Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) — Company Research

Last Updated: 9 May 2026

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE: TSM) is the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan. The ADR closed the prior session at $414.15 and traded at $411.68 on 9 May 2026, with an intraday range of $400.90–$416.98 and a 52-week range of $184.61–$420.00 — a roughly 2.2x advance from the bottom of the range. The market capitalisation at that price is approximately $2.14 trillion. The company reports financial statements in New Taiwan Dollars (NT$) and filed its FY2025 annual report on Form 20-F (the foreign-filer equivalent of a 10-K) on 16 April 2026. This report rebuilds the picture from the supplied JSON data feed dated 9 May 2026 and the FY2025 20-F extract — without analyst opinions, price targets or third-party ratings.

1. Company Snapshot

Name	Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited
Ticker / Exchange	TSM / NYSE (ADR; NYQ)
Sector / Industry	Technology / Semiconductors
Market cap	$2.14 trillion (9 May 2026)
FY2025 revenue	NT$3,809.1bn (+31.6% YoY)
FY2025 free cash flow	NT$992.4bn
Employees	76,907
CEO	Dr. C. C. Wei
Headquarters	Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu City, Taiwan
Website	tsmc.com
Fiscal year-end	31 December
ADR ratio	1 ADS = 5 common shares (per the FY2025 10-K, Item 7, filed 2026-04-16: 5,313,450,863 common shares represented by 1,062,690,167 ADSs registered to Citibank, N.A. as depositary)
Latest annual filing	Form 20-F for FY2025, filed 16 April 2026
Next earnings	16 July 2026 (per JSON calendar)

2. Bull Case vs Bear Case

Bull case

• Re-acceleration on the top line: per the JSON financials_annual[], FY2025 revenue rose 31.6% year-on-year to NT$3,809.1bn (after a 33.9% rise in FY2024 from a low FY2023 base) and Q4 2025 was the largest quarter on record at NT$1,046.1bn — quarterly revenue has expanded every quarter through FY2025.
• Margin profile is back to peak levels: FY2025 gross margin was 59.9%, operating margin 50.8% and net margin 44.6% (per the JSON ratios block); Q4 2025 gross margin reached 62.3% (NT$652.0bn gross profit on NT$1,046.1bn of revenue), the highest in the displayed quarterly series.
• Cash generation step-up: FY2025 operating cash flow was NT$2,275.0bn against capex of NT$1,282.6bn, leaving NT$992.4bn of free cash flow — 3.5x the FY2023 level (NT$286.6bn) and roughly 1.15x FY2024 (NT$861.2bn).
• Dividend cadence is rising: per the FY2025 10-K (Item 8, filed 2026-04-16), TSMC's quarterly cash dividend was raised from NT$5.00001754 per share for Q1 2025 (paid 9 October 2025) to NT$6.00003573 per share for Q3 2025 (paid 9 April 2026) and NT$6.0 per share for Q4 2025 (payable 9 July 2026) — a 20% per-share step-up over the year.
• Strategic-customer position is unchanged: per multiple primary sources cited in the JSON recent_news[] (e.g. Barrons, 8 May 2026, https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-intel-chips-stock-7d6d10a2?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo), Apple "uses Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to make its Apple Silicon chips that run all its devices" — i.e. TSMC remains Apple's incumbent silicon manufacturer at the time of the report.

Bear case

• Customer-base concentration is being publicly contested: per multiple JSON recent_news[] items (Barrons 2026-05-08, TheStreet 2026-05-08, Bloomberg 2026-05-08, decrypt 2026-05-08, Simply Wall St 2026-05-08), Apple and Intel reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture chips for Apple — the Simply Wall St item explicitly frames the deal as highlighting "U.S. based chipmaking as an alternative to supply chains centered on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing".
• Single-country manufacturing footprint is structural: per the FY2025 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-04-16), the issuer is a Taiwan-incorporated company with its largest shareholder being a Taiwan government-affiliated body (National Development Fund, Executive Yuan, holding 6.38% of common shares as of 28 February 2026); the JSON's country field is "Taiwan".
• Capex intensity remains very high: FY2025 capital expenditure was NT$1,282.6bn (33.7% of FY2025 revenue) versus NT$965.0bn in FY2024 and NT$955.4bn in FY2023 — three consecutive years above NT$950bn of capex.
• Active patent litigation in the United States: per the FY2025 10-K (Item 8, filed 2026-04-16), in February 2025 Longitude Licensing Ltd. and Marlin Semiconductor Limited ("Marlin") filed complaints with the U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas alleging TSMC and its customers infringe five U.S. patents; the ITC instituted an investigation on 21 March 2025 and the District Court case was statutorily stayed on 23 April 2025. The company states the outcome cannot be determined and no reliable estimate of contingent liability has been made.
• Competing demand for foundry "lifelines" elsewhere: per the JSON recent_news[] items dated 2026-05-08 covering the Intel–Apple deal (TechCrunch, decrypt, TheStreet), Intel's foundry effort is being publicly championed by the U.S. White House as a domestic alternative — this is policy headwind risk to TSMC's leading-edge market share, even before any actual production volume shifts.

