Strong sales of sophisticated semiconductors helped Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC overcome a general industry downturn that hurt cheaper commodity chips to report a 78% increase in fourth-quarter net profit.
The largest contract chip manufacturer in the world and a significant supplier to Apple Inc., Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), saw its net profit increase to T$295.9 billion ($9.72 billion) from T$166.2 billion in the same period last year.
This contrasted with the average of 21 analyst projections, as reported by Refinitiv, of T$289.44 billion.
A global chip scarcity that was caused by a pandemic-driven increase in purchases of smartphones and laptops has helped TSMC's revenue. Although the shortfall has subsided, analysts claimed that the company's dominance in producing some of the most cutting-edge semiconductors in the world has maintained its order book full.
Compared to TSMC's previous projected range of $19.9 billion to $20.7 billion, revenue for the fourth quarter increased by 26.7% to $19.93 billion.
Shares of TSMC decreased 27.1% in 2022, but have increased 8.5% so far this year, giving the business a $412.78 billion market value. In contrast to the benchmark index's 0.1% decline, the stock increased by 0.4%.
TSMC produced more than 12,302 products for a number of applications across a range of end markets, including smartphones, high performance computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), automobiles, and digital consumer electronics, while serving around 535 customers