Christophe Fouquet

Christophe Fouquet became CEO of ASML in April 2024, succeeding Peter Wennink who held the role for over a decade. His tenure has been defined by the structural shift in ASML's China business driven by tightening US export controls on DUV (Deep Ultraviolet) lithography machines. In Q1 2026, China's share of system sales fell to 19 per cent from 36 per cent in Q4 2025, a drop of roughly €1.8bn in a single quarter, and Fouquet said 2026 guidance "accommodates potential outcomes of ongoing discussions around export controls". By Q2, reported 15 July 2026, China had stabilised at roughly 20 per cent of full-year sales and Fouquet's guidance carried no such hedge, even with the bipartisan MATCH Act live in Congress since 24 June.

ASML is headquartered in Veldhoven, Netherlands, and is the world's sole manufacturer of EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) lithography machines, which cannot legally be sold to China under current restrictions. Mature-node DUV tools can be sold to China under existing rules, but the MATCH Act would tighten that further. Fouquet raised full-year 2026 guidance twice in two quarters, from €36-40bn after Q1 to €43-45bn after Q2, on a quarter of €9.3bn net sales and 86 lithography systems sold, up from 67 in Q1.

Fouquet remains the public face of the European semiconductor industry's exposure to an export-control regime set in Washington rather than Brussels, even as his own guidance language has gone quiet on that exposure. His silence on the risk that dominated his Q1 remarks does not mean the risk has gone; it means ASML has stopped naming it in public. European semiconductor R&D has been cross-subsidised for years by Chinese DUV revenue, and Fouquet's capacity additions, 30% more low-NA EUV capacity for 2027, are going to fabs in Taiwan, South Korea and the US, not to any European leading-edge plant.