Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue rose 33 percent year-on-year last month, in a positive signal to investors betting on a smartphone market recovery and sustained demand for Nvidia Corp’s artificial intelligence (AI) chips.
Sales reached NT$250.87 billion (US$7.8 billion) last month, slowing from the previous month’s 45 percent growth to a record NT$256.95 billion.
In the first eight months of this year, TSMC’s sales totaled NT$1.77 trillion, up 30.8 percent from a year earlier.
Photo: CNA
While just a month’s snapshot, the results could assuage concerns about whether the market has overestimated the durability of AI infrastructure spending.
Nvidia’s shares shed about US$279 billion on Tuesday last week in their biggest single-day loss, after reporting earnings that failed to live up to the loftiest expectations.
That puts TSMC on track to beat average projections for third-quarter revenue by a slight margin, Bernstein analysts led by Mark Li wrote.
“If September follows the average seasonality of the past eight years, third-quarter revenue would come 5 percent to 6 percent above both the guidance mid-point & consensus,” he said.
For the third quarter, analysts expect the chipmaker’s sales to grow 37 percent year-on-year. In July, TSMC told investors that its third-quarter revenue would range between US$22.4 billion and US$23.2 billion.
Taiwan’s largest company now makes more than half of its revenue from high-performance computing, the segment of its business driven by AI demand. Nvidia’s go-to chipmaker is also the main manufacturer for the iPhone’s main processor.
Apple Inc on Monday unveiled the iPhone 16, built for AI “from the ground up,” but with capabilities that would be gradually added to the device via software updates. Wall Street is betting on a bounce-back in demand for mobile devices.
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