TSMC becomes Asia's most valuable company

With a recent market valuation of over $1 trillion, the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer TSMC has cemented itself as the most valuable company in Asia. This achievement takes place after a strong second-quarter revenue from the company, thanks to the ongoing boom of AI chips. Let's take a look at how this happened.

Why this is important

The AI frenzy has sparked a rally in chipmaker stocks across the globe. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, whose customers include AI poster child Nvidia, has especially benefited from the soaring demand for AI-capable chips.

Foreign investors have poured $4.8 billion so far this year into Taiwan's stock market, which is dominated by TSMC. Asian funds, however, according to HSBC, remain underweight in Taiwan, suggesting there could be room for further inflow.

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What you should know about TSMC, the trillion-dollar Taiwanese chip firm

What do the numbers look like?

Shares of TSMC, whose customers also include Apple, have jumped nearly 80% this year, widely outperforming the benchmark Taiwan SE Weighted Index, which is up 35%.

On Thursday, TSMC's Taipei-listed shares rose more than 2% to a record T$1,080, taking the company's market value to T$28 trillion ($861 billion) and making it Asia's most valuable publicly listed company.

TSMC's ADRs, first listed on the NYSE in 1997, jumped 4.8% to a record $192.79 on Monday, briefly boosting the firm's market value to $1 trillion. On Wednesday, the ADRs closed at $191.05.

TSMC is due to report its full second-quarter earnings on July 18.

Why this sudden rise?

AI-focused companies, mostly chipmakers, have had a good run this year and saw big gains in market capitalisation in June. Nvidia briefly overtook Microsoft last month to become the world's most valuable company. 

Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple all have market values above $3 trillion.
TSMC's strong results lifted global chip stocks, with the Philadelphia semiconductor index rising 2.4% to a record on Wednesday.