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TSMC's grip

Five years ago TSMC took about half of all chip-factory revenue. Now it's nearly three-quarters.

Numbers as of 6 Oct 2026

The full story

  1. TSMC's grip: its share of world chip-factory revenue rose from about 53 percent in Q2 2021 to 72.5 percent in Q2 2026. Samsung fell from about 17 to 5.9 percent, SMIC went from 5.3 to 5.4, UMC from 7.2 to 3.9, and all others from about 18 to 12.3.
  2. The winner: TSMC sold about 40.2 billion dollars of chips in Q2 2026, three times the 13.3 billion of Q2 2021, as AI chips filled its newest lines and its first 2 nanometre chips went on sale.
  3. The one that shrank: Samsung's chip-factory revenue was 3.26 billion dollars in Q2 2026, 25 percent below the 4.33 billion of Q2 2021. In 2022 it lost Qualcomm phone-chip orders to TSMC after yield trouble at 4 nanometres. It is betting on base chips for AI memory and a 16.5 billion dollar Tesla dea
  4. The chaser: SMIC's revenue was about 3.0 billion dollars in Q2 2026, 2.2 times the 1.34 billion of Q2 2021, driven by AI-related chips mostly for Chinese customers and higher prices. It is now about 250 million dollars behind Samsung.
  5. The one left behind: UMC's revenue was about 2.18 billion dollars in Q2 2026, up 20 percent from 1.82 billion in Q2 2021, while the market grew 119 percent. It stepped back from the newest chips in 2017 to 2019; its older lines are filling again and PC and gadget orders came early.
  6. To keep your slice, you had to grow 119 percent, as the top-10 market went from 24.4 to 53.5 billion dollars. TSMC grew 202 percent and SMIC 124 percent. UMC grew 20 percent and Samsung fell 25 percent. Only TSMC and SMIC kept up.
  7. Can anyone catch TSMC? A row of the Samsung, Intel and SMIC logos, plus Other. Below: Samsung, Intel, or China? Follow Green Owl if you want more.

Foundries are the factories that build chips other companies design: Apple, Nvidia, AMD and Qualcomm all hand their designs to one.

Share of the world's foundry revenue, Q2 2021 vs Q2 2026 (TrendForce):

TSMC: about 53% to 72.5%. Samsung: about 17% to 5.9%. SMIC (China): 5.3% to 5.4%, now almost level with Samsung. UMC: 7.2% to 3.9%. GlobalFoundries, grouped into Others on the chart: about 6% to 3.2%.

Why: the most advanced chips, the ones AI runs on, are made almost only by TSMC, and that is where the money grew fastest. Samsung's revenue barely moved while the market more than doubled, from about $25 billion a quarter to over $53 billion.

The 2021 shares for TSMC, Samsung and GlobalFoundries are worked out from TrendForce's published revenues; the rest are as TrendForce printed them.

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Where the numbers come from

Companies in this picture

IntelSamsungSMICTSMCUMC

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