Financial and Technology News

TSMC clips sales forecast, but still expecting record

 2018/12/24
AIMING HIGH:The outlook was down from 7% to 9% in US dollar terms, but chair Mark Liu said it would still aim for 10% this year with new products in the offing.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, expects to post record-high sales as well as net profit this year, chairman Mark Liu said at the firm’s annual sports day on Saturday, adding that the firm aims for a 10 percent revenue increase this year.
At an investors’ conference on Thursday, TSMC lowered its sales growth forecast for this year to 6.5 percent in US dollar terms from an earlier estimate of a 7 to 9 percent increase.
Analysts attributed the lower forecast to weakening demand for cryptocurrency mining servers.
Liu said that although TSMC expects 6.5 percent sales growth this year, he was not satisfied with the growth for this year and encouraged employees to work hard and boost growth close to 10 percent.
He said TSMC has made a breakthrough in developing high-end processes and one of the achievements was the launch of mass production using its advanced 7-nanometer technology.
TSMC is on schedule to push for development of the more advanced 5-nanometer process, which could enter production on a trial basis in the first half of next year.
On Friday, Acting Tainan Mayor Li Meng-yen and Tainan Bureau of Economic Development Director Yin Shih-hsi visited the 5-nanometer chip factory site, which is currently under construction and has a workforce of more than 5,000.
According to Yin, production equipment will be installed at the fab early next year while mass production is slated to begin in 2020.
TSMC also has plans to build an advanced 3-nanometer fab in Tainan, with an estimated investment of NT$1.1 trillion (US$35.52 billion), which could create more than 10,000 jobs, the Tainan City Government said.
Construction on the project is scheduled to start in 2020.
At the sports day in Hsinchu, where TSMC is headquartered, Liu said that the company would award NT$12,000 bonuses to each of the approximately 39,000 employees who were formally employed by the company as of May 31.
The figure was unchanged from last year’s and the total expense on the bonuses, which are to be issued by the end of next month, would reach about NT$468 million, TSMC said.
TSMC issues the bonuses to express gratitude to employees for their contributions to the company, Liu said.
TSMC founder Morris Chang, who retired in June, was not at the event, but Liu said that if the company continues to perform well next year, Chang would attend next time.
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