TSMC Q4 profit poised to soar 27% as AI demand drives growth

By Wen-Yee Lee

TAIPEI, Jan 12 (Reuters) - TSMC (TSM), the world's largest shaper of precocious artificial quality chips, is expected to station a 27% leap successful fourth-quarter nett net to a grounds owed to ​the seemingly insatiable request for AI infrastructure.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world's apical declaration chipmaker and ‌a cardinal supplier to Nvidia and Apple, is forecast to study a nett net of T$475.2 cardinal ($15.02 billion) for the 3 months done ‌December 31, according to an LSEG SmartEstimate compiled from 19 analysts.

SmartEstimates spot greater value connected forecasts from analysts who are much consistently accurate.

TSMC, Asia's astir invaluable listed institution with a marketplace capitalisation of astir $1.38 trillion - much than doubly that of South Korean rival Samsung Electronics - is owed to study connected Thursday and volition supply first-quarter and full-year guidance ⁠in an net telephone scheduled for ‌0600 GMT.

It past week posted a market-forecast-beating emergence successful fourth-quarter gross of 20.45%. Any nett effect supra T$452.3 cardinal would people the company's highest-ever quarterly nett income and its ‍eighth consecutive 4th of nett growth.

Fourth-quarter gross was driven by afloat utilisation of TSMC’s 3-nanometre capacity, fuelled by the iPhone 17 bid utilizing Apple’s A19 chip, arsenic good arsenic sustained robust request for AI, said Galen Zeng, elder probe manager astatine probe ​firm IDC.

Looking ahead, Zeng said IDC expects TSMC’s gross to turn 25%–30% successful 2026 successful U.S. dollar ‌terms, up from its erstwhile forecast of 22%–26%, citing booming request for AI server accelerators and important contributions from the company’s next-generation 2-nanometre node.

"The main operator is the explosive maturation of the AI server accelerator manufacturing market," Zeng said, adding that the marketplace is projected to turn 78% year-over-year successful 2026.

Shay Boloor, main marketplace strategist astatine Futurum Equities, said AI request is intelligibly accelerating and TSMC continues to summation stock astatine the starring edge, ⁠where competitors are struggling to support pace.

But a faster-than-expected ramp-up of ​overseas fabs could dilute borderline gains expected from TSMC's 2-nanometre node ​and pricing, helium added.

TSMC is investing $165 cardinal to physique spot factories successful the U.S. successful the authorities of Arizona, and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said successful a podcast ‍released past week the institution ⁠was acceptable to put much into the country.

TSMC, which is presently successful its pre-earnings quiescent period, did not reply to a Reuters petition for comment.