How does TSMC make money?

TSMC

TSMC discussion in my books

I have discussed the company Nvidia (ticker:NVDA) in two recent books; including:

In my book “The Rules of Super Growth Stocks Investing“:

  • Sections 2-4, the entire section is dedicated to introducing the company TSMC
  • Section 3-3, analyze the business development of technology companies to grasp the pulse of key industries

In my book “The Rules of 10 Baggers“:

  • Section 3-2, the entire section is dedicated to introducing TSMC and the global semiconductor supply chain.

Introduction

Company profile

Established in 1987 and headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, TSMC pioneered the pure-play foundry business model with an exclusive focus on manufacturing customers’ products. By choosing not to design, manufacture or market any semiconductor products under its own name, the Company ensures that it never competes with its customers.

Business scope

TSMC described its business scope in its annual report as:

TSMC provides a full range of integrated semiconductor foundry services, including leading advanced process, specialty technologies, advanced mask technologies, 3D Fabric advanced packaging and silicon stacking technologies, excellent manufacturing productivity and quality, as well as comprehensive design ecosystem support, to meet a growing variety of customer needs.

Customer Applications

Customers’ chips were used across a broad spectrum of electronic applications, including computers and peripherals, information appliances, wired and wireless communication systems, high-performance computing servers and data centers, automotive and industrial equipment, as well as consumer electronics such as digital TVs, game consoles, digital cameras, AI-enabled IoT and wearables, and many other devices and applications.

Key statistics

Year 2021 dataNumbers
Number of customers535
Products12,302
Capacity13-14 million 12-inch equivalent wafers
Output14-15 million 12-inch equivalent wafers
AmountUSD 27,770.49 million

Top 10 customers

The following is made by Digitimes citing data from Bloomberg, but I would like to remind readers that TSMC only publishes the revenue contribution from top two customers without customer names in the annual report. And the second place’s revenue share is 10%, not Bloomberg’s 5.8%.

Year 2021Revenue contribution
Apple25.93%
Mediatek5.8%
AMD4.39%
Qualcomm3.90%
Broadcom3.77%
Nvidia2.83%
Marvell1.39%
STMicroelectronics1.38%
ADI1.06%
Intel0.84%

Business and stock performance

2021 full year performance

2021TSMCIntel
Annual revenue and growth ($ million)57,231 +20.15%79,024 +1.49%
Annual gross income and growth ($ million)29,546.7 +16.82%43,815 +0.465%
Annual operating income and growth ($ million)23,443.6 +16.3%22,082 -7.51%
Annual net income and growth ($ million)21,507 +16.77%19,868 -4.94%
Gross margin51.63%55.45%
Operating margin40.96%27.94%
Net margin37.58%12.49%

Stock valuation

7/15/2022TSMCIntel
Market capitalization ($ billion)430.12157.92
Share price85.638.62
P/E20.076.42
Dividend yield2.22%3.78%
Stock performance in past 5 years (S&P 500 +57.54%)138.86%+11.2%
TSMC
Credit: Wikimedia

2022 Q2 results

Business performance vs. previous period

MetricFY 2019FY 2020FY 2021Q1 2022Q2 2022
Revenue growth* (YOY)1%31%25%36%37%
Percentage of revenue (5nm)0%8%19%20%21%
Percentage of revenue (7nm)27%33%31%30%30%
Gross margin46%53.10%51.60%55.60%59.10%
Operating margin34.80%42.30%40.90%45.60%49.10%

Key numbers

GAAP earnings per share in the second quarter were $1.55 on revenue of $18.16 billion, an annual increase of 36.6%. The three major profit margins are gross profit margin of 59.1%, operating profit margin of 49.1%, and net profit margin of 44.4%. Based on my experience in tracking TSMC for more than ten years, it should be the best performance in the history of TSMC. Personally, I can only say that this kind of performance is very difficult to achieve.

Output

TSMC shipped 3.799 million wafers (12 inches) in this quarter, and its average single wafer shipment price was $4,780. The two figures were very close to the previous quarter, with only a slight increase.

Process technology

By process technology, 5nm orders accounted for 21% of sales, compared with 18% in the same period last year, and 7nm orders accounted for 30% of sales, compared with 31% in the same period last year; the details are shown in Figure 1 below.

TSMC 2022 Q2 process technology

Figure 1: TSMC 2022 Q2 process technology

Customer Applications

By end application, smartphone customers accounted for 38% of revenue, compared with 42% in the same period last year; high-performance computing customers (HPC) accounted for 43% of sales, compared with 39% in the same period last year. Automotive industry customers accounted for 5% of TSMC’s revenue, compared to 4% in the same period last year; details are shown in Figure 2 below.

TSMC 2022 Q2 customer spplications

Figure 2: TSMC 2022 Q2 customer spplications

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