A logo on the exterior of the ASML Holding NV headquarters in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024.
Peter Boer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Dutch semiconductor giant ASML on Wednesday reported a big jump in fourth-quarter net bookings, suggesting strong demand for its advanced chipmaking tools even as DeepSeek’s low-cost model raises concerns over AI spending.
ASML shares surged more than 11% at 8:24 a.m. London time as investor reacted to the results.
Here’s how ASML did versus LSEG consensus estimates for the fourth quarter:
Net sales: 9.26 billion euros versus 9.07 billion euros expected.
Net profit: 2.69 billion euros versus 2.64 billion euros expected.
ASML said that net bookings, a key indicator of order demand, came in at 7.09 billion euros.
That was up 169% from the 2.63 billion euros ASML reported in the third quarter, and exceeded the 3.99 billion euros expected by analysts polled by Visible Alpha, according to Reuters.
ASML suffered losses during a global tech sell-off earlier in the week after the rollout of Chinese startup DeepSeek’s R1 reasoning model, which claims to undercut OpenAI on both cost and performance.
The move triggered questions over eyewatering spending from the likes of leading AI players OpenAI and Microsoft on Nvidia graphics processing units, which are needed to train and run the most advanced AI models.
This could hit demand for ASML’s high-precision extreme ultraviolet (EUV) machines, which are used to print the most advanced microchips. EUV tools accounted for 3 billion euros of ASML’s fourth-quarter net bookings.
ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet struck a positive note on the arrival of low-cost AI models such as DeepSeek, telling CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal that he expects this development to drive more demand for semiconductors — not less.
While he declined to comment on specifics with DeepSeek’s R1, Fouquet said that he sees no sign of a slowdown in demand for AI-focused chips.
“A lower cost of AI could mean more applications. More applications means more demand over time. We see that as an opportunity for more chips demand,” Fouquet said in an interview Wednesday.
There is “a lot of discussion” in the industry surrounding DeepSeek, but Fouquet said ASML hasn’t heard from customers asking about the impact of the Chinese firm’s model on chip demand.
Ben Barringer, technology analyst at Quilter Cheviot, said that the earnings report offered “reassurance to the market following the turmoil due to concerns around DeepSeek.”
Michael Field, chief equity strategist at Morningstar, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” that ASML’s fourth-quarter results vindicate the view that the chip firm isn’t “overvalued” or “full of puff.” ASML is Morningstar’s top AI pick in Europe, he added.
“Genuinely, we think the numbers support the [investment] case and, actually, we think the shares are worth more like 850 (euros) — which, given the pullback you’ve seen in the last few weeks, offers a pretty good opportunity for investors,” Field said Wednesday.
ASML shares closed at 646.60 euros per share Tuesday.
Slowdown in China demand
Fouquet added that ASML’s expecting a rebalancing of demand in China in 2025. Over the past two years, ASML saw heightened demand for its chipmaking tools in the country as Chinese firms stocked up to get ahead of U.S. restrictions on exports of advanced semiconductor machines.
“We had a huge backlog in China, at the end of 2022, because 2022 was a year we couldn’t feed the market with all the tools the market needed. This has kind of been absorbed last year,” Fouquet told CNBC.
He added that ASML expects to return to a more “normal” demand ratio in China, compared with other markets this year.
“We expect the ratio of our business in China to be lower than what it has been for sure in 23, 24,” Fouquet added.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025.
Hamad I Mohammed | Reuters
Tesla’s shares have finally turned positive for the year.
After a dismal first quarter, which was the worst for the stock in any period since 2022, and a brutal start to April, following President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping new tariffs, Wall Street has again rallied around the electric vehicle maker.
The stock rose 3.6% on Monday to $410.26, topping its closing price of 2024 by over $6. It’s up 85% since bottoming for the year at $221.86 on April 4. A new filing revealed that CEO Elon Musk purchased about $1 billion worth of shares in the company through his family foundation.
It’s the second straight year Tesla has bounced back after a down first quarter. Last year, the shares fell 29% in the first three months before ending up 63% for 2024.
