ASML reports zero revenue from Europe despite being continent's largest tech firm
The Dutch chipmaking equipment maker has no sales in its home region, revealing Europe's absent position in semiconductor manufacturing.
What to know
- ASML, Europe's largest tech company, has zero revenue from European customers, revealing the continent's structural absence from semiconductor manufacturing.
- European chipmakers operate in legacy and mid-range segments that don't require cutting-edge process nodes, leaving no domestic market for advanced equipment.
- Commenters attribute the gap to regulatory prioritization over industrial development and the competitive dominance of US and Chinese fab capacity.
- Europe's dependence on external suppliers and inability to retain manufacturing talent compounds vulnerability acknowledged even during peak chip shortages.
The dispute Whether Europe's chip absence stems from policy choices (innovation-killing regulation) or market realities (European firms rationally avoid cutting-edge nodes for cost and time-to-market reasons). · positions read across 16 posts and comments
Europe made deliberate regulatory choices that sacrificed chip industry competitiveness to innovation-strangling rules.
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“Obviously EU is not really relevant at high tech. They have couple of firms left like ASML but they're not as relevant as USA and china. And it is EU mistake 100% innovation before regulation.”
s0000n · Reddit ↗
European chip demand is fundamentally different from US/China—most European manufacturers operate in market segments where cutting-edge nodes are economically irrational.
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“There is literal thousand of companies in Europe that are making chips but they do not need cutting edge process node since it makes no sense from the performance and price perspective. Why would I spend 3x the more on my product, increase…”
Thundergod_Perun · Reddit ↗
Europe lacks the external dependencies and workforce capacity to scale manufacturing even when demand is highest.
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“A fab in belgium managed to go bankrupt during the highest demand for chips in history lol.”
JanSmidDeZevende · Reddit ↗
ASML Dutch chipmaking equipment manufacturer
How it unfolded 2 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump postscomments
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Social media commentary highlights structural European chip weakness
Reddit commenters diagnosed the no-sales figure as symptomatic of Europe's failure to build a domestic chip manufacturing base. Discussion centered on regulatory priorities, workforce constraints, and reliance on US and Chinese capacity.
“A fab in belgium managed to go bankrupt during the highest demand for chips in history lol.”
— JanSmidDeZevende, Reddit commenter · source -
You are correct that there is a significant worker shortage currently. Will that change? I don't know. What I do know is the university in the Arizona metro in which the TSMC campus is located is literally the largest engineering university in the country and the industry on this scale is still new. You can't expect a large workforce to appear out…
2 more of the top 3 · 9 posts in this stretch
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China already has a prototype EUV machine - https://youtu.be/CHSK_C6_vgc?si=2OL9GB1cso15xH-O I heard they're also investigating other completely different approaches, such as Steady State Microbunching (SSMB) -
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Think in reverse. Buying a machine worth of 250M, if not more, in Europa is a high commercial risk. But, after that activity risk of being approached as if a criminal will be not fun. Bureaucracy has far more consequences.
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ASML executive discloses zero European revenue
An ASML executive stated the company has no sales in Europe, despite ASML being Europe's largest tech firm by market cap. The disclosure appeared in Bloomberg reporting on September 22.
“There is literal thousand of companies in Europe that are making chips but they do not need cutting edge process node since it makes no sense from the performance and price perspective.”
— Thundergod_Perun, IC engineer · source -
IC engineer here. You do not need a cutting edge technology unless you are making a high compute die. There are a very few companies that have the need for this tech. There is literal thousand of companies in Europe that are making chips but they do not need cutting edge process node since it makes no sense from the performance and price…
2 more of the top 3 · 7 posts in this stretch
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I work in a legacy B2B industry and I genuinely have no idea what some of our Sales people do. Like, you step into a portfolio of 20 customers, each been with us for at least 10 years, some for more than 30. All you have to do is not fuck it up.
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Obviously EU is not really relevant at high tech. They have couple of firms left like ASML but they're not as relevant as USA and china. And it is EU mistake 100% innovation before regulation.
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What people are saying 9 voices from 1 site · best of 16 · verbatim
- Yesterday
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The only national security reason is related to China because they are the most prolific IP thieves.
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imagine creating and posting with a 4 karma account just to answer twice, you do know extensions show when the same guy post in different accounts right? at least use a account with more karma and a VPN
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And the inconvenient truth is that it's mostly because US facilitates while the EU regulates to death
- Sep 22
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They can't find enough well educated and competent people in the US to staff the fabs lol. And no migrant wants to move to the US during these times.
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The US would rather Europe get its shit together rather than have a useless slog in the AI race against China.
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Can you read? They specifically mention 'chip industry' which is what I commented on
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The US is expanding fabbing capacities like crazy so it makes sense why they're a top customer.
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This is the biggest Eu failure honestly, we should have a bigger chip industry. The last chip shortage should have been a wake-up call and it went absolutely nowhere.
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Asml export license and part from outside EU too so you can't make it without rest of the world