ASML currently has the second highest market capitalization in Europe. The Dutch chip machine maker is now worth 377 billion euros, thereby passing French luxury conglomerate LVMH on the list of most valuable European companies.
The value of a share of ASML recently rose 8.1 percent, Bloomberg writes. This passed the former No. 2, France’s LVMH, by 641 million euros. Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk is still the company with the highest market capitalization in the region.
The immediate reason for the increase in ASML’s stock market value is that Taiwanese chip maker TSMC recently announced that it will receive the chip maker’s most modern chip machine, the High-NA extreme ultraviolet machine (High-NA EUV), by the end of this year. This chip production machine will cost 350 million euros. Samsung is also set to receive a new scanner before the end of this year.
Tip: Newest ASML machine at Intel is ready to go, with plenty of R&D ahead
ASML stock price confirmation
Investors in ASML saw this news as an important confirmation that these new machines have a clear market. Earlier they would have had doubts about this because of the high price tag.
Future bright
For the near future, the increasing demand for chip-making machines could potentially give the stock a further boost. TSMC plans to start production of its latest-generation 2-nanometer process in the second half of 2025 and needs the machines to do so. Although no orders have yet been placed with ASML, this could of course happen in time. At that time, this could again bring more value for ASML in the stock market.
Also read: TSMC doesn’t need latest ASML machine yet