Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is scheduled to report its third quarter results before the market opens on Thursday, October 17th.
TSMC produces chips for some of the world's largest tech companies, including Apple, NVIDIA Corp, and Advanced Micro Devices.
Third-Quarter Revenue Easily Beats Market Forecast
TSMC reported on Wednesday (October 9) third-quarter revenue that easily beat both the market and company's own forecasts and the performance has eased concerns over a potential slowdown in demand for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.
Revenue in the July-September period of this year came in at T$759.69 billion ($23.62 billion), versus the average projection for $23.285 billion. This number was not only strong in absolute terms, but the company also once again beat its own guidance: TSMC had guided for US$22.4 billion to US$23.2 billion, but actual results outpaced the top end of the guidance page.
TSMC also reported September sales worth NT$251.87 billion ($7.82 billion), in what marks a 39% increase in its revenue compared to the same month last year.
The company’s success punctuates the continuing demand for cutting-edge chips essential to powering AI applications, cloud computing and other high-performance technologies. In 2Q24, the company derives more than half of its revenue from the high-performance computing (HPC) segment.
Since 2020, TSMC’s sales have more than doubled as demand for high-performance chips surged alongside generative AI and machine learning technologies. A significant portion of TSMC’s growth can be attributed to AI hardware, with Nvidia, the leading producer of AI chips, continuing to see high demand for its GPUs.
Wall Street analysts are currently predicting that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company will report earnings per share of around $1.79 for the third quarter.
Pay Attention to Gross Margin and Q4 Guidance
We already know what the reported revenue results will look like, but we don't know yet about two other important things: TSMC's gross margin and its guidance for Q4.
The better-than-anticipated revenue reflects strong demand for AI chips and new N3E process orders from Apple, Qualcomm and MediaTek, despite delays in shipments of Nvidia’s Blackwell chips. Gross margin might also exceed the guidance midpoint of 54.5%. Focus in 3Q earnings call will be on whether 4Q guidance can exceed consensus’ 7% sequential-growth estimate. While Apple’s A18 chip orders may decline due to soft demand for new iPhone 16s, robust orders from Nvidia and Intel are likely to offset any revenue shortfall. Other key topics include the potential for earlier 2-nanometer (N2) node mass production and plans to expand its chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging capacity in 2025, according to Bloomberg analyst Charles Shum.
The Semiconductor Market's Growth Is Encouraging TSMC to Raise Capital Spending and Expand Capacity
The global semiconductor market's revenue is expected to cross $1.3 trillion in 2032, up from $547 billion last year. This explains why TSMC is set to spend a lot on enhancing its manufacturing footprint. The company intends to spend between $30 billion and $32 billion on capital expenditure in 2024 as compared to its earlier estimate of $28 billion to $30 billion.
TSMC has been placing large volumes of orders for production equipment and factory engineering projects in support of its fast capacity expansion, dispelling skepticism about the AI chip boom.
Morgan Stanley saw TSMC's faster expansion in 2nm and 3nm chip and CoWos advanced packaging capacity to meet very strong AI semiconductor demand, and raising its 2025 capital expenditure forecast for TSMC from US$35 billion to US$38 billion, with CoWos' monthly output expected to rise to 80,000 units next year, Morgan Stanley released a research report saying.
TSMC could continue to post a revenue compound annual growth rate of 15%-20% over the next five years, driven by both AI chip demand and the outsourcing by integrated device manufacturers, Morgan Stanley analysts also say in a research note.