TSMC revenue reached NT$514.8 billion in August 2026, the highest monthly figure the company has ever reported. That is 53.3% above the same month a year earlier and 10.1% above July. Monthly sales have now risen for four straight months.
The more useful number is the one the company itself published in July. TSMC guided third-quarter revenue to between US$44.6 billion and US$45.8 billion. July and August together have already covered about US$31.2 billion of that range.
TSMC revenue, what August actually printed
TSMC reported the figure on Thursday, September 10, 2026. August sales came to NT$514.806 billion, or roughly US$16.35 billion. The year-on-year gain was 53.3%. The month-on-month gain was 10.1%.
Cumulative revenue for January through August reached NT$3.38687 trillion. That is 39.3% higher than the same eight months of 2025. The company’s shares closed 0.61% lower on Thursday, before the release went out.
Four consecutive monthly increases matter more than any single print. A one-month record can come from timing. Four in a row points to capacity that is being sold as fast as it is added.
Source: CNBC
The August record carries the first 2nm money
TrendForce published second-quarter foundry data on September 9, 2026. The top ten foundries took in a combined US$53.49 billion, up 11.5% from the previous quarter. It was a record for the group.
TSMC accounted for US$40.2 billion of that, up 12.1% quarter on quarter. TrendForce named four drivers: demand for AI server GPUs and XPUs, 5nm, 4nm and 3nm capacity that was fully booked, an early iPhone build, and the first revenue contribution from the 2nm node.
That last item is the one to watch. A new node starts at the highest wafer price it will ever command. When 2nm begins to register at all, it lifts the average selling price before it lifts unit volume.
The second-quarter results pointed the same way. Net profit rose more than 77% from a year earlier, and management described AI-related demand on the July call as extremely robust.
Source: TrendForce
Read the third-quarter guidance backwards and September looks smaller
The August release lets you solve for September. The reported 10.1% month-on-month gain puts July at about NT$467.6 billion, or US$14.85 billion. Add August and the two months come to roughly US$31.2 billion.
Against guidance of US$44.6 billion to US$45.8 billion, that leaves September at somewhere between US$13.4 billion and US$14.6 billion. Even at the top of the range, September would land 10.7% below August. At the bottom it would be 18.0% below.
One caveat belongs with that arithmetic. TSMC sets dollar guidance using an assumed New Taiwan dollar exchange rate, and the conversion above uses August’s implied rate. A weaker local currency narrows the gap, a stronger one widens it.
The reading is still fairly clean. Either the July guidance was deliberately conservative, or the quarter is front-loaded and the momentum in the monthly prints is running ahead of what the company is willing to promise.
Source: CNBC, author’s calculation
A 72.5% share against Samsung’s 5.9%
TrendForce put TSMC’s second-quarter foundry share at 72.5%, a record. Samsung Foundry came second with US$3.26 billion and a 5.9% share, growing 1.8% from the prior quarter on HBM base die orders and higher advanced-node pricing.
SMIC took third place with more than US$3.0 billion and a 5.4% share, and it grew fastest of the three at 20%. Its gains came from consumer supply chain buying and from AI peripheral chips rather than from leading-edge logic.
Behind them, UMC took US$2.18 billion for 3.9%, GlobalFoundries US$1.79 billion for 3.2%, and HuaHong US$1.27 billion. The gap between first place and second place is now more than twelve times.
For Korean readers the Samsung line is the one that carries information. Its growth came from memory-adjacent work and from price, not from winning leading-edge logic share.
Source: TrendForce, Focus Taiwan
What TSMC is buying for 2030
On September 8, 2026, TSMC and ASML announced a joint initiative to move High NA EUV lithography from six-inch photomasks to twelve-inch masks. The partners are targeting a pilot line for twelve-inch masks in 2031 and full system readiness in 2033.
TSMC has said it plans to use High NA in high-volume manufacturing from 2030. The same tool generation is already running elsewhere, and our earlier piece on High NA EUV lithography passing one million wafers at Intel covers where that machine stands today.
Two risks sit against the record. Revenue is concentrated in a small number of AI customers, so a single capital expenditure decision moves the monthly line. And the macro backdrop is tightening rather than loosening, which we looked at in the piece on why the Fed is debating a hike instead of a cut.
For now the measured numbers and the promised numbers disagree, and the measured ones are higher. September’s release, due in early October, settles which of the two was right.
Source: ASML
