Dutch ASML, a manufacturer of machines that produce data chips, surprises with an unexpectedly high order intake during the fourth quarter. The order intake landed at 7.1 billion euros, double what stock analysts had counted on.
This caused the stock price to surge by over ten percent and thus recover from the crash on Monday when all Western AI-related companies got a cold sweat after it was revealed that the Chinese AI robot Deepseek had launched its own variant of Chat GPT at a significantly lower cost and with fewer advanced data chips.
ASML's CEO Christophe Fouquet said in connection with the report release that cheaper AI products are rather good news for the sector.
Since lower costs mean that AI can be used in more applications. More applications mean more chips, he says.
The profit after tax, however, decreased during the quarter to 7.6 billion euros, compared to 7.8 billion euros during the same period in 2023. Revenues increased slightly to 28.3 billion euros, which was also slightly better than the company's own forecast.
