100bn

Published on
16/07/2026 – 14:24 GMT+2

TSMC posted a record quarterly profit on Thursday and raised its revenue outlook as booming demand for artificial intelligence chips continued to fuel growth at the world’s largest contract chipmaker.

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Taiwan-based TSMC reported earnings of $4.31 per share for the April-June quarter, beating analysts’ expectations.

Revenue came in at $40.2 billion (€36.8bn), above analysts’ estimates of $39.63 billion (€34.6bn).

In local currency, net profit reached a record NT$706.6bn (€19.1bn), up 77% from a year earlier, while revenue climbed 36% to NT$1.27 trillion (€36.8bn), as appetite for the advanced chips TSMC makes for customers such as Nvidia and Apple showed no sign of cooling.

Given that it manufactures semiconductors for almost every major chip designer, the Hsinchu-based firm’s results are closely read as a gauge of the wider sector and of broader AI demand itself, just as investors fret over a possible bubble.

CEO Che-Chia Wei described global AI-related demand as “extremely robust” and said he expected it to remain very strong until around 2029 or 2030. On that basis, TSMC now forecasts 2026 revenue growth of slightly above 40% year on year, up from its previous guidance of more than 30%.

Thursday’s figures confirmed what monthly sales data had already suggested.

As reported on Monday, June revenue jumped 67.9% year on year, and first-half sales rose 35.6% from the same period in 2025, slightly ahead of analysts’ consensus forecasts for the quarter.

TSMC shares rose about 1% after the earnings release but later pared those gains as a sell-off in AI-related shares weighed on benchmarks across Asia during Thursday’s session.

Expanding US manufacturing

Alongside the results, TSMC said it would spend an additional $100 billion (€87.4bn) to expand its manufacturing capacity in the US, on top of the $165 billion (€144bn) already committed to building six fabrication plants in Arizona.

The move would bring the company’s total US investment pledges to around $265 billion (€231bn).

The fresh funds are expected to fund four further Arizona plants dedicated to the most advanced chips, those of 2 nanometres and below, and are intended to “support the strong multi-year demand” from the company’s leading American customers, CEO Che-Chia Wei said during the firm’s earnings conference.

TSMC also said it would spend more this year than previously planned, increasing its capital expenditure budget to between $60 billion (€52.4bn) and $64 billion (€55.9bn), up from an earlier range of $52 billion (€45.4bn) to $56 billion (€48.9bn).

The announcement follows a trade agreement struck earlier this year between the Trump administration and Taiwan, under which Taiwanese companies committed to invest at least $250 billion (€218bn) in the US technology sector inreturn for lower tariffs.

Additional sources • AP

Published on 07/07/2026 – 11:28 GMT+2•Updated
11:34

The South Korean technology giant Samsung said on Tuesday it expects operating profit of about 89.4 trillion won (€51bn) for the April-June quarter, roughly nineteen times the 4.7tr won (€2.7bn) it earned a year earlier and more than it made in the previous three years combined.

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The extraordinary numbers reflect the same force reshaping the memory industry worldwide: the race to build AI data centres has pushed chip prices to record highs.

According to Citi Research, average selling prices for DRAM memory rose 44% quarter on quarter, and NAND flash 53%, as AI demand spilled beyond specialised high-bandwidth memory into the conventional chips that go into phones, servers and PCs, with customers now chasing longer-term supply contracts.

The estimate beat analyst forecasts, but far from celebrating, the market sold.

Samsung shares fell by over 10% before closing nearly 7% lower, dragging rival SK Hynix and the wider Kospi index down with them.

Samsung’s stock has more than doubled this year alone, so a historic quarter was already priced in, and leveraged local ETF products tracking the shares have made them prone to outsized moves.

There was also a blemish in the numbers as revenue of 171tr won (€97.6bn), though up 129% year on year, came in slightly below forecasts.

“We believe the slight revenue miss was largely driven by more moderate DRAM price hikes than expected, which likely spooked investors who are increasingly pricing in structural strength in memory prices,” said Jing Jie Yu, an analyst at Morningstar.

Hanging over everything is durability.

Investors are increasingly asking whether the technology giants bankrolling the AI build-out can sustain their spending without piling up debt against a payoff that remains unproven, the worry behind last week’s chip sell-off across Asia.

Samsung publishes its full results, with a breakdown by division, on 30 July, a report the market will scour for clues about whether the boom is structural or simply another memory cycle nearing its peak.

Additional sources • AP