TAIPEI, Jan 10 Reuters Taiwan chipmaker TSMC reported a largely flat fourthquarter revenue on Wednesday, but that still beat both the company39;s and market39;s expectations.

The world39;s largest contract chipmaker, whose customers include Apple and Nvidia, has benefited from a boom in artificial intelligence applications that has helped it weather the tapering off of pandemicled demand.

Revenue in the final three months of last year came in at T625.5 billion 20.10 billion, according to Reuters calculations, compared with 19.93 billion in the yearago period.

That beat Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co39;s TSMC previous prediction for fourthquarter revenue being in a range of between 18.819.6 billion, and also beat an LSEG SmartEstimate of T617.1 billion drawn from 21 analysts.

SmartEstimates give greater weighting to forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate.

For December alone, TSMC reported that revenue fell 8.4 yearonyear to T176.3 billion, which was down 14.4 compared with the previous month.

TSMC, Asia39;s most valuable publicly listed company with a market capitalisation of 491 billion, did not provide any details or forward guidance in its brief revenue statement.

It is due to report fourthquarter earnings on Jan. 18, where it will also update its outlook for the current quarter and the year.

TSMC39;s Taipeilisted shares closed down 0.3 on Wednesday ahead of the release of the sales data. The broader market ended down 0.4.

The shares…