Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday reported record sales for the first quarter, which analysts attributed to solid demand for emerging technologies.
Consolidated revenue totaled NT$592.64 billion (US$18.51 billion) in the January-to-March period, up 16.5 percent from a year earlier, but down 5.26 percent from the previous quarter, TSMC said in a statement.
The first-quarter revenue beat analysts’ average projection of NT$579.5 billion, Bloomberg News reported.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
That performance lends weight to expectations that the world’s most valuable chipmaker would return to solid growth this year after weathering a post-COVID-19-pandemic cratering of smartphone and computer sales.
TSMC is budgeting capital expenditure of US$28 billion to US$32 billion and expects revenue to grow 21 percent to 26 percent annually in US dollar terms this year, reversing last year’s slight decline.
Robust shipments of high-end chips used in emerging applications such as high-performance computing devices helped TSMC generate record revenue for the first quarter, analysts said.
Demand for high-performance computing gadgets also helped the chipmaker offset the weakness in the global smartphone market and cap the sequential sales decline in the quarter, they added.
The first-quarter revenue also beat TSMC’s previous estimate of between NT$559.80 billion and NT$584.68 billion.
TSMC, a main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, is scheduled to hold an investors’ conference on Thursday next week, during which it is to release more of its first-quarter results and provide its outlook for the second quarter.
TSMC’s operations would stage a rebound in the second quarter from the first quarter, which is traditionally a slow season for the semiconductor industry, analysts said.
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