VIA Technologies Inc (
"VIA's shipments in 2003 will decline because SiS is aggressively trying to take some of VIA's market share," Eric Chen (
VIA is expected to report sales of nearly 35 million chipsets for the year just ended, but Chen said the company will struggle to break the 27 million mark this year.
Supplying around 21 percent of the global chipset market, VIA is currently the world's second-largest designer of the chips that allow computer components -- such as memory and graphics -- to communicate with the main processor.
SiS follows closely, taking 19 percent of the global chipset market. This year SiS aims to take VIA's No.2 spot, Chen said. US-based Intel Corp leads the world with a 60 percent market share.
VIA's ability to stave off an attack from SiS will be hampered by the fact that it has not been granted the license to make the chipsets for Intel's latest Pentium4 processor.
SiS on the other hand has been granted the license. SiS also has its own chipmaking plant, giving it more room to cut prices, unlike VIA which outsources its chip manufacturing to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC,
"VIA's problem is that it has been blocked by not receiving the Pentium4 license," Chen said. "SiS is very aggressive in pricing, whereas VIA's room for cutting prices is very limited."
Uninspiring product plans for this year may cause VIA to fall even further behind.
"VIA has no killer products in its road map for 2003," Chen said.
Its rivals do. "Intel has a very competitive product road map for 2003," said Sharon Su (
Su cited a recently announced alliance between SiS and Taiwan's No.2 maker of made-to-order chips, United Microelectronics Corp (UMC,
SiS and UMC recently ended a patent dispute that had dragged on for more than two years. The first result of the settlement is that SiS can now begin to order chips from UMC again, increasing the company's production capacity. Details of the alliance are to be announced today at a special board meeting in Hsinchu.
VIA's close ally, US-based Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is not faring well either, and will continue to lose market share to Intel, Su said.
Chen estimates that less than 5 percent of the chipsets sold globally are supplied by AMD. Around 40 percent of the chipsets VIA sells are for AMD processors.
UBS Warburg downgraded its forecast for VIA, as did Nomura.
Su slashed her forecast for VIA's sales performance for this year by 10 percent yesterday, from 32 million units down to 28.7 million. She also forecast the company's share price would drop to NT$30. VIA's shares ended 3.3 percent up yesterday at NT$40.7.
SiS ended the day up 6.7 percent at NT$31.6.
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
READY TO HELP: Should TSMC require assistance, the government would fully cooperate in helping to speed up the establishment of the Chiayi plant, an official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its investment plans in Taiwan are “unchanged” amid speculation that the chipmaker might have suspended construction work on its second chip packaging plant in Chiayi County and plans to move equipment arranged for the plant to the US. The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported earlier yesterday that TSMC had halted the construction of the chip packaging plant, which was scheduled to be completed next year and begin mass production in 2028. TSMC did not directly address whether construction of the plant had halted, but said its investment plans in Taiwan remain “unchanged.” The chipmaker started
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
RSS