Text | Tech Jun
After losing Huawei, how did TSMC live? A lot of people have guessed wrong!
Before 2020, before the US chip ban was promulgated, Huawei had become TSMC's second largest customer for many consecutive years, contributing up to 14% of TSMC's revenue every year, second only to Apple.
However, since the promulgation of the US ban, TSMC has been restricted and can no longer help Huawei to manufacture chips, and naturally, TSMC has lost Huawei, a big customer.
And after losing Huawei, how did TSMC live? Has revenue plummeted? The answer to this question is believed to be the concern of many people. Speaking of which, when the ban was just issued a few years ago, there were many people speculating: after losing Huawei, TSMC's revenue will inevitably decline!
However, the follow-up facts have proved that many people have guessed wrong, losing Huawei's TSMC, instead of living a hard life, it is becoming more and more moist.
Specifically, after the loss of Huawei, TSMC's vacated production capacity was quickly eaten by chip companies such as Apple and AMD, so that TSMC's remaining production capacity would not be idle, and its ability to absorb gold would naturally not decline.
On the other hand, as the epidemic swept the world, home office gradually became the mainstream, in this context, the demand for computers, mobile phones and other electronic products soared, correspondingly, the demand for chips also soared. With the wind of the epidemic, TSMC's overall revenue and profit have not only not declined, but also greatly increased.
Taking the first quarter of 2022 as an example, according to the financial report released by TSMC on April 14, TSMC's consolidated revenue in the first quarter of this year was about NT$491 billion, and its net profit after tax was about NT$202.7 billion, about RMB44.5 billion, with an average daily revenue of 495 million.
By comparing the quarterly financial reports announced by TSMC in the past, we can also find that in the first quarter of this year, TSMC once again refreshed its financial record. Data is not lying, after the loss of Huawei, TSMC's situation, indeed with many people guess a big difference, for TSMC, Huawei has not reached the level of indispensable.
However, although after losing Huawei, TSMC has also had a good life, but this does not mean that TSMC will sit back and relax, looking at the list of TSMC's top ten customers, you can find that TSMC's main customers are basically American companies, such as Broadcom, Nvidia, Qualcomm, AMD and so on.
In other words, after losing Huawei as a customer, TSMC's dependence on the United States has intensified, which is no good sign for a large international company.
In fact, through TSMC's actions in the past two years, we can also find that after losing Huawei, the customer, TSMC's attitude towards the United States has become softer and softer, and it does not dare to contradict the opinions of the United States. For example, in the past few years, the United States also invited TSMC to build a factory in the United States, but it was rejected by TSMC on the grounds that the cost pressure was too large, but last year, that is, after losing Huawei, for the invitation of the United States, TSMC relaxed and began to release the signal of willingness to build a factory in the United States.
TSMC's change of attitude in going to the United States to build a factory is largely because TSMC also knows in its heart that its big customers are American companies, if it really makes the United States unhappy and restricts the cooperation between the United States and TSMC, then TSMC is afraid that it will really usher in the end, based on this, even if it knows that going to the United States to build a factory is a loss-making business, TSMC can only pinch its nose and agree.
In general, after the loss of Huawei, TSMC's revenue is indeed not affected, and the small life is still good, but it has lost the "tough" confidence, and dare not go against the will of the United States, to some extent, this is also a loss. Even in the long run, this is a bigger loss than losing a Huawei order.
Some practitioners also pointed out that if TSMC cannot develop more non-US major customers, then with the deepening of its dependence on US companies, TSMC's autonomy will be less and less, and it may even eventually become a vassal of the United States.