TSMC's first-quarter revenue surges as AI interest propels sales beyond market forecasts

(Corrects trillion, not billion, ‌Taiwanese dollars in ​the ​third paragraph)

TAIPEI, April 10 (Reuters) - TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, on Friday reported a 35% surge in first-quarter revenue, beating market ‌forecasts, thanks to unabated interest in artificial intelligence applications.

January-March revenue ⁠reached T$1.134 trillion ($35.71 billion) compared with T$839.3 billion in the same period a year earlier, ‌TSMC said in a statement ‌without elaborating.

The result topped an LSEG SmartEstimate of T$1.125 trillion drawn from 20 analysts, and was in line with TSMC's January guidance of $34.6 billion ​to $35.8 billion given at its last earnings call. TSMC only issues guidance in U.S. dollars.

TSMC's latest record-smashing quarterly revenue comes as war in ⁠the Middle East is raising energy costs and upending global markets. That in turn threatens to disrupt ​the supply of production materials for semiconductors which analysts said could force companies to delay AI data centre investment.

Analysts nevertheless ​raised their forecast for TSMC's April-June revenue ‌by 2.3% over the last 30 days to a record T$1.2 trillion, LSEG data showed, betting on constrained capacity ⁠for advanced AI chip production to boost the firm's earnings.

TSMC will report first-quarter earnings on April 16 along with an updated outlook for the current quarter and full ⁠year.

The chipmaker, whose customers include Nvidia, has been a major beneficiary of advances in AI, ​which has more than offset a tapering-off in pandemic-led demand for chips used in consumer electronics such as tablet computers.

Its Taipei-listed shares have gained 29% this year versus ‌a rise of 22% in the benchmark share price index. The stock closed up 2.3% on Friday ahead of its ‌sales announcement.

Compatriot Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker and Nvidia's biggest server ⁠maker, has also reported bumper first-quarter ‌sales with an on-year ​rise of 30%.

($1=31.7560 Taiwan dollars)

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard, Faith Hung and Wen-Yee Lee; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Clarence Fernandez and ‌Christopher Cushing)

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