TSMC shares were up almost 10% when Taiwan’s stock market closed on Thursday, responding to a positive earnings announcement while also mirroring wider market rallies.
The semiconductor firm announced that its revenues for the first three months of the year totalled NT$839.25 billion (€23.1bn), an increase of 41.6% compared to the same period in 2024.
TSMC is scheduled to release its complete first-quarter earnings next week.
As is the case on Wall Street and in Europe, Asian markets saw major gains after President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would put a 90-day pause on ‘reciprocal’ trade tariffs for certain countries, including Taiwan.
Taiwan, the homeland of the world's biggest contract chipmaker, was subject to a 32% tariff for a few hours before the White House swiftly changed course. The White House is pushing forward with a lower 10% baseline tariff on most countries, while negotiating new levies with some 75 nations.
Chipmakers were exempt from the tariffs so far, but TSMC could be subject to further levies unless they expand their investments in the US.
The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company manufactures chips that are used in Apple’s iPhones as well as in Nvidia’s artificial intelligence hardware.
Trump previously said that Taiwan had taken away the US chip business and that he wanted it back.
In March, TSMC announced a $100bn (€90.6bn) investment in the country, to build three chip foundries, an R&D centre and two packaging facilities in Arizona. This came on top of a previous pledge to invest $65bn (€58.9bn) in three chip foundries in the state, one of which has begun operations. This would represent the largest foreign direct investment in US history.
The investments will translate into “many thousands of jobs, and they’re high-paying jobs”, the US President said at the time.
However, on Tuesday, the US President said that he would slap the chip giant with a tax of up to 100% if it did not build plants in the country.
TSMC declined to comment on the president’s words.
