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Two of Asia’s biggest chipmakers have delivered blockbuster results, with Samsung on course for its most profitable quarter ever and TSMC booking a record three months of revenue, driven by spending on artificial intelligence.
The South Korean group estimated its operating profit for the third quarter at 107.4 trillion won, or $80.2 billion (€71.5bn), up from 89.49 trillion won (€59.6bn) in the previous quarter and 12.17 trillion won (€8.1bn) a year earlier.
This would represent an increase of 782.5% year-on-year.
The figure, if confirmed, would be the biggest quarterly operating profit ever reported by a technology company, beating the $63.7 billion (€56.8bn) in operating income that US chip designer Nvidia booked in its latest quarter.
It would also be the first time a South Korean company’s quarterly operating profit had topped 100 trillion won (€66.6bn), and Samsung’s fourth record quarter in a row.
Analysts had expected 106.1 trillion won (€70.6bn), according to data provider LSEG.
Sales are estimated at 195 trillion won, or $145.6 billion (€129.9bn), up 127% year-on-year, implying an operating margin of about 55%.
Samsung, one of the world’s biggest memory chipmakers, is cashing in as AI data centres snap up high-bandwidth memory (HBM), stacked chips that feed data to AI processors, while tight supply also pushes up prices of DRAM and NAND memory.
The company gave no breakdown by division and will publish full results on 29 October.
Its shares nonetheless closed 2.42% lower at 262,000 won in Seoul on Thursday, as investors took profits and questioned how long the memory boom can last, while the benchmark KOSPI index lost 2.62%.
Samsung’s stock has still almost quadrupled since last September.
TSMC’s record quarter and Taiwan’s record exports
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, whose customers include Nvidia and Apple, said on Thursday that September revenue rose 54.6% year-on-year to NT$511.86 billion, or roughly $16 billion (€14bn).
That was only 0.6% below August’s all-time monthly high and took estimated third-quarter revenue, calculated from its monthly figures, to a record NT$1.49 trillion, or $46.8 billion (€41.8bn), up 51% on a year earlier and 17.6% on the previous quarter.
The total beat the top of TSMC’s own guidance of $44.6 billion (€39.8bn) to $45.8 billion (€40.8bn), while revenue for the first nine months of the year rose 41.1% to NT$3.9 trillion, or $122.1 billion (€108.9bn).
TSMC shares had closed 1.35% lower in Taipei before the figures were released.
This comes as Taiwan has reported that its exports jumped 60.9% year-on-year to a record $87.2 billion (€77.9bn) in September, driven by global demand for AI hardware.
The export boom has helped fuel rapid economic growth, with the island’s GDP expanding 12.9% year-on-year in the second quarter.
The upcoming earnings reports will offer a glimpse of whether this boom can continue. TSMC will report full third-quarter results and give its outlook on 15 October, a day after Dutch chip equipment maker ASML.
Samsung’s detailed figures follow on 29 October, while Nvidia’s results, expected in November, will offer a key indication of how long the AI chip rally can run.