Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM) has issued fourth-quarter financial results that beat Wall Street expectations across the board, sending its share price up 5%.
The world’s largest manufacturer of microchips and semiconductors reported Q4 revenue of $625.53 billion New Taiwan dollars ($19.62 billion U.S.), which topped consensus forecasts of NT$618.31 billion.
Profit in the quarter totaled NT$238.71 billion, which was better than the NT$225.22 billion that had been expected.
TSMC, as the company is commonly known, said that its revenue fell 1.5% from a year earlier while its net income declined 19.3% year-over-year.
The company makes the most advanced microchips in the world and counts Apple (AAPL) and Nvidia (NVDA) among its many clients.
During the firm’s earnings call on Thursday, TSMC’s chief executive C.C. Wei said that 2023 was a “challenging year” due to a drop in demand for consumer electronics such as smartphones and laptops coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The decreased demand left smartphone and computer makers with excess inventories of chips and semiconductors.
Still, Wei said that TSMC is well positioned to capture current and future growth opportunities, especially related to artificial intelligence (A.I.) applications.
Looking ahead, TSMC forecast revenue in the current first quarter of 2024 to come in between $18 billion U.S. and $18.8 billion U.S.
Prior to today, TSMC’s stock had risen 15% over the last 12 months to trade at $102.95 U.S. per share.