Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), the world's largest chip foundry will report its results for the first quarter on April 14th and give guidance for the second quarter.
Q1 Sales Hit New High, Beating Guidance
In a statement released Friday after the stock market closed, TSMC said it posted consolidated sales of NT$491.08 billion (US$16.99 billion) in the January-March period, up 12.07 percent from a quarter earlier and also up 35.5 percent from the same period a year earlier.
The results topped TSMC's first quarter sales guidance of between NT$458.16 billion and NT$474.72 billion, which was made at an investor conference in January.
Although the first quarter is a traditionally slow period for the global semiconductor industry, TSMC was not affected because of strong demand for high performance computing devices and automotive electronics, analysts said.
In March alone, TSMC had consolidated sales of NT$171.97 billion, up 17 percent from February due to the increase in working days after the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday ended on Feb. 6.
The March consolidated sales, the second highest monthly level in history behind January's NT$172.18 billion, were also up 33.2 percent from a year earlier, according to TSMC.
Management Voice:
In late March, TSMC Chairman Mark Liu said TSMC has left unchanged its 2022 capital expenditure plan ranging between US$40 billion and US$44 billion, although a lockdown in Shanghai, where TSMC runs a fab, could affect demand for products such as smartphones and TVs.
Liu said TSMC has also maintained a forecast of a 25-29 percent increase in sales for 2022.
TSMC has kept production running in China, even as many other factories suspended operations to cope with the local pandemic policy. The chip assembler said in end-March that it will rearrange production priorities to deal with a shift in demand caused by Covid restrictions in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Analyst Opinions:
TSMC’s inventory strategy on key materials such as silicon wafers and industrial gases will be a key focus at the 1Q results briefing, as rising geopolitical tension and slow global wafer capacity gains keep the supply picture foggy.
Demand for mobile phones, smart televisions and other gadgets from makers such as Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. remains robust even as consumers in major markets in Europe and the U.S. exit pandemic-era lockdowns and work-from-home arrangements. Meanwhile a chip shortage is yet to ease -- the wait times for semiconductor delivery grew again in March due to China’s Covid lockdowns and a Japan earthquake that hit production, according to research by Susquehanna Financial Group.
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