Some time ago, the Us side asked Samsung, TSMC and other major chip companies to submit core data such as inventory to the US side, in order to find the root cause of the global lack of cores. Recently, the results of the US investigation came out, and the results showed that the chip inventory of chip companies was less than five days.
It should be known that in 2019, the chip inventory of chip companies can reach about 40 days, which shows that the inventory of major chip companies is not very sufficient. The result of this is partly due to the factors of the epidemic, and the other part is the insufficient production capacity of major chip companies. It is reported that the global core shortage will continue until 2022.
And the major chip companies have also begun to actively expand production capacity to alleviate the global chip pressure tension problem, to expand production naturally also need to increase chip equipment, so ASML 2021 handed over a beautiful revenue performance. It is understood that ASML's net sales in 2021 will reach 18.6 billion euros, and net income will reach 5.9 billion euros.
Not only that, ASML executives also mentioned that at present, ASML's lithography machine is still in short supply, and the customer's demand for lithography machine is about 40% higher than the production capacity of ASML. So ASML is also confident and has set a goal of reaching $30 billion in revenue by 2025.
But what ASML did not expect was that ASML's revenue in the first quarter of 2022 is expected to be around 3.3 billion euros, a sharp decline year-on-year, significantly lower than forecast. So some foreign media pointed out that TSMC and Samsung are turning against each other in disguise! What's going on?
It is reasonable to say that the current ASML lithography machine is still in short supply, and ASML's revenue in the first quarter should also be very good. However, it turns out that ASML customers are not as enthusiastic as imagined, which has a lot to do with Samsung and TSMC consciously reducing their dependence on ASML lithography machines.
The United States has always wanted to revitalize its own chip manufacturing enterprises, not only through the 52 billion chip subsidy program, but also the United States company Intel also said that it will spend $100 billion to build the world's largest chip factory, it can be said that Intel has recently been scrappy. Not only that, but ASML also sold the first and new NA EUV lithography machine to Intel.
Looking at TSMC, to this day, TSMC still has not obtained a license to ship freely, and TSMC is still unable to oem chips for Huawei. Although Huawei's vacated production capacity is basically wrapped up by Apple, this also makes TSMC have to rely on Apple, which is very passive.
AsML's lithography machine uses a lot of American technology, TSMC in order to reduce its dependence, in ASML released the NA EUV lithography machine, TSMC is indifferent. Moreover, TSMC recently announced that it will spend $44 billion to build new factories and develop new technologies, and it will never mention the purchase of lithography machines and other equipment.
It should be known that TSMC had taken nearly 60% of the ASML EUV lithography machine before, but now it is silent about the NA EUV lithography machine, which is unusual.
What about Samsung? Recently, the price of storage chips has fallen sharply, and companies such as Samsung, Hynix, and Micron will reconsider and will not quickly increase production capacity. As a result, the demand for LITHR machines for ASML is naturally reduced.
In addition, due to the previous changes in the rules of the United States, foreign companies in the mainland region cannot purchase EUV lithography machines from ASML, and Samsung's storage chip business naturally needs to take this into account. Although Hynix is negotiating with the United States on this matter, the matter is currently inconclusive, so chip companies such as Samsung and Hynix are not in a hurry to order EUV lithography machines from ASML.
Not only that, in order to reduce the dependence on American technology, TSMC, Samsung, and Armored Man have launched GAA process, NIL process and so on. With the maturity of these processes, technology companies such as TSMC and Samsung will have lower demand for ASML lithography machines. This is also why foreign media will say that ASML did not expect that TSMC and Samsung began to turn against each other in disguise!
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