ASML - Q1 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ASML 20241Q financial results conference call on April 17, 2024. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's introduction, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference call over to Mr. Skip Miller. Please go ahead.

Skip Miller (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. Welcome, everyone. This is Skip Miller, Vice President of Investor Relations at ASML. Joining me today on the call are ASML CEO, Peter Wennink, our CFO, Roger Dassen, and our Chief Business Officer and incoming CEO, Christophe Fouquet. The subject of today's call is ASML's 20241Q results. The length of this call will be 60 minutes, and questions will be taken in the order that they are received. This call is also being broadcast live over the internet at asml.com. A transcript of management's opening remarks and a replay of the call will be available on our website shortly following the conclusion of this call. Before we begin, I'd like to caution listeners that comments made by management during this conference call will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities laws. These forward-looking statements involve material risks and uncertainties.

For a discussion of risk factors, I encourage you to review the safe harbor statement contained in today's press release and presentation, found on our website at asml.com, and in ASML's annual report on Form 20-F and other documents as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Peter Wennink for a brief introduction.

Peter Wennink (CEO)

Thank you, Skip. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our1Q 2024 results conference call. Before we begin the Q&A session, Roger, Christophe, and I would like to provide an overview and some commentary on the1Q 2024, as well as provide our view of the coming quarters. Roger will start with a review of our1Q 2024 financial performance, with added comments on our short-term outlook, and I will briefly reflect on the current market environment, and then hand over to Christophe to complete the introduction with some additional comments on the future business outlook. Roger?

Roger Dassen (CFO)

Thank you, Peter, and welcome, everyone. I will first review the1Q 2024 financial accomplishments and then provide guidance on the 2Q of 2024. Let me start with our1Q accomplishments. Total net sales came in at EUR 5.3 billion at the midpoint of guidance. We shipped 12 EUV systems and recognized EUR 1.8 billion revenue from 11 systems this quarter. Net sales, net system sales of EUR 4 billion, which was driven by logic at 63%, with the remaining 37% coming from memory. Installed base management sales for the quarter came in at EUR 1.3 billion as guided. Gross margin for the quarter came in at 51%, which is above our guidance, primarily driven by product mix, more immersion and EUV systems and some one-offs.

On operating expenses, R&D expenses came in at EUR 1.032 billion, and SG&A expenses came in at EUR 273 million, both slightly lower than guided due to a shift in spend to later in the year. Net income in Q1 was EUR 1.2 billion, representing 23.1% of total net sales and resulting in an EPS of EUR 3.11. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the1Q with cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments at a level of EUR 5.4 billion, which is lower than previous quarter. We ended Q1 with negative free cash flow, primarily driven by lower down payments and higher inventory relative to last quarter. In the current environment, as customers work to return to profitability and strengthen cash, cash position, we continue to provide some support for our customers.

The higher inventory is a result of the increased material intake, including High NA, as part of planned capacity ramp in preparation for stronger demand next year. Moving to the order book, Q1 net system bookings came in at EUR 3.6 billion, which is made up of EUR 656 million for EUV bookings and EUR 2.9 billion for non-EUV bookings. Net system bookings in the quarter were driven by memory at 59% and logic for the remaining 41% of the bookings. There is quite a bit of speculation around order numbers, so I will make a few comments here. In the past six months, we've had orders of almost EUR 13 billion, which is quite significant. As we've said in the past, our order flow can be lumpy and may not be evenly distributed over the year.

Although we don't guide orders, an order rate a bit over EUR 4 billion per quarter for the final three quarters of the year, would provide full order coverage at the end of 2024 for a 2025 sales number that would be at the midpoint of our 2022 Investor Day scenarios. At the end of Q1 2024, we finished with a backlog of around EUR 38 billion. With that, I would like to turn to our expectations for the 2Q of 2024. We expect Q2 total net sales to be between EUR 5.7 billion and EUR 6.2 billion. We expect our Q2 installed base management sales to be around EUR 1.4 billion. The relatively low H1 of the year, compared to the expected strong H2, is in line with the expected industry recovery from the downturn....

Gross margin for Q2 is expected to be between 50% and 51%. The expected R&D expenses for Q2 are around EUR 1.07 billion, and SG&A is expected to be around EUR 295 million. Our estimated 2024 annualized effective tax rate is expected to be between 16% and 17%. In Q1, ASML paid a quarterly interim dividend of EUR 1.45 euros per ordinary share. Recognizing the three interim dividends of EUR 1.45 euro per ordinary share, paid in 2023 and 2024, this leads to a final dividend proposal to the annual general meeting of EUR 1.75 euro per ordinary share, which will result in a total dividend for the year 2023 of EUR 6.10 euros per ordinary share, which is a 5.2% increase compared to 2022.

In Q1 2024, we purchased around 0.5 million shares for a total amount of around EUR 400 million. With that, I would like to turn the call back over to Peter.

Peter Wennink (CEO)

Thank you, Roger. As Roger has highlighted, a relatively slow Q1, a start to the year, is consistent with our guidance and expectations coming out of a downturn. Overall, semiconductor inventory levels continue to improve, trending towards more healthy levels. We also see continued improvements in lithography tool utilization at both logic and memory customers, all in line with the industry's continued recovery from the downturn. Looking at the market segments, we see a similar environment as communicated last quarter, with demand momentum from AI-related applications. Memory demand is primarily driven by DRAM technology node transitions in support of advanced memories, such as DDR5 and HBM. Logic customers continue to digest the significant capacity additions made over the last year, over the past year.

