TSMC Earnings Preview: Six Key Focus Areas in Spotlight

According to market reports, TSMC held its earnings conference on April 16, where leading global research institutions raised key questions on its 2nm process, long-term capacity expansion, and broader industry outlook. At the same time, several foreign institutions upgraded their target prices for TSMC, reinforcing confidence in its long-term growth amid recent stock price pullbacks.

Major financial institutions, including Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase, raised their price targets for TSMC to NT$2,288, NT$2,800, and NT$2,400, respectively. Based on recent institutional insights, six key themes have emerged as focal points of this earnings call.

First, the market is closely monitoring whether AI demand will continue to accelerate and further contribute to TSMC’s revenue growth. Second, with strong demand for advanced nodes and advanced packaging, investors are evaluating whether TSMC will revise its capital expenditure outlook for 2027 and 2028. Third, clarity is sought regarding ongoing weakness in consumer electronics demand.

Fourth, geopolitical risks and the progress of TSMC’s expansion in the United States remain under scrutiny. Fifth, analysts are assessing how TSMC views intensifying long-term competition, particularly in light of initiatives such as Tesla’s TeraFab project and continued foundry investments by Samsung Electronics and Intel. Sixth, the development progress of the 2nm process, customer adoption, and its expected contribution to profitability and order momentum are also key areas of focus.

Gokul Hariharan noted that demand indicators have strengthened significantly over the past two to three months, suggesting that TSMC may maintain a positive outlook and adopt a more optimistic stance on AI accelerator demand. He also expects the company to accelerate capacity expansion plans for 2027–2028.

Meanwhile, Charlie Chan projected that TSMC’s capital expenditure could reach $65 billion in 2027 and $70 billion in 2028, supporting its leadership position and enabling it to capture mid-term growth opportunities in AI and high-performance computing (HPC).

In addition, Cindy Chen indicated that following NVIDIA’s latest product roadmap, the company is expected to become one of the first customers to adopt TSMC’s A16 process with backside power delivery, which is anticipated to be used in its Feynman GPU planned for release in 2028.