The world’s top contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), yesterday reported record-high monthly sales again for last month, helped by recovering demand for chips used in computers and other electronic devices.
Last month, consolidated revenues totaled NT$36.33 billion (US$1.13 billion), up 4.4 percent month-on-month and 37 percent year-on-year, TSMC said in a press release. That brought the chipmaker’s second-quarter revenues to NT$104.95 billion, exceeding the firm’s April forecast range of between NT$100 billion and NT$102 billion.
The quarterly results also beat expectations of most analysts, including Credit Suisse’s Randy Abrams and JP Morgan’s Rick Hsu (徐稦成), who expected TSMC to generate NT$103.14 billion and NT$103.9 billion respectively.
It also compared favorably with rival United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), which on Thursday posted NT$29.75 billion in unconsolidated revenues for the quarter ending June 30, up 11.34 percent quarter-on-quarter and 32 percent year-on-year.
Hsu said in a report released on Monday that he raised his forecast for TSMC’s second-quarter revenues because of favorable exchange rates as the local currency appreciated 1.6 percent, which was slower than TSMC’s estimates.
On a quarterly basis, TSMC’s second-quarter revenues represented about a 14 percent increase from the first quarter’s NT$92.19 billion.
TSMC said in April it was unable to satisfy customer demand and had decided to raise capital spending to a record high of US$4.8 billion this year.
On June 24, chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) said the spending “is still accelerating.”
Credit Suisse analyst Randy Abrams expected TSMC to further hike capital spending to US$5.5 billion this year.
Ahead of yesterday’s sales results, JP Morgan’s Hsu said: “We believe TSMC’s near-term outlook remains intact and we expect its third-quarter top-line to grow by 7 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$111 billion.”
Separately, Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) — which makes driver ICs used in flat panels and is 37.44 percent owned by TSMC — yesterday said last month’s sales rose nearly 3 percent to NT$1.47 billion from May’s NT$1.43 billion.
The monthly increase was due to “better product mix,” Vanguard spokesman Robert Hsieh (謝徽榮) said yesterday.
In the second quarter, Vanguard made NT$4.23 billion in revenues, up 18.38 percent from NT$3.58 billion in the first three months of the year. The chipmaker has said demand for driver ICs would be the main growth driver for the second quarter.
The chipmaker said in April that shipments would rise by 10 percent quarter-on-quarter because of mounting demand for foundry business and that the average selling price would rise slightly quarter-on-quarter.
Shares of TSMC and Vanguard were unchanged at NT$60.4 and NT$13.5 yesterday in Taipei trading, while UMC rose 1.06 percent to NT$14.35.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the