3. What Does This Company Actually Do?

In plain English, TSMC is a dedicated semiconductor foundry — it manufactures, packages, tests and sells integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices for fabless chip companies and integrated device manufacturers, but does not design and sell its own end-customer-branded chips. Per the JSON company.description field, the company "manufactures, packages, tests, and sells integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices in Taiwan, China, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Japan, the United States, and internationally" and "provides various wafer fabrication processes, such as processes to manufacture complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) logic, mixed-signal, radio frequency, embedded memory, bipolar CMOS mixed-signal, and others."

Per the JSON company.description, TSMC's products are used in five end-market clusters: - High-performance computing - Smartphones - Internet of Things (IoT) - Automotive - Digital consumer electronics

TSMC also runs a small set of complementary activities: customer and engineering support services, mask manufacturing, investments in technology start-ups, and the design, development, manufacture, packaging, testing and sale of color filters (per the JSON company.description).

Segment splits, percentages by platform, and geographic revenue mix (e.g. HPC/Smartphone/IoT/Automotive/DCE share, North America vs Asia-Pacific revenue) are not disclosed in this report's source data — the FY2025 10-K extract supplied to this analysis covers Item 7 (Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions) and Item 8 (Financial Information — Legal Proceedings, Dividends), but does not include a usable segment-revenue table from Item 5/Item 4 of the 20-F. For platform/geographic mix detail readers should consult the 20-F directly at https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1046179/000162828026025362/tsm-20251231.htm. (No segment donut chart is emitted in this section because fewer than two segment percentages are quoted from sourced data.)

What is directly quotable from the 20-F is a small set of related-party flows that gives a sense of TSMC's foundry-services footprint inside its own ownership tree: - Per the FY2025 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-04-16): in 2025 TSMC had total sales of NT$31,094 million (US$991 million) to Global Unichip Corporation (GUC), a SoC design service company in which TSMC owned approximately 34.8% as of 28 February 2026 — representing 0.8% of TSMC's total revenue. - Per the FY2025 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-04-16): in 2025 TSMC had total purchases of NT$878 million (US$28 million) from Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation (VIS, 27.6%-owned) — representing 0.1% of total cost of revenue. - Per the FY2025 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-04-16): in 2025 TSMC had total purchases of NT$4,113 million (US$131 million) from Systems on Silicon Manufacturing Company Pte. Ltd. (SSMC, the 38.8%-owned Singapore JV with NXP at 61.2%) — representing 0.3% of total cost of revenue. - Per the FY2025 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-04-16): in 2025 TSMC incurred total manufacturing expenses of NT$5,448 million (US$174 million) from Xintec, Inc. (41.0%-owned wafer-level packaging supplier) — representing 0.4% of total cost of revenue.

These four related-party items together give an implied ratio (NT$ purchase / cost-of-revenue percentage) consistent with FY2025 cost of revenue of approximately NT$1.53 trillion (the JSON financials_annual[] figure for FY2025 cost of revenue is NT$1,527,760m), corroborating the JSON top line.

4. The Business Model

TSMC's revenue model is straightforward foundry services: fabless customers (Apple, Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm, Broadcom and many others, though the customer list is not enumerated in the available 20-F sections) place orders for wafers manufactured on TSMC process nodes; TSMC fabricates the wafers, manages packaging/testing through its own and partner facilities, and ships the finished product. TSMC does not sell its own branded end-customer silicon — it is purely a contract manufacturer of integrated circuits.

Margin profile. From the JSON financials_annual[] block, FY2025 metrics:

• Revenue NT$3,809.1bn
• Gross profit NT$2,281.3bn → gross margin 59.9% (per the JSON ratios block: 0.5989)
• Operating income NT$1,936.1bn → operating margin 50.8% (per the JSON ratios block: 0.5083)
• Net income NT$1,697.6bn → net margin 44.6% (per the JSON ratios block: 0.4457)
• Operating cash flow NT$2,275.0bn against capex of NT$1,282.6bn → free cash flow NT$992.4bn

Operating margin of 50.8% is unusual for a heavy-manufacturing business and reflects TSMC's leadership position at advanced nodes plus disciplined operating-expense control: per the JSON, FY2025 operating expenses were NT$345.2bn against gross profit of NT$2,281.3bn — i.e. operating expenses are 9.1% of revenue, which is what allows a 59.9% gross margin to drop through to a 50.8% operating margin.

