Shenzhen Business Daily · Creative App Reporter Zhong Guobin
On October 17th Eastern Time, TSMC's US stock price surged 9.79% to $205.84 per share, hitting a new historical high, boosted by its third quarter earnings exceeding expectations. The total market value has exceeded 1 trillion US dollars, reaching 1.068 trillion US dollars. According to statistics, this is the first Chinese concept stock company with a market value exceeding one trillion US dollars, and also the first Asian technology company with a market value exceeding one trillion US dollars.
It is worth noting that TSMC's market value of $1.068 trillion makes it the eighth largest company in the world by market value, surpassing Berkshire Hathaway under Warren Buffett, and the seventh largest technology company after Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta.
As a global high-end chip foundry, TSMC almost exclusively handles high-end chips, especially AI chip outsourcing, becoming a pivotal player in the AI supply chain. Combined with the tight production capacity of high-end chips and the expectation of price increases, TSMC's stock price has repeatedly hit new highs. Since the beginning of this year, based on the pre exercise price, TSMC's stock price has risen by 100.09%.
TSMC's third quarter performance and fourth quarter performance guidance both exceeded expectations, indicating that AI demand remains strong. Specifically, TSMC's consolidated revenue for the third quarter reached a historic high of NT $759.69 billion, while the market estimate was NT $751 billion, a year-on-year increase of 39.0% and a month on month increase of 12.8%; The net profit for the third quarter was NT $325.26 billion, while the market estimate was NT $299.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 54.2% and a month on month increase of 31.2%. The gross profit margin for the quarter was 57.8%. Earnings per share were NT $12.54, a year-on-year increase of 54.2%.
In the third quarter, TSMC's 3-nanometer process products accounted for 20% of the total wafer revenue, 5-nanometer accounted for 32%, and 7-nanometer accounted for 17%. Advanced processes (i.e. 7nm and more advanced processes) account for 69% of the total wafer revenue, or approximately $16.218 billion. The data shows that the revenue of 3nm process technology increased significantly in the third quarter.
In terms of performance guidance, TSMC expects fourth quarter sales to be between $26.1 billion and $26.9 billion, exceeding market estimates of $24.94 billion; The expected gross profit margin for the fourth quarter is 57% to 59%, while the market estimate is 54.7%; Calculated in US dollars, TSMC expects its sales for the full year of 2024 to increase by nearly 30%, a significant increase from the previously estimated maximum growth rate of around 20%.
TSMC stated that it expects capital expenditures to be slightly above $30 billion in 2024, and capital expenditures in 2025 are likely to be higher than in 2024.