ASML 2024 Q4 Financials

Record Revenue Quarter

Companies mentioned: ASML 0.00%↑

Kicking off the final leg of the 2024 earnings reports – Q4 and full-year results – it’s only fitting that it starts with ASML. The Netherlands-based equipment maker is responsible for the EUV (and other) lithography tools at the heart of today’s modern chips, and financially, are coupled very closely to their fab customers. The kingmaker of the tech industry has been enjoying a very profitable run as fabs continue to stock up on all forms of tools, including traditional DUV machines, modern EUV machines, and next-generation High-NA EUV machines.

As the most critical of the chipmakers’ suppliers, ASML’s ability to grow hinges on continued fab build-outs. And while those are still going strong, some sputtering there put ASML on track at the end of Q3 to ship fewer lithography systems in 2024 than the year prior, with year-to-date revenue taking a hit as well. Still, with average shipments of only around 100 machines per quarter, ASML has come into Q4 earnings season forecasting to hit €28B in net sales, which would put them ahead of an already impressive 2023.

And indeed, for both Q4’24 and the full year 2024, they have done just that, topping expectations to set new quarterly and yearly revenue records.

Key Takeaways

💵 Q4 Revenue, €9.263b, up 28% YoY from €7.237b and up 24% QoQ
💵 FY Revenue, €28.263b, up 2.5% YoY from €27.559b

📈 Q4 Gross Margin at 51.7%, up 0.3pp YoY and up 0.9pp QoQ
📈 FY Gross Margin at 51.3%, flat YoY

💰 Q4 Net Income of €2.693b, up 31% YoY from €2.012b and up 30% QoQ
💰 FY Net Income of €7.572b, down 2.5% YoY from €7.839

🪙 Q4 EPS €6.85, up 31% YoY, up 30% QoQ
🪙 FY EPS €19.25, down 3.3% YoY

Financial Overview

Overall, both Q4 and full-year 2024 have been very kind to ASML, with the company setting new revenue records on both fronts. Q4’24 in particular has delivered a major burst of activity, becoming ASML’s highest grossing quarter of all time with €9.3b in sales, blowing well past the previous record set just last quarter at €7.5b.

The solid quarter is reflected at all levels of ASML’s earnings. Besides setting revenue records, it’s also setting profitability records for the company, with ASML booking €2.7b in net income – or about €6.85 per share for investors. Helping to bolster those numbers is a slightly above-average gross margin of 51.7% for the quarter, beating out ASML’s projections for the quarter.

All of this has fed into a record year for the company as well, though uneven results in Q1 and Q2 of the year mean that the company’s full-year results aren’t quite as blockbuster as their quarterly results. Still, ASML booked €28.3b in revenue for the year, beating out FY2023’s €27.6b. Unfortunately for ASML, their net income for the year wasn’t fully buoyed by the strong Q4 results, and as a result they’ve seen net income drop by a slight 2.5% year-over-year, booking ‘just’ €7.6b in profits. Gross margins were more or less on target, however, with the company recording margins of 51.3%, which is flat with FY2023.

System Orders

Driving all of these financial figures is a surge in the number of lithography machines shipped by the company in Q4. Altogether, ASML shipped 119 new machines in the quarter, as well as another 13 used machines, to make a record 132 in total.

Of particular note, ASML has finally been able to recognize the revenue from their first High-NA EUV systems, which have passed customer acceptance testing. These next-generation machines will be the cornerstone of future logic fab process nodes, most famously, Intel’s in-development 14A, who also happened to be ASML’s first High-NA EUV system customer. You can watch our video about Intel’s installation of their machine in our video on Youtube.

Meanwhile ASML has now shipped a third High-NA system to a customer this quarter, with revenue from that set to be booked later in 2025.

Consequently, it’s not too surprising to see that the average sale price of EUV machines overall has ticked up at ASML. As the company does not currently differentiate between Low-NA (regular) and High-NA EUV machines, the overall average price of an ASML EUV scanner hit €213.5m for the quarter, crossing the €200m mark for the first time. (By comparison, the average price tag on ASML’s other high-revenue systems, their 193mm ArFi lineup, was just €74.8m.)

All told, including those two High-NA EUV scanners, ASML moved 14 EUV machines for the quarter, making it their most productive quarter in almost two years. Still, with 119 new systems shipped in total, the vast majority of systems sold by ASML are older DUV-generation systems, 248nm KrF, and various flavors of 193mm ArF.