Moat. The structural moat is leading-edge process technology plus capex incumbency. TSMC's FY2025 capex of NT$1,282.6bn (33.7% of revenue) is on a scale that very few competitors can match in any single year, let alone repeat: capex was NT$965.0bn in FY2024, NT$955.4bn in FY2023 and NT$1,089.6bn in FY2022 (per the JSON financials_annual[]). Once a fabless customer has taped out a complex SoC on a TSMC node, switching to a competing foundry typically requires re-engineering of the design — a fact the news flow underlines: per Barrons, 8 May 2026 (https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-intel-chips-stock-7d6d10a2?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo), Apple "uses Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to make its Apple Silicon chips that run all its devices", and the Apple–Intel agreement reported the same day was characterised as "preliminary".

Government incentives / regulatory credits. Per the FY2025 10-K extract supplied for this analysis, the dollar amount and percentage of revenue tied to government subsidies, tax credits or regulatory credits is not disclosed in the available 20-F sections (Item 1A Risk Factors and Item 7A Market Risk are listed in meta.sections_missing from the extract; the available Item 7 covers Major Shareholders and Related Party Transactions only). Readers needing this should consult the 20-F directly at https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1046179/000162828026025362/tsm-20251231.htm — particularly any discussion of CHIPS Act credits or R.O.C. tax incentives in Item 5.

Capital structure. Per the JSON financials_annual[] for FY2025: total assets NT$7,932.8bn, total liabilities NT$2,536.6bn, total equity NT$5,355.0bn. Total debt was NT$1,064.6bn (long-term debt NT$896.1bn). Cash and equivalents were NT$2,767.9bn — i.e. cash exceeded total debt by approximately NT$1.7 trillion at year-end. Per the JSON ratios block, debt-to-equity is 0.20 and the current ratio is 2.51 (current assets NT$3,817.1bn against current liabilities NT$1,522.4bn).

5. Financial Health

Five-year revenue, profit, cash and balance-sheet trajectory (figures from the JSON financials_annual[] block; FY2021 fields are null in the JSON and are shown as "n/d"). All figures in NT$ millions unless noted; per-share data in NT$.

Fiscal year (Dec)	Revenue	Op. income	Net income	Diluted EPS (NT$)	Op. cash flow	Free cash flow	Total debt	Cash & equivalents
FY2021	n/d	n/d	n/d	n/d	n/d	n/d	n/d	n/d
FY2022	2,263,891	1,121,227	992,923	196.00	1,610,599	520,973	888,174	1,342,814
FY2023	2,161,736	921,430	851,740	161.70	1,241,967	286,569	956,258	1,465,428
FY2024	2,894,308	1,322,003	1,158,380	226.25	1,826,177	861,196	1,047,042	2,127,627
FY2025	3,809,054	1,936,096	1,697,604	331.25	2,274,976	992,378	1,064,583	2,767,856

Three takeaways from the five-year picture: - Revenue dipped 4.5% in FY2023 (from NT$2,263.9bn to NT$2,161.7bn) and then re-accelerated sharply: +33.9% in FY2024 and +31.6% in FY2025 (per the JSON revenue_growth_yoy fields). - Net income compounded from NT$851.7bn in FY2023 to NT$1,697.6bn in FY2025 — a 99% rise across two fiscal years; FY2025 EPS growth was +46.4% (per the JSON eps_growth_yoy). - Capex outran net income in FY2022 (NT$1,089.6bn capex vs NT$992.9bn net income) and FY2023 (NT$955.4bn capex vs NT$851.7bn net income) but reversed in FY2024 (NT$965.0bn capex vs NT$1,158.4bn net income) and FY2025 (NT$1,282.6bn capex vs NT$1,697.6bn net income).

Capital return and share count. Dividends paid in cash were NT$291.7bn in FY2023, NT$363.1bn in FY2024 and NT$466.8bn in FY2025 — a 60% rise across two fiscal years (per the JSON financials_annual[] dividends_paid fields, sign reversed). Buybacks have been negligible to nil: FY2022 NT$0.9bn, FY2023 NT$0, FY2024 NT$3.1bn, FY2025 NT$0 (per the JSON stock_buybacks field, sign reversed). Diluted share count moved only marginally: 5,185,838,000 in FY2022, 5,185,853,400 in FY2023, 5,185,929,000 in FY2024, 5,186,111,400 in FY2025 (per the JSON shares_diluted field) — an unusually stable share count for a company of this size.

Quarterly cadence (last five completed quarters with data, plus Q1 2026 EPS-only). All figures in NT$ millions.

