(Bloomberg) -- ASM International NV’s first-quarter revenue forecast beat estimates as an artificial intelligence boom drives demand for the Dutch semiconductor-equipment maker’s products.
It expects revenue of between €810 million ($849 million) and €850 million in the period, with a further increase in the second quarter, the Almere, Netherlands-based company said in a statement on Tuesday. That compares with the average €800.2 million analyst estimate compiled by Bloomberg. ASM also confirmed its outlook for the full year.
Chipmaking-equipment companies, such as ASM and ASML Holding NV, are benefitting from surging demand for the advanced semiconductors needed to run AI models. ASML booked orders worth twice as much as analysts anticipated last quarter as customers lined up for its most sophisticated machines.
ASM’s fourth-quarter orders rose 8% from a year earlier at constant currency, below analyst estimates. Revenue for the period rose 27% to €809 million. The growth was supported by demand for so-called “gate-all-around”, or GAA technology, that increases device performance, and the company expects a substantial increase in GAA-related sales in 2025.
“AI-related segments continued to increase strongly, but other parts of the market showed a mixed performance,” ASM Chief Executive Officer Hichem M’Saad said in the statement. “For ASM, this meant strong momentum in our GAA-related applications.”
The industry has found itself at the center of the escalating trade war between the US and China. President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to expand the US’s efforts to curb China’s semiconductor ambitions and is pressuring allies to escalate restrictions on the Asian nation’s chip industry, Bloomberg News reported earlier.
US government officials recently met with their Japanese and Dutch counterparts about restricting Tokyo Electron Ltd. and ASML engineers from maintaining semiconductor gear in China, people familiar with the matter said.
The sector also took a beating last month after Chinese startup DeepSeek was able to create a new AI chatbot with comparable performance to rivals at a significantly lower cost. It cast doubt on the hundreds of billions of dollars AI companies and their backers have pledged to spend on infrastructure to support the technology’s development.
The company has warned that Chinese demand, after surging a year ago, is coming back down to historical levels. ASM on Tuesday reiterated its China revenue will be lower in 2025 due to recently-announced US export controls. It expects equipment sales in the market to be in the “low to high 20s percentage” of total revenue this year.
(Updates with details on China demand in the ninth paragraph)
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