TSMC August sales hit highest monthly level

Taipei, Sept. 10 (CNA) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest contract chip maker, on Thursday reported its highest ever monthly revenue of NT$122.88 billion (US$4.19 billion) for August, according to a company report posted that day on the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp.'s website.

Thanks to strong demand for chips for 5G, Internet of Things (IoT) and high-performance computing applications, TSMC's monthly revenue for August was up 16 percent from July and up 15.8 percent from a year earlier.

Its consolidated revenues for July and August reached NT$228.84 billion, according to the report.

Market analysts said they expect the company's sales in the third quarter to exceed the US$11.5 billion mark, to move higher in the fourth quarter, and to post more than 20 percent growth for the whole year compared with last year, due to robust demand from its customers such as Apple, Meditek, AMD and NVIDIA.

TSMC is also expected to get the contract to produce chips for American technology giant Intel's first graphics processor and central processing units, which could push its sales for 2020-2022 higher, according to a report by a foreign investment institution.

However, TSMC refused to comment on the report.

Meanwhile, the share price of TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock on the local market, rose 1.87 percent to close at NT$435.00, helping to push the bellwether electronics sector and even the main board higher on Thursday.

The weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange closed up 83.17 points on Thursday, or 0.66 percent, at 12,691.75, on turnover of NT$198.2 billion.

Among the winning electronics stocks, iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. surged 0.77 percent to close at NT$78.50, while integrated circuit designer MediaTek gained 0.67 percent to end at NT$599.00.