TSMC $TSM ended the third quarter with record revenue that beat both the company's own guidance and analyst estimates. September, however, is a completely different caliber.
$TSM reported September revenue of NT$511.9 billion. That is up 54.6% year over year. Compared to August, though, it was a slight decline of 0.6%. For the full quarter, revenue reached approximately NT$1.49 trillion, or roughly US$46.7 billion, up 50% from a year earlier.
The result exceeds the upper end of the guidance the company set at US$45.8 billion and also beat the analyst estimate of NT$1.46 trillion. For the first 9 months of the year, revenue rose 41.1%.
The main driver remains demand for advanced chips for AI accelerators and data centers from customers such as $NVDA, $AMDor $AAPL.
And TSMC is responding by expanding capacity. The company raised this year's capital expenditure to US$60 to 64 billion and now estimates full-year dollar revenue growth at just over 40%.
Key will be October 15, when TSMC releases full third-quarter results.
Besides the outlook, it will be important to watch gross margin, which management expects in the 65% to 67% range. High market expectations are increasing the stock's sensitivity to any slowdown. Nevertheless, we saw a new ATH on $TSM this week after a long time.