Taiwan-based chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. on Thursday reported a 19.3% fall in net profit, but still managed to beat expectations amid hopes a global chip slowdown is easing.
TSMC 2330, +1.20% TSM, +1.26% reported net income of new Taiwan dollars $ 238.71 billion ($ 7.6 billion) in the fourth quarter from NT$ 295.90 billion in the year ago period. The company was expected to post net income of NT$ 224.67 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, according to a poll of analysts by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Revenue for the Apple AAPL, -0.52% and Nvidia NVDA, -0.58% chip supplier came in at NT$ 625.53 billion, which was previously reported by the company and largely unchanged from a year ago. In U.S. dollars, fourth quarter revenue came in at $ 19.62 billion, down 1.5% year-over-year, but up 13.6% from the previous quarter.
The sales figure had stirred hopes that a global slump in the chip market was ending.
“Our fourth quarter business was supported by the continued strong ramp of our industry-leading 3-nanometer technology,” said Wendell Huang, vice president and chief financial officer of TSMC. “Moving into first quarter 2024, we expect our business to be impacted by smartphone seasonality, partially offset by continued HPC-related demand.”
Gross margin for the quarter was 53%, operating margin was 41.6% and net profit margin came in at 38.2%.
The company said it expects first-quarter revenue between $ 18 billion and $ 18.8 billion, gross profit margin between 52% and 54% and operating profit margin between 40% and 42%.
Shares of TSMC rose 1.2% in local trading.