TSMC ups Q1 sales guidance
The foundry's March quarter sales are still expected to decline from Q4, but by a lesser margin.
By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- EDN, March 10, 2009
Marking the second foundry this week to upwardly revise its guidance, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp) today raised its estimates for Q1 sales.
“TSMC’s first-quarter business is expected to be better than the company’s previous guidance given on January 22,” said Lora Ho, VP and CFO of TSMC, in a statement. “Primarily due to quick orders from customers, especially from the mainland Chinese market, and a stronger US dollar, TSMC now expects first-quarter revenue to be between NT$36 billion and NT$38 billion, higher than the previous expectation of between NT$32 billion and NT$35 billion.”
The new estimates equal about $1.03 billion to $1.09 billion, compared to TSMC's January estimate, equal to about $923 million to $1.01 billion.
Sales at the top foundry reached NT$64.6 billion ($1.95 billion) in Q4 2008 and were down 30.6% sequentially and down 31.2% year over year.
TSMC reported that its expectation for Q1 gross profit margin is now between 14% and 16%, and operating profit margin is between -2% and 0%, compared with the previous guidance of 1% to 5% for gross profit margin and -19% to -15% for the operating profit margin.
Ironically, the sales guidance revision came this morning as TSMC announced February revenue declines. On an unconsolidated basis, sales were approximately NT$11.5 billion ($331 million), a decrease of 7.5% from January and a decrease of 59.5% from February 2008. Revenues for January through February 2009 totaled NT$23.94 billion ($690 million), a decrease of 59.2% compared to the same period in 2008.
The TSMC revision also came after Singapore-based foundry Chartered Semiconductor Monday morning lowered its loss estimate for the March quarter. In doing so, Chartered noted more wafers ordered for Q2 shipment than the company originally anticipated.
Further, TSMC's revision came after the company announced a deal with Intel last week that will see the US-based chipmaker port its Atom processor CPU cores to TSMC's platform, including processes, IP, libraries, and design flows.
