Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs.
“The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City.
TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said.
Photo:An Rong Xu, Bloomberg
In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce about increases in manufacturing costs in the US if the levies were implemented, he said.
As TSMC sources some manufacturing equipment from US equipment makers, such as Applied Materials Inc, those suppliers could face the burden of the levies on equipment made in Asia, he said.
“We told them that tariffs would do no good for any party under such circumstances,” Wei said. “They said they would take such circumstances into consideration.”
Regarding sector-specific tariffs on semiconductors, he said the company simply requested “fair treatment” to safeguard its competitiveness, adding that TSMC has no control over tariffs, which are determined through negotiations between governments.
Nevertheless, the chipmaker said it is certain that AI chips would fuel its revenue growth this year.
“Demand is very high,” Wei said. “We are trying hard to increase supply, but still unable to fully satisfy demand.”
The company has also more than doubled its capacity of advanced packaging technology, or chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, to alleviate constraints, but supply remains tight, he said.
The chipmaker yesterday maintained a forecast for 25 percent growth in full-year revenue and expects net profit to set a record high this year.
However, it dismissed a Bloomberg News report about its evaluation about building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates, saying the likelihood was slim, because of a lack of customers.
“When TSMC evaluates a potential site to build a manufacturing fab, customer demand is always the No. 1 factor,” Wei said. “Chip designers are [mostly] from the US, Taiwan and China. A few are from Europe or Japan. That’s all.”
The US remains a relatively ideal site to build new manufacturing facilities, given the country’s long history in semiconductors, and its larger pool of experienced engineers and workers, he said.
However, it would be “very, very difficult” for TSMC to build US$100 billion factories in the US as planned as it takes at least two to two-and-a-half years to build an advanced fab, he added.
TSMC yesterday said every 1 percent of appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar would reduce its gross margin by 0.4 percentage points.
An 8 percent appreciation of the NT dollar against the US dollar so far this year has eroded more than 3 percentage points of its gross margin, it added.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) share of the global foundry market rose to almost 70 percent last year amid booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI), market information advisory firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said on Thursday. The contract chipmaker posted US$122.54 billion in revenue, up 36.1 percent from a year earlier, accounting for 69.9 percent of the global market, TrendForce said. Its share was up from 64.4 percent in 2024, it said. TSMC’s closest rival, Samsung Electronics, was a distant second, posting US$12.63 billion in sales, down 3.9 percent from a year earlier, for a 7.2 percent share of the global market. In the
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
RSS