Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported record sales for last year after smashing monthly revenue records last month.
Analysts attributed the growth to robust demand for TSMC’s advanced 5-nanometer process, the latest technology the chipmaker has begun to mass produce.
Demand is being driven largely by emerging sectors, such as 5G, high-performance computing and automotive applications.
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TSMC said in a statement that it posted NT$1.59 trillion (US$57.47 billion) in consolidated sales last year, up 18.5 percent from 2020.
The company’s consolidated sales stood at NT$155.38 billion last month, up 4.8 percent from a month earlier and 32.4 percent from a year earlier.
Although the fourth quarter has usually been the semiconductor industry’s slow season, TSMC still showed a month-on-month increase.
After last month’s showing, TSMC’s consolidated sales for the fourth quarter hit a new quarterly high of NT$438.19 billion, up 5.67 percent from a quarter earlier and 21.2 percent from a year earlier.
The company’s fourth-quarter revenue was in line with its forecast of between NT$431.2 billion and NT$439.6 billion, falling at the higher end of the estimate.
TSMC is to hold an investors’ conference on Thursday to detail its fourth-quarter results, and to give guidance for this quarter and the rest of the year.
Many investors have high hopes, expecting the chipmaker to announce a capital expenditure budget of more than US$40 billion for this year, to expand production capacity and upgrade its technology to maintain the advantage it has over its peers.
In a research note, a US brokerage forecast that TSMC could post a 26.1 percent annual increase in sales in US dollar terms for the year, or earnings per share of NT$29 to NT$30 per share.
For the first quarter, the brokerage forecast a 3.7 percent sequential increase in consolidated sales, as TSMC remains unaffected by the effects of the slow season.
The Chinese-language Economic Daily News yesterday reported that several international tech giants, such as Apple Inc, Nvidia Corp, Qualcomm Inc and Advanced Micro Devices Inc, have paid TSMC deposits in a bid to secure production capacity, due to the international chip supply shortage.
TSMC released its sales report before the equity market closed. The company’s shares yesterday closed up 1.42 percent at NT$643 in Taipei trading.
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