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(Bloomberg) -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s revenue jumped 48% in April, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect.
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The main chipmaker for Apple Inc. and Nvidia Corp. reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion ($11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38% rise in second-quarter revenue.
The Trump administration’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. But TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the supply chain — has stressed that demand remains resilient, including for the high-end Nvidia chips critical to developing artificial intelligence.
Still, the recent surge of the Taiwan dollar could pressure TSMC’s margins going forward as most of its business is conducted in US dollars. TSMC has said that for every 1% of appreciation of the local currency, there is a 0.4 percentage-point erosion of its operating margin.
The Trump administration has decided to roll back some Biden-era AI chip curbs as part of a broader effort to revise unpopular global semiconductor trade restrictions. That’s a potential boon to TSMC in the short run, though the administration is drafting its own version of the rules that’s likely to focus on direct negotiations with nations.
What Bloomberg Intelligence Says
The plan mooted by US President Donald Trump administration’s to roll back the Biden-era AI diffusion rule, according to a Bloomberg News report, offers a short-lived window for broader AI chips shipments that will directly benefit TSMC (with 20% of sales from AI chip production). Yet long-term uncertainty abounds ahead of new, tighter export controls expected soon. The US administration is set to implement new — likely stricter — measures, focused on blocking China’s indirect access to US-designed AI chips.
- Charles Shum, analyst
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