While orders are down by a third on last year, sales are up by 30%. Sales have doubled in three years, despite a fairly brutal downturn in the cycle since the difficulties of taming the pandemic.
ASML's customers are suffering more than the Group - at least for the time being. The latter, as we know, defends a superb competitive edge: relying on a genuine technological monopoly, it sells ultraviolet lithography equipment to chip and circuit manufacturers, achieving the best margins in the sector in the process.
Earnings per share will reach EUR19.9 in 2023, compared with EUR14.1 in 2022 and EUR7.18 five years ago. This exceptional performance brings the current valuation to nearly forty times earnings, well above the ten-year historical average. The market is clearly paying little heed to the downturn in new orders.
In terms of cash flow, cash generation was severely impacted this year by the increase in working capital requirements, which absorbed EUR3.6 billion more than last year. We can, however, see the glass as half full and attribute this to the Group's business growth.
Free cash flow thus reached EUR3.3 billion. EUR2.3 billion was paid out in dividends, and the remaining EUR1 billion was redirected to share buybacks - we like our accounts to be tidy at ASML. The financial position remains excellent, with between EUR2 and EUR2.5 billion in excess cash.
Return on equity (ROE) has reached 70%, an all-time record extraordinarily higher than its smoothed average over previous cycles, which has tended to hover around 15%-20%. One can only wonder about the sustainability of such an outperformance.