As many of you know, the next week, April 24th, is the general meeting of shareholders and my last effective working day at ASML. Although this is not a big surprise anymore, it's still a, it's still a big event for me, Martin, and our families, and it has been an enormous privilege to have been able to serve the company and its many stakeholders for so long. I have thoroughly enjoyed virtually every moment of it, and the many interactions I've had with many of you, including these conference calls, believe it or not, and I hope I will see some of you someday, sometime. I wish you all good health, a prosperous and happy life. And with that, I'd like to turn over to you, Christophe.

Christophe Fouquet (Chief Business Officer)

Thank you, Peter, and, first of all, thank you for the last 10 years leading ASML and making it the great company we know today. I think some of our audience have been with you for the 40-plus quarters you led as CEO, but probably not many for the nearly 100 quarterly calls over your past 25 years in ASML. I am sure everyone on the call will miss you as much as we all will at ASML. I am myself very honored and privileged to succeed Peter, and I am very much looking forward to working with all of you. As Peter mentioned, our view on the market segment for 2024 has not changed relative to what we stated last quarter. We expect memory revenue growth this year, primarily driven by technology transition in support of advanced memory technology.

We see lower logic revenue this year relative to last year, as customers digest legacy capacity installed over the past year. Turning to our businesses, for EUV, we continue to expect revenue growth in 2024. We plan to recognize revenue on a similar number of EUV 0.33 NA systems as 2023. In addition, we expect revenue from 1-2 High NA systems. On our 0.33 NA systems, we shipped the first NXE:3800E this quarter for qualification of the customer. The NXE:3800E has the capability to deliver a significant increase in performance with a productivity of 220 wafers per hour, which is a 37% increase over the NXE:3600D in its final configuration.

The NXE:3800E also brings imaging and overlay improvements, which will make it the future tool of choice for memory and logic advanced nodes. Those performance increases will deliver better value for our customers, including cost of ownership, and will translate into higher ASPs and improved margins for ASML. EUV customers plan to transition to the NXE:3800E this year. As a result, the majority of our Low NA EUV shipments in the H2 of the year will be this system. Regarding High NA, or 0.55 NA EUV, we shipped our first system to a customer, and this system is currently under installation. We started to ship the second system this month, and its installation is also about to start.

During the SPIE Industry Conference in February, we announced first light on our High NA system, located in our joint ASML-Imec High NA lab in Veldhoven. We have since achieved first images with a new record resolution below 10 nm and expect to start exposing wafers in the coming weeks. All High NA customers will use the system for early access to process development. The customer interest for our system lab is high, as the system will help both our logic and memory customers prepare for High NA insertion into their roadmap. Relative to 0.33 NA, the 0.55 NA system provides finer resolution, enabling an almost three times increase in transistor density at a similar productivity in support of sub-2 nm logic and sub-10 nm DRAM nodes.

We expect our non-EUV business to be down in 2024, primarily driven by lower immersion system sales relative to 2023. For our installed-base business, based on our view today, we expect a similar level of revenue compared to last year. As the recovery becomes more clear this year, customers may look to upgrade their systems in preparation for 2025, and this could provide future business opportunity this year. Our outlook for the full year is unchanged, with similar revenue compared to 2023. In line with the industry continued recovery from the downturn, we expect a stronger H2 relative to the H1 of the year.

We view 2024 as a transition year and continue to make investments this year, both in capacity ramp and in technology, to be ready for the upturn in the cycle. Looking longer term, while there are still significant uncertainties, primarily driven by the macro environment, it appears we are passing through the bottom of this specific cycle, and we expect an industry recovery over the course of 2024. Based on the discussion with our customers and supporting by our strong backlog, we expect 2025 to be a strong year, driven by a number of factors, as mentioned last quarter. First, the secular growth driver in semiconductor end markets, which we have previously discussed, such as energy transition, electrification, and AI. The expanding application space, along with increasing lithography on future technology nodes, drive demand for both advanced and mature nodes.

Second, the industry expects to be in the middle of a cyclical upturn in 2025. And last, as mentioned earlier, we need to prepare for the significant number of new fabs that are being built across the globe, in some instances, clearly supported by several government incentive plans. These fabs are spread geographically, are strategic for our customer, and are scheduled to take our tool. It is essential that we keep our focus on the future and build capacity in preparation for further long-term growth, as we discussed in the market scenarios for 2025 and 2030 during our Investor Day in November 2022. We plan to update our view during our Investor Day this year on November 14, 2024. In summary, also, there is near-term uncertainty. We remain confident in our long-term growth opportunity.

With that, we will be happy to take your questions.

Skip Miller (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Roger, Peter, and Christophe. The operator will instruct you momentarily on the protocol for the Q&A session. Beforehand, I would like to ask you that you kindly limit yourself to one question, with one short follow-up, if necessary. This will allow us to get to as many callers as possible. Also, as the CEO transition is planned next week, following the AGM on April 24, Roger and Christophe will take the majority of the questions as it pertains to the forward-looking comments. Now, operator, could we take your final instructions and then the first question, please?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will now go to your first question. And your first question comes from the line of Krish Sankar from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Krish Sankar (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. And Peter, and I guess also for Martin as well, thanks for everything over the years. You both will be missed for sure. And then I guess my first question is for Roger. I understand bookings can be lumpy, but the EUV orders are also down quite a lot in the March quarter. And, you said that you need to hit over EUR 4 billion run rate, to hit the midpoint of calendar 2025. But I'm just kind of curious, you know, there is an expectation that you should be better than the midpoint of next, in, of- Do you really need an EUV order, to really meet those calendar 2025 outlook? And where do you think that's gonna come from mainly? Is it the foundry logic vertical?

