iPhone XS Ups TSMC’s Monthly Revenues To Second Highest In Company’s History

With the successful release of the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR comes the boost in monthly revenues of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). The increment is remarkably high that TSMC has recorded its second-highest monthly levels in the company’s entire history.

TSMC disclosed Monday that it garnered a total of $3.3 billion in consolidated revenues for the month of October. The figure is up 7 percent sequentially and 7.4 percent on year. Furthermore, consolidated sales for the January-October period increased 6.2 percent from a year prior, as pointed out by Digitimes.

The ramp-up of chip orders for Apple’s trio of new iPhones is seen as the primary reason behind the impressive performance of TSMC during the previous month. In addition, the contract chipmaker is also seeing a boost from supplying 7nm chips for Huawei’s new flagship handsets.

TSMC previously estimated its fourth-quarter revenues to reach between $9.35 billion and $9.45 billion, which should mean a 10-11 percent sequential increase. Robust demand for smartphone chips could ensure the prediction to happen in the fourth quarter.

Last month, TSMC said that a stalling global smartphone market would likely cause it to not meet analysts’ $9.55 billion average estimate. This is in spite of the fact that the company has remained to be the exclusive maker of iPhone processors.

“TSMC may be offering a conservative forecast intentionally due to macroeconomic uncertainties,” Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Mark Li told Bloomberg. The statement reflects the smartphone market’s struggle to grow because consumers now take longer to replace their devices.

Meanwhile, TSMC is reportedly working with Chinese tech giant Huawei to develop the next “Kirin 990” chipset, which is likely to debut in the first quarter of 2019. The processor is expected to be the first 5G-ready chipset from Huawei that’s built on the second-generation 7nm process.

According Gizmochina, the Kirin 990 is going to consume 10 percent less power than the Kirin 980. The former’s overall performance is also expected to be 10 percent better than the latter. Unfortunately, there’s no available information about the upcoming SoC’s specs as of this time.