TSMC Steady in