And also, just along the same path, how much of your memory bookings was from China? And then I had a follow-up.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

A follow-up. Many questions in one question, Chris. Very well done. I'll try, I'll try and answer them, I'll try and answer them as best as I can. So yeah, Chris, I think you're absolutely right in our conclusion that indeed, order intake is very lumpy. And I think that's what we've seen in the past, and we have been saying that for many, many years. We said it last time when the orders came in very high. We say it today when, you know, from the vantage point of some, the orders come in pretty low.

Therefore, you know, if you look at the past six months combined, you know, you're looking at EUR 13 billion, which is EUR 6.5 billion per quarter, which, you know, we still continue, we still believe is pretty significant. When I talk about the EUR 4 billion that we need in order to get to the midpoint of next year, I'm indeed talking about everything. So of course, that also includes EUV.

I think as many of you have probably recognized, if you know look at the intake in the past couple of quarters and also in the past quarter, you know, it's pretty clear that there's a few usual suspects absent in the order intake, and I think that's pretty clear, right? So, if we look at the plans of some of our large customers, and you know you talk about foundry, foundry indeed does come to mind in this discussion.

...If you look at the plans of and the announced plans of some of our larger customers, it's pretty clear that in the next couple of quarters, significant orders need to come in. You know, part of the EUR 4 billion that you should see in order to get to this midpoint, indeed have to include the orders from those customers. Again, the midpoint, does that mean that now all of a sudden we're guiding midpoint? No, we're not. As Peter has very clearly said it on previous calls, if we look at 2025, we're looking at a significant uptick. We're not looking at the low end of the scenarios that we provided back in 2022.

But, you know, we're not saying now you need to look at the midpoint of the guidance. We just give you the math that is required in order to get to the midpoint of the guidance, but our expectation of a very strong recovery into 2025 has by no means, by no means changed. In terms of your questions on memory, and specifically then on China. Krish, as you know, we typically do not disclose the geographic distribution of our order intake. Of course, you know, there is a, I would say, a healthy part in the order intake that is related to China.

But you know, it's not like the order intake is distributed over the globe. So the very high concentration that you saw in the sales for Q1, you don't see that back in the order intake. So the order intake is more distributed geographically than what you would see in the sales for Q1.

Krish Sankar (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. Got it.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

I think I covered all your questions.

Krish Sankar (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Yes, thank you very much. And then just a very, very quick follow-up, and really appreciate it. Obviously, with all these, like, you know, incremental news coming on U.S. and Dutch rules and regulations, just curious, has that changed your view on what it means for your China sales? Three months ago, you said it's a 10%-15% impact. Just want to see if there's any updated view on this. Thank you very much.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

No, Krish, nothing has changed that. I mean, when we talked about the 10%-15%, I think that's even longer back when we made that comment. That was directly the consequence of the fact that we realized that this year we will probably not get licenses to ship the latest generation of Immersion. That was what that 10%-15% comment was related to, was related to. Our perspective has not changed. The rules haven't changed. Of course, there is, you know, there is a continued discussion on export controls. The rules haven't changed or perspective on the year hasn't changed. We're still looking at a strong sales level for China for this year.

Krish Sankar (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now go to the next question. Your next question comes on the line of Tammy Qiu from Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Tammy Qiu (Senior Equity Analyst)

Hi, thank you for taking my question. First one is on China, please. Can you talk about your China business trend over the recent quarter, please? Because China has been really strong, and there has been always concern that China may actually go to a capacity digesting period in this year or later this year. Do you have any comment on China trends, please? I have a follow-up.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

Yeah, I mean, China, relatively speaking, is high, but if you look at absolute numbers, you would recognize that China is actually lower in Q1 than it was in Q4 of last year, right? So, 'cause if you do the math, then China was at EUR 1.9 billion in this quarter. It was at EUR 2.2 billion last quarter. So I think from that vantage point, it's gone down a bit, but it's still strong. And the reason that China is strong, you know, both in absolute terms and in relative terms, is also because, you know, the rest of the world, the demand is, or at least the sales and the shipments in Q1 were relatively low, which was no surprise.

I think it's very much in sync with our perspective on a market that is in recovery. And a market being in recovery means that customers are first driving up the utilization of their tools, which is exactly what they're doing, and we notice that. And if the utilization comes to a certain point, then they will order, and they will require shipments. And that's exactly why we've also said on the call that we believe that we're gonna see momentum, you know, building up in the course of this year with a much stronger H2, as Peter also just said, a much stronger H2 than the H1.

So, you know, in terms of trends in China, you know, strong, strong1Q for sure, but not a record, a record quarter, but a strong quarter. We expect China to continue to be strong this year, and obviously also, you know, to the also, you have to see that in relation to the rest of the world that we believe is going to recover. We've also said on previous calls, and I just want to reiterate that, that if you look at the demand for China, you know, the demand in China continues to be strong, and that is related, as we've said before, to the fact that the demand for mature technology continues to be strong.

