Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
With the semiconductor shortages and chip famine still ongoing despite efforts to bolster supplies, companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) remain in prominent position to capitalize. It seemingly has as well, having posted a huge Q3 2022 that boasted an 80 percent profit increase over the previous year’s quarter. Despite this solid performance, TSMC also remains cautious about the future, where it feels inflation and import/export policies with countries like the United States may hurt demand for its products.
Word of TSMC’s impressive Q3 2022 performance came via a report from Reuters. For Q3 2022, TSMC posted profits of T$280.9 billion (around $8.81 billion USD). This was up against an expected profit number of T$265.64 billion, so TSMC beat expectations handily by about 36 percent. Profits were also up a staggering 80 percent against the numbers from Q3 2021. TSMC has kept its supplies in order and continued to produce chips for an increased demand of gadgets, vehicles, and various technologies, so the company has been in particularly good position to benefit as companies around the world still struggle to keep up supplies against the ongoing chip famine.
Despite these solid numbers, Taiwan Semiconductor cut its investment budget for 2023 by 10 percent, predicting a downturn in chip demand and expecting 2023 to be a “growth year” for the company. A part of that outlook also stems from new rules from the US that aim to increase the cost of technology exports as the country aims to bolster its own chip supply through funding of factories and chip development in the country.
“Based on our initial reading and feedback from customers the new regulations sets the control threshold at a very high-end specification, primarily used for AI or supercomputing applications. Therefore our initial assessment is the impact to TSMC is limited and manageable,” CEO C.C. Wei said. “We expect probably in 2023 the semiconductor industry will likely decline, but TSMC also is not immune.”
With that said, it will be interesting to see if TSMC’s predictions turn out to be right. With new funding for chip fabrication, and new regulations coming into play, the tech manufacturing landscape could go through quite some changes over the course of the coming years. For now, though, TSMC is riding high on another very successful quarter.