AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML said on Thursday the company sees demand for its products remaining strong in China, with around 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in sales in 2021.
Chief Financial Officer Roger Dassen said ASML, which is currently operating at full capacity amid the global semiconductor shortage, thinks it will have a similar level of sales in China in 2022.
“I expect that sales into domestic China will be a little in excess of 2 billion (euros) this year,” he said, distributed between logic and memory chip customers.
“For next year I wouldn’t expect a dramatic increase in that number, but we would expect that number to be sustained, so also next year pretty strong sales.”
ASML is the dominant maker of lithography systems, technology used to create the circuitry of computer chips.
Due to U.S. government military concerns, the allied Dutch government has not granted ASML permission to ship its most advanced tools to China. However, Chinese companies are major buyers of ASML’s earlier generation products and China is the company’s third-largest market, behind Taiwan and South Korea.
In a reference to discussions in U.S. policy circles about whether lithography sales to China should be further restricted, Dassen said that would not impact ASML immediately.
“If for whatever reason, something were to happen on the China front, for instance more stringent regulation … in all likelihood that demand would be hoovered up someplace else,” he said.
He said ASML was weighing how much extra capacity the company would need to meet increased demand for its products as a result plans by the United States, European Union and other governments to increase regional semiconductor manufacturing capacity due to strategic considerations.
Dassen was speaking at the Morgan Stanley TMT conference.
($1 = 0.8824 euros)
(Reporting by Toby Sterling Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Mark Potter)
