Europe wants a stronger chip industry, but its biggest chipmaking equipment supplier says customers on the continent bought nothing from it in the first half of 2026.
ASML executive vice-president of public affairs Frank Heemskerk said: “We are selling absolutely nothing in Europe Europe accounted for zero per cent of ASML’s revenue in both the first and second quarters, compared with one per cent for the whole of 2025.”
According to Tom’s Hardware the figures were hardly spectacular before this year. Europe supplied five per cent of ASML’s revenue in 2024, four per cent in 2023 and two per cent in 2022. A Netherlands-based company has spent years selling almost all its machines elsewhere.
Heemskerk said the problem goes beyond funding new factories. Chipmakers need customers willing to buy what those factories produce, and he wants European governments to help create that demand.
His suggestion is to bring major European chip buyers into closer contact with manufacturers on the continent. If those buyers commit to sourcing chips locally, companies have a stronger reason to build the plants that make them.
Europe has not stopped building fabs. Intel operates a major plant in Ireland, while a TSMC-backed venture is building one near Dresden. Infineon opened a €5 billion facility in Dresden in July. Heemskerk’s claim that no chip factories are being built in Europe is a bit sweeping, even if ASML’s sales figures are grim.
But those projects are not leading-edge plants expected to buy its most expensive EUV machines. Europe can build more chips without buying the particular kit ASML would most like to sell.
Even chips made at European plants can leave the continent for packaging, one of the final steps before they can be used. That makes the promise of a wholly European supply chain harder to deliver than another factory announcement might suggest.
