Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, became the world’s eighth biggest company in terms of market capitalization after a rally in its American depositary receipts (ADRs) on US markets on Monday.
TSMC’s ADRs rose 0.73 percent to close at NT$192.21, boosting the company’s market cap to US$996.8 billion, the eighth highest in the world, passing US-based investment firm Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s market value of US$992.4 billion. Berkshire Hathaway is owned by investment guru Warren Buffett.
TSMC’s ADRs hit an intraday high of US$194.25 on Monday in line with a robust showing by artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp, which rose 2.43 percent amid continued optimism toward AI development worldwide, dealers said.
Photo: An Rong Xu, Bloomberg
Yesterday, TSMC’s Taipei-lised shares rose 2.39 percent to close at NT$1,070, pushing up the benchmark TAIEX by 316.75 points, or 1.38 percent, to end at 23,292.04.
TSMC’s gains contributed about 200 points to the TAIEX’s rise and sent the electronics index and semiconductor sub-index higher by 1.89 percent and 2.09 percent, respectively.
“Many investors have embraced high hopes that TSMC will report good results for the third quarter and give impressive guidance for the fourth quarter and the whole of 2024 at an investor conference slated for Thursday, due to the AI boom,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang (黃國偉) said. “It is possible TSMC will soon test NT$1,080, a closing high seen on July 11.”
“After the TAIEX passed 23,000 points, I expect the main board to soon challenge the historical intraday high of 23,650 points seen on July 17 as TSMC keeps moving ahead,” Huang said. “However, investors should remain alert over possible volatility on Wednesday, when October futures contracts will be settled, as foreign institutional investors still own a large amount of short position contracts.”
Turnover totaled NT$410.35 billion (US$12.75 billion) yesterday on the main board, with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$33.43 billion of shares, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.