Stefan Mileschin

Asia’s most valuable firm

The world's largest chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has overtaken Chinese tech behemoth Tencent to become Asia's most valuable firm.

It comes as Beijing's regulatory crackdown on the country's tech sector in the past few months has slammed the valuations of Chinese tech giants Tencent and Alibaba.

TSMC, a major supplier to Apple, overtook Tencent earlier in August. The Taiwanese chipmaker is now sitting at the top spot by market capitalization -- among Asia firms -- at more than $538 billion, according to data from Refinitiv Eikon as of Wednesday morning during Asia hours.

Tencent sat in second place, with a market capitalization of more than $536 billion while Alibaba was a distant third at about $472 billion.

The market capitalisations of both Tencent and Alibaba were hit again on Tuesday -- losing more than $20 billion each -- after China's market regulator issued draft rules aimed at stopping unfair competition on the internet.

Meanwhile chipmaker TSMC has gotten a boost as the world faces a global semiconductor shortage driven by supply chain disruptions due to the pandemic, along with a surge in demand from industries such as automobiles and data centres.

Responding to the shortage, TSMC said earlier this year it plans to invest $100 billion over the next three years to increase capacity.

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