TSMC, the Taiwan-based semiconductor manufacturer posted its earnings call a few days back which showed a record profit for the quarter, hitting the $7 billion mark as a result of consistent growth in demand for electronics and gadgets. Where the TSMC earnings call showed a bunch of categories under its ’Revenue by Platform’ section, the one category that seemed missing was Crypto mining.
On the company’s earnings report for revenue by platform, one can see categories like smartphone, high-performance computing, internet-of-things (IoT) and automotive, but the one that seems to be missing is crypto mining. This wasn’t always the case as, during 2017, when bitcoin mining was on a boom, TSMC specifically mentioned crypto’s rise and mobile’s decline in a press release it released for its fourth quarter 2017 earnings.
In 2018, Lora Ho, senior vice president and chief financial officer of TSMC said, “Our fourth-quarter business was supported by major mobile product launches and continuing demand for cryptocurrency mining”. “Moving into first-quarter 2018, we expect the strong demand for cryptocurrency mining will continue while mobile product seasonality will dampen our business in this quarter”.
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With this, it shows that TSMC is still sceptical about crypto’s future and its viability. In March of last year, it was reported that TSMC was limiting its manufacturing capabilities to crypto mining companies. This was done because their demand is often subject to huge ups and downs in comparison to stable demand from smartphones.
“Our first quarter business was supported by strong HPC and Automotive-related demand,” said Wendell Huang, VP and Chief Financial Officer of TSMC in a press release for its earnings call of Q1 of 2022. “Moving into second quarter 2022, we expect our business to continue to be supported by HPC and Automotive-related demand, partially offset by smartphone seasonality”.