I just point out what we said at the Capital Markets Day in 2022. Capital Markets Day in 2022, we said we believe every single year between 2022 and 2030, we believe 380K wafer starts and capacity needs to be added to mature. And if we look at what has happened last year, you know, what has been added in terms of that, both in China and in the rest of the world, it's actually below that number. So yes, China is strong. And of course, it's not just mature, but mature is a very significant part of what China is adding.

Yes, China is strong, but China is strong because they're, you know, adding capacity that we believe the world needs... And yes, as a result of this, China's share and global market share will, you know, over the years, become, become larger than it is today. Their self-sufficiency will increase in comparison to today. But, you know, we believe that what China is adding today in terms of mature capacity is rational and is in line with our expectation of what capacity and mature needs to be added in order to get to what the world needs in the H2 of the decade.

Tammy Qiu (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, thank you, Roger. And also, I have a follow-up on the EUV and 2 nm, 3 nm area, please. So, you are expecting some massive order from Foundry and Logic customers. Can you share is that for 3 nm or 2 nm? And what is the level of EUV kind of layer count between those two? Because I do understand that potentially you can have some usage, so that may impair some 2 nm incremental demand because some 3 nm can be migrated or reused for two.

Christophe Fouquet (Chief Business Officer)

Yeah. So this is Christophe here. So maybe on your first question: So I think we, we mentioned a few times now that customers were still logic customers, foundry customers, were still digesting, digesting, sorry, some of the capacity they had put in place. We were then referring to 3 and 5 nanometer. When we look for the 2 nanometer capacity still have to come, and I think as you mostly are aware of we expect the ramp for that technology to start sometime next year. So I think this will be the next most probably wave of EUV orders and this is also back to the comment Roger made in answer to the first question.

So we're going to now focus when it comes to EUV and Logic Foundry, mostly to 2 nanometer order intake, which, as Roger said, should come in the next few months. On the number of layers, so no change there. I think we mentioned in the past that, you know, the layer, the EUV layer for 2 nanometer is very similar to what we had on 3 nanometer. 'Cause 2 nanometer is mostly a device transition. As you know, most customer Logic Foundry customer will transition to Gate-All-Around, which is a I would say quite a complex move. And as a result, the focus of the change is on that.

All the expectations we have in terms of EUV layers on 2-nm are not different from the ones we have shared with you for quite a few months already now.

Tammy Qiu (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Thank you, Christophe. Peter, happy retirement, and thanks for being with us over the past 10 years.

Peter Wennink (CEO)

You're welcome. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now take the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Joe Quatrochi from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Joe Quatrochi (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, thanks for taking the question. I was curious, you know, as we think about the order booking, we think about filling out 2025, you know, the company's been very specific about, you know, pre-building low NA tools over the course of this year and into next year. Has that changed the way that your customers are thinking about their order cadence?

Roger Dassen (CFO)

Well, I mean, that would be a bit opportunistic on their side, and I like to think of the relationship that we have with our customers as a much more one of partnership than one of transactional behavior. So, no, I don't think that necessarily has an impact. You know, of course, you know, we said in previous calls that in order to create as many degrees of flexibility that we have for next year, that we will do some pre-building. But of course, we do that in very close interaction with customers, understanding what they need. And I think that's a big distinction that I think you need to draw.

You know, I mean, on the one hand, we're having very intense interactions with customers to understand what they need, and then you have POs. And actually, the PO process, as you probably will appreciate, you know, given the amounts that we're talking about these days, are pretty, you know, call it bureaucratic and formal processes, where there is a lot of governance necessary in order to get there. That gets you to the lumpiness. But in the meantime, we have a pretty good understanding based on our interactions with customers, what they really need.

So that's, I think, you know, it's the interaction with the customers, it's the comfort that we get based on those conversations that ultimately drives our plans for the year, that ultimately drives our plans for, you know, for pre-building, much more so than whether or not an order is going to be received or not.

Peter Wennink (CEO)

Yeah, and you know, perhaps speaking from experience over the last 25 years, you know, we're a transparent company, so it also means that we will build inventory or work with us to prepare, because our lead times are just so long. And we inform you, as our shareholders, on this. And of course, customers hear this, and then we're in the midst of negotiations on final orders and, let's say, on a commercial basis, which of course, if you put the two things together, it might be that those orders take a little bit longer, which is quite normal, you know? So, I think this is what we've seen before, and we've seen it again.

But again, as Roger said earlier, you know, if you believe 2025, and you know that if you want to buy an EUV tool, there's only one phone number that you can actually you know dial, then this will happen.

... But this is just where we are in the, you know, terms of our customers knowing that we're, that we're building, because we want to make sure that we can ship to them, and we have long lead times, and there are commercial efforts on the POs that will come.

Joe Quatrochi (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks for that, that helpful color. As a follow-up, just on the memory orders that you're seeing, I'm just curious, is that still more predicated on, you know, HBM building out capacity, or are you maybe seeing some green shoots for, call it, more the conventional DRAM demand?

Roger Dassen (CFO)

No, I think the lion's share of the orders that we saw in memory in the last quarter really are still technology-related, right? So it's DDR5, it's HBM. That's what most of the orders that we saw are related to that.

