TSM Semiconductor Earnings a Breath of Fresh Air for US Big Tech's 2024 Outlook
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM), the Taiwan-based chipmaker, has announced quarterly net profit figures surpassing market expectations in its Q4 financial results unveiled today.
TSM, the world's largest contract chipmaker and a supplier to Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), reported a Q4 net profit of $7.6 billion, marking a 19% year-on-year decrease.
The decline in profit, attributed to global economic challenges reducing demand in the chip sector, still exceeded the consensus profit expectation of $7.1 billion.
The company's revenue for the fourth quarter of 2023 reached $19.62 billion, reflecting a 13.6% increase compared to the third quarter, despite a 1.5% year-on-year decline.
Consequently, quarterly earnings, which experienced a downturn in Q2 and Q3, showed signs of recovery by the year's end, signaling a promising development for 2024 operations.
Source: InvestingPro
TSM Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang underlined that Q4 activities were supported by the industry-leading 2-nanometer technology.
Huang also shared his expectations for 2024, saying that while the company may be affected by smartphone seasonality in the first quarter, he thinks this effect will be offset by the continued demand for high-performance computing.
Following Q4 results, the company's gross margin was 53%, operating margin was 41.6% and net margin was 38.2%, to maintain these margins in the first quarter of 2024.
TSM executives also expect revenue of $18 to $18.8 billion for the first quarter. While this expectation remains in line with InvestingPro estimates, analysts have a revenue forecast of $18.1 billion for the first quarter, down close to 10%.
In the other quarters of 2024, revenue
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