Quarter ended	Revenue	Gross profit	Gross margin	Op. income	Net income	Diluted EPS (NT$)	Op. cash flow	Free cash flow
31 Dec 2024 (Q4 2024)	868,461	512,378	59.0%	425,698	359,792	n/d	620,205	255,197
31 Mar 2025 (Q1 2025)	839,254	493,395	58.8%	407,089	361,564	69.7	625,574	292,450
30 Jun 2025 (Q2 2025)	933,792	547,369	58.6%	463,423	398,273	76.8	497,064	197,501
30 Sep 2025 (Q3 2025)	989,918	588,543	59.5%	500,685	452,301	87.2	426,829	138,386
31 Dec 2025 (Q4 2025)	1,046,090	651,987	62.3%	564,906	485,465	97.5	725,509	364,041
31 Mar 2026 (Q1 2026)	n/d	n/d	n/d	n/d	n/d	110.4	n/d	n/d

The Q1 2026 line in the JSON financials_quarterly[] carries a diluted EPS of NT$110.4 but null values for revenue, gross profit, operating income, net income and cash flows — i.e. the JSON has captured a forward EPS data point but not the rest of the quarterly P&L at the time of generation. That EPS is +58.4% YoY against Q1 2025's NT$69.7.

0 275 550 825 1100

56% 58% 60% 62% 64%

868.5

839.3

933.8

989.9

1,046.1

Q4 24 Q1 25 Q2 25 Q3 25 Q4 25 Revenue (NT$ bn) Gross Margin (%) Revenue Gross Margin

6. Valuation & Market Data

Raw market data from the JSON, no commentary on cheap or expensive (price snapshot 9 May 2026, all figures in USD unless noted):

Share price (ADR)	$411.68
Previous close	$414.15
Day range	$400.90 – $416.98
52-week range	$184.61 – $420.00
Volume (intraday)	18,485,972
10-day average volume	13,848,350
Beta	1.264
Dividend yield	0.85%
Shares outstanding (ADS-equivalent)	5,186,400,000
Float (common shares)	23,638,014,751 (per the FY2025 10-K, Item 7, filed 2026-04-16: 25,932,524,521 common shares were outstanding as of 28 February 2026)
Market cap	$2,135.1bn ($2.14tn)
P/E (trailing, yfinance)	35.22x
P/E (forward, yfinance)	21.34x

Cross-currency note. TSMC reports its financial statements in NT$ while the ADR price and market cap are in US$. The JSON ratios block carries computed ratios that mix these currencies directly (e.g. pe_trailing = 1.2428, pb = 0.3987, ps_trailing = 0.5605, ev_revenue = 2.1921) — these are dimensionally inconsistent because the numerator is in US$ (market cap) while the denominator is in NT$ (latest revenue, equity, EPS). The trailing P/E figure used above is the yfinance value of 35.22x (per the JSON price.trailing_pe_yfinance field), which is computed in compatible units. Forward P/E of 21.34x is from the same source. The JSON ratios.ev_ebitda_proxy is 4.31 with the explicit calc note "D&A unavailable; conservative proxy; op_income source: yfinance (XBRL unavailable)" — the ev_revenue and ev_ebitda_proxy fields are flagged as proxies and are not relied on here. The JSON enterprise_value field of $8.35tn likewise appears to mix unit conventions (it exceeds market cap by ~3.9x against modest reported net debt) and is therefore not quoted in this section; readers seeking enterprise-value-based ratios should compute them from the underlying FY2025 NT$ balance sheet directly.

Short interest, put/call ratio, days-to-cover. Not disclosed in this report's source data — the JSON does not carry short-interest or options data for TSM.

Yield. Cash dividends paid totalled NT$466.8bn in FY2025 against a year-end share count of 5,186,111,400 diluted shares (per the JSON financials_annual[] for FY2025) — a per-share dividend of approximately NT$90.0 over the year. Per the FY2025 10-K (Item 8, filed 2026-04-16), the four declared 2025 quarterly cash dividends per common share were NT$5.00001754 (Q1, paid 9 October 2025), NT$5.00001118 (Q2, paid 8 January 2026), NT$6.00003573 (Q3, paid 9 April 2026) and NT$6.0 (Q4, payable 9 July 2026), summing to NT$22.00 per common share — equivalent to NT$110.00 per ADS at the 1:5 ratio.

7. What Are They Building / What's Coming?

The available 20-F sections in the FY2025 10-K extract (Item 7 Major Shareholders/Related Party Transactions and Item 8 Financial Information — Legal Proceedings/Dividends) do not contain a quotable narrative on TSMC's process roadmap (e.g. N3, N2, A16/A14 nodes, advanced packaging including CoWoS/SoIC, or fab build-out programmes). The 20-F's Item 1 in the supplied extract shows "Not applicable" — a 20-F-format artefact (Item 1 in the 20-F is "Identity of Directors, Senior Management and Advisors", not "Business" as in a 10-K), and the substantive Business / Operating and Financial Review sections (Item 4 / Item 5 of the 20-F) are not in the supplied extract. The relevant content is not disclosed in this report's source data; readers should consult the 20-F directly at https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1046179/000162828026025362/tsm-20251231.htm.