Joe Quatrochi (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Perfect. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now go to the next question. Your next question comes from the line of Francois-Xavier Bouvignies from UBS. Please go ahead.

François-Xavier Bouvignies (Executive Director in Equity Research)

Thank you very much. I mean, first of all, Peter, thank you a lot. You will be missed, definitely in the investor community, and thank you for the dialogue. That was very helpful. And I look forward to work with... as well more with Christophe. So the first question I had is a bit on the lead times. So you mentioned that, you know, the buildup of inventory doesn't impact so much the lead times, if I tried to read correctly. And when you said last quarter, you said that you have 12 months or more than 12 months lead time on EUV.

Now, when you look at 2025, you know, targets or ranges, you need to have, like, 70 more EUV tools, you know, to get to this, mid to high end. And according to my calculation, I have, like, around 30 EUV tools in the backlog for next year, so, which mean that you would need more than 40 EUV tools still to satisfy your revenues for 2025. So I'm, I'm just surprised, you know, the amount of EUV tools you need, and with the 12 months more lead times, I would think it's a very dangerous game for your customers to wait until the last moment.

So, you know, can you maybe help us clarify, you know, clarify the fact that, you know, you probably need orders significantly in a short period of time, and reconcile with the fact that you said in the next 3 quarters, you need more than EUR 4 billion? I mean, it's gonna be too late if it's Q3 or Q4 for EUV to get it delivered in 2025, if you see what I mean.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

Yeah, François, but it's a slightly different question, but it's essentially the question that we were just looking at, right? It's the same question-

François-Xavier Bouvignies (Executive Director in Equity Research)

Yeah

Roger Dassen (CFO)

... that Joe was raising to a large extent.

François-Xavier Bouvignies (Executive Director in Equity Research)

Yeah.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

I can just reiterate what I said there. Of course, with customers, we have an ongoing dialogue on what they need. And then, you know, Peter said it, you know, then there is a bureaucratic process, and there is some negotiation going on that will ultimately lead to the order being made, and then being translated into a PO, that, as you also know, these days, comes with the obligation to pay money. And that's probably part of the reason why, you know, why customers, why some customers are, you know, are postponing the placement of the order a little bit as well.

But the reality is that we know quite well what customers want, and customers know it as well. So it's just a matter of, you know, those two worlds coming together and then ultimately leading to a PO. Is it a dangerous game on their side? Is it a dangerous game on our side? I don't think so. I mean, as long as we have a very open dialogue with one another, I'm pretty sure that in the foreseeable future, you will see the translation of what we know is firm demand into orders. I'm quite confident with that.

Christophe Fouquet (Chief Business Officer)

Yeah, and you know, if you believe the 2025 number, which we do, then it's a very high level of mutual dependency here. So that's why the game is not that dangerous. We also need each other.

François-Xavier Bouvignies (Executive Director in Equity Research)

Makes sense. Thank you. Maybe my follow-up is on High NA. I mean, we saw a couple of milestone in the last few quarters. Christophee, you talked about the productivity, I mean, the density improvements. You know, when we think about the lead times for High NA, what is it today? And if we assume mass production in, let's say, 2026, 2027, you know, should we expect some uptick in terms of orders for this maybe in the next few quarters? And you know, what's the key milestone you are still waiting for from a product point of view, technical point of view, to drive more adoption?

Christophe Fouquet (Chief Business Officer)

Well, so I think a few key milestones. So the first one, I think we've been talking about it for a few quarters is the fact that customers have been committing to EUV high NA with you know double digit basically units in our backlog. And they have done that without even seeing one image from the tool. So I think this shows a bit the level of commitment and trust they have in our ability to bring new technology. Now, I mentioned the first image 10 nanometers, you know, less than 10-nanometer resolution image. This is a huge milestone for both our customers and ASML, because this single image proved that the technology we have been developing for many, many years is working.

You know, you cannot imagine how welcome that milestone was by both our customer and ourselves. So that's very, very important. Now, what's going to happen next is, since we can soon expose wafer, every customer are going to come to see us here to get access to the tool we have in our lab.

... and start to expose their own reticle so that they can decide for themselves exactly how to use the tool. And we expect that these works will lead, at some point, to, I would say, the next set of decision on NA. So what's happened in the lab in the next few months, the work we'll be doing with all our customer, and I, I stress again, all our customer, I think is, most probably the most, exciting milestone to come. And this will really help everyone to, to understand basically what's next for, for NA. But, I cannot stress enough on, I would say, how happy and excited that we've been able to, to generate those first, images.

You know, when you look at the undertaking of a technology like NA, for us, for our customer, this, this is a very, very important achievement, and again, the next few months, we'll build on that.

François-Xavier Bouvignies (Executive Director in Equity Research)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll now go to the next question. Your next question comes from the line of CJ Muse from Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

C.J. Muse (Senior Managing Director and Semiconductor Research Analyst)

Yeah, thank you for taking my question, and Peter, big congrats, pleasure working with you. And maybe if I could direct the last question for you here at ASML, given your long experience. You know, as you look at, you know, the strong secular trends led by high performance compute, you know, historically, at the leading edge, it was led by Apple and Huawei, and then only Apple post the embargo. But now, given the performance, power, cost requirement, how are you seeing kind of the trends on the high performance compute side moving closer and closer to kind of being the pipe cleaner for the bleeding edge? And how does that impact your thinking of what kind of longer term growth for leading edge wafers will look like?

