The key supplier of advanced chips for the world’s leading tech companies saw record revenue in the final quarter of 2023.
The world’s largest chip maker reported record revenue in the last quarter of 2024, adding some support to the simmering artificial intelligence investment story.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
logged October to December quarterly revenue of NT$868.5 billion, or $26 billion, based on MarketWatch’s calculations of the company’s monthly revenues. That beats a revenue forecast of NT$854 billion, compiled from a FactSet poll of analysts.
TSMC’s annual revenue totaled NT$2.9 trillion, a near 34% gain versus the same period in 2023. December’s revenue total of NT$278 billion was still under the high point for last year — NT$314 billion in October.
he Taiwan company is a primary supplier of advanced semiconductors for the world’s biggest technology companies, including Nvidia
NVDA
and Apple
AAPL
.
Its U.S.-listed shares rose 89% in 2024 for the best annual performance since 1999 as tech stocks remained the driving force for stock market gains. Ahead of Friday’s open, U.S.-listed shares of TSM were up 1.5%.
TSMC shares are up around 5% as 2024 gets under way, but have slipped this week, amid weakness for Nvidia after Chief Executive Jensen Huang failed to blow away investors in an address at the CES consumer-electronics show earlier in the week.
Read: Nvidia’s stock falls further — but analysts see a future that’s brighter than ever
A team led by JPMorgan analyst Gokul Hariharan told clients that TSMC’s fourth-quarter beat came as ramp up for its next-generation N3 processing nodes from Qualcomm
QCOM
and MediaTek
2454
“balanced the ramp down of the Apple product cycle.”
He said TSMC, which will report fourth-quarter results on Jan. 16, to reflect continued “strong sales momentum,” with only a 1% decline in U.S. dollar revenue. He sees a seasonal decline from Apple will be offset by continued demand for its N3 processing nodes by Intel, Qualcomm and MediaTek, with upside from cryptocurrency mining demand.
JPMorgan also sees more demand ahead for its N5 processing nodes, helped by a ramp-up for Nvidia’s Blackwell AI chips — media reports have said Nvidia has been talking to TSMC about producing those at its Arizona facility — as well as “strong demand” for GPUs/AI accelerators, and restocking for some high-end smartphones in China.
The analyst said 2025 should be “another strong year” for TSMC with U.S. dollar revenue growth of around 27%, driven by multiple factors. Those include demand for the company’s leading edge technology, which should keep utilization rates full for its advanced N3 and N5 chips, alongside expected price hikes. Also, they see growth in advanced packaging revenues, due to strong demand for that technology.
By: Barbara Koolmeyer