What can be said from primary sources within scope:

• R&D and capex envelope. Per the JSON financials_annual[], FY2025 capex was NT$1,282.6bn (33.7% of revenue), the largest single-year capex spend in TSMC's five-year window in this report; capex has totalled NT$4,291.6bn over FY2022–FY2025 inclusive.
• Affiliated foundry/packaging entities. Per the FY2025 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-04-16), TSMC continues to hold material equity stakes in four related companies: VIS (27.6%, dedicated foundry, NT$878m of FY2025 purchases), SSMC (38.8%, Singapore JV with NXP, NT$4,113m of FY2025 purchases — and TSMC and NXP are required in the aggregate to purchase at least 70% of SSMC's annual capacity), GUC (34.8%, SoC design services, NT$31,094m of FY2025 sales) and Xintec (41.0%, wafer-level packaging, NT$5,448m of FY2025 manufacturing expenses). These stakes are part of the broader TSMC manufacturing/design ecosystem.
• Dividend cadence is rising. Per the FY2025 10-K (Item 8, filed 2026-04-16), the per-common-share quarterly dividend stepped up from NT$5.00001754 (Q1 2025) to NT$6.00003573 (Q3 2025) and NT$6.0 (Q4 2025) — a 20% increase per share over the year, with the Q4 2025 dividend payable on 9 July 2026.

X (Twitter) statements / management posts. Not present in this report's source data — the JSON does not carry CEO or executive social media content.

8. Competitive Landscape

The available 20-F extract sections do not contain a quotable competitive-landscape table or named-competitor-share data, and the JSON recent_news[] items do not provide market-share percentages for TSMC versus its peers. As a result this section is built from primary text references in recent_news[] rather than from the 20-F. (No competitor-share SVG chart is emitted because no named market-share percentages are available.)

Direct competitors visible in the news flow:

• Intel Corp. — per multiple JSON recent_news[] items dated 2026-05-08 (Bloomberg, TheStreet, Barrons, decrypt, Simply Wall St, TechCrunch), Intel's foundry effort is the most prominent named competitor in the published material. Per the Simply Wall St item (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-apple-chip-deal-puts-221032356.html, 2026-05-08), Intel and Apple "reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture chips for Apple … the deal highlights U.S. based chipmaking as an alternative to supply chains centered on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing"; per TheStreet (https://www.thestreet.com/latest-news/apple-signs-chipmaking-deal-with-intel-joining-microsoft-amazon-and-tesla, 2026-05-08), Intel has had a "domestic foundry push" that "engineered massive losses". Per decrypt (https://decrypt.co/367320/intel-all-time-high-chip-deal-apple, 2026-05-08), the agreement is "preliminary" and "backed by a White House push". Per the Bloomberg item (https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/intel-ceo-won-over-trump-101511302.html, 2026-05-08), Intel's CEO is Lip-Bu Tan (became CEO March of "last year" relative to the article).
• ASE Technology Holding (ASX) — per the Zacks item (https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/why-asx-ionq-may-gain-190000948.html, 2026-05-08), ASE Technology is named as a relevant semiconductor packaging/test peer. ASE is an OSAT (outsourced assembly and test) provider rather than a leading-edge foundry, so it complements rather than directly substitutes the bulk of TSMC's revenue base; no specific market-share percentage is given in the source.
• Micron Technology — per the Yahoo Finance item (https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/article/microns-monster-run-hits-seventh-straight-record-high-153514380.html, 2026-05-08), Micron's "AI memory rally is still running hot". Micron is a memory IDM (DRAM/NAND) rather than a logic foundry, so it is adjacent to TSMC's customer base rather than a head-to-head substitute, but it is named in the same news cluster.

Customer-side competitive context. Per Barrons (https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-intel-chips-stock-7d6d10a2?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo, 2026-05-08), Apple "uses Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to make its Apple Silicon chips that run all its devices" — i.e. the disclosed status quo at the time of this report is that Apple's silicon is on TSMC, with the Intel deal flagged as "preliminary". The competitive read-through is therefore one-sided in the news flow available: TSMC's incumbency at Apple is documented, while Intel's foundry win is documented as preliminary.

Other widely-followed names in the foundry and design-IP space (Samsung Foundry, GlobalFoundries, UMC, ARM, Synopsys, Cadence, Nvidia as a customer-cum-competitor in custom silicon partnerships) are not present in the JSON recent_news[] items and are therefore not characterised here.

9. Leadership and Ownership

CEO. Per the JSON company.ceo field, TSMC's chief executive is Dr. C. C. Wei, Ph.D. — biographical detail (age, full appointment history) is not disclosed in this report's source data; the JSON does not carry a CEO birth-date or appointment-date field, and the FY2025 10-K extract section dealing with directors and officers (20-F Item 6) is not in the supplied extract. Other named individual officers visible in source data: TIEN BOR-ZEN (Officer) and URSULA M BURNS (Director) — both appear in the JSON holders.insider_transactions[] block.

