FILE PHOTO: Semiconductor chips are seen on a circuit board of a computer in this illustration picture taken February 25, 2022. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration/File Photo
(Reuters) -Computer chip equipment maker ASM International (ASMI) said on Tuesday it expects annual sales to grow in a double-digit percentage range at constant currencies, despite increased macroeconomic uncertainty from trade tensions, after reporting quarterly orders above last year's level.
The Dutch company expects sales to grow 10% to 20% for 2025. It posted first-quarter orders of 834.2 million euros ($950.99 million) compared to 697.9 million a year earlier, helped by the Chinese market.
"While we have reasonable visibility that we will achieve the lower end of the range, achieving the higher end will require some upside opportunities to materialize, which at this point is still uncertain," the company said in a statement.
"For 2025, we now expect gross margin to be in the upper half of the target range of 46%-50%," CEO Hichem M'Saad said, adding that this excludes any potential direct impact from tariffs, which was currently difficult to predict.
U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs and uncertainty over his trade policies have sent global markets into a tailspin and significantly dampened investors' economic optimism.
ASM said global trade tensions and reciprocal tariff announcements have increased macroeconomic uncertainty, and it was too early to know the impact on GDP and the semiconductor market.
Demand in AI-related segments remained strong, while most other segments remained sluggish, it added.
ASM's customers, such as chipmaker TSMC, use its equipment to enable the next generation of AI chips, and have seen a sustained boom in demand.
Weak demand for automotive, PC and memory chips has been only partially offset by AI chip demand even before Trump's back-and-forth announcements on tariffs.
Europe's second-largest chip equipment supplier said it expects its second-quarter sales to increase by 1%-6%, at constant currencies, from 839.2 million euros in the first quarter.
($1 = 0.8772 euros)
(Reporting by Ozan Ergenay in Gdansk; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Joe Bavier and Cynthia Osterman)
