OpenAI's revenue comes in US$20bn below reports as TSMC tops its guidance
Zero One Investment Research Daily Intelligence Brief, October 9, 2026
OpenAI's revenue comes in US$20bn below reports as TSMC tops its guidance
Top Market Signals
TSMC's 3Q revenue tops its guidance range
TSMC (2330 TT) reported 3Q26 revenue of NT$1.494tn, up 17.6% QoQ and 51% YoY, and about 2% above the top of its guidance. Guidance of US$44.6bn to US$45.8bn converts to NT$1.427tn to NT$1.466tn at NT$32 to the US dollar.
September revenue was NT$511.86bn, down 0.6% MoM from August's record NT$514.81bn and up 54.6% YoY. It was the second straight month above NT$500bn. Nine-month revenue reached NT$3.899tn, up 41.1% YoY. TSMC has raised its full-year outlook twice and expects 2026 US dollar revenue growth slightly above 40%.
Economic Daily News cited NVIDIA's new platform and Apple's new phones behind the beat, and Commercial Times reported that analysts pointed to Blackwell GPU demand, new custom AI chips moving from N4 to N3, and flagship phone processors moving from N3 to N2, which kept the most advanced nodes running at high utilization. NVIDIA's (NVDA US) Vera Rubin platform, which started shipping in 3Q, had not yet ramped in volume.
TSMC reports 3Q results on 15 Oct and is in its quiet period until then. The release will show whether 3Q gross margin held inside the 65% to 67% guided range, and the first 4Q guidance will show how much Vera Rubin adds.
Linked stocks: 2330 TT, NVDA US, AAPL US
OpenAI's revenue runs US$20bn below earlier reports
OpenAI's annualized revenue was about US$50bn at the end of September, the Financial Times reported on 8 Oct, citing documents given to the company's financial backers. Media reports late last month, based on information given to investors, had put the figure at about US$70bn.
AI chip stocks fell the same day, which Central News Agency attributed mainly to the OpenAI report. NVIDIA-backed data center operator Firmus also scrapped its planned US$5bn Australian IPO on poor demand, Reuters reported.
The gap matters because of how much hardware is now being financed against OpenAI's growth. Our 8 Oct Blade reported that Broadcom is arranging more than US$50bn of financing for the custom AI chips it is developing with OpenAI, with talks at an early stage and the size still open to change.
The deal is aimed to close by year end, and its final size will show how lenders weigh the lower revenue figure.
Linked stocks: AVGO US, NVDA US, MU US, ORCL US
TSMC hires GlobalFoundries for US packaging parts
GlobalFoundries (GFS US) signed a five-year, US$2bn agreement to make silicon interposers for TSMC's (2330 TT) CoWoS packaging at its plant in Malta, New York, with volume production ramping in 1H28. An interposer is the slab of silicon that sits under an AI processor and its memory chips and carries the connections between them.
TSMC's CoWoS (chip-on-wafer-on-substrate) packaging, which joins AI processors to their high-bandwidth memory, is still short of capacity, and expanding interposer supply is one of the ways TSMC is adding to it, Economic Daily News reported. Its existing interposer partners include its affiliate Vanguard International (5347 TT). GlobalFoundries said Malta will be the first US site making interposers for advanced packaging.
According to Tom's Hardware, GlobalFoundries will work as a subcontractor making customer-specific interposer designs, and the US source lets TSMC's customers sell products made and packaged entirely in America. The companies did not disclose the capacity being installed, and the agreement allows for more expansion as demand grows. GlobalFoundries shares rose about 4% before the US open.
Linked stocks: 2330 TT, GFS US, 5347 TT, NVDA US
Server builders set records as notebook output falls
Wiwynn (6669 TT) reported record September revenue of NT$172.62bn, up 100% YoY, and Pegatron (4938 TT) a record NT$214.75bn, up 86.9% YoY and 143% MoM. Wistron (3231 TT) reported NT$380.81bn, up 87.2% YoY, and Inventec (2356 TT) NT$98.64bn, up 62.9%. Wistron, Wiwynn and Inventec all set quarterly revenue records in 3Q26.
Notebooks moved the other way. Wistron, Inventec and Compal (2324 TT) each shipped about 4.9m notebooks in 3Q26, down 18.2%, 9.3% and 21% QoQ, Central News Agency reported. Inventec said customers had pulled notebook orders into the first half because of memory shortages and expects 4Q shipments down another 4% to 9% QoQ. Compal, which described PC demand as relatively weak, grew September revenue 35.4% YoY.
