ASML says it sold 'absolutely nothing' in Europe in 2026 and asks the EU to create demand

ASML, Europe's largest company by market capitalisation, sold almost nothing in Europe in 2026. The Dutch group is the world's only supplier of EUV lithography systems and is valued at around $660 billion, yet European chipmakers bought none of its lithography equipment this year.

According to presentations prepared for ASML's investors, Europe accounted for 2% of the company's revenue in 2022, 4% in 2023, 5% in 2024 and 1% in 2025. In the first two quarters of 2026 that share fell to 0%, as reported by Tom's Hardware.

“We are selling absolutely nothing in Europe”

“We are selling absolutely nothing in Europe,” Frank Heemskerk, ASML's executive vice president of public affairs, said during a panel discussion at De Balie, the Dutch political and cultural centre. “Because Europe is not investing and because no chip factories are being built in Europe. That is genuinely worrying.”

“There simply is no demand here for these kinds of highly specialized machines,” he added. “So apart from trying to attract investment with capital on the supply side, we should do much more to create demand.” Heemskerk said ASML is discussing with Ursula von der Leyen how to harness the market power and dynamism that exist in Europe.

So far the European Union has focused on subsidising new fabs, an approach that failed to lure Intel. ASML is now asking European governments to help aggregate and guarantee demand for European-made chips, which would encourage large European buyers to source locally.

New fabs are being built

Heemskerk may be too pessimistic. Intel runs Fab 34 near Leixlip, Ireland, and plans to invest about €5 billion there to expand CPU output on its Intel 4 and Intel 3 processes. ESMC, backed by TSMC, Bosch, Infineon and NXP, is building a €15 billion fab near Dresden, where Infineon also opened a €5 billion Smart Power Fab in July 2026.

But none of them need EUV

The European projects are small next to the fabs being built in Taiwan, South Korea, the United States and Japan, where tens or hundreds of billions of dollars are being invested. More important for ASML: none of the ongoing European projects is a leading-edge fab that will use EUV scanners.

There is a second catch. Even advanced silicon produced in Ireland or at ESMC is shipped to other regions for packaging, so Europe has largely lost the ability to make sophisticated chips entirely at home. For now there is little strategic point in pushing demand for “Made in Europe” chips that are not assembled, produced or developed in Europe.