Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the world's largest contract semiconductor manufacturer. Founded in 1987 by Morris Chang in Hsinchu, Taiwan, TSMC has a market share of over 50% and a customer base that includes some of the biggest names in the industry, such as Apple, Qualcomm, and Nvidia. Mr. Chang, now 92 years old, worked at Texas Instruments for 25 years and pioneered the controversial-at-the-time pricing scheme called “ahead of the cost curve.” The idea was to price new chips at lower margins to get more volume which would lead to higher yields and, in turn, higher margins. TSMC has built its business off of this idea and now the moat is so large, it would be challenging to catch up.
A good quick overview that I linked to in today's post: https://emergingmarketskeptic.substack.com/p/emerging-markets-week-march-18-2024
I think there are many other interesting and overlooked stocks in Taiwan that TSMC overshadows though...
Great interview