Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, yesterday warned that Huawei Technologies Co (華為) has cut orders, likely because of flagging demand for premium smartphones and higher inventory.
Washington’s trade sanctions on Huawei “will affect [TSMC] in the short term,” TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) told a news conference after the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting.
“The question is whether the market will accept a smartphone without Android,” he added.
Photo: Ashley Pon/Bloomberg
Google has barred the Chinese technology giant’s access to updates of the Android operating system to comply with the US government’s trade regulations.
“Demand from Huawei has dropped so far this year,” Liu said.
He reiterated that TSMC would continue shipments to Huawei as long as its exports are in full compliance with international trade rules based on its due diligence reports.
The company has not received any requests from the US Department of Commerce for an inspection of its factories, Liu said, dismissing a report by the Chinese-language Economic Daily News earlier this week.
He also denied that the American Institute in Taiwan has sent investigators to probe its chip supply to Huawei.
Asked whether TSMC would accelerate capacity expansion at a new fab in Nanjing, China, Liu said that the company would boost capacity at the fab moderately this year as planned.
However, Liu avoided a question on whether the chipmaker was sticking to its forecast of mild revenue growth this year, saying that detailed financial figures would be released at an investors’ conference on July 20.
While US-China trade tensions have undermined chip demand worldwide because of weak consumer confidence and slowing macroeconomic growth, Liu said he remained confident that revenue growth would pick up in the second half of this year, underpinned by clients’ adoption of its 7-nanometer technology for high-end smartphones and 5G products.
TSMC would not rule out building a fab or seeking a merger-and-acquisition deal in the US, he added.
Shareholders approved a company proposal for a cash dividend distribution of NT$8 per common share, representing a payout ratio of 70 percent based on last year’s earnings per share of NT$13.54.
Shareholders also approved a proposal to distribute cash dividends on a quarterly basis, instead of once a year.
That would allow TSMC to distribute a cash dividend of NT$2 in the fourth quarter.
For the whole of this year, TSMC shareholders would receive a cash dividend totaling NT$10 per share.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS