ASML recognizes the future in China, and moves closer to the Chinese market for new development.
At present, the global semiconductor supply is showing a trend of oversupply, and the lithography giant ASML said that it is increasing its investment in China, probably because it realizes that the world's wafer production growth is slowing down, while China's wafer production is continuing to grow and is expected to make a profit in the Chinese market.
In the past two years, due to the shortage of international chip supply and a series of actions such as Huawei in the United States, countries have realized the security of chips and have set off a large-scale capacity competition, and there are currently 85 semiconductor wafer factories in the plan, and the market demand for lithography equipment has also risen sharply.
With the increasing demand for lithography machines in the world, ASML's production capacity cannot keep up, and it is getting higher and higher, and ASML's profitability is also increasing, with net profit increasing by more than 60% in 2021, which can be called the highest level in history.
However, due to the sluggish global chip supply, the sales of mobile phones, automobiles, TVs and other products have declined sharply, and personal computers are expected to grow in fiscal 2021, but they have declined sharply in the first quarter, and the demand for chips in all walks of life has turned from a shortage to a surplus.
One of the most significant signs of chip shortage is the mobile industry, because the number of mobile shipments has dropped sharply, and the primary problem faced by major manufacturers is to deal with inventory and significantly reduce the purchase of chipsIn the industrial chain, the optimism about the mobile market in the second half of last year made the stored chips a hot potato.
Only 35 of the 86 production lines that were originally planned to be built overseas have been completed, and the remaining 51 may not be put into operation as scheduled, and the demand for lithography machines will also decrease, which is undoubtedly a huge loss for ASML, which has only one lithography machine.
When the world's wafer production growth may stop, China may change the trend and increase wafer production to ensure industrial safety. China's goal is to achieve 70% independent production of semiconductors by 2025, because China has the best advantage in production, so domestic chips are lucrative.
And now, Hefei Changxin, Yangtze River Storage has announced the news of expansion, both companies have begun to expand, is expected to triple production in the next two years, and China's semiconductor manufacturers have also increased production, so for these two companies, it is still in short supply.
In the past, due to various factors, the introduction of lithography machines in China encountered certain obstacles, therefore, we can only import second-hand lithography machines from Japan, Japan's second-hand lithography machines, its price has doubled, more expensive than new lithography machines, but still can not meet our needs.
In addition, China will also buy a large number of lithography machines from ASML in 2021, making China the largest user of ASML, which shows the huge demand for lithography machines in China. Today, ASML is still the largest consumer in China due to the slowdown in chip production capacity worldwide, so it is not surprising that ASML is expanding its Chinese branch at this time in order to improve the quality of its services to better cater to Chinese consumers.
Prior to this, Samsung Electronics suspended the 7 nm process, TSMC and Samsung also suspended the 3 nm process, and Intel also acquired the first generation of Intel 4 process EUV lithography device, the current ASML EUV lithography device, the current ASML lithography machine sales plummeted, probably because of China's first generation EUV lithography machine, the vigilance of the Chinese market has been relaxed.
In fact, the reason why ASML does not dare to act rashly is because the United States' investment in American factories has slowed down the purchase of ASML's first-generation EUV lithography machines by Samsung, TSMC and other American factories, and ASML cannot sell EUV lithography machines to Chinese semiconductor manufacturers, resulting in revenue in the first quarter of this year**, and with the decline in the demand for lithography machines in the world, ASML's situation will become more and more difficult, and China will be ASML's savior, so will the binding power of the United States on it weaken?