The contribution of each smartphone sold worldwide to the revenues of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is expected to reach US$10 soon due to an increase in chips used in smartphones and the production of high-priced 4G chips, according to industry sources.

　　Currently, each smartphone sold globally contributes US$8 on average to TSMC's revenues, TSMC chairman Morris Chang said recently.

　　Smartphones rolled out in 2014 are likely to come with a number of chips to perform new applications such as NFC, wireless charging and fingerprint recognition in addition to those chips for ambient lighting, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, gyroscope and power management IC used currently, the sources noted.

　　Shipments of high-priced 4G chips will also increase significantly in 2014 due to the increasing popularity of 4G smartphones in China and other markets, the sources added.

　　Additionally, part of production application processors for smartphones will also shift from quad-core to 8-core models, and there will be an additional demand for sub-power management ICs, pushing up prices of smartphone solutions and consequently TSMC's revenues, commented the sources.

　　In addition, each tablet sold in the global market is also expected to contribute US$5 to TSMC's revenues in 2014 compared to US$3-4 currently, the sources added.