Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯國際集成電路), China's first chipmaker to sell shares, said it needs to raise more capital in the next two years, retracting an official's earlier comment that it had sufficient finances.
At a March 7 press conference the official said proceeds from the overseas share sale, cash and borrowings under the company's existing banking facilities should be "sufficient" to meet its capital expenditures through 2005. That contradicted the company's prospectus filed with US regulators that said it will need more funding in the future.
Semiconductor Manufacturing, which raised HK$14 billion (US$1.8 billion), the maximum sought from its Hong Kong initial public offer, said the official made "inaccurate statements," according to a notice published in the South China Morning Post.
The company "believes it will be required to pursue additional external financing, either in the form of additional borrowings or the sale of equity or equity-linked securities, in order to fund its planned capital expenditures and working capital," it said in the notice.
Semiconductor Manufacturing, which priced its Hong Kong shares at HK$2.72 each, also sold American depositary receipts in the US, pricing them at US$17.50 each. The shares will start trading in New York on March 17 and in Hong Kong the next day.
The Shanghai-based company also retracted the official's comments made at the same press conference that it had filed a motion to dismiss a copyright complaint made by rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and its affiliates.
Semiconductor Manufacturing said its legal advisors are still in the process of reviewing the claims contained in the complaint and "have therefore not formed a definitive view on the merits of those claims."
China's semiconductor demand will jump 41 percent this year, driven by chips used in mobile phones, computers, DVD players and other electronics, an industry group forecast.
Demand will rise to US$27 billion this year, from US$19.2 billion in 2002, and more than double again to reach US$61.9 billion by 2008, Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International said in a press release issued at a press conference in Shanghai yesterday.
"There's a widening gap between indigenous demand and domestic production, which means huge opportunity for companies all over the world," said Stanley Myers, chief executive of the association.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by