Major shareholders (per the FY2025 10-K, Item 7, filed 2026-04-16, as of 28 February 2026):

Shareholder	Common shares	% of total outstanding
National Development Fund, Executive Yuan (R.O.C. government)	1,653,709,980	6.38%
All directors and executive officers as a group (excludes the National Development Fund)	60,237,681	0.23%

Per the FY2025 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-04-16), the total common shares outstanding on that reference date were 25,932,524,521. Of that total, 5,313,450,863 common shares (representing 1,062,690,167 ADSs) were registered in the name of a nominee of Citibank, N.A., the depositary under the company's ADS deposit agreement, and Citibank advised that those ADSs were held of record by Cede & Co. and 173 other registered shareholders domiciled in and outside of the United States. The company states that holders of common shares that are not R.O.C. persons are required, with limited exceptions, to hold their common shares through their custodians in the R.O.C.

Top institutional ADS holders (per the JSON holders.institutional_top[], as of 31 December 2025 unless noted):

Holder	ADS shares	% held	Reported value (USD)	As-of date
FMR, LLC	61,131,828	1.18%	$25.17bn	2025-12-31
Sanders Capital, LLC	31,958,360	0.62%	$13.16bn	2025-12-31
Capital World Investors	27,404,289	0.53%	$11.28bn	2025-12-31
Capital International Investors	25,658,661	0.49%	$10.56bn	2025-12-31
JPMorgan Chase & Co.	25,182,540	0.49%	$10.37bn	2025-12-31
Fisher Asset Management, LLC	18,617,691	0.36%	$7.66bn	2026-03-31
Van Eck Associates Corporation	17,464,962	0.34%	$7.19bn	2025-12-31
BlackRock Inc.	16,481,878	0.32%	$6.79bn	2025-12-31
Bank of America Corporation	15,902,819	0.31%	$6.55bn	2025-12-31
Morgan Stanley	13,513,371	0.26%	$5.56bn	2025-12-31

The "% held" figures shown above are from the JSON pct_held field; they reflect ADS ownership as a percentage of the issuer's outstanding shares as recorded by the data source. Note the contrast: per the FY2025 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-04-16), the National Development Fund of the Executive Yuan owns 6.38% of the company (single largest known holder), while the largest disclosed institutional ADS holder, FMR, LLC, owns 1.18% — a feature of the dual common/ADS structure and the R.O.C. custodian rule for non-R.O.C. holders.

Insider transactions (per the JSON holders.insider_transactions[]):

Date	Insider	Position	Transaction	Shares	Reported value (USD)
28 Apr 2026	TIEN BOR-ZEN	Officer	Not specified in source data	20	$7,760
31 Mar 2026	BURNS URSULA M	Director	Not specified in source data	1,000	$322,050

The JSON transaction field is empty for both rows so the buy/sell direction and the 10b5-1-versus-discretionary classification are not disclosed in this report's source data; readers needing to classify these as planned sales versus discretionary purchases should consult the underlying Form 4/144 filings on the SEC EDGAR system.

10. Risks and Challenges

Important note on this section. Per the FY2025 10-K extract meta.sections_missing field, the Item 1A Risk Factors section and the Item 7A Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk section are listed as missing/empty in the supplied extract — i.e. there is no quotable Risk Factors text from the 20-F available for this analysis. The risks below are therefore drawn only from primary content that is available (Item 7 Major Shareholders/Related Party Transactions, Item 8 Financial Information including Legal Proceedings, and the JSON recent_news[] block). For a comprehensive risk-factor disclosure readers should consult the 20-F directly at https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1046179/000162828026025362/tsm-20251231.htm.

