Electronics
TSMC’s three major customers reduce production at the same time: Report
According to the latest report, TSMC has rarely seen three major customers adjust their order locations at the same time. Rumors that the annual revenue target will be revised at the performance briefing to be held in mid-July have emerged, which shows that Apple, AMD, and NVIDIA are no longer as optimistic about the market performance in the second half of this year as they were at the beginning of the year.
JOIN US ON TELEGRAM
The report pointed out that the global semiconductor industry has turned sharply, and the demand for many consumer electronics such as mobile phones has fallen faster than expected.
However, even if the industry background is so poor, TSMC’s business is still stable, the production capacity of mature and advanced processes has not been loosened, and the foundry quotation has risen against the trend, and it is still a lot of money.
It is said that after NVIDIA switched to TSMC from Samsung’s 8nm, it paid a huge amount of prepayment to obtain more process capacity below 5nm. However, the mining boom declined too fast, the inventory was too high, and the second-hand cards went to the market on a large scale, and the demand for e-sports PCs was not as strong as expected, forcing it to adjust its plans and signal to TSMC that it will delay and scale back the first wave of orders.
In addition, although AMD has reduced orders for 7/6nm by about 20,000 pieces, the 5nm PC and server orders have not been adjusted, and AMD is also willing to accept price increases. Therefore, it has little response to TSMC movies. It’s just that NVIDIA wants to cut orders but is unwilling to make concessions at TSMC, so it’s a bit of a stalemate.
NVIDIA hopes that the next-generation RTX 40 series using the 5nm process can be delayed for a quarter, or even to the first quarter of 2023, but NVIDIA must find other customers to take over the vacated capacity to minimize losses.
TSMC’s revenue in the first quarter soared. It is estimated that the revenue in the second quarter will be about 17.6 billion to 18.2 billion US dollars, a quarterly increase of about 3.5%, the estimated gross profit margin is 56~58%, and the profit rate is 45~47%. The financial forecast for the second quarter is higher than that of the first quarter, and the annual revenue will increase by about 30%.
In addition, TSMC’s new Kaohsiung plant may be delayed until the end of 2024 or 2025 for mass production due to a sharp drop in end demand, prolonged equipment delivery, and labor shortages. TSMC’s consolidated revenue in May was NT$185.705 billion, an increase of 7.6% month-on-month and 65.3% year-on-year, setting a new record for monthly revenue.
Furthermore, TSMC’s cumulative revenue from January to May this year was about NT$849.343 billion a year-on-year increase of 44.9%. In addition, TSMC expects second-quarter revenue of $17.6 billion to $18.2 billion, with a gross profit margin of 56%-58% and an operating profit rate of 45%-47%.
For comparison, TSMC’s consolidated revenue in April 2022 was about NT$172.561 billion, an increase of 0.3% month-on-month and 55.0% year-on-year, exceeding the peak of NT$172.176 billion.