ASML's €45 Billion Guidance and Intel Win Come With a Pricing Struggle That Caps the Rally
Published on 07/16/2026 at 18:43 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
Investors who expected ASML’s latest earnings to spark a fresh breakout are instead watching the stock oscillate between two powerful forces: a technology validation from Intel that strengthens its monopoly, and a pricing rebellion from TSMC, its largest customer, that threatens to limit its upside. The tension is playing out in a share price that has largely gone sideways since hitting a record high in late June.
On Thursday, ASML shares closed at €1,576.80, down 0.11%, leaving them 9.79% below the all-time high of €1,748 reached on June 30. That modest retreat belies the strength of the underlying business. For the second quarter, the Dutch lithography giant reported net sales of €9.3 billion and net profit of €2.9 billion, while the gross margin came in at 54.0%. More importantly, management raised its full-year 2026 revenue forecast to between €43 billion and €45 billion, up from the previous €40 billion target, with gross margins expected in a 54% to 56% range.
The bullish guidance reflects an order backlog that stretches deep into 2027. ASML’s capacity for current-generation EUV systems is nearly fully booked through that period, giving chief financial officer Roger Dassen the confidence to signal that the company has room to raise prices. “We see better pricing power and a pretty strong perspective for future price improvements,” Dassen told analysts, noting that discussions with customers are already underway.
Those discussions have hit a wall with TSMC. The Taiwanese chipmaking giant, by far the largest buyer of ASML’s advanced lithography equipment, has rejected proposed price increases on both EUV and DUV systems. TSMC has publicly argued that ASML’s newest High-NA EUV machines, which cost between €350 million and €400 million each, are too expensive for mass production and suitable only for research and development. Some Chinese chipmakers, meanwhile, have agreed to a separate 10% price hike on DUV tools, but the overall pricing push is now defined by the standoff with TSMC.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Asml?
Compounding that tension is a geographic shift in ASML’s revenue mix. Sales to China accounted for 33% of total system revenue in 2025, but the share has fallen sharply amid US export restrictions and waning demand. In the second quarter, China’s contribution dropped to just 14% from 19% in the first quarter. ASML now expects full-year 2026 revenue from China to come in at roughly 20%. South Korea has emerged as the dominant market, representing 43% of system sales in the quarter.
Offsetting the pricing dispute is a decisive technical milestone from Intel. Foundry has started mass production of its Panther Lake processors using Intel’s 18A process and ASML’s High-NA EUV technology. This marks the first high-volume deployment of the next-generation machines in a commercial fab, answering the question that has hung over the technology for years: does it work at scale? Intel’s proof of concept strengthens ASML’s hand in pricing negotiations, even as TSMC remains skeptical about the economics.
The company is not waiting for those talks to resolve before returning capital to shareholders. During the quarter, ASML repurchased approximately €1.1 billion worth of its own shares under the 2026–2028 buyback program. It also declared an interim dividend of €1.88 per share, payable on August 5, 2026. These cash distributions come despite free cash flow of only €1.3 billion in the quarter, a sign that management sees the long-term demand trajectory as more important than near-term cash generation.
Asml at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
At nearly €605 billion in market capitalization, ASML ranks as Europe’s most valuable technology company, and the stock trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of around 50 — a level not seen since the pandemic-era peaks. Morningstar analyst Javier Correonero described the shares as “slightly overvalued,” cautioning that expectations already embed a great deal of future growth. The stock currently sits about 5% above its 50-day moving average, a technical indicator that the upward trend remains intact but the pace of gains has slowed.
What lies ahead is less about whether demand exists — it clearly does — and more about whether ASML can translate its near-monopoly in EUV lithography into sustained price increases without jeopardizing the capacity expansion plans of the world’s largest chip manufacturers. The company aims to boost production capacity for both Low-NA and DUV systems by 30% by 2027, a build-out that positions ASML as the structural bottleneck in the global semiconductor supply chain. The question now is how much that bottleneck will cost its customers — and whether TSMC’s refusal to pay up will prove a temporary roadblock or a lasting constraint.
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Asml Stock: New Analysis - 16 July
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