TSMC’s 3nm node accounted for six percent of the company’s revenue last year. Sales and deliveries of products based on the 3nm process only started in the second half of the year, mainly due to the sale of new Apple products with 3nm SoCs.
3nm’s share has increased rapidly in recent quarters, resulting in the new node’s 15 percent revenue share in the fourth quarter almost equaling the 7nm node, which accounted for 17 percent in that quarter of TSMC’s revenue.
The 3nm process is TSMC’s smallest and newest node. The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max models use 3nm SoCs produced by TSMC. The Apple M3 chips in recently announced MacBook Pro and iMac models also have 3nm SoCs. Mediatek has also developed a 3nm SoC. Other manufacturers, such as AMD and Nvidia, are still launching 3nm TSMC products.
What is also striking about the annual figures is that last year the 5nm process took over the 7nm node as the process that generates the most turnover for TSMC. In addition, turnover from automotive increased the most of all turnover flows, at 15 percent, with the caveat that this branch is still relatively small for TSMC. HPC chips, for example for supercomputers, and chips for smartphones remain the most important sources of turnover for TSMC at 43 percent and 38 percent respectively, although smartphone chips generated 8 percent less turnover for the company last year compared to a year earlier.
TSMC had a turnover of 69.3 billion dollars in 2023, which is equivalent to 63.8 billion euros. This is 8.7 percent less than a year earlier. This amounts to a profit of 28.6 billion euros, excluding taxes. This is 14.4 percent less than in 2022.
CFO Wendell Huang expected according to Seeking Alpha for the first quarter of 2024 a turnover of around $ 18.4 billion, while in the first quarter of 2023 the company had a turnover of around $ 16.3 billion. CEO CC Wei tells investors that he expects 2024 as a whole to be a ‘healthy growth year’ for the chip manufacturer.