Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies chips for Apple Inc’s iPhones, yesterday reported its poorest monthly revenue in 21 months amid growing concern over lackluster sales of iPhone 6S handsets and other smartphone brands.
However, the firm managed to reach its quarterly revenue goal and hit double-digit annual growth for its full-year revenue last year.
Revenue fell 8 percent to NT$58.35 billion (US$1.74 billion) last month from November’s NT$63.43 billion, it said in a statement.
That brought last quarter’s revenue to NT$203.52 billion, reaching the firm’s forecast of NT$204 billion. On a quarterly basis, revenue shrank 4.2 percent as customers digested inventories and reduced orders for smartphone chips amid faltering global economy.
For the whole of last year, TSMC’s revenue grew 10.6 percent annually to NT$843.5 billion, setting another record.
Weak local currency against US dollar and new orders for advanced chips were the main reasons behind the growth, company co-chief executive officer Mark Liu (劉德音) told investors in October.
TSMC’s revenue last year was in line with the NT$843.52 billion projection made by CIMB Securities Ltd analyst Eric Lin (林育名) and slightly surpassed Credit Suisse Group AG analyst Randy Abrams’ forecast of NT$842.69 billion.
However, TSMC might see a rough start to this year due to slowing iPhone demand.
“TSMC saw a 10 percent cut in orders in November, which we believe is due to Apple, with the impact expected to last until the end of the first quarter or early second quarter of this year,” JPMorgan Securities Ltd said in a report on Dec. 13, last year.
TSMC’s rival United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) yesterday said that its revenue decreased by 4.05 percent to NT$10.67 billion last month from NT$11.12 billion in November.
UMC made NT$33.85 billion in revenue last quarter, down 4.16 percent from a quarter ago and reported a full-year revenue of NT$144.83 billion, up 3.44 percent from 2014, the company said.
Meanwhile, leading handset chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday posted a 11.62 percent drop in revenue for last month at NT$18.52 billion, compared with NT$20.96 billion in November.
In the final quarter of last year, MediaTek said its revenue climbed 8.36 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$61.72 billion. The result beat the company’s forecast of between NT$57 billion and NT$60.4 billion, partly due to the contribution from the newly acquired Richtek Technology Corp (立錡).
MediaTek, which counts Chinese phone brands such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Meizu Technology Co (魅族) among its customers, said revenue last year inched up 0.09 percent to NT$213.26 billion from NT$213.06 billion in 2014.
Last year’s figure beat HSBC analyst Yolanda Wang’s (王郁雅) forecast of NT$206.87 billion and the NT$209.14 billion projected by CIMB analyst Peter Chan (詹逸群). Wang and Chan had forecast MediaTek to report an annual revenue decline of 2.9 percent and 1.8 percent respectively.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last