Besi says ASML is not hybrid bonding rival as AI demand drives orders

By Nathan Vifflin

Oct 22 (Reuters) - BE Semiconductor Industries on Thursday beat market expectations for third-quarter orders on strong AI data-centre demand and dismissed analyst reports that ASML could challenge it in hybrid bonding.

Order intake, the industry's most closely watched metric, was €342.6 million ($385.2 million), rising 17% from the second quarter and 96% from a year ago. Analysts polled by researcher Visible Alpha had expected €298 million.

The company also said it would launch a new €100 million share buyback on October 27.

ASML NOT SEEN AS HYBRID BONDING RIVAL, CEO SAYS

Besi is betting on hybrid bonding, a technology that joins stacked chips directly for faster, more energy-efficient connections. Orders for those systems have more than doubled this year compared with all of 2025, it said.

"We do not view ASML as a hybrid bonding competitor," CEO Richard Blickman said in the statement, adding that the two Dutch companies were working together to improve how precisely Besi's machines place chips.

Besi's shares took a dip last week after research firm SemiAnalysis said that chipmaking equipment maker ASML appeared to be developing a rival hybrid bonding tool. ASML has not confirmed this.

Blickman said that, to the best of his knowledge, ASML was interested in "3D transistor stacking inside the chip over the next decade and not in competing with Besi".

Investors have also worried that memory makers such as Micron or SK Hynix might be slow to adopt hybrid bonding for high-bandwidth memory, a key component in AI accelerators. Besi shares have roughly halved since a June peak.

SOFTER Q4 OUTLOOK

Besi expects fourth-quarter revenue to be broadly unchanged from the third quarter’s €283.4 million, give or take 5%. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected third- and fourth-quarter revenue of €277.3 million and €291.5 million, respectively.

It said some customers had asked for deliveries of third-quarter orders to be timed with their production plans for the first half of 2027.

ING analyst Marc Hesselink said that stronger orders, hybrid bonding momentum, the ASML clarification and the buyback more than offset the softer guidance, “particularly given the timing-related nature of the shortfall”.

($1 = 0.8894 euros)

(Reporting by Nathan Vifflin in Gdansk, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)