TSMC revenue soars 35 percent to hit all-time high

Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-facturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world's largest producer of made-to-order chips, said yesterday that its revenue last month soared 35 percent to a new all-time high as shipments rose.

Rival chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) also reported a double-digit revenue increase.

TSMC said April revenue rose to NT$20.63 billion (US$620.17 million), up sharply from the year-earlier NT$15.26 billion.

The company's previous record was set last October, when revenue hit NT$20.30 billion.

Although the chipmaker lost more than a half-day's work to a power outage in mid-April, "TSMC's sales increased sequentially as a result of higher wafer shipments," Lora Ho (何麗梅), chief financial officer at the firm, said in a statement.

For the first four months of this year, TSMC said revenue reached NT$78.14 billion, up 43 percent from NT$54.59 billion in the first four months of last year.

The Semiconductor Industry Association said on Monday that worldwide semiconductor sales rose 32.3 percent in March from a year earlier. The group boosted its forecast for full-year sales growth to more than 20 percent, compared with an earlier estimate of 19.4 percent.

UMC, the world's No. 2 contract chipmaker, also reported a big rise in revenue last month, up 26 percent to NT$9.21 billion from NT$7.32 billion a year earlier.

It was UMC's best month since January 2001, when revenue reached NT$9.50 billion. The company's revenue for the first four months of 2004 totaled NT$34.53 billion, up 37 percent from NT$25.22 billion a year earlier, the chipmaker said.