Jan 28 (Reuters) – ASML reported stronger-than-expected bookings in the fourth quarter on Wednesday, with the world's largest supplier of computer chip equipment receiving more orders as companies boosted investment in AI chipmaking capacity. Europe's largest company by market cap also said separately it would lay off 1,700 jobs, or 3.8% of the total – mostly in the Netherlands and U.S. and largely at the leadership level. The cull is the largest the company has seen in absolute numbers, following prolonged expansion in the 2010s and 2020s, CFO Roger Dassen said on a conference call. Fourth-quarter bookings, the most watched metric in the industry, were 13.2 billion euros ($15.8 billion), compared with 5.4 billion euros in the previous quarter. That compared with analyst expectations of 6.32 billion euros, according to researcher Visible Alpha. "In the last months, many of our customers have shared a notably more positive assessment of the medium-term market situation, primarily based on more robust expectations of the sustainability of AI-related demand," ASML's Chief executive Christophe Fouquet said in a statement. ORDERS BEAT EXPECTATIONS ON SURGE IN AI CHIP DEMAND The orders beat comes as several of ASML's chipmaker customers raise investment plans amid demand for AI logic and memory chips needed by cloud computing giants such as Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet's Google. "Overall there is good fourth-quarter orders and 2026 outlook, driven by AI demand for EUV in both logic and DRAM", Mizuho analyst Kevin Wang said in an email. The Dutch company also hiked its outlook for 2026. It now expects full-year sales of between 34 billion and 39 billion euros, compared with analysts' expectations of 35 billion euros, according to LSEG data. It has previously forecast flat-to-higher sales than in the previous year, which came in at 32.7 billion euros in 2025. "We expect 2026 to be another growth year for ASML's business", Fouquet said. Analysts had expected the Dutch giant to benefit from the stronger demand of top customers such as TSMC and Samsung, as chipmakers increase capital spending to expand capacity for AI-related chips amid tight global supply of memory, and AI-accelerator chips. ASML kept the long-term guidance to 2030 untouched, Fouquet said in an internal interview published on its site, anticipating revenue to reach between 44 and 60 billion euros and a gross margin between 56% and 60% in 2030. ($1 = 0.8339 euros) (Reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Nathan Vifflin in Gdansk; editing by Matt Scuffham and Christian Schmollinger and Bernadette Baum)
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