ASML’s growth is unprecedented, with 10,000 new employees in 2022

Why we write about this topic:

ASML reported record-breaking annual results over 2022. Sander Hofman, media manager at ASML, offers us insights from within the company. Sander published his thoughts as the first part of his weekly newsletter, ‘Always Be Curious‘, which looks at relevant sci-tech news. Be sure to subscribe, you won’t regret it if you’re interested in what Innovation Origins also reports about.

This week, ASML reported its Q4 and full-year 2022 financial results. And with fifteen years under my belt at this company and knowing where we come from – I sometimes have to pinch myself when I see these earnings. 

For ASML, 2022 was another strong year with net sales of just over €21 billion. ASML’s revenue has been rising steadily, ticking up from €10.9 billion just 5 years ago. And the future looks bright, too: with the chip industry’s value doubling towards the end of this decade and lithography continuing to play a critical role in chip innovation, we expect our revenue to grow further to somewhere between €44 billion and €60 billion by 2030. Holy smokes. 

Then there’s our order book. By the end of last year, ASML had a record backlog of a seriously staggering €40.4 billion. That’s twice our current revenue. We’re sold out for a while, folks. 

We’re sold out for a while, folks.

Sander Hofman

And we’ve also been growing our headcount: more than 10,000 (!) people joined ASML last year. 

This has been quite in-your-face growth, at least in Veldhoven, Netherlands, where I’m based: every first Monday of the month, there are long lines of people at the badging desk and the laptop pick-up point. And the office buildings have been getting visibly busier.

Of course, we also see uncertainty in the market, caused by inflation, rising interest rates, the risk of recession, and geopolitical developments. But our customers indicate that they expect the market to rebound relatively quickly. And since it currently takes over half a year from ordering a lithography system to getting it in your fab, chipmakers don’t want to lose their place in line to get their new lithography systems. Instead, they want to be ready for the industry’s upturn later this year or early 2024. 

More in Sander’s newsletter Always Be Curious.