Peter Wennink (CEO)

Well, I think, it's two questions. I answer the second one. You're basically saying, you know, what will drive leading edge high performance compute? But you're absolutely right. I mean, when you, when you think about high performance compute, and especially in the context of AI, and I've said this many, many times before, you know, AI is, is driven by massive amounts of data, you know, and, and, and about also understanding the correlation between those data elements and then, you know, overlaying that with smart software. But, and I also believe, it's actually what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing, is that IoT in the industrial space, will actually be an area where we will see a lot of AI applications.

Well, in order to collect all that data, you need sensors, you know? And you can see there are all kinds of examples, whether it's the car or whether it's life science, medical equipment, it's about sensing, yeah? And that is really the domain of mainstream semiconductors. I don't like the word, you know, mature, like it's something which is old-fashioned, that you don't need it. It is mainstream, and it's critical in the... I would say, in the, I would call it, amalgamation of mainstream semiconductors, and I would call advanced semiconductors. And this is also why you cannot distinguish the growth of one against the other. I mean, you need both.

I think what you will see is that the growth of the industry, and especially high performance compute, will be driven by the value that is going to be created. You know, yeah, cost is a significant issue, but, you know, Moore's Law is an empirical of economics, and when you create more value of the transistor, the new transistor, the next generation transistor, then it costs, then you're going to grow. And, you know, when you think about it, you know, AI and with some of these examples, and, and especially in the software space, where you see productivity, just calculated productivity, advantages of 30%-50%, then the value of the next generation transistor will be huge. Now, if you ask me, "Peter, what's going to be the next killer application?

I'm going to give you the same answer as I gave you for the last 25 years, and it's, I have no clue. But what I do know is that when the value of that transistor, next generation transistor, whether it's and it's particularly different by high performance compute, it's energy efficient performance, yeah? If we bring that to life, and we'll bring it to life together with our customers, because we have high NA and potentially high NA, then the, you know, the I would say, amalgamated, consolidated demand for also mainstream semiconductors will go up. So this is what I believe, and this is what I see when I talk to customers, when I talk to actually users of the value in the space. And this is why I'm so confident about the long-term future.

This is all connected, so you cannot distinguish the two.

C.J. Muse (Senior Managing Director and Semiconductor Research Analyst)

Very helpful. Thank you. And Roger, a follow-up question on your backlog comment around the EUR 4 billion+ required to hit the midpoint over the next three quarters. I guess, as part of that, you know, if you had to think about the higher end of the range, I think that would add 2+ per quarter. And then also, you know, if I look at your backlog today, excluding High NA, it's still sitting at roughly 18 months. And so obviously, you know, I would expect your backlog exiting 2024 to have tools that will be shipped in 2026. So, you know, is EUR 4 billion the right number we should be thinking about for the next three quarters, or should it be significantly higher?

Roger Dassen (CFO)

So if you're looking at the midpoint, it is EUR 4 billion, and you shouldn't underestimate what we've already, in that calculation, taken out for the post-2025 period. And I'm sure you're all gonna do the math. Right? 'Cause it's not all that difficult to do the math, and then you're probably gonna figure out that that's a pretty healthy number, and probably a number that maybe exceeds a little bit what you currently have in your models in terms of High NA, and that's okay. But that's a calculation that I'll leave up to you to make. But that has clearly been recognized in our calculation.

So we've taken out whatever is for 2025, and our focus of the to of the EUR 4 billion really is, you know, is, is what what pertains to, to 2020 to 2025. And, you know, to your question, you know, to your question, CJ, you know, if, if you're looking at the high end of the range, you know, there's a EUR 5 billion delta, last I saw, between 35 and 40, and 5 divided by 3 gets you to 1.7, right? So that, that's it. So, so then, then there would be 1.7 needed more in order to get to the high end of the of that bandwidth at the beginning of the year.

Peter Wennink (CEO)

Yeah. 2026.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

Exactly.

Peter Wennink (CEO)

Yeah.

C.J. Muse (Senior Managing Director and Semiconductor Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

Welcome.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll now go to the next question. Your next question comes from the line of Alexander Duval from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Alexander Duval (Semiconductors Equity Research Analyst)

Yes, hi, everyone. Many thanks, Peter, for everything, over the years. I have, one quick question and then a follow-up. The first is on China services. We've seen a number of news articles talking about U.S. government asking the Dutch government, to prevent servicing of certain aspects of the installed base in China. Had a lot of investor questions on this and just wondered if you could provide any perspective on potential implications, given especially that tools don't work without services. Is it fair to assume any ban, would likely not encompass all China services revenues? And secondly, on electrification, you mentioned that electrification could be a potential driver of litho demand.

We've seen a number of news articles talking about the need for technology to help deal with strong EV-driven power needs in the grid, as well as AI server-driven demand. Wondered if you could provide some context on what this means for longer-term litho demand? Many thanks.

Peter Wennink (CEO)

Yeah, I think on the China services, yes, we're probably reading the same articles. So, yeah, that... It's been a discussion between the two governments and, you know, let it be a discussion between the two governments. I mean, of course, we're providing input. We're providing input of, you know, the size of the, and the type of, you know, services. And it, and I think it's all being taken into consideration to determine in the end, what the real problem is, you know? And I think that is something which governments will need to discuss, because probably it's all going to be in their discussion on what they call the, you know, national security interest.

