By Kosaku Narioka

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s fourth-quarter net profit rose 16% from a year earlier, driven by strong demand for chips used in computers and smartphones.

The world's largest contract chip maker said Thursday that net profit for the quarter ended Dec. 31 rose to 166.23 billion New Taiwan dollars (US$6.01 billion) from NT$142.77 billion a year earlier. That beat the estimate of NT$161.12 billion from a poll of analysts by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Fourth-quarter revenue jumped 21% from a year earlier to NT$438.19 billion.

Both quarterly revenue and net profit marked new record highs.

The company's revenue from smartphones rose 7% from the previous quarter, while revenue from high-performance computing increased 3%.

TSMC said revenue from customers in North America accounted for 66% of fourth-quarter revenue, up from 65% in the third quarter, while revenue from China made up 12% of the total, up from 11% in the previous quarter.

The company's operating profit margin deteriorated by 1.8 percentage points from a year earlier to 41.7%.

TSMC said it spent US$30.04 billion in capital expenditures in 2021. The company said in last April that it would invest US$100 billion over the next three years to increase production capacity as demand surges.

Write to Kosaku Narioka at kosaku.narioka@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-13-22 0113ET