TSMC raises guidance, CapEx
TSMC raised its 2026 revenue guidance and increased capital‑expenditure plans, citing an ongoing AI‑driven demand wave. The company warned geopolitical risks could raise costs even as some analysts expect more than 30% sales growth and industry forecasts point to very large multiyear capital spending. (tomshardware.com) (tribuneindia.com)
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. raised its 2026 sales outlook above 30% growth and said capital spending will land near the top of its $52 billion to $56 billion range. (investor.tsmc.com) (finance.yahoo.com) The company reported first-quarter revenue of $35.9 billion, up 40.6% from a year earlier, with gross margin at 66.2% and net profit of NT$572.48 billion. For the second quarter, TSMC guided revenue to $39.0 billion to $40.2 billion. (investor.tsmc.com 1) (investor.tsmc.com 2) TSMC said the lift came from demand for its most advanced manufacturing, the part of the chip business that turns designs from Nvidia, Apple and others into finished wafers at scale. Its investor materials said first-quarter growth was supported by “strong demand” for leading-edge process technologies. (investor.tsmc.com 1) (investor.tsmc.com 2) That matters because TSMC sits at the center of the artificial-intelligence hardware buildout: it manufactures many of the advanced chips used in data centers, smartphones and high-performance computing. On TSMC’s own breakdown, high-performance computing made up 59% of first-quarter revenue, ahead of smartphones at 28%. (investor.tsmc.com) (cnbc.com) The spending plan is also a signal to the rest of the supply chain. TSMC had already set a 2026 capital budget of $52 billion to $56 billion, above its 2025 spending outlook of $38 billion to $42 billion, and it now says spending should come in toward the upper end of that 2026 range. (finance.yahoo.com) (fool.com) TSMC’s management also flagged risks. Reuters reported that Chairman and Chief Executive C.C. Wei said the company was watching higher component prices and potential supply-chain disruption tied to conflict in the Middle East, including materials and energy inputs used in chipmaking. (usnews.com) (cnbc.com) Analysts are reading the forecast as evidence that AI demand has not cooled despite those risks. Reuters said the new outlook was an increase from TSMC’s previous projection of roughly 30% growth in U.S. dollar terms. (finance.yahoo.com) (bloomberg.com) The next test comes with second-quarter results and monthly revenue reports, which will show whether TSMC can keep lifting output fast enough to match the demand wave it now says will carry through 2026. (tsmc.com) (investor.tsmc.com)
