TSMC announces its revenues dipped 8.6% from October

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world's largest contract chip maker, said yesterday its monthly revenue last month rose 13.4 percent from the same month last year, but fell 8.6 percent from October.

The trends were similar to those reported by smaller rival United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) Tuesday, betraying signs of a serious decline in the tech sector.

The month-on-month fall in revenue for TSMC and UMC could mean the tech decline was serious enough to send ripples to the top of the supply chain, where the contract chipmakers sit.

TSMC said its revenue last month rose to NT$20.99 billion (US$649.32 million) from NT$18.51 billion for the same month last year.

Last month's revenue was lower than October's NT$22.97 billion, and marked the third straight decline since monthly revenue peaked at a record NT$23.41 billion in August.

In a statement, TSMC said declining wafer shipments and the stronger NT dollar led to the fall in last month's revenue compared to October.

Analysts had expected the decline after the company said at its third-quarter investors' conference that revenue for the current three months was unlikely to match that in the July-September period.

However, the company's revenue for the first 11 months of this year rose 29 percent to NT$236.07 billion, from NT$182.94 billion in the same period last year.

On Tuesday, UMC reported its revenue last month dropped to NT$9.28 billion (US$289.45 million) from the NT$10.06 billion posted in October.