TSMC reports it reached a 16.5 percent revenue rise for August

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world's largest contract chipmaker by revenue, said yesterday its unconsolidated revenue rose 16.5 percent last month, year-on-year.

Last month's revenue amounted to NT$27 billion (US$821.11 million), compared to NT$23.18 billion in August last year.

However, last month's revenue represented a 2.1 percent decline from July's NT$27.57 billion, the company said.

TSMC declined to comment on the fall.

Darryl Cheng, an analyst at Yuanta Core Pacific Securities (元大京華證券), said the fall in revenue from July wasn't a surprise, despite the third quarter traditionally being a busy period for the technology sector.

"The market already expected TSMC to post weak revenue in the third quarter, because it lost orders to competitors," Cheng said.

For the eight months ending Aug. 31, TSMC posted revenue of NT$213.08 billion, an increase of 34.7 percent from NT$158.2 billion in the year-earlier period.

At an investor conference in late July, TSMC said it expected its sales in the current quarter to fall to NT$79 billion -- NT$82 billion from the NT$82.12 billion in the second quarter.

On Thursday, rival United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) said its sales rose to NT$9.42 billion last month, up 17.54 percent year-on-year and a 2.4 percent increase from NT$9.20 billion in July.

UMC's sales for the first eight months of the year rose to NT$68.75 billion from NT$54.80 billion in the same period last year, the world's second-largest wafer producer said.