Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies chips for Apple Inc’s iPhones, yesterday said revenue declined 16 percent last month from January, after an earthquake last month caused greater-than-expected damage to its wafer shipments.
The magnitude 6.4 earthquake, which hit southern Taiwan on Feb. 6, also led smaller rival United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) to report a 21 percent monthly decline in revenue for last month.
TSMC said revenue fell to NT$59.55 billion (US$1.8 billion) last month from NT$70.86 billion in January, a company statement said.
“The damage to wafers being manufactured was greater than our initial assessment announced on the day of the earthquake,” TSMC said.
The company said it expected “to see wafer delivery delays in the first quarter.”
TSMC has expected that wafer delivery from two factories, Fab 14 A and Fab 6 in Tainan, would be delayed from this quarter to next quarter. About 100,000 12-inch wafers and 20,000 8-inch wafers would be affected, the company said.
Revenue totaled NT$130.41 billion in the first two months of the year, which implies that TSMC has to make at least NT$70.59 billion in revenue this month to achieve its revenue target of between NT$201 billion and NT$203 billion for the current quarter.
"TSMC will have to report sales of NT$72 billion-NT$73 billion (up 21-22 percent month-on-month) for March to meet our expectation, which we see as likely given some customers pulled in orders after the quake," Daiwa Capital Markets Inc analysts said in a client note.
Daiwa analysts said last month's weak sales did not affect their positive stance on TSMC, citing the company's reclaiming an upper hand in gaining A10 processor orders from Apple Inc.
Shares of TSMC has rebounded 6.55 percent to NT$154.5 yesterday since NT$145 on Feb. 15, the first trading day after the quake.
This story has been updated since it was first published.
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