On a simple unit basis, it’s actually the much older 248nm systems that were the biggest seller for ASML, at 52 units for the quarter and 152 units for the year. 193nm immersion systems were close behind, at 39 for Q4 and 129 for the year. Toss in a handful of ‘dry’ 193nm systems, and 193nm systems as a whole do take the top spot for the year, with 157 sold altogether.

Surprisingly, this was a banner quarter for even older 365nm i-line systems as well; ASML sold 21 of those machines, the most in at least 7 years.

This year has also seen a noticeable shift in which product types ASML’s machines are being used for. While scanners for logic chips remain the bulk of ASML’s sales, at about €13.2b in sales, this is down about €2.8b from FY2023. Making up for that slack and then-some, sales for memory use have spiked versus the year-ago period, with ASML selling €8.6b of systems for those end users. This follows a very logic-heavy FY2023, though on a historical basis it’s arguably more of a return to baseline for ASML in regards to the ratio of logic to memory sales revenue.

As for where those systems are going, the last year has seen China emerge as the largest national customer on a revenue basis, with those ratios only finally being rebalanced in the most recent quarter. ASML attributes this to machines actually purchased in the 2022 timeframe that they’re only now realizing for revenue in 2024. The company says this bump of China specific allocation should return to normal for 2025. For Q4’24, the USA retook the top spot as ASML’s largest regional customer with 28% of system sales revenue, followed very closely by China at 27%, and then South Korea at 25%. The shift in revenue to South Korea in particular tracks the shift between logic and memory sales, as South Korea is home to two of the top 3 memory manufacturers – Samsung and SK hynix.

Otherwise on a yearly basis, it’s not even close. China represented 41% of ASML’s systems revenue for FY2024, followed by South Korea at 21%, and the USA at 17%. Interestingly, we have to go to the 4^th spot in both cases to find Taiwan, which represented 10% and 11% of sales for Q4’24 and FY2024 respectively.

All-told, these regional breakdowns mark some new records for ASML as well. As a percentage of revenue, shipments to the US and Japan hit new records in 2024, according to ASML’s investor call.

Outlook, Q1 2025 & FY2025

Outlook is as follows:

💵 25Q1 Revenue, €7.75b, +/- €250m
📈 25Q1 Gross Margins of 52-53%.

💵 25FY Revenue, €32.5b, +/- €2.5b
📈 25FY Gross Margins of 51-53%.

Looking forward to 2025, ASML is expecting to build on the back of their record FY2024 with further growth in both revenue and gross margins.

On the quarterly front, the company is projecting between €7.5b and €8.0b in revenue. This would be down on a quarterly basis versus the very strong Q4’24, but otherwise would set a new record and be significantly better than any prior Q1 for the company. Gross margins are also expected to drift up as well on both a quarterly and yearly basis, with the company calling for margins in the 52% to 53% range.

Curiously, ASML is citing a lack of High-NA EUV system sales as one of the drivers for higher gross margins in the coming quarter. Because High-NA machines are below the company’s average margin, they technically drag down the overall margin (though improving revenue and EUV ASPs significantly). With the company only having shipped a handful of systems – and the long lead time for customer acceptance testing – ASML isn’t expecting to recognize any revenue from High-NA machines for Q1 or perhaps even Q2.

Otherwise, the full-year forecast is much the same as ASML’s projections at the end of Q3. That calls for between €30b and €35b in revenue for FY2025, with even the low-end of that range setting a new revenue record for the company. Meanwhile gross margins are expected to remain strong, with a window of 51% to 53%.

The one potential spanner in all of this, however, will be the performance of the high-flying and high-margin AI chip market. ASML continues to cite the AI market as the key driver for growth in the lithography tool industry, as the continued ramp-up of AI chip sales has required further build-out of cutting-edge fabs.

The AI market as a whole took a shock at the start of the week following the release of DeepSeek’s R1 reasoning model, which required a fraction of the training time as contemporary models. As a tool supplier, ASML is insulated from any potential changes in chip orders by several layers, but they would ultimately be impacted if fab build-outs started to slow earlier than expected.

Finally, the company is projecting that the national mix of customers will also shift away from China in FY2025 due to a couple of factors. Overall revenue from China is expected to decrease as the company finished working through a backlog of orders from Chinese fabs dating back to 2022. On top of this, these are new US and Dutch export rules in place that are further curtailing new orders.

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