Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the global leader in microchip manufacturing, increased its revenues by more than 40% year on year in the second quarter.
According to a trading update published on Thursday, the Taiwanese tech titan brought in more than US$20 billion on a 53% margin in the three months ending 30 June.
TSMC’s market-leading three nanometer (nm) wafer designs accounted for 15% of total wafer revenues in the fourth quarter.
In chip manufacture, nanometers are used to measure the size of the transistors used in making microchips. Smaller transistors allow for more powerful chips, with 3nm the current technological limit.
Revenues in the third quarter are expected to be between US$22.4 billion and US$23.2 billion, suggesting the appetite for sophisticated artificial intelligence chips will remain strong.
TSMC, which ranks in the 10 most valuable companies globally, manufactures chips for most of the largest tech companies in the world, including Nvidia Corp, Microsoft and Apple.
The rush for greater processing power and bandwidth to support new AI applications has been a substantial tailwind for TSMC, as underscored by its 70% share price growth over the past 12 months.
“Our business in the second quarter was supported by strong demand for our industry-leading 3nm and 5nm technologies, partially offset by continued smartphone seasonality,” said chief finance officer Wendell Huang.
She added: “Moving into third quarter 2024, we expect our business to be supported by strong smartphone and AI-related demand for our leading-edge process technologies.”