HSINCHU, Taiwan (Reuters) – Taiwanese contract chipmaker TSMC, a major supplier to Apple and Nvidia, on Thursday forecast 10% annual sales growth in the global semiconductor industry, excluding memory chips.
“This is a new golden age of opportunity with AI,” said senior vice president Cliff Hou, speaking at an event in Hsinchu, where the company is headquartered.
In April, TSMC lowered its outlook for the global non-memory semiconductor industry to a growth rate of around 10%, down from a previous forecast of more than 10%.
World Semiconductor Trade Statistics predicts a growth of 13.1% for the global semiconductor market in 2024.
TSMC estimates that second-quarter sales could rise as much as 30% due to the surge in demand for semiconductors used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
Nvidia on Wednesday forecast quarterly revenue to exceed expectations and announced a stock split, sending its shares to a record high and impressing investors who have tripled the chipmaker’s market value over the past year on AI optimism.
(Reporting by Faith Hung; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree, Kim Coghill and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
