TSMC posts flat Q4 revenue but beats expectations

TAIPEI, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Taiwan chipmaker TSMC (2330.TW), opens new tab reported a largely flat fourth-quarter revenue on Wednesday, but that still beat both the company's and market's expectations.

The world's largest contract chipmaker, whose customers include Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab and Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab, has benefited from a boom in artificial intelligence applications that has helped it weather the tapering off of pandemic-led demand.

Revenue in the final three months of last year came in at T$625.5 billion ($20.10 billion), according to Reuters calculations, compared with $19.93 billion in the year-ago period.

That beat Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co's (TSMC) previous prediction for fourth-quarter revenue being in a range of between $18.8-19.6 billion, and also beat an LSEG SmartEstimate of T$617.1 billion drawn from 21 analysts.

SmartEstimates give greater weighting to forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate.

For December alone, TSMC reported that revenue fell 8.4% year-on-year to T$176.3 billion, which was down 14.4% compared with the previous month.

TSMC, Asia's most valuable publicly listed company with a market capitalisation of $491 billion, did not provide any details or forward guidance in its brief revenue statement.

It is due to report fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 18, where it will also update its outlook for the current quarter and the year.

TSMC's Taipei-listed shares closed down 0.3% on Wednesday ahead of the release of the sales data. The broader market (.TWII), opens new tab ended down 0.4%.

The shares surged 32% in 2023, compared with a 27% gain for the broader market.

($1 = 31.1220 Taiwan dollars)