On Friday, ASML shares climbed to an all-time high following a rare double upgrade from a major investment firm, which raised its rating from sell to buy and lifted its price target by 25%. The upgrade was driven by the firm’s revised forecast for ASML’s 2026 capital equipment orders, projecting a 30% year-over-year increase to €30 billion as demand for advanced lithography tools rebounds across logic and memory foundries. Analysts cited ASML’s expanding lead in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology—with 55 EUV systems shipped in 2025, up from 48 in 2024—and its robust 46% gross margin in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 as key drivers for upgrading the stock.

ASML confirmed that its next-generation high numerical aperture (high-NA) EUV platforms are now fully qualified for high-volume manufacturing, with initial shipments of the EXE:5200 model beginning in early 2025. The company expects to deliver 10 high-NA machines in 2026, doubling its previous guidance, as leading customers like Intel and Samsung Electronics ramp up pilot production. Each high-NA tool, priced at approximately €350 million, offers single-patterning capability at 8 nm resolution and can process up to 40 wafers per hour—roughly a 50% throughput improvement over low-NA EUV systems. ASML’s CEO highlighted at the February 2025 investor conference that high-NA revenue could contribute as much as 15% of total sales by 2027, underpinning a mid-teens annual revenue growth trajectory through the end of the decade.