TSMC, UMC July sales up over June, down from 2004

The world's leading made-to-order microchip maker, Taiwan Semicon-ductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), said yesterday that sales last month fell 9.9 percent year-on-year but rose 3.7 percent from the previous month due to increased demand.

The company's sales last month came in at NT$20.85 billion (US$651.56 million), up 3.7 percent from the NT$20.11 billion registered in June.

Sales in the seven months to last month fell to NT$135.02 billion from NT$145.53 billion previously, it said.

"Thanks to continued demand recovery among our customers, wafer shipments in July increased from the previous month," Lora Ho (何麗梅), TSMC's vice president and chief financial officer said in the statement.

The company said on July 26 that average selling prices in the third quarter will drop 3 percent to 5 percent from the second quarter.

Still, TSMC said its factory use is expected to be more than 90 percent this quarter, up from 85 percent in the second quarter.

Wafer shipments will probably rise 14 percent to 16 percent in the third quarter from the previous three months, the company said at that time.

Separately, United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) said its sales last month rose 6.96 percent from June to NT$7.07 billion, but were down 36.93 percent from a year earlier.

Sales in the first seven months of the year fell to NT$46.79 billion from NT$65.70 billion previously, said the world's second-largest maker of made-to-order semiconductor chips.

The two companies' July sales "numbers are slightly weaker than expected," said Frank Wu, a fund manager at First Global Investment Trust Co (元大投信).

"Demand will probably grow strongly in August and September" as personal computer and mobile-phone makers may need more chips, Wu said.