Key Apple supplier reports its biggest profit decline in five years

TSMC might be the largest foundry in the world, and it might count Apple as its biggest customer, but that doesn't mean that it is guaranteed to report rising profits every quarter. The company announced today that it had a third-quarter profit of NT$211 billion ($6.69 billion). That was a year-over-year decline of 24.87% and the biggest annual decline in five years. Revenue also declined to NT$546.73 ($17.28 billion), a drop of 10.83% on an annual basis.

According to CNBC, both figures topped Wall Street expectations of NT$540.39 billion in revenue and NT$191.43 billion in net income. As a result, in New York Stock Exchange trading today, TSMC shares were up $3.75 or 4.19% to $93.29 with less than an hour remaining until the final bell sounds. On a sequential basis, revenue rose 13.7% in the third quarter from the second quarter.

During the second quarter, TSMC reported a decline in profits for the first time in four years as consumers continued to slow down their purchases of consumer electronics. This has been a trend ever since the pandemic started to wind down. However, analysts believe that smartphone manufacturers and other producers are ready to re-stock their inventories of chips which should lead to a rebound.

We wonder how much the Foundry's sweetheart deal with Apple played a role in TSMC's Q3 financials. Normally, the company whose chip design will be used by a foundry to manufacture a chip is responsible for the costs of all dies made even those that turn out defective. But this year TSMC agreed to eat the costs of any defective chips produced using Apple's designs for the A17 Pro SoC. The latter was the first smartphone chip built using a 3nm process node. The amount of money saved this year by Apple could have been in the billions.

In its report, TSMC stated, "Our business was supported by the strong ramp of our industry-leading 3-nanometer technology and higher demand for 5-nanometer technologies, partially offset by customers' ongoing inventory adjustment." While TSMC will be using its second-gen 3nm node (N3E) to produce cutting-edge chips for more customers next year, this year Apple reserved all of TSMC's manufacturing capacity at that node (N3B). 

Knowing that TSMC would take the hit if yields were low surely helped Apple make the decision that it did. Currently, the only smartphones using a 3nm AP are the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

TSMC CEO C.C. Wei commented on the earnings report and said, "Due to the persistent weaker overall macroeconomic conditions and slow demand recovery in China, customers remain cautious in their inventory control. That's why we expect the inventory digestion to continue in the fourth quarter. Having said that, we are observing some early signs of demand stabilization in the PC and smartphone market."