ASML raised its full-year 2026 revenue forecast for the second time this year on Wednesday, lifting guidance to between 43 and 45 billion euros from a prior range of 36 to 40 billion, alongside Q2 net sales of 9.3 billion euros that beat expectations. A guidance raise of that size, roughly 16% growth at the new midpoint, is not a rounding adjustment. It is the company that makes every advanced chip possible telling the market that AI demand is not just holding, it is compounding faster than the supply chain planned for.
- Q2 2026: net sales of 9,326.5 million euros, gross margin 54.0%, net income 2,917.6 million euros (7.59 euros basic EPS), on 91 lithography systems shipped.
- Full-year 2026 guidance raised to 43-45 billion euros with a 54-56% gross margin, up from 36-40 billion and 51-53%. This is the second raise of the year.
- Capacity expansion is the real signal: ASML plans to increase 2027 low-NA EUV capacity by 30% over 2026's roughly 65 units, with a further 30% under evaluation for 2028.
- CEO Christophe Fouquet said memory revenue should grow 75% this year and that ASML is close to having all EUV orders it needs for next year.
What did ASML actually report?
Q2 net sales landed at 9,326.5 million euros with a 54.0% gross margin and net income of 2,917.6 million euros, or 7.59 euros basic EPS. Analysts had modeled roughly 8.8 billion in sales and 2.6 billion in net profit, so both lines beat. Net profit was up from 2.3 billion a year earlier. The company shipped 91 lithography systems in the quarter, and both sales and gross margin came in above its own guidance, helped by higher Installed Base Management revenue, which is the servicing and upgrade business attached to machines already in the field.
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Q3 guidance is 11.0 to 12.0 billion euros at a 55-57% gross margin, which implies the back half of the year is materially heavier than the front. Fouquet attributed it plainly: ongoing AI-related investments and continued progress in AI technologies are driving demand for advanced Logic and Memory chips. He added that memory revenue should grow 75% this year, and that ASML is close to receiving all the orders for EUV systems it needs for next year.
Why is the capacity number the real story?
Guidance raises tell you what already happened. Capacity commitments tell you what ASML believes. Order intake in the first half was strong enough that ASML now plans to raise its 2027 low-NA EUV capacity by 30% over 2026's roughly 65 units, with a further 30% increase under evaluation for 2028. It plans the same 30% expansion on DUV immersion, from a 2026 base of roughly 130 units, again with another 30% under consideration for 2028.
That is a multi-year industrial commitment from a company with a functional monopoly on EUV lithography. ASML does not expand capacity speculatively. Each machine is a nine-figure system with a supply chain measured in years, and building 30% more of them in 2027 means the company has visibility into 2027 order books it considers firm. Fouquet saying he is close to having all the EUV orders needed for next year is the same statement from the other direction: 2027 is effectively sold out.
What does it mean for the market?
The signal for investors is that AI capex has moved past the phase where the constraint was demand and into the phase where the constraint is physics and factory throughput. ASML (AMS: ASML, NASDAQ: ASML) is the purest exposure to that constraint, because nobody makes leading-edge logic or advanced memory without its machines. Shares surged more than 7% at the open on the print and finished up around 3%, which is a market taking the raise seriously while pricing in the caveat below.
The read-through runs downstream. TSMC, Samsung and Intel are the customers buying that expanded capacity, and the memory comment is pointed: 75% memory revenue growth this year is ASML confirming the HBM buildout that has driven the SK Hynix and Samsung capex cycle. It also complicates the narrative from the same week, when Micron fell 8% and AMD and Lam Research each dropped around 3% as investors rotated out of semis. ASML's order book and the semi tape were saying different things on the same day. When the equipment maker with three-year visibility raises guidance while the stocks sell off, the equipment maker is usually the better-informed party.
One caveat worth holding: on a half-year basis, H1 2026 gross margin actually declined to 50.9% from 53.3% in H1 2025, driven by higher amortization of capitalized development spend. The full-year 54-56% guide requires a strong H2 to average up. Watch whether Q3 lands inside its 55-57% band. This is factual analysis rather than investment advice.
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| Metric | New 2026 guide | Prior 2026 guide | Q2 2026 actual | Q3 2026 guide |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net sales | 43-45B euros | 36-40B euros | 9.33B euros | 11.0-12.0B euros |
| Gross margin | 54-56% | 51-53% | 54.0% | 55-57% |
| Net income | Not guided | Not guided | 2.92B euros | Not guided |
| Systems shipped | Not guided | Not guided | 91 | Not guided |
| Low-NA EUV capacity | +30% for 2027 | ~65 units (2026) | n/a | n/a |
| DUV immersion capacity | +30% for 2027 | ~130 units (2026) | n/a | n/a |
Who is affected downstream?
Everyone building at the leading edge, and the effect is not evenly distributed. EUV allocation is the quiet mechanism that decides who can ramp a node and when. If ASML's 2027 output is effectively spoken for, then the customers already in the queue have their roadmaps secured and everyone else is negotiating for 2028. That matters most for the challengers: a foundry trying to close a node gap needs machines on a schedule it does not control.
It also matters for memory. Advanced DRAM has become an EUV consumer in a way it was not five years ago, and HBM stacks for AI accelerators are the reason. The 75% memory revenue growth figure means memory makers are competing with logic makers for the same finite pool of scanners. That competition is new, and it is a structurally different market than the one where logic had first call on every EUV machine ASML could build.
- Q3 gross margin. The 55-57% guide has to land for the full-year 54-56% to work, given H1 came in at 50.9%.
- The 2028 capacity decision. ASML says a further 30% expansion is under evaluation for both EUV and DUV immersion. Confirming it would signal AI demand visibility into the end of the decade.
- High-NA adoption. Intel has already put High-NA EUV into production. Watch whether that pulls the rest of the industry forward or stays a single-customer bet.
- Memory versus logic allocation. If memory keeps growing at 75%, EUV scarcity becomes a fight, and the pricing power sits entirely with ASML.
Our take
The guidance raise will get the headlines and the capacity expansion is the actual news. A 30% increase in 2027 EUV output from the only company on earth that can build these machines is the closest thing the semiconductor industry has to a forward-looking indicator, and it is pointing up hard enough that ASML is committing capital years ahead of the revenue.
What makes this print interesting is the disagreement embedded in it. The same week ASML raised guidance twice-over and told the market 2027 is nearly sold out, semiconductor stocks sold off and investors rotated into Big Tech. One of those signals is based on three years of order visibility and a monopoly position in the tooling layer. The other is based on positioning. The H1 margin compression is a genuine caveat and worth watching in Q3. But when the machine supplier says the queue is full through next year, the queue is full through next year.
- FilingASML Holding NV, Form 6-K, Q2 FY2026 audited quarterly figures and guidance
- OfficialASML investor relations presentation, Q2 2026 capacity expansion detail and segment breakdown
Original analysis by GenZTech. Figures from ASML's Q2 2026 Form 6-K. Nothing here is investment advice.