The drop in demand for semiconductors leaves the supplier ASML cold: Sales rose from 18.6 billion to almost 21.2 billion euros in 2022, and by 2023 it should be at least 26.4 billion. The growth comes in particular from the expansion of our own production – the chip manufacturers TSMC, Samsung, Intel & Co. continue to order more lithography systems than ASML can produce.
In 2022, ASML sold a total of 345 lithography systems, including 317 newly built and 28 remanufactured used ones. 40 of the machines process wafers with extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light in the wavelength range of 13.5 nanometers – they are the sales driver with 7 billion euros or a share of 46 percent of the system revenues. In other words, each EUV system cost about 175 million euros.
However, chip manufacturers still need exposure machines with deep ultraviolet (DUV) light (from 193 nm); even the most modern 3 nm processes only expose part of the wafer layers with EUV technology. Since DUV imagesetters are less complex, they cost significantly less: A total of 305 systems brought in 7.7 billion euros – roughly 25 million per imagesetter.
Unlike 2021, Europe appears again in the 2022 figures with a small proportion. Systems for more than 300 million euros went to European chip manufacturers.
In 2022, ASML sold two fewer EUV systems than in 2021. In the current year, however, production is expected to increase sharply.
More capacity
In 2023, ASML wants to ramp up production with 60 EUV and 375 DUV systems (including refurbished models). The sales of both groups are expected to equal around 10 billion euros each. The rest of the forecast of at least 26.4 billion euros is to be brought in by the maintenance of imagesetters that have already been sold – in 2022 ASML brought in a good 5.7 billion euros from the service business.
However, the increase in production is still not enough to catch up the backlog worth 40.4 billion euros, especially as further orders are added every quarter.
Much more money for research
Despite the good numbers, ASML’s profit fell from almost 5.9 billion euros (2021) to a good 5.6 billion euros (2022). This was mainly due to the sharp increase in research and development expenditure to almost 3.3 billion euros (2021: a good 2.5 billion euros), and ASML also spent more money on selling, administrative and overhead expenses (SG&A) (946 million instead 726 million euros). In the current first quarter of 2023, research and development expenditure is expected to increase again by 6.5 percent to 965 million euros compared to the end of 2022.
The stock exchange did not take the announcement of the business figures particularly well. ASML’s shares then fell by 2.5 percent to around 600 euros.
(mma)
