TSMC profit surge and equipment boom

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is heading into earnings week with analysts expecting another record quarter, as spending on chipmaking tools also hit a record. (reuters.com) (semi.org) Analysts polled by London Stock Exchange Group SmartEstimate expect Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to report January-to-March net profit of about T$542.6 billion, or roughly $17.1 billion, when it reports on Thursday, April 16. Reuters said that would be up about 50% from a year earlier and mark a fourth straight quarterly profit record. (reuters.com) (investor.tsmc.com) The company already reported first-quarter revenue of T$839.25 billion on April 10, up 41.6% from a year earlier and above its own guidance range of $25.0 billion to $25.8 billion for the quarter. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing said in January that high-performance computing, the category that includes artificial intelligence and data-center chips, made up 53% of fourth-quarter 2025 revenue. (cnbc.com) (investor.tsmc.com) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is the contract manufacturer behind many of the most advanced chips used by Nvidia, Apple and Advanced Micro Devices. When cloud companies order more artificial-intelligence servers, that demand shows up both in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing’s wafer sales and in new orders for the machines needed to build more capacity. (reuters.com) (investor.tsmc.com) That factory buildout is now visible across the supply chain. SEMI, the industry trade group, said worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales rose 15% in 2025 to a record $135.1 billion, up from $117.1 billion in 2024, driven by investment in advanced logic, memory and artificial-intelligence-related capacity. (semi.org) SEMI said China remained the largest market for chip equipment in 2025 at $49.6 billion, though that was down 3% from 2024. Korea ranked second at $20.5 billion, up 3%, and Taiwan ranked third at $16.6 billion, up 16%; the Americas rose 14% to $14.3 billion. (semi.org) The mix of spending also shifted. SEMI said wafer-processing equipment, the tools that etch and deposit tiny circuit patterns on silicon, climbed 9% to $107.6 billion, while assembly and packaging equipment jumped 25% to $5.4 billion and test equipment rose 20% to $7.1 billion. (semi.org) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing has been pushing further into advanced packaging, which stacks and connects chips more tightly so artificial-intelligence processors and high-bandwidth memory can move data faster. Reuters said demand for that packaging capacity has become a key constraint as customers race to deploy more artificial-intelligence systems. (reuters.com) Investors will get the next check on that demand on April 16, when Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing publishes full first-quarter results and updates its outlook for the second quarter. The question is no longer whether artificial-intelligence demand is lifting chip sales, but how long manufacturers can keep expanding fast enough to match it. (investor.tsmc.com) (reuters.com)