Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) FY21 sales spike ahead of earnings
19:37, 11 January 2022
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) stock is trading 3.21% higher Tuesday, following strong monthly and annual sales numbers ahead of its earnings report on Thursday, 13 January.
Hsinchu, Taiwan-based TSMC reported after the market close Monday that its sales revenue spiked 4.8% in December from the previous month and 32.4% from the December 2020 reporting period. Additionally, TSMC reported full-year 2021 revenue jumping 18.5% to a US dollar equivalent of roughly $57.3bn (£42.1bn), compared to 2020 full-year revenue.
TSMC stock moved 3.21% higher in mid-day trading Tuesday to $129.03 from Monday’s $125.02 closing share price. TSMC stock trades on the NYSE under the ticker TSM.
TSMC is currently scheduled to report its fourth-quarter 2021 financials before the US market open Thursday. Consensus estimates are for TSMC to report $0.40 per-share earnings on $15.7bn US dollar equivalent in revenue. TSMC has itself issued quarterly revenue guidance in the $15.4bn to $15.7bn US dollar equivalent range.
TSMC’s recent earnings reports have wildly missed Wall Street consensus estimates, missing its 3Q 2021 per-share earnings by over 80%, while slightly beating revenue estimates by 0.29%. In the prior quarterly reporting period – 2Q 2021 – TSMC beat consensus per-share earnings by over 463%, while missing revenue estimates by 0.02%.
TSMC December Revenue Report - Photo: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing What is TSMC doing with all this money?
TSMC recently announced a joint venture with Sony Semiconductor Solutions to build a $7bn semi-conductor fabrication foundry in Kumamoto, Japan, called Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM). Details of the joint venture include Sony Semiconductor’s $500m investment for a less-than 20% stake in JASM.
The JASM fabrication foundry, with a 45,000 monthly chip capacity, is expected to begin production in 2024.
“While the global semiconductor shortage is expected to be prolonged, we expect (this) partnership with TSMC to contribute to securing a stable supply of logic wafers, not only for us but also for the overall industry,” said Sony Semiconductor CEO Terushi Shimizu, in a release announcing the joint venture.
N4X process technology
Announced late last year, TSMC has developed a new N4X chip process technology, for use in high-performance computing chips. The N4X represents TSMC’s foray into the high-performance computing sector, leverages TSMC’s experience with five-nanometre volume production to enhance maximum clock frequencies.
The NX4 process technology boosts performance by 15% over its N5 chip process and 4% over its N4P process technology.
“The demands of the HPC segment are unrelenting, and TSMC has not only tailored our ‘X’ semiconductor technologies to unleash ultimate performance but has also combined it with our 3DFabric advanced packaging technologies to offer the best HPC platform,” noted TSMC senior vice president of business development Kevin Zhang.