TSMC: Cryptocurrency Mining Drove Strong Third Quarter Revenue

The chief financial officer for the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest independent semiconductor foundry, cited cryptocurrency mining in the firm's third-quarter results.

The company – which provides semiconductor manufacturing services for a range of industries, including firms that design and assemble application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for cryptocurrency mining – announced third-quarter revenue of $8.32 billion, an increase of 17.9% compared to the previous quarter and 1.5% year-over-year.

Boosting those figures, Lora Ho said, is demand for semiconductors used in mining products.

She said in a statement:

"The strength of our third-quarter revenue was driven mainly by major mobile product launches and a generally healthy demand environment, including cryptocurrency mining. However, this strength of our third quarter revenue was partially dampened by our customers’ continued inventory management."

It's a notable acknowledgment from a major hardware manufacturer, but one that's also unsurprising given past statements from other firms that have seen windfalls from the interest in mining, the process by which new transactions are added to the blockchain.

Both Nvidia and AMD, which make graphics cards, have both pointed to mining as a beneficial force for their bottom lines. Indeed, it was Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang who declared in August that "cryptocurrencies and blockchain are here to say."

Mining activity, as pointed out by some Wall Street analysts, is also attracting investors to the companies' public stocks.

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