• Pending U.S. patent litigation. Per the FY2025 10-K (Item 8, filed 2026-04-16): "In February 2025, Longitude Licensing Ltd. and Marlin Semiconductor Limited (collectively, 'Marlin') filed complaints with the U.S. International Trade Commission ('ITC') and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas alleging that TSMC and its customers infringe five U.S. patents. The ITC instituted an investigation on March 21, 2025 and the lawsuit in the Eastern District Court for Texas was statutorily stayed on April 23, 2025 pending the ITC investigation. The outcome cannot be determined, and we cannot make a reliable estimate of the contingent liability at this time." Other than this matter, the company states it was not a party to any material litigation as of 31 December 2025.
• Antitrust scrutiny in multiple jurisdictions. Per the FY2025 10-K (Item 8, filed 2026-04-16): "We are also subject to antitrust compliance requirements and scrutiny by governmental regulators in multiple jurisdictions. Any adverse results of such proceeding or other similar proceedings that may arise in those jurisdictions could harm our business and distract our management, and thereby have a material adverse effect on our results of operations or prospects, and subject us to potential significant legal liability."
• Customer-side competitive risk: Apple–Intel preliminary deal. Per the JSON recent_news[], multiple primary outlets reported on 8 May 2026 that Apple and Intel have reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture chips for Apple. Per Simply Wall St (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-apple-chip-deal-puts-221032356.html), the deal "highlights U.S. based chipmaking as an alternative to supply chains centered on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing"; per TheStreet (https://www.thestreet.com/latest-news/apple-signs-chipmaking-deal-with-intel-joining-microsoft-amazon-and-tesla), Intel has been "working to build a contract chip manufacturing business" for years. Per Barrons (https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-intel-chips-stock-7d6d10a2?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo), Apple still uses TSMC for Apple Silicon at the time of the article — i.e. the agreement is preliminary and the substitution risk is forward-looking, not realised, but it is now publicly named in the customer's roadmap.
• Government/policy concentration. Per the FY2025 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-04-16), the National Development Fund of the Executive Yuan (R.O.C. government) holds 6.38% of common shares — the single largest disclosed holder — and per the JSON company.country field the issuer is incorporated in Taiwan. Geopolitical risk attaches structurally to that footprint; the available extract does not contain quotable text on this topic.
• Capital allocation risk on a very large capex base. Per the JSON financials_annual[], capex has been NT$1,089.6bn (FY2022), NT$955.4bn (FY2023), NT$965.0bn (FY2024) and NT$1,282.6bn (FY2025) — i.e. four consecutive years above NT$950bn. A misforecast of advanced-node demand at this capex scale would materially affect the operating-margin profile.
• Related-party concentration of capacity. Per the FY2025 10-K (Item 7, filed 2026-04-16), TSMC and NXP "have the right to purchase up to 100% of SSMC's annual capacity and are required in the aggregate to purchase at least 70% of its capacity" — i.e. TSMC has a meaningful purchase obligation against the SSMC Singapore facility that does not flex with end-customer demand; the FY2025 NT$4,113m of purchases from SSMC sits within that framework.
• Dependency on a single largest customer (qualitative). While the JSON does not enumerate customers by share of revenue and the 20-F extract does not contain Item 5 customer-concentration narrative, Barrons's 2026-05-08 statement that Apple uses TSMC "to make its Apple Silicon chips that run all its devices" is a primary disclosure that a single customer's product line is wholly dependent on TSMC — and, as noted above, that customer has now publicly entered a preliminary alternative-supply agreement with Intel. Quantification (revenue % from largest customer) is not disclosed in this report's source data.

Risk-factor content beyond the items above is not cleanly available from this filing's structure — see the 20-F directly at https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1046179/000162828026025362/tsm-20251231.htm for the full risk-factor disclosure.

11. Recent Developments

The most recent items first. URLs are reproduced byte-for-byte from the JSON recent_news[] block.