So we just provided with the information, and, I think, currently we have, there's nothing that, you know, stops us, you know, servicing the installed base in China today. On the electrification, I think we've said this many times when we talked about the growth of the industry, and it also refers back to the question that, CJ asked. You know, yes, the grid, the electrification, the build of the grid, the investments in renewable energy and the investments in a smart grid will be a significant driver, is a significant driver for, you know, mainstream semiconductors. So it, it... That, you know, is, is indeed true. Electrification, when you think about the vehicle, is also about mainstream semiconductors and advanced semiconductors.

So, yes, I mean, this is not a requirement or a request of one part of an industry. It's all connected. So you are indeed correct. I think this is what people now start, you know, to realize that if we want to invest in renewable energy, let's take the Netherlands for, you know, as a particular example. There's a significant investment in solar panels and in, you know, wind, which actually means that we need to upgrade the grid, and the grid needs to be smart because there's not going to be a constant supply of those electrons, so that needs to be, you know, managed. There is a complete overhaul of, you know, the electric grid needed.

That, yeah, that's absolutely true, and this is why we need more mainstream semiconductors, yeah? And we need a lot more of them. And Roger pointed out, you know, we said at the Capital Markets Day 2022, 380,000 wafer starts per year need to be added. Well, we didn't do that last year. We were lower than that. So we're running behind our own model. So I'm happy that, you know, around the world, investments in mainstream semiconductors take place, 'cause we need them.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

Alexander, it's everywhere. So it's in the generation of power, as Peter just said, solar panels, windmills. It's in the distribution, the net. It's in the storage, 'cause that's another one, right? You need the electricity at a point in time when it's not being generated. And it's in the usage, you know, like, like the EV. So it's everywhere, and therefore, this was a very significant part, as Peter just said, of the 380 that we talked about. Of course, we'll review this again when November comes, but I think the world is clearly appreciating a little bit better by now, how significant the, you know, the electrification is and what it does for the demand for mature chips.

Alexander Duval (Semiconductors Equity Research Analyst)

Fascinating. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now go to the next question. Your next question comes from the line of Chris Caso from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Chris Caso (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

... Yes, thank you. Good morning. First question is regarding the guidance implied for the H2 of this year. You know, obviously expecting an acceleration in revenue. Can you give some detail on what you expect to lead that revenue growth in the H2? And specifically on China, you characterize that as strong right now. Do you expect that to remain strong as you go into the H2?

Roger Dassen (CFO)

Yeah. So the H2, I think this is very much in line with the orders that we have today, because we're, you know, we're fully booked for the year. So the shipment plans that we have, and this is across the board. So this is, you know, this is for some of the fab openings and some of the ramps that I think all of you are aware that have been scheduled for 2024, both in logic and in memory. So this really is across the board. As you know, there is, we're fairly conservative, I would say, on the installed base business, right?

So the installed base business in the H2 is only a little bit more than what we have in the H1, and I think that's, you know, that's still potential that I think there is for the year, that we see an uptick in that number, particularly as it relates to the, you know, the potential for upgrades in the H2 of the year. But it really is very much, I would say, across the board.

Chris Caso (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Yeah, thank you.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

And in terms of China, in terms of China, I think we already said that we expect China to continue to be quite, quite strong. Of course, it depends a little bit on, you know, on the sales also to the rest of the world. There are still some tools where we are supply constrained. So, you know, the demand composition, you know, could be such that, you know, that there are some limitations to what we can ship to China. But normally, as we said, the demand for China is very strong, so, all the reason to expect the strong sales into China to continue for the rest of the year as well.

Peter Wennink (CEO)

You know, we are fully booked for 2024, and we are in the habit of actually shipping what we booked. There's little doubt in our mind that 2024 will just turn out the way that we gave you-

Roger Dassen (CFO)

Yeah

... as, as an outlook.

Chris Caso (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Understood. And, as a follow-up, follow-up is on memory. And, you spoke last quarter, and the very strong bookings last quarter were a lot of, you know, technology buys on memory. Could you give us some sense on, you know, when you expect some of the follow-through from perhaps some of the DUV orders that would, you know, the supply capacity for memory? We've seen some green shoots in the memory market. Just interested what your customers are telling you regarding that capacity.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

Well, it's very clear, as we mentioned before, that the utilization of memory is going up, and we've seen that now quite sustainably for quite a while. And that, you know, that's... If that is sustained, as we expect, as the market expects, as our customers expect, then you should see in the H2 of this year, you should see that memory is not just, let's say, technology transition, but it's also really the addition of this. So that's, I think, very much in line with the current developments that we see in the market.

So in the H2, and one of the drivers why indeed you see this step-up from the H2 to the H1, indeed, is that, that you will see, you know, additional building of the capacity in the memory market.

Chris Caso (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Great. And you're saying that from a revenue standpoint, in addition to an order standpoint?

Roger Dassen (CFO)

I say that from the revenue standpoint. Exactly right. Yeah.

Peter Wennink (CEO)

From a revenue standpoint. Got it.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

Yes.

