The latest rumours are true and Taiwan SemiconductorMAnufcturing Company (TSMC) is indeed planning on raising its prices. Financial analysts believe that this will help TSMC to compete with Santa Clara, California chip giant Intel Corporation in terms of gross margin. Currently, TSMC is the world’s leading contract chipmaker and is now planning to raise the prices for its advanced and mature semiconductor manufacturing processes from the fourth quarter of this year.
This is a decision that will impact the entire chip sector of the world and also tech giants such as Apple, AMD, NVIDIA and others, who are dependent on TSMC’s chips. Now, investment bank HSBC and Hong Kong-based financial services firm Alethia Capital have shared their opinions about the price increase reports of TSMC. And according to them, this decision will indeed benefit TSMC in the future positively.
Both the firms in their reports stated that the semiconductor manufacturing process price hike by TSMC is a positive thing for the company. HSBC estimates that a 15% average increase in TSMC’s average selling price (ASP) has the potential to drive the company’s revenue upwards by at least 22%. it also believes that the company’s gross margins will be able to stand at anywhere between 53% to 55%.
Alethia Capital on the other hand also shares the same optimism as HSBC regarding TSMC’s gross margin improvement and states that the range of new gross margin will be around 53% – 55%. according to HSBC, the prices for mature processes above 16/28nm will be increased by 20%, and those for the advanced 7nm and 5nm nodes will be increased between 7% and 9%.
But, since TSMC plans on raising the prices of their chips in the fourth quarter, the effects of the price increase on the company’s this year’s revenue and gross margins will be minimal.
However, since the increases are expected to occur in the fourth quarter, their effect on this year’s revenues and gross margins will be minimal. Financial analysts also expected that these price increase will contribute towards an overall price increase of 9% with revenue growth of 19%.
