By Wen-Yee Lee, Faith Hung and Ben Blanchard
TAIPEI, April 16 (Reuters) – TSMC posted a hefty jump to record profit and forecast second-quarter gross sales would hit a historic excessive because the world’s greatest contract producer of superior AI chips scrambles to fulfill relentless starvation for its merchandise.
The firm, a serious provider to Nvidia, famous the world was within the midst of an “AI megatrend”, including its capital spending this yr can be on the excessive finish of earlier steering – remarks prone to ease investor considerations concerning the impression of the Iran conflict on AI chip demand.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s web profit for January-March surged 58% to T$572.5 billion ($18.2 billion), comfortably beating expectations and marking its eighth straight quarter of double-digit development.
For the present quarter, it forecast gross sales between $39 billion and $40.2 billion. That compares with $30.1 billion in the identical interval final yr and $35.9 billion within the first quarter.
“AI demand is extremely robust,” CEO C.C. Wei mentioned at an analysts name on the outcomes.
First-quarter outcomes confirmed that revenue from superior 3-nanometre chips now accounts for a quarter of the corporate’s gross sales, up sharply from simply 6% within the third quarter of 2023.
The insatiable demand for high-performance chips required for AI workloads has pushed Asia’s most beneficial firm to new heights.
Ahead of the earnings outcomes, TSMC shares closed up 0.2% at a record of T$2,085. Its market capitalisation is now almost double that of South Korean rival Samsung Electronics at round $1.7 trillion.
The conflict within the Middle East threatens to disrupt the availability of manufacturing supplies for semiconductors reminiscent of helium and hydrogen, however TSMC mentioned it had security inventory on hand.
TSMC is investing $165 billion to construct chip factories within the U.S. state of Arizona.
The firm has additionally revised its plans in Japan and is now set to fabricate 3-nanometre chips there, as an alternative of focusing on extra mature nodes.
TSMC’s Taipei-listed shares have gained 35% up to now this yr, outperforming the 28% rise for the broader market.
($1 = 31.5180 Taiwan {dollars})
(Reporting by Wen-Yee Lee, Faith Hung and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
