Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast.
Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year.
Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to a TSMC statement.
Photo: EPA
Annual revenue slightly surpassed an estimate of NT$3.78 trillion made by Goldman Sachs Research on Sunday, but largely matched KGI Securities Investment Advisory Co’s (凱基投顧)
expectations of NT$3.81 trillion.
The chipmaker in October last year said that revenue growth would be supported by faster-than-expected demand for AI accelerators, which would grow at rates greater than 45 percent for the 2024 to 2029 period that it estimated in July. That would fuel demand for its leading-edge technologies such as 3-nanometer technology, it said
“Everything related [to AI], like front-end and back-end capacity, is very tight,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors,
adding that the company is working hard to increase capacity to catch up with customers’ demand.
To cope with strong AI chip demand, TSMC plans to speed up its 2-nanometer chip production in Taiwan and to quicken its chip manufacturing technology upgrade at its fabs in Arizona, it said. The chipmaker planned to produce 3-nanometer or even more advanced chips such as 2-nanometer chips from its second fab in Arizona.
TSMC is scheduled to release detailed financial figures of last quarter and last year as well as to give its business outlook for this year during a quarterly conference scheduled for Thursday next week.
KGI expected the chipmaker to make NT$475.89 billion net profit last quarter, higher than the consensus of NT$454.67 billion, according to a KGI report released on Monday. That represents quarterly growth of 5.22 percent from NT$452.3 billion based on KGI’s forecast, rather than a flat quarter as most analysts expected.
Gross margin was expected to reach 61.5 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, exceeding TSMC’s guidance of between 59 percent and 61 percent, the KGI report said.
For all of last year, TSMC is expected to report another record-breaking net profit of NT$1.69 trillion or NT$1.68 trillion as projected by KGI and Goldman Sachs Research, soaring about 44 percent from NT$1.17 trillion reported for 2024.
Earnings per share would rise NT$64.7 to NT$65.1, up from NT$45.25 in 2024.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
The US said it plans to help build a first-of-its-kind industrial hub in the Philippines to boost production of inputs crucial to US supply chains. The 4,000-acre hub is intended to be “a purpose-built platform for allied manufacturing” and “an investment acceleration hub where the specific industrial activities are shaped by market demand,” the US Department of State said on Thursday. The project — touted as an “economic security zone” — would be within the Luzon Economic Corridor, a flagship economic project backed by the US and Japan on the main Philippine island. The project was also described as “the first artificial intelligence
RSS