Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last quarter consolidated its leadership position after its share of the global foundry market topped 60 percent, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday.
The contract chipmaker’s market share was 58.5 percent in the final quarter of last year, the Taipei-based researcher said in a report.
TSMC’s revenue fell 16.2 percent sequentially during the January-to-March period to US$16.74 billion, as flagging demand for smartphones and notebook computers reduced utilization of its advanced 7-nanometer, 5-nanometer and 4-nanometer node technologies, TrendForce said.
Photo: Cheng I-Hwa/Bloomberg
TSMC would likely see a slower decline in revenue this quarter, it said.
Samsung Electronics Co, the second-biggest foundry service provider, saw its revenue plummet 36.1 percent quarterly to US$3.45 billion, due to lower utilization of its 8-inch and 12-inch fabs, TrendForce said.
The South Korean company is expected to report the first revenue contribution from its 3-nanometer technology this quarter, the researcher said.
GlobalFoundries Inc ranked third, replacing United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), as it benefited from rising orders for chips used in vehicles and industrial devices, as well as the defense sector and government agencies in the US.
GlobalFoundries has said revenue last quarter fell 12.4 percent quarterly to US$1.84 billion.
The company is expected to report a flat second quarter on the back of steady demand for chips used in aerospace, Internet of Things applications and vehicles, TrendForce said.
UMC’s revenue fell 17.6 percent last quarter from the previous quarter, due to weak demand for products made using its 28-nanometer, 22-nanometer and 40-nanometer technologies.
The chipmaker is also expected to see flat revenue this quarter or a slight increase from the previous quarter, TrendForce said.
UMC’s utilization rate of its 8-inch fabs is likely to fall below 60 percent this quarter, as customers scaled back orders for power management chips and microcontrollers, while the utilization rate of its 12-inch fabs could reach 80 percent on the back of rush orders for 28-nanometer chips used in TVs, the report said.
Taiwanese foundries Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) and Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) fell to eight and ninth place respectively with regards to their global market share, due to sluggish demand for chips used in consumer electronics, TrendForce said.
Overall, the world’s top 10 foundry companies would likely post smaller revenue declines this quarter, as customers have started rebuilding inventory, albeit cautiously, the researcher said.
However, end-market demand remained weak and the companies’ factory utilization would be supported solely by rush orders for Wi-Fi chips and touch-and-display chips, it said.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat