TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, 台積電), the world's leading contract chipmaker, forecasts an 8% surge in third-quarter revenue reaching between $31.8 billion and $33 billion, executives announced Thursday (July 17) at an eagerly anticipated investor conference. The semiconductor giant significantly raised its full-year 2025 revenue growth projection to approximately 30%, a substantial upgrade from its previous guidance of 24% to 26%. Company officials attributed this robust outlook to accelerating demand for chips manufactured using its cutting-edge 3-nanometer and 5-nanometer production technologies, which power the world's most sophisticated electronic devices.
The company's Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang (黃仁昭) tempered the optimistic revenue outlook by projecting a modest contraction in third-quarter gross margins to between 55.5% and 57.5%, representing a decline of approximately 2.1 percentage points compared to the previous quarter's performance. Huang explained that this margin pressure stems primarily from currency fluctuations, with financial models assuming an exchange rate of NT$29 per U.S. dollar. This currency dynamic is expected to impact New Taiwan dollar revenue by roughly 6.6% while compressing gross margins by approximately 2.6 percentage points.
During the conference, Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) addressed geopolitical concerns by acknowledging potential uncertainties stemming from evolving global tariff policies, though he reassured investors that customer ordering patterns remain stable heading into the second half of 2025. Wei characterized the recent increase in demand from Chinese clients as merely a temporary trend rather than a sustainable shift. Looking at broader market segments, he forecast a modest recovery in traditional non-AI semiconductor applications this year, while emphasizing that artificial intelligence-related demand continues its robust upward trajectory.
The TSMC chief executive specifically highlighted high-performance computing (HPC) as a crucial growth driver underpinning the company's ambitious 30% revenue expansion target for 2025. This specialized market segment includes advanced data center processors, graphics processing units for AI applications, and other computational-intensive chips. HPC represents an increasingly vital component of TSMC's business portfolio as global technology firms race to deploy more powerful computing infrastructure. ◼ (At time of reporting, US$1 equals approximately NT$29.4)
