Quarterly earnings figures from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, due Thursday, are forecast to mark a sixth straight period of peak profitability, with heavy outlays across the technology sector on artificial intelligence infrastructure cited as the primary driver, according to a news outlet.
Analysts polled by LSEG's SmartEstimate system — a methodology that assigns heavier weighting to forecasters with stronger track records — put third-quarter net profit at roughly T$746 billion ($23 billion), a figure representing a 65% climb for the chipmaker that holds the leading position in advanced AI semiconductor production. A quarterly profit reading above T$707 billion would place the company at a record high for a single three-month period, extending an unbroken run of year-on-year gains that has now stretched across eleven consecutive quarters.
Third-quarter figures disclosed by TSMC the previous week showed revenue climbing 50% against the same period a year earlier, reaching an all-time high and coming in above analyst forecasts. Demand for TSMC's chip-fabrication lines dedicated to AI workloads — along with its CoWoS packaging process, which bonds processors and memory into a single high-performance unit that serves as a foundational component in AI accelerators — has remained steady, industry analysts have noted.
That appetite for advanced chips has lifted TSMC — a foundational supplier to both Nvidia and Apple — to the top of Asia's corporate rankings by market worth, with its valuation sitting at roughly $2.1 trillion, a figure nearly twice the market capitalisation of South Korean electronics group Samsung.
Directing attention toward guidance will be the primary purpose of the session. During the earnings call, scheduled for 06:00 GMT (2:00 am ET), fourth-quarter projections and a revised outlook for the full year are set to be released. Projections from Morgan Stanley's Charlie Chan place TSMC's full-year revenue growth guidance at the low-to-mid 40% range — a modest lift from the current above-40% figure — with robust appetite for the chipmaker's 3-nanometre technology cited as the underlying driver.
Revising its annual expenditure outlook that month, TSMC set a new capital investment range of $60 billion to $64 billion for the year. Questions about the company's growth into Texas are also on the table, according to those tracking the situation. A $265 billion commitment to semiconductor manufacturing facilities across Arizona anchors TSMC's US expansion plans, while a separate Texas investment was reportedly under consideration as of last September, according to news coverage at the time.
Under plans Musk put forward the week prior, his companies would take on the development and day-to-day operation of the Terafab AI chip facility, with TSMC identified as a potential occupant for part of the site. Two perspectives on Texas emerged from analyst commentary: one view held that capacity constraints in Arizona, if demand kept rising, would make a Texas site a practical necessity within roughly five years, while a separate analyst pointed to unbuilt Arizona facilities as reason to treat Texas expansion as a distant rather than near-term consideration.
Taipei-listed shares of TSMC have added about 63% over the course of the year, tracking fairly close to the 69% advance posted across Taiwan's broader equity market, a pattern that puts forward guidance at the centre of what could move the stock when results land.
