ASML confirms expectation for record sales year

Third Quarter Highlights - More than 100 TWINSCAN NXT:1950i (our most advanced production system) have shipped to date; the total installed base of ASML immersion systems now exceeds 320. - An average selling price (ASP) of EUR 27.1 million for new systems sold as a result of the recognition of a high number of TWINSCAN NXT:1950i systems and two second generation EUV systems. - A TWINSCAN NXT:1950i has surpassed the productivity milestone of more than 4,000 wafers in a single day at a customer manufacturing site. - First TWINSCAN NXT:1950i with throughput of 200 wafers per hour at 125 shots (230 wafers per hour at 96 shots) is being shipped. - ASML Brion announced a new mask correction capability to enable larger process windows for advanced 2x nanometer chip designs. - Of our new EUV lithography platform, we have delivered five NXE:3100 systems to customers and the sixth is being shipped. - Imaging performance of the NXE:3100 has been demonstrated with enhancement technology down to 22 nanometer in a single exposure. - During the quarter customers almost doubled the number of exposed wafers on NXE:3100 systems, to a total of more than 2,500 wafers, allowing them to develop next generation chip production processes. - Assembly and integration has started of our first NXE:3300 systems, the volume production successor of the NXE:3100, for first delivery in the second half of 2012. Outlook For the fourth quarter 2011, ASML expects net sales of above EUR 1.1 billion, including one second generation EUV system representing around EUR 40 million of sales with zero profit margin. All other sales (excluding EUV) are expected to have a gross margin in Q4 2011 of about 42 percent (about 41 percent for sales including EUV). R&D costs for Q4 are expected at EUR 150 million to support the strategic investments. SG&A costs are expected at EUR 56 million. Eric Meurice (President and CEO) comments: Despite the current turbulent macro-economic environment, ASML’s strong business model and the industry need for the latest lithography technologies enable us to reiterate our expectation of 2011 revenues of about EUR 5.5 billion, including EUV, in line with initial guidance. It is too early to understand how overall demand for semiconductors will contribute to our business in 2012, but we believe that a sustained need for leading edge systems capable of new nodes will likely result in increased Q4 2011 bookings, compared with Q3. This level of bookings will start to support the continued technology upgrades by our customers for sub 20-nanometer nodes development, while ramping production of advanced 2x nm nodes in Logic and in NAND Flash memory, and 3x nm in DRAM memory. We continue our dual product leadership strategy, consisting of strengthening our immersion offering, as measured by the new records achieved by the TWINSCAN NXT:1950i and the significant contributions made by our Holistic Lithography suite of products, while also investing significantly to introduce EUV. The EUV systems are making significant progress, as our NXE:3100s are processing wafers at customer manufacturing sites and as we have started assembly of the first of the new generation NXE:3300 systems. EUV source power has scaled slower than planned, however we confirm that two source suppliers have now demonstrated technologies for power levels that support a wafer per hour productivity increase from current single digit levels to mid-teens, which will be implemented starting from Q4 2011, putting us on a roadmap to commercially viable productivity levels in the summer of 2012. We are therefore proceeding with ramping our capacity to address a number of DRAM, NAND and Logic critical layers for customer wafer production in 2013 and 2014.