Ben Blanchard and Wen-Yee Lee
TAIPEI (Reuters) – TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker, said Thursday that revenue jumped 42% in the first quarter, slightly above market consensus, benefiting from the AI boom.
Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing company said in a brief statement that revenue in March was A$839.3 billion (US$25.6 billion).
That’s higher than the $835.7 billion LSEG Smartestimate draw from 19 analysts and is in line with the company’s guidance of $25 billion to $25.8 billion. It said in February that revenue could drop at the lower end of the range due to the $161 million impact of the earthquake in Taiwan in January.
TSMC will report earnings for the first quarter of the year on April 17, including the current quarter and full year outlook.
The company’s clients, including Apple and Nvidia, have been one of the main beneficiaries of AI advancements, which far offset the pandemic demand used in consumer electronics such as tablets.
Like other companies, TSMC shares have also plummeted since U.S. President Donald Trump announced full import tariffs last week, although semiconductors have not been included so far.
News of Trump’s announcement of a suspension of tariffs left his listed stocks up 9.9% on Thursday, with losses at a 19.7% loss this year, consistent with the index’s broader 17.5% drop.
Taiwan’s Foxconn is the world’s largest contract electronics maker and has made AI servers for NVIDIA, and also reported bumper sales, recording its highest revenue ever recorded in the first quarter.
($1 = 32.8410 Taiwan dollars)
(Reported by Ben Blanchard and Wen-Yee Lee; Editor of Edwina Gibbs)
