ASML records record sales but lowers sales forecast due to supply problems
ASML posted record sales last quarter, but is lowering its sales forecast for this year, partly due to supply chain shortages. The company expected revenue growth of twenty percent compared to 2021, but has now halved that expectation.
Supply chain shortages are causing delays to production start of ASML’s lithography machines. announces the company in its quarterly figures. To compensate for this, ASML delivers the machines to its customers at an earlier stage than usual, before the machines have been fully tested. Those tests are then performed at the customer’s factory and only after these tests are completed is the machine formally marked as sold. As a result, part of the expected turnover is shifting to next year, with the result that the turnover forecast for 2022 has been revised downwards. This would involve an amount of approximately 2.8 billion euros.
Apart from that, ASML does indicate that there is still a lot of demand for its chip machines. “Some customers are noticing signs of declining demand in certain consumer market segments, but we still see strong demand for our systems,” said ASML CEO Peter Wennink. According to the CEO, that demand is being stimulated by trends in the automotive sector, high-performance computing and the transition to green energy.
ASML therefore received 8.5 billion euros in orders in the past quarter, including 5.4 billion euros in orders for EUV and high-after-EUV machines. In the past quarter, ASML also recorded a record turnover of 5.43 billion euros. That is an increase of 53 percent compared to the same quarter in 2021 and also higher than the first quarter of this year, when the company achieved a turnover of 3.5 billion euros.
Profit was also higher last quarter, at 1.4 billion euros compared to 1.04 billion a year earlier. For the rest of the year, ASML expects the gross profit margin to be slightly lower than previously forecast, partly due to inflation, the deferred turnover and the costs incurred by the company to increase its production capacity. The company estimates the percentage will fall between 49 and 50 percent for this year.