Bolstered by solid demand for smartphones, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday reported that revenue topped NT$100 billion (US$3.32 billion) for a sixth straight month last month.
Consolidated sales last month rose 0.4 percent from a month earlier to NT$103.68 billion, the company said in a statement.
The increase was driven by rising global demand for high-end smartphones, allowing it to post growth in a slow season, analysts said.
On a year-on-year basis, last month’s sales rose 32.8 percent, showing that the reduced number of working days because of the Lunar New Year holiday had little effect on the foundry company’s revenue, analysts said.
The increase in revenue also suggested that TSMC has yet to see negative effects from the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak that originated in Wuhan, China, and has led to lockdowns of many Chinese cities.
TSMC said its fabs in Nanjing and in Shanghai’s Songjiang District were fully back at work yesterday as scheduled after the Lunar New Year holiday, and that it was complying with epidemic regulations set by the Chinese government.
The chipmaker had been running its 12-inch fab in Nanjing and 8-inch fab in Songjiang 24 hours a day during the holiday, but non-manufacturing employees returned to work yesterday, it said.
TSMC said it would prioritize epidemic prevention at the two plants in the coming weeks and continue to follow developments closely.
The company last week said it was sticking to its first-quarter revenue forecast of between US$10.2 billion and US$10.3 billion in view of what it saw as the minimal impact of the outbreak.
The forecast was based mainly on strong demand for 5G smartphones as the world enters the 5G era, triggering waves of replacements, which should offset the effects of the typically slow season in the chip industry, TSMC told an investors’ conference last month.
Separately, handset chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) reported consolidated sales of NT$19.82 billion for last month, down 10.28 percent from NT$22.09 billion in the previous month.
On an annual basis, sales grew 22.02 percent from NT$16.24 billion, it said in a regulatory filing.
Last month's figure was the lowest in eight months and Taishin Securities Investment Advisory Co (台新投顧) said the coronavirus outbreak would impact MediaTek's business in the first half of the year.
MediaTek's sales this quarter is predicted to fall 13.9 percent from last quarter, as the epidemic would negatively affect market sentiment and downstream companies' factory reopening as well as brand vendors' new handset launch and mass production plans, Taishin said in a note.
This story has been updated since it was first published.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
Taipei is today suspending its US$2.5 trillion stock market as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed-income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Yesterday, schools and offices were closed in several cities and counties in southern and eastern Taiwan, including in the key industrial port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwan, which started canceling flights, ship sailings and some train services earlier this week, has wind and rain advisories in place for much of the island. It regularly experiences typhoons, and in July shut offices and schools as
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
RSS