In recent weeks, analysts have praised the EV maker’s proposed pay plan for Musk, which could amount to a $1 trillion windfall for the world’s richest person over the next decade. The company has also gotten a boost from its new MegaBlocks battery energy storage systems that Tesla ships preassembled to businesses looking to lower their power costs or make greater use of electricity from renewable resources.
Even with the rebound, Tesla is the second-worst performer this year among tech’s megacaps, ahead of only Apple, which is down about 5% in 2025. Tesla is still in the midst of a multi-quarter sales slump due to an aging lineup of EVs and increased competition from lower-cost competitors in China, namely BYD.
Tesla has seen a consumer backlash, in part because of Musk’s political activities, including spending nearly $300 million to propel President Trump back to the White House and his work with the Trump administration to slash the federal workforce.
Tesla leadership has been working to shift investors’ attention to other topics such as robotaxis and humanoid robots.
However, the company has yet to deliver vehicles that are safe to use without a human onboard and ready to take control if needed. And while Musk is touting Tesla’s Optimus robots, which he says will be able to do everything from factory work to babysitting, a product is still a long way from hitting the market.
Shares of the search giant jumped more than 4% on Monday, pushing the company into territory occupied only by Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple.
The stock got a big lift in early September from an antitrust ruling by a judge, whose penalties came in lighter than shareholders feared. The U.S. Department of Justice wanted Google to be forced to divest its Chrome browser, and last year a district court ruled that the company held an illegal monopoly in search and related advertising.
But Judge Amit Mehta decided against the most severe consequences proposed by the DOJ, which sent shares soaring to a record. After the big rally, President Donald Trump congratulated the company and called it “a very good day.”
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Alphabet shares are now up more than 30% this year, compared to the 15% gain for the Nasdaq.
The $3 trillion milestone comes roughly 20 years after Google’s IPO and a little more than 10 years after the creation of Alphabet as a holding company, with Google its prime subsidiary.
CEO Sundar Pichai was named CEO of Alphabet in 2019, replacing co-founder Larry Page. Pichai’s latest challenge has been the surge of new competition due to the rise of artificial intelligence, which the company has had to manage through while also fending off an aggressive set of regulators in the U.S. and Europe.
The rise of Perplexity and OpenAI ended up helping Google land the recent favorable antitrust ruling. The company’s hopes of becoming a major AI player largely ride with Gemini, Google’s flagship suite of AI models.
The U.S. and China have reached a ‘framework’ deal for social media platform TikTok, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday.
“It’s between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon,” he said from U.S.-China talks in Madrid.
Both President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Friday to discuss the terms. Trump also said in a Truth Social post Monday that a deal was reached “on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save.”
Bessent indicated that the framework could pivot the platform to U.S.-controlled ownership.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The comments came during the latest round of trade discussions between the U.S. and China. Relations have soured between the two countries in recent months from Trump’s tariffs and other trade restrictions.
At the same time, TikTok parent company ByteDance faces a Sept. 17 deadline to divest the platform’s U.S. business or face being shut down in the country.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Monday that the deadline may need to be pushed back to get the deal signed, but there won’t be ongoing extensions.
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Congress passed a law last year prohibiting app store operators like Apple and Google from distributing TikTok in the U.S. due to its “foreign adversary-controlled application” status.
But Trump postponed the shutdown in January, signing an executive order in January that gave ByteDance 75 more days to make a deal. Further extensions came by way of executive orders in April and in June.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnicksaid in July that TikTok would shutter for Americans if China doesn’t give the U.S. more autonomy over the popular short-form video app.
As for who controls the platform, Trump told Fox News in June that he had a group of “very wealthy people” ready to buy the app and could reveal their identities in two weeks. The reveal never came.
He has previously said he’d be open to Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison or Tesla CEO Elon Musk buying TikTok in the U.S. Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity has submitted a bid for an acquisition, as has businessman Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty internet advocacy group, CNBC reported in January.
Trump told CNBC in an interview last year that he believed the platform was a national security threat, although the White House started a TikTok account in August.