TAIWAN Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the dominant producer of advanced chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications, reported on Thursday (Oct 17) a forecast-beating 54 per cent jump in third-quarter profit on the back of soaring demand.
The world’s largest contract chipmaker, whose customers include Apple and Nvidia, has benefited from a surge towards AI across a spectrum of industries.
TSMC posted a net profit of NT$325.3 billion (S$13.3 billion) for the quarter ended Sep 30, compared with the NT$300.2 billion predicted by an LSEG SmartEstimate drawn from 22 analysts.
SmartEstimates give greater weighting to forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate.
TSMC, Asia’s most valuable publicly listed company, said that Q3 revenue rose 36 per cent year on year to US$23.5 billion, better than the company’s previous forecast of US$22.4 billion to US$23.2 billion. The company last week announced Q3 revenue in New Taiwan dollars, coming in at NT$759.7 billion.
Capital expenditure in Q3 was US$6.4 billion, TSMC said, compared with US$6.36 billion in the second quarter.
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On Tuesday, ASML, the world’s biggest chipmaking equipment supplier to companies including TSMC, forecast lower-than-expected 2025 sales and bookings on sustained weakness in parts of the chip market, pushing the Dutch firm’s shares to their biggest one-day drop since 1998.
TSMC is expected to update its outlook for the current quarter as well as for the full year, including its capital expenditure, as it races to expand production.
The chipmaker is spending billions of US dollars building new factories overseas, including US$65 billion on three plants in the US state of Arizona, though it has said most manufacturing will remain in Taiwan.
On its last earnings call in July, TSMC raised its full-year revenue forecast and adjusted its capital expenditure plans for this year to between US$30 billion and US$32 billion, compared with a previous forecast of US$28 billion to US$32 billion.
The second half of the year is traditionally the peak season for Taiwanese tech companies as they race to supply customers ahead of the year-end holiday season in major Western markets.
The AI boom has helped drive up TSMC shares, with its Taipei-listed stock leaping 75 per cent so far this year, compared with a 28 per cent gain for the broader market, giving it a market capitalisation of around US$840 billion.
TSMC, colloquially referred to in Taiwan as the “sacred mountain protecting the country” for its critical role in Taiwan’s export-dependent economy, faces little competition, though both Intel and Samsung are trying to challenge its dominance. REUTERS
