A new iPhone launch has long meant a quarterly sales boost for Apple chip supplier TSMC. The surge in orders that pushed the Taiwanese giant’s fourth-quarter net profits up 23 per cent to NT$143bn ($5.1bn) is broadly based and will not be shortlived. After becoming a big beneficiary of the pandemic, the growth in demand is just getting started.
Not long ago, there were concerns that TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would be hit hard by US bans on selling chips to Huawei. The Chinese smartphone maker had been TSMC’s second-largest customer after Apple, accounting for about a tenth of its revenue.
Instead, remote working and learning have boosted demand for chips as sales of products that use semiconductors — everything from servers to gaming consoles such as PlayStations — surged. Chips for Apple played a big part, accounting for about a fifth of its sales.