• 9 May 2026 — "Goldman Sachs Is Jim Cramer's 'Big Winner' — Plus A Chip Stock With 'More Business Than They Can Handle'" (Benzinga, via Yahoo Finance, published 2026-05-09T01:30:18Z). The summary references a CNBC "Mad Money Lightning Round" segment in which Jim Cramer named Goldman Sachs as "the big winner" in IPOs and M&A; the headline frames a chip stock as having "more business than they can handle". https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/goldman-sachs-jim-cramers-big-013018440.html
• 8 May 2026 — "Micron's monster run hits seventh straight record high" (Yahoo Finance, 2026-05-08T15:35:14Z). Reports that Micron's AI-memory rally has continued. Relevance to TSMC: signals continued AI semiconductor demand at the memory-IDM layer of the same end-market. https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/article/microns-monster-run-hits-seventh-straight-record-high-153514380.html
• 8 May 2026 — "Intel CEO Who Won Over Trump and Musk Now Needs a Breakthrough" (Bloomberg, via Yahoo Finance, 2026-05-08T23:26:45Z). Bloomberg long-form on Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan's first ~14 months in the role. Relevance to TSMC: Lip-Bu Tan's strategic focus is the area in which Intel is most directly framed as a competitive alternative to TSMC. https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/intel-ceo-won-over-trump-101511302.html
• 8 May 2026 — "Intel Apple Chip Deal Puts Foundry Ambitions And Risks In Focus" (Simply Wall St., via Yahoo Finance, 2026-05-08T22:10:32Z). Per the JSON summary: "Intel (NasdaqGS:INTC) and Apple reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture chips for Apple. The agreement marks a breakthrough for Intel's foundry effort and involves active support from the White House. The deal highlights U.S. based chipmaking as an alternative to supply chains centered on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing." Direct competitive read-through to TSM. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-apple-chip-deal-puts-221032356.html
• 8 May 2026 — "Apple reaches chipmaking deal with Intel, pushing its stock to new record" (TheStreet, 2026-05-08T21:39:50Z). Per the JSON summary, Intel "has sold a new customer on its domestic foundry push", with the WSJ initially reporting the agreement on the same Friday. https://www.thestreet.com/latest-news/apple-signs-chipmaking-deal-with-intel-joining-microsoft-amazon-and-tesla
• 8 May 2026 — "Intel Stock Hits All-Time High After Preliminary Chip Deal With Apple" (decrypt, 2026-05-08T20:17:26Z). Per the JSON summary, the agreement is "preliminary" and was "backed by a White House push", and "sent Intel stock above $130 on Friday". https://decrypt.co/367320/intel-all-time-high-chip-deal-apple
• 8 May 2026 — "Intel's comeback story is even wilder than it seems" (TechCrunch, via Yahoo Finance, 2026-05-08T20:02:52Z). Per the JSON summary, "Intel's stock has risen a stunning 490% over the past year". This frames the foundry-competitor capital-markets context. https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/intel-comeback-story-even-wilder-200252829.html
• 8 May 2026 — "Why ASX and IONQ May Gain 15%+ in the Quantum-Semiconductor Space" (Zacks, via Yahoo Finance, 2026-05-08T19:00:00Z). Names ASE Technology Holding (ASX) — TSMC's principal OSAT-side adjacent peer — alongside IonQ as quantum-semiconductor names. https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/why-asx-ionq-may-gain-190000948.html
• 8 May 2026 — "Apple May Become an Intel Customer Again. What This Means for Both Companies." (Barrons.com, 2026-05-08T18:20:00Z). Direct framing of the TSM angle: per the JSON summary, "Apple uses Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to make its Apple Silicon chips that run all its devices." https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-intel-chips-stock-7d6d10a2?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo
• 4 May 2026 — "Tech stocks today: Chip stocks surge on report of Apple-Intel deal, rekindled AI trade" (Yahoo Finance, 2026-05-04T10:00:00Z). Sector-level live-blog item naming the Apple–Intel report and the AI trade as the day's drivers; chip stocks are the focus. https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/live/tech-stocks-today-semiconductor-earnings-ai-boom-musk-altman-fight-100000447.html

Filings. Per the JSON sec_filings[], TSMC's most recent SEC filing in the supplied data is the FY2025 Form 20-F, filed 16 April 2026 (accession 0001628280-26-025362). The 20-F is the foreign-filer equivalent of an annual 10-K and replaces both the 10-K and the proxy statement for U.S. disclosure purposes for TSMC.

Insider activity in the prior 6 weeks (per the JSON holders.insider_transactions[]): TIEN BOR-ZEN (Officer) — 20 shares, $7,760 reported value, 28 April 2026; URSULA M BURNS (Director) — 1,000 shares, $322,050 reported value, 31 March 2026. The buy/sell direction is not specified in the JSON transaction field for either row.

12. Key Dates Coming Up

Per the JSON calendar block and the FY2025 10-K (Item 8, filed 2026-04-16):

Date	Event	Detail
11 June 2026	Ex-dividend date	Per the JSON calendar (`ex_dividend_date`).
9 July 2026	Q4 2025 dividend payment date	NT$6.0 per common share, approved by the Board on 10 February 2026; per the FY2025 10-K (Item 8, filed 2026-04-16), the total amount is NT$155,595,147,126 (subject to adjustment for then-outstanding shares as of the record date). The JSON `dividend_date` field is also 2026-07-09.
16 July 2026	Next earnings release	Per the JSON calendar (`next_earnings_date`); will cover Q2 2026 results.

Subsequent dividend cadence. Beyond 9 July 2026, the FY2025 10-K (Item 8, filed 2026-04-16) does not list further dividend declarations because the FY2025 quarterly dividend table runs only through the Q4 2025 declaration (approved 10 February 2026, payable 9 July 2026). Per the same disclosure, TSMC's Board of Directors is authorised to approve quarterly cash dividends after the close of each quarter, with payment within six months — readers should expect Q1 2026 and subsequent quarterly dividend declarations to follow that pattern.

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Disclaimer. This research is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is built from primary-source filings, the FY2025 Form 20-F annual report and the supplied data feed, plus dated press articles cited in-line. It contains no analyst opinions, no price targets and no buy/sell/hold recommendations. All forward-looking statements have been attributed to the company. Numerical figures are sourced from the JSON data feed dated 9 May 2026 and from the FY2025 20-F (filed 16 April 2026); where a section of the 20-F was not available in the supplied extract this is stated explicitly in the relevant section. Cross-currency presentation differences (NT$-denominated financials versus US$-denominated ADR price/market cap) have been called out where relevant. Nothing here is investment advice; do your own research and consult a regulated adviser before making investment decisions.