TSMC posts record quarter

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing said on April 10 that first-quarter revenue rose to a record NT$1.134 trillion, lifted by continued demand for artificial intelligence chips. (tsmc.com) The company said March revenue alone reached NT$415.19 billion, up 30.7% from February and 45.2% from a year earlier. Reuters reported the January-through-March total was about $35.7 billion and above market forecasts. (tsmc.com, reuters.com) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is the world’s largest contract chipmaker, which means it builds processors designed by companies such as Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices rather than selling most chips under its own brand. Its quarterly revenue is treated as an early read on spending across data centers, smartphones, and other electronics. (reuters.com, cnbc.com) The immediate driver has been the artificial intelligence buildout, which has pushed cloud companies and chip designers to order more advanced processors and the manufacturing capacity behind them. CNBC reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is one of a small group of companies able to make the most advanced chips at scale. (cnbc.com) That demand has also tightened supply in leading-edge production, the most advanced manufacturing lines used for high-performance computing chips. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing’s investor page says the company will give full first-quarter results on April 16, after earlier guiding for revenue of $34.6 billion to $35.8 billion and gross margin of 63% to 65%. (investor.tsmc.com) Price has been part of the story too. CNBC cited Semiconductor Research analyst G. Dan Hutcheson saying higher prices for the company’s most advanced chips were a factor in the first-quarter sales beat. (cnbc.com) The company had already finished 2025 at scale. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing reported fourth-quarter 2025 revenue of $26.88 billion in January, and said high-performance computing accounted for 53% of quarterly revenue, ahead of smartphones at 35%. (investor.tsmc.com) The next test comes on April 16, when Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is scheduled to publish profit, margin, and capital spending details that will show how much of this record quarter flowed through to earnings. (investor.tsmc.com)