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Revenue also exceeded expectations. The sharp annual profit increase was much larger than the earnings beat against analysts’ forecasts.
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TSMC’s October 15 results offer a fresh manufacturing-side checkpoint on the AI-chip boom: profit records have now extended across six straight quarters, with CNBC attributing the strength to sustained global AI-chip demand. The company does not separately disclose AI-chip revenue or profit, so its overall results cannot show how much AI contributed. For market watchers, the figures confirm broad business momentum, but not a precise measure of AI’s share of it.
Third-quarter net income was NT$763.1 billion, 68.7% higher than a year earlier and about 2.2% above LSEG SmartEstimates.
Revenue reached NT$1.49 trillion, or $46.36 billion, roughly 1.4% above the NT$1.47 trillion forecast.
September revenue was NT$511.86 billion, up 54.6% year over year.
TSMC’s profit-record streak reached six consecutive quarters on October 15, when the chipmaker delivered third-quarter 2026 net income of NT$763.1 billion. Profit rose 68.7% from a year earlier and exceeded analysts’ expectations. Revenue also cleared forecasts, putting another completed quarter of financial results behind the sustained AI-chip demand described by CNBC.
Net income exceeded the LSEG SmartEstimates forecast of NT$746.34 billion by NT$16.76 billion, or about 2.2%. That comparison captures the earnings surprise: the difference between the profit TSMC delivered and what analysts had anticipated for the quarter.
Revenue reached NT$1.49 trillion, equivalent to $46.36 billion, against an expected NT$1.47 trillion. Using those rounded totals, the sales beat was approximately NT$20 billion, or 1.4%—slightly smaller in percentage terms than the net-income beat.
LSEG SmartEstimates gives more weight to forecasts from analysts with a stronger record of accuracy. The benchmark is therefore not a simple average of every analyst’s prediction.
The annual growth rate and the forecast comparison answer different questions. The 68.7% profit increase measures how much earnings grew from the same quarter in 2025. The roughly 2.2% forecast beat measures how far the latest result exceeded expectations. Rapid growth can therefore coexist with a much smaller earnings surprise.
Sales rose 54.6% from a year earlier in the final month of the quarter, providing a monthly measure of revenue growth alongside the full-quarter earnings result.
CNBC attributed the strong quarter to sustained global demand for AI chips. TSMC is the world’s largest contract chipmaker, making its earnings a significant manufacturing-side checkpoint. The revenue and profit totals describe the company’s overall business, however, rather than a separately disclosed measure of AI-chip sales or earnings. They show TSMC’s financial performance, not how much of its profit came specifically from AI.
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