Chris Caso (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll now go to the next question. Your next question comes from the line of Mehdi Hosseini from Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

Mehdi Hosseini (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yes, thanks for taking my question. But before, Peter, I wanna wish you best of luck in your next endeavor, and hopefully run into you at some lounge, at some airport lounge. And Christophe, hope to see you more often in US. Back to my question, wanted to understand two things. First, what is the mix of backlog from attributed to China, excluding EUV? And then second question, Roger, can you update us on the NXE:3800E? How is the throughput with the early system shipment in the H1, and how is it going to improve in the H2?

Roger Dassen (CFO)

Yeah. So nice try, Mehdi, on China, but we're not disclosing that. We're not disclosing the composition of the backlog in a geographic sense. So, we've said before at some point that, you know, the China... We said it once, that, China was a little bit over 20% in the backlog, and that as a result of that, you know, no one should be surprised that the sales is around that percentage. That's not dramatically changed. So I think we're still in that ballpark, but we're not gonna be very specific on that. But at least that gives you a bit of a ballpark.

As we said on the introduction of the 3800, you know, we said before that this will come in full configuration in a couple of months' time. So in the H2, you know, we'll get it to the 220 wafers per hour. Very quickly, it'll get to 195. So it's several steps. So first, very rapidly getting it to 195 wafers per hour.

And then, you know, the tools that are gonna leave the factory somewhere in the H2 or early in the H2 of this year will be 220, and the ones that are still at 195 will get an upgrade, such that I would say early in next year, you'll see the entire fleet being at 220 wafers per hour. That's the plan, Mehdi.

Mehdi Hosseini (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

... To what extent that improvement towards 200 is a factor or driver in driving that EUR 4 billion plus per quarter new orders?

Roger Dassen (CFO)

In essence, it isn't. This is a revenue recognition thing, right? So we defer some of the revenue until the point in time where the ultimate configuration, i.e., the 220 is being achieved. So there is a revenue recognition issue here. It's not a PO issue, 'cause the customer signed a PO for the tool at full spec.

Mehdi Hosseini (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

You're welcome.

Skip Miller (VP of Investor Relations)

All right, so I think we have time for one last question. If you are unable to get through on this call and still have questions, please feel free to contact the ASML Investor Relations Department with your question. Now, operator, may we have the last caller, please?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now take the last question, and the question comes from the line of Didier Scemama from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Didier Scemama (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Yeah, good afternoon. Thank you for squeezing me in. And, you know, warm congratulations, you know, Peter, and, if Martin is listening, thank you so much for, for everything really. It's been an amazing, you know, privilege for me to cover the company for the last 24 years. And, congratulations also to Christophe for the, for the promotion to CEO job. I've got one question on EUV and DRAM, if I may. The question is really, first of all, can you tell us, roughly speaking of your wafer capacity, of the wafer capacity deployed in the industry, how much it transitioned to EUV yet? And how much do you think that could evolve to as the industry adopt EUV for DDR5 and, and HBM?

Then related to that, I think in the past you had mentioned that over the longer term, I think 2030 was the sort of timeframe, you know, the EUV usage breakdown could be 70/30 between logic and, and memory or DRAM. Do you think that the layer count increase we see with HBM could drive that to maybe a 50/50, sort of split, over the course of the next, you know, 5 or 10 years? Thank you so much.

Christophe Fouquet (Chief Business Officer)

So, this is Christophe here. I think your question about the exact capacity is quite difficult to answer. I don't think we have all the elements to do that. What I can share with you is the trend we see on the DRAM, basically, for EUV, where our customer roadmap basically is calling for an increased node on node of the number of EUV layers. And I think we see that, basically, already for a few nodes. And that, I think, is with the current visibility of the roadmap we have from our customers. So we see basically the number of layers continue to increase to execute on the DRAM roadmap.

The high-bandwidth memory doesn't change that dramatically because the device itself is very similar. What is changing is the ratio between array and logic, mostly, which typically call for larger die and therefore more wafer capacity needs. So there you have a translation in volume, but that's not related to the number of EUV layer, that's more related to the number of wafer you would need to do a high-bandwidth memory. And there again, I think Roger mentioned before, we're still trying... I think our customer are also still trying to understand exactly what will be the effect of high-bandwidth memory on the overall capacity needs for DRAM in the next few months.

But I think that the jury is still out on that, and we're working very hard on our side to try to understand that, with the idea that, you know, when we come to all of you on the 14, we understand that a bit more. But I think it's work in progress also on our customer side.

Peter Wennink (CEO)

It's also the 70/30. The 70/30 mix.

Christophe Fouquet (Chief Business Officer)

Yes.

Didier Scemama (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Yes.

Christophe Fouquet (Chief Business Officer)

Yeah. Which is also true for the 70/30 mix, because that's all connected.

Peter Wennink (CEO)

Yeah.

Didier Scemama (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you so much.

Skip Miller (VP of Investor Relations)

All right. As this is the will be the last quarterly call for Peter, I'd also like to take a moment to publicly state to Peter that on behalf of the ASML IR team, it's been our extreme pleasure to have worked with you over the many years. Thank you for your leadership. So many great memories and countless contributions to ASML. Congratulations on your retirement. We wish you and your family all the best.

Peter Wennink (CEO)

Thank you. We would have never done it without you guys. That's clear. That's absolutely clear.

Roger Dassen (CFO)

Hear, hear.

Skip Miller (VP of Investor Relations)

Now, on behalf of ASML, I'd like to thank you all for joining us today. Operator, if you could formally conclude the call, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes the ASML 20241Q financial results conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.