Head-To-Head Analysis: ASML (ASML) & The Competition

ASML (NASDAQ:ASML) is one of 221 publicly-traded companies in the “Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment” industry, but how does it weigh in compared to its peers? We will compare ASML to related businesses based on the strength of its risk, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations and valuation.

Dividends

ASML pays an annual dividend of $7.12 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. ASML pays out 17.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, “Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment” companies pay a dividend yield of 1.0% and pay out 29.7% of their earnings in the form of a dividend.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for ASML and its peers, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
ASML	3	2	17	2	2.75
ASML Competitors	3505	12359	25787	999	2.57

ASML currently has a consensus price target of $2,204.71, suggesting a potential upside of 54.74%. As a group, “Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment” companies have a potential upside of 52.61%. Given ASML’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts plainly believe ASML is more favorable than its peers.

Profitability

This table compares ASML and its peers’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
ASML	34.10%	64.24%	26.08%
ASML Competitors	-1,267.00%	-126.31%	-3.96%

Risk & Volatility

ASML has a beta of 1.8, meaning that its share price is 80% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ASML’s peers have a beta of 2.80, meaning that their average share price is 180% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares ASML and its peers gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Net Income	Price/Earnings Ratio
ASML	$39.47 billion	$10.87 billion	35.08
ASML Competitors	$1,259.15 billion	$2.53 billion	8.09

ASML’s peers have higher revenue, but lower earnings than ASML. ASML is trading at a higher price-to-earnings ratio than its peers, indicating that it is currently more expensive than other companies in its industry.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

26.1% of ASML shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 54.7% of shares of all “Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment” companies are owned by institutional investors. 11.9% of shares of all “Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment” companies are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

ASML beats its peers on 10 of the 15 factors compared.

About ASML

ASML Holding N.V. develops, produces, markets, sells, and services advanced semiconductor equipment systems for chipmakers. It offers advanced semiconductor equipment systems, including lithography, metrology, and inspection systems. The company also provides extreme ultraviolet lithography systems; and deep ultraviolet lithography systems comprising immersion and dry lithography solutions to manufacture various range of semiconductor nodes and technologies. In addition, it offers metrology and inspection systems, including YieldStar optical metrology systems to assess the quality of patterns on the wafers; and HMI electron beam solutions to locate and analyze individual chip defects. Further, the company provides computational lithography solutions, and lithography systems and control software solutions; and refurbishes and upgrades lithography systems, as well as offers customer support and related services. It operates in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, China, rest of Asia, the Netherlands, rest of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the United States. The company was formerly known as ASM Lithography Holding N.V. and changed its name to ASML Holding N.V. in 2001. ASML Holding N.V. was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Veldhoven, the Netherlands.