AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -Computer chip equipment maker ASML reported on Tuesday third-quarter earnings that surprised markets with weak bookings and lower than expected sales forecasts for 2025, sending the company's shares to their biggest one-day drop since 1998.
The company said that despite a boom in AI-related chips, other parts of the semiconductor market remained weak longer than expected, leading companies that make logic chips to delay orders and customers that make memory chips to only add "limited" new capacity.
ASML, Europe's biggest tech firm, is the biggest supplier of equipment used to manufacture chips, with top customers including AI chipmaker TSMC of Taiwan, as well as Intel, Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix.
The quarterly earnings numbers were published on the company's website a day earlier than expected in error.
"We expect our 2025 total net sales to grow to a range between 30-35 billion euros, which is the lower half of the range that we provided at our 2022 Investor Day," Chief Executive Christophe Fouquet said in a statement.
Trading in the shares were halted several times in Amsterdam and displayed down 16% at 668.10 euros at 1542 GMT.
The company's earnings showed net profit of 2.1 billion euros on sales of 7.5 billion euros ($8.2 billion), slightly ahead of analyst estimates.
However, the company's bookings were 2.6 billion euros, well below forecasts that had ranged between 4 billion euros and 6 billion euros.
ASML said that while demand for AI-related chips were strong, other market segments were taking "taking longer to recover."
"This is expected to continue in 2025, which is leading to customer cautiousness."
A spokesperson for the company said it was working on a full explanation of the results and early publication.
($1 = 0.9172 euros)
($1 = 0.9173 euros)
(Reporting by Toby SterlingEditing by Tomasz Janowski and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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