Recently, it was reported that according to supply chain investigations, most of TSMC's customers have agreed to increase their OEM prices in exchange for reliable supply. The latest market news indicates that the portion of TSMC's price increase is due to the 3nm latest node process, which continues to be in short supply in the market, but the price of 6/7nm nodes has fallen.
Market news indicates that the current capacity utilization rate of TSMC at 6/7nm is only 60%, and prices will be reduced by 10% from January 1, 2025. On the contrary, due to the shortage of production capacity in the 3/5nm node process, TSMC will increase its prices by 5% to 10% in 2025.
The reason for the price increase of the 3/5nm node process is that four major manufacturers, including Apple, Qualcomm, Nvidia, and AMD, have aggressively taken down TSMC's 3nm family process capacity, leading to a surge in customer queues all the way to 2026. Therefore, due to this impact, the price of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 using TSMC's 3nm process will rise, and it is expected to also cause an increase in the prices of related terminal equipment.
According to the report from Daimo, TSMC has reached an agreement with customers, and with the company's ability to cooperate with the supply chain and deliver on time, customers have also agreed to order higher priced semiconductor process capacity. Although accurate estimates of price increases have not yet been received, Da Mo stated that TSMC's gross profit margin will increase as a result, expected to reach 55.1% in 2025 and 60% in 2026.
It is worth noting that the current news of price increases in the semiconductor industry chain is becoming increasingly dense, including manufacturers such as Qualcomm, TSMC, and Huahong, covering integrated circuit (IC) design, chip foundry, and other links. Benefiting from the wave of artificial intelligence (AI), DRAM (memory) and SSD (solid state hard drives) have also seen significant price increases.
