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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has doubled its market capitalization over the past year to claim the ninth spot in the PwC Global Top 100 rankings. According to a news report by Focus Taiwan, the contract chipmaker recorded the fastest growth among the world's top ten entities.
The accounting and consulting firm's "2026 Global Top 100 Companies by Market Capitalization" report, released in May, showed that TSMC's market value surged 101 per cent year-on-year to reach USD 1.427 trillion as of March 31. This growth pushed the firm up from 12th place last year. TSMC stood as the sole Taiwanese firm on the list, lifting Taiwan from seventh to fourth place among the represented global economies, behind only the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia. According to the report, the global AI boom altered positions at the very top of the corporate ladder. U.S. chip designer Nvidia Corp. surpassed Apple Inc. for the first time to secure the position of the world's most valuable company, finishing the period with a market capitalization of USD 4.237 trillion. Following Nvidia and Apple, the remaining top ten firms included Alphabet, Microsoft Corp., Amazon.com Inc., Saudi Aramco, Broadcom Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., TSMC, and Tesla Inc. As per the news report, Lin Yi-fan, chief markets officer at PwC Taiwan, stated that TSMC's market value doubled due to strong demand for artificial intelligence devices and semiconductors, pushing the company into the global top 10 while elevating Taiwan to fourth place worldwide. The result underscored Taiwan's indispensable role in the global technology supply chain, Lin said. However, the concentration of market value presents potential long-term challenges for the domestic economy. He cautioned, however, that Taiwan's heavy reliance on a single industry presented risks. While the semiconductor and AI supply chains remained key growth drivers, long-term market value growth could be vulnerable to fluctuations in the semiconductor cycle, highlighting the need to diversify Taiwan's industrial structure, he said. On a global scale, the report found that the combined market capitalization of the top 100 companies expanded by 22 per cent to hit a record US$51.8 trillion. This US$9.211 trillion annual increase significantly outpaced the 7 per cent growth registered during the previous year. Information technology consolidated its position as the leading sector in the PwC report, with its total market value climbing 34 per cent to USD 18.69 trillion. Meanwhile, the materials and industrial sectors grew by 84 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively. The report tied these shifts to geopolitical trends and a capital reallocation away from software toward "Heavy Asset, Low Obsolescence" (HALO) businesses. Conversely, the financial sector grew by 6 per cent, held back by interest rate cuts and geopolitical uncertainty. (ANI)
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