China bought about twice as many ASML machines in the third quarter as it did in the second. That is the number inside ASML's record results on October 14, 2026, and it complicates a story we told earlier this month. The Dutch lithography maker reported net sales of €11.7 billion, and TechWire Asia's reading of the company's figures puts China at 23 percent of system sales, up from 14 percent in the second quarter. Meanwhile, ASML said it cannot build enough machines for 2027 or 2028.

China's purchases doubled in a single quarter

China took roughly €1.9 billion of machines in Q3, against about €0.9 billion in Q2, according to TechWire Asia. That matches the 109 percent jump the South China Morning Post reported. Net system sales rose from €6.6 billion to €8.4 billion, and StockTitan calculates that sales to the rest of the world grew only about 14 percent.

Simple arithmetic shows how much of the growth came from one country. System sales rose about €1.8 billion quarter on quarter, and China supplied about €1.0 billion of that, roughly 56 percent. Its share is still well below the 42 percent of a year earlier, but the direction reversed sharply.

The company still guides to China at around 20 percent of total net sales for 2026. Asked about next year, chief executive Christophe Fouquet said China's underlying demand looks very strong for 2027 and beyond, per the call transcript.

This matters for our earlier reporting. When we covered a think tank's estimate that China holds 343 ASML immersion scanners, we noted China's share of ASML sales had fallen to 14 percent in the second quarter and suggested the buying window had largely closed. The Q3 data show that conclusion was too early. One quarter does not make a trend, but it does remove the evidence for a slowdown.

The record quarter in numbers

ASML's results release shows total net sales of €11,662 million, up 25 percent from €9,326 million in Q2 and about 55 percent from a year earlier, per StockTitan. Gross margin rose to 57.5 percent from 54.0 percent, above the company's 55 to 57 percent guidance. Net income was €4.96 billion.

Global Brands Magazine, summarizing the filing, counts 121 systems sold in Q3, 113 new and 8 used, up from 91 in Q2. Installed base sales, meaning servicing and upgrades of machines already in customers' fabs, reached €3.29 billion. Guidance for the fourth quarter is €14.2 billion to €15.2 billion, and the midpoint of €14.7 billion would be about 26 percent above Q3. Full-year 2026 sales are expected between €44 billion and €45 billion.

Supply, not demand, is the constraint

The most important sentence was not about the quarter. ASML said its supply as currently planned for both 2027 and 2028 will not fully meet customer demand, and Fouquet added that some customers want to place orders for 2029 and 2030, according to Global Brands Magazine's reading of the release. The company announced a 30 percent capacity increase in low-NA EUV and DUV immersion tools for 2027 and is studying a further 30 percent for 2028.

There is a catch for outside observers. Investing.one reports that ASML stopped reporting quarterly order bookings from 2026, so the shortage claim rests mainly on management's word and on its customers' spending. Customers do corroborate it: TSMC kept its 2026 capital budget at $60 billion to $64 billion and said spending from 2026 to 2028 would be significantly higher than the past three years, according to Yahoo Finance's summary of its earnings call. Memory makers are in the same race. As we reported, Samsung's record profit came from price, not volume, and Fouquet said the DRAM demand he was describing was mostly for EUV tools and excluded China.

A €0.5 billion bonus from an AI lab

ASML's net income includes about €0.5 billion from a rise in the value of its initial investment in Mistral AI, the CFO told the call, per the Benzinga transcript. That is roughly 10 percent of the €4.96 billion total. Strip it out and net income is about €4.5 billion, still about 53 percent above Q2's €2.9 billion.

The investment links a tool maker to the AI model race. When we covered Mistral's ML4 model, its strongest independent result was in cybersecurity, and its broad-benchmark rank was low. A gain that big on a paper valuation shows how far the AI trade has spread into a company whose products are used to make chips, not models.

What could change the picture

Policy is the first risk. TechWire Asia notes that a US bill targeting older lithography tools remains pending, and that is the same category of tool China has been buying. ASML's release does not quantify the effect of export restrictions.

Demand is the second. ASML's own forward-looking caveats list customers delaying or cancelling orders, according to Global Brands Magazine, and the company gave no 2027 financial guidance, with its next Capital Markets Day set for June 10, 2027. Adding capacity for 2027 and 2028 is a bet that AI spending holds. With bookings no longer public, customers' 2027 capital budgets will be the first outside check, and the clearest warning sign would be China buying heavily just as everyone else pauses.