{"id":697154,"date":"2026-01-15T07:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T07:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/697154\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T07:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T07:22:10","slug":"tsmc-fourth-quarter-profit-beats-estimates-soaring-35-as-ai-chip-demand-stays-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/697154\/","title":{"rendered":"TSMC fourth-quarter profit beats estimates, soaring 35%, as AI chip demand stays strong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TSMC offices in San Jose, California, on April 18, 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company on Thursday reported a 35% increase in fourth-quarter profit, beating estimates and hitting a fresh record as demand for artificial intelligence chips remained strong.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the company&#8217;s results versus LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Revenue: 1.046 trillion new Taiwan dollars ($33.73 billion), vs. NT$1.034 trillion expected<\/li>\n<li>Net income: NT$505.74 billion, vs. NT$478.37 billion\u00a0expected<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The world&#8217;s largest contract chipmaker has now posted year-over-year profit growth for eight consecutive quarters.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, TSMC&#8217;s revenue in the December quarter rose by 20.5% from a year ago to surpass NT$1 trillion, also beating forecasts.<\/p>\n<p>TSMC, Asia&#8217;s largest technology company by market capitalization, has benefited greatly from the proliferation of artificial intelligence, producing advanced AI processors for clients such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/NVDA\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nvidia<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/AMD\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">AMD<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The company&#8217;s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsmc.com\/english\/dedicatedFoundry\/technology\/platform_HPC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> high-performance computing<\/a> division, which includes artificial intelligence and 5G applications, made up the majority of sales in the October-December quarter.<\/p>\n<p>TSMC said advanced chips measuring 7-nanometer or smaller made up 77% of total wafer revenue during the quarter.\u00a0For full-year 2025, those chips made up 74% of revenue, up from 69% in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>In semiconductor technology, smaller nanometer sizes indicate more compact transistor designs, allowing faster processing speeds and greater energy efficiency.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The demand for AI remains very strong, driving overall chip demand across the entire server industry,&#8221; Counterpoint Research senior analyst Jake Lai told CNBC, predicting that 2026 will be another &#8220;breakout year&#8221; for AI server demand.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With TSMC&#8217;s ongoing 2nm capacity expansion and new production contributing to revenue, along with continuous expansion of advanced packaging&#8230; TSMC is expected to maintain strong performance in 2026,&#8221; Lai said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, he added that chip demand tied to consumer electronics such as smartphones and PCs could be affected by the ongoing memory shortage and price hikes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TSMC offices in San Jose, California, on April 18, 2024. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images Taiwan Semiconductor&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,3083,3085,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-697154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-breaking-news-technology","11":"tag-business-news","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115897915413433501","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}