Shares of ASML moved higher in U.S. premarket trade after Barclays upgraded the company to Overweight and materially raised its price target. The bank increased its target to €1,500 from €1,200 and pointed to record order intake, intensifying AI-driven demand, and a set of upside scenarios that it believes remain underappreciated in consensus forecasts.
Analyst Simon Coles said in a note that high expectations ahead of the results were met by the company delivering record orders, prompting significant upward revisions to Barclays' estimates. The stock was trading about 4% higher in U.S. premarket activity following the announcement.
ASML itself reported an all-time high order intake of €13.2 billion, nearly twice the €7.1 billion recorded a year earlier and well above the €6.32 billion in orders expected by analysts tracked by Visible Alpha. In light of robust demand dynamics, the company raised its 2026 revenue guidance to a range of €34 billion to €39 billion, exceeding a consensus figure of roughly €35 billion reported by LSEG. Prior to the update, ASML had guided for sales to be flat to modestly higher versus 2025 revenue of €32.7 billion.
Alongside stronger demand projections, ASML announced a workforce reduction of around 1,700 roles, roughly 3.8% of its employees. The company said the move is part of a broader restructuring that will remove about 3,000 management positions while reallocating resources to expand engineering teams focused on innovation.
Barclays highlighted several demand drivers behind its more bullish stance. The bank underscored growing lithography requirements tied to large-scale data-center rollouts and flagged other potential upside contributors including consumer AI adoption, humanoid robotics, and a more sustainable cadence of memory capital spending. The analyst team singled out competitive dynamics in foundry markets as particularly supportive, noting upside risk should challenger foundries increase investment in the coming years.
On the topic of China exposure, Barclays described some market concerns as overdone at present. Coles noted that ASML's cautious position on the region had reflected prior visibility challenges and export control risk, but that recent trade trends point to resilient demand. He wrote that ASML's guidance implies China revenues start more than 10% lower year-on-year in 2026, yet recent import strength would suggest underlying demand is still robust.
The analyst also observed that China is estimated to have fallen to around 50% of DUV bookings, but that level remains comparable with previous record quarters, indicating that share of bookings alone does not necessarily signal a material deterioration in overall demand conditions.
Barclays accompanied its upgrade with substantial upward revisions to its financial forecasts. The bank now expects ASML revenues to grow at a low-teens pace in both 2026 and 2027, projections that translate into mid-to-high-teens percentage upgrades to earnings per share versus its prior models. The firm identified further sources of upside including a stronger-than-expected recovery in challenger foundry spending, better-than-anticipated China demand through 2026, and continued acceleration in AI-driven investment over the medium term.
Market participants will likely watch execution on the restructuring, the durability of AI and data-center investment, and China demand indicators as key near-term signals. For now, Barclays' revised stance and ASML's combination of record orders and a more ambitious 2026 revenue range have supported the stock and prompted analysts to lift estimates, while also flagging several contingencies that could further alter the outlook.