Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest semiconductor foundry, on Thursday reported its highest ever sales for the month of February, at NT$146.933 billion (US$5.21 billion).

The figure marked a month-on-month fall of 14.7 percent but year-on-year growth of 37.9 percent, TSMC said, attributing the fall to a reduced number of work days in February due to the week-long Lunar New Year holiday.

TSMC registered combined sales of NT$319.109 billion for January-February, up by 36.8 percent from a year earlier.

With work days back to normal in March, the company is expecting its March sales to rebound, achieving the target that it set for the first quarter.

The company forecast that its Q1 sales would increase by 7.4 percent quarter-on-quarter to US$16.6-17.2 billion, which would set a new quarterly sales record thanks to strong market demand for high-performance computing, automotive electronics, and smartphones.

Upbeat about the robust sales in those sectors this year, TSMC has predicted that its 2022 sales will grow by 25-29 percent in U.S. dollar terms, outperforming the average growth of 20 percent in the chip foundry sector.

Apple Inc., MediaTek Inc., and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. will be the major growth engines for TSMC, market analysts said.