TSMC has surpassed both Intel and Samsung in its market cap, coming one step closer to becoming the world's biggest semiconductor manufacturer -- a goal it has had for quite some time in its battle with Samsung for the crown.
With its share price currently at $66.51, TSMC carries an estimated market cap of $322.73 billion USD. In comparison, Intel's current share price sits at $60.58 with a market cap of $254.04-billion, and Samsung is worth 363 trillion Korean Won, which is equivalent to about 302-billion USD.
We shouldn't be all too surprised at this development. Over the last few years TSMC has been investing heavily in its advanced process nodes, and the development of its partnerships with the likes of Apple and AMD have undoubtedly contributed to the fabs' growth.
Of course, the market cap is just a result of multiplying the share price by the number of shares, and the share price is the result of supply and demand on the stock market. Consequently, this doesn't necessarily mean that TSMC is actually the biggest semiconductor manufacturer in the world in terms of assets -- rather, investors are optimistic about the company's performance, which in turn lead to a high share price and thus a higher market valuation than Intel and Samsung.
Meanwhile, TSMC has also announced that it will be building a factory in Arizona, after much pressure from American regulators and the Trump administration. The White House has also blocked TSMC from shipping to Huawei, leading to the termination of collaboration between Huawei and its main chipmaker.
Adding a cherry on top, it now turns out that Japan also wants some of TSMC's chip-making factories, as reported by Reuters. However, at this time TSMC refused to comment on whether it would be building a factory in Japan.
