The company reported sales of 3.96 billion euro in the third quarter ended 30 September which was much better than the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street expected.

In the third quarter of 2019, ASML reported net profit of 627 million euros and sales of three billion euros.

ASML Chief Financial Officer Roger Dassen forecast sales of 3.7 billion euro in the fourth quarter and said the company expected “low double digit” growth in 2021.

ASML has a near monopoly on lithography systems, enormous machines that can cost up to $200 million each and play a vital role in the manufacture of computer chips, mapping out their circuitry.

ASML's customers include major chipmakers, notably global market leader TSMC, Samung and Intel.

The outfit’s financial performance has not yet been hurt by US-China tensions, it could be affected by a split in the supply lines for semiconductor production, which is highly integrated globally.

The Dutch company had already halted plans to sell its most advanced equipment to China after the US government pressured the Netherlands not to grant export licenses under “dual use” military applications.

New US trade curbs on SMIC mean ASML must now apply for a licence to sell even older generation equipment to China.

Still, the company raised its forecast for sales to Chinese customers to “a little over a billion” in 2020 from around 1 billion euros.