Analysts are suggesting TSMC’s momentum is so fierce that it could barge past Job’s Mob by 2030, possibly claiming the title of the world’s most valuable company. It is an awkward contrast with the Californian gadget peddler, which has spent the best part of a decade polishing the same iPhone slab and insisting this represents progress.
The Motley Fool’s senior analyst Keithen Drury pointed out that although Apple trades at about US$4 trillion, while TSMC sits at about US$1.4 trillion, the demand unleashed by AI could see the Taiwanese foundry overtake its rival by 2030.
Drury said the consumer electronics market is saturated, and Job’s Mob’s revenue growth is flatter than a penny on a railway track. Since mid-2022, it has managed only one quarter of double-digit growth, and that required rounding generous enough to make an accountant blush.
The iPhone cash cow has slumped into a rut, and the company is now leaning on share buybacks and cost-cutting to cling to low double-digit earnings per share. Drury puts its long-term EPS growth at about 12 per cent.
TSMC, meanwhile, is sitting at the heart of the AI stampede. High-performance chips from Huida, Broadcom and a parade of global tech giants all flow from its fabs. Its next-generation processes promise to cut power consumption by 25 to 30 per cent at the same performance, which Drury calls disruptive enough to justify higher prices and chunkier margins.
Drury argues AI’s growth curve is nowhere near its peak. AMD expects its data centre business to grow at a compound annual rate of 60 per cent by 2030. Huida predicts global data-centre investment will jump from US$600 billion in 2025 to between US$3 trillion and US$4 trillion in 2030, at a roughly 42 per cent compound annual rate. TSMC’s AI foundry work is expected to ride much the same wave.
TSMC’s latest results back this up. Third-quarter revenue rose 41 per cent in US dollars, and net profit jumped sharply, which has delighted investors who are weary of Job’s Mob’s static sales charts.
Drury assumes TSMC can maintain annual EPS growth of roughly 40 per cent.
By 2030, Drury estimates Job’s Mob’s EPS will reach US$13.52, while TSMC’s will hit US$57.08. Using current Japanese earnings ratios, he arrives at potential market values of US$7.2 trillion for Job’s Mob and US$8.3 trillion for TSMC, which would flip the present pecking order.
If these projections hold, TSMC could become the world’s second-largest or even biggest company by 2030. It would be a humiliating twist for Job’s Mob, whose grand innovations of late seem to involve new colours, pricier dongles and telling punters they are holding their phones incorrectly.
Drury does warn that his forecasts rely on very punchy assumptions, although the only punchy thing emerging from Apple these days is the marketing.
