Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said Thursday that fourth-quarter net profit rose to a new record thanks to growing demand for high-speed computing and better margins.
The world’s largest contract chip maker 2330, +0.41% TSM, +0.63% said net profit for the quarter ended Dec. 31 rose 78% from a year earlier to 295.90 billion Taiwan dollars (US$ 9.72 billion). That beat the estimate of NT$ 288.08 billion from a poll of analysts by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Fourth-quarter revenue increased 43% from a year earlier to NT$ 625.53 billion.
Both quarterly revenue and net profit marked new record highs. For 2022, TSMC booked NT$ 2.264 trillion in revenue and NT$ 1.017 trillion in net profit — both highest on record.
The company’s operating profit margin improved by 10.3 percentage points from a year earlier to 52.0% in the fourth quarter.
While revenue from smartphones fell 4% from the previous quarter, revenue from high-performance computing increased 10%.
TSMC said revenue from customers in North America accounted for 69% of the fourth-quarter total, down from 72% in the third quarter, while revenue from China made up 12%, up from 8% in the previous quarter.
Write to Kosaku Narioka at kosaku.narioka@wsj.com