Servers are making up the gap. Wiwynn's 3Q revenue rose 56.3% QoQ on North American cloud orders, Wistron expects 4Q AI server, general server and networking shipments to be its peak of the year, and Inventec says servers will pass half of 2026 revenue. Pegatron's jump also included iPhone 18 Pro builds; analysts estimate servers are now about 10% of its revenue.
Linked stocks: 6669 TT, 3231 TT, 4938 TT, 2324 TT
Samsung reportedly cuts phone output up to 30%
Samsung Electronics' (005930 KS) phone division has asked component suppliers to cut deliveries by 20% to 30%, and its 4Q phone output could fall by as much as 30%, Korean media reported, as carried by TechNews. Rising memory prices have left the phones earning almost no profit.
Samsung's own figures show its phone memory purchase cost rose 211% in 1H26, while the average phone selling price rose only about 7%. Phone LPDDR5X memory reached about US$145 to US$146 per 12GB in 2Q, up 175% YoY, and could rise another 20% in 3Q to near US$180, according to market research cited in the report. Samsung had planned to build 270m phones this year; with the cut, that could fall to 220m to 230m.
Our 3 Oct Blade reported that Phison (8299 TT) said phone customers had already cut memory demand by 30% to 40%, and that Samsung had raised Galaxy S26 Ultra prices in Taiwan by 13%. A 4Q production cut from the largest Android brand is the next step: the same memory boom that lifted Samsung's chip division to record profit is now reducing how many phones its own handset arm builds. The same price increases helped SK Hynix (000660 KS) to record earnings.
Linked stocks: 005930 KS, 8299 TT, 000660 KS
MediaTek beats its range as phone orders soften
MediaTek (2454 TT) reported 3Q26 revenue of NT$168.06bn, up 10.4% QoQ and 18.2% YoY, a quarterly record and above the top of its NT$152.2bn to NT$159.8bn guidance. September revenue was NT$55.40bn, down 13.7% MoM and up 2.0% YoY.
Phone demand is weakening into 4Q. Supply chain sources told Commercial Times that phone shipment cuts are starting to show, November orders will weaken and order visibility is short. MediaTek already expects global smartphone shipments to fall about 15% this year. Largan Precision (3008 TT), the phone lens maker, said on 8 Oct that a customer cut orders in September.
Data center chips are the offset. MediaTek's first AI accelerator ASIC (a custom chip built for one customer), made with a large US cloud provider, enters mass production in 4Q, and the company expects data center revenue above US$2bn this year. It puts its 2027 data center addressable market at US$80bn and targets a 15% to 20% share, with a second ASIC aimed at mass production in 2028.
Linked stocks: 2454 TT, 2330 TT, 3008 TT
先聲 First Word: Exclusives from Chinese-Language Sources
Largan's fiber array passes customer certification for co-packaged optics
Largan Precision (3008 TT) said its fiber arrays, which line up optical fibers with the chips in co-packaged optics, have passed certification at one customer, with capacity in place by the end of 2Q27 and fiber array units in mass production in 2027. The lens maker's 3Q26 gross margin fell 7.2 points QoQ to 42.2%, a 13-year low, as a phone customer cut orders in September. (08 Oct 2026) Source: 大立光FA通過認證 明年中量產貢獻營收
ITEQ plans more than 60% more board laminate capacity by 2029
ITEQ (6213 TT) expects its monthly copper-clad laminate capacity, the base material for circuit boards, to reach 9.15m sheets by the end of 2029, more than 60% above current levels, as it expands in Thailand and Wuxi. Chairman Chen Chin-tsai said the group's biggest opportunity is orders it cannot fill and its biggest problem is securing raw materials. (08 Oct 2026) Source: 聯茂擴產 訂單做不完 董座陳進財：AI談泡沫「真的還太早」
Phison's AI products pass half of revenue in a tenth straight record month
Phison (8299 TT) reported September revenue of NT$30.64bn, up 370% YoY and its tenth straight monthly record, with 3Q26 revenue of NT$86.08bn, up 375% YoY. AI-related products, including enterprise SSDs and products for AI PCs, servers and networking, made up more than 50% of September revenue. (08 Oct 2026) Source: 群聯營收 創三個新高 9月成長8% 站上306億元
© 2026 Zero One Investment Research Pte Ltd. For informational purposes only. Not investment advice.