Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company reported record first-quarter 2026 revenue of NT$1.13 trillion ($35.71 billion), a 35 per cent year-on-year increase. The figure, released ahead of the company’s full earnings report on April 16, blew past Wall Street’s consensus and sent shares up 2 per cent in premarket trading on the NYSE.
AI Is Still the Engine
Demand for TSMC’s most advanced 3nm and 2nm nodes — which go almost entirely into AI accelerators and flagship mobile chips — remained the primary driver. Key customers Apple and Nvidia continued to place full-capacity orders, with Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell and Rubin chips and Apple’s M5 silicon accounting for the bulk of 3nm allocation. AI-related orders also picked up slack from weaker PC and smartphone demand caused by memory shortages in the broader market.
March Alone Was Up 45%
The monthly breakdown is startling. March 2026 revenue was up 45.2 per cent year-over-year and 30.7 per cent month-over-month — the strongest single month on record for the company. Analysts at JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley say the pace reflects not just volume growth but a material price hike TSMC quietly pushed through on its most advanced nodes in late Q4 2025. The company is forecasting gross margins of 64 per cent for Q1.
Resilience Through the Iran War
Perhaps the most telling part of the report: the Iran war, the Strait of Hormuz shutdown and the broader geopolitical shock did nothing measurable to demand. TSMC is now guiding full-year 2026 revenue growth of approximately 30 per cent in US-dollar terms — an upward revision from the 25 per cent guidance issued in January. For the industry, the reading is simple: the AI supercycle has decoupled from nearly everything else in the macro story.
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