announced a new share buyback program of up to €12 billion running through 2028.
What to watch
- ASML’s guidance depends on AI capital spending remaining elevated; any pullback by hyperscalers or TSMC would flow through quickly to equipment orders.
- Quarterly bookings are volatile by nature — a single quarter’s beat, however large, is not a trend.
- Export-control policy toward China remains fluid and could further reshape ASML’s regional revenue mix in either direction.
- Figures reflect the company’s January 28, 2026 results; subsequent quarters will revise the picture. Coverage of the earnings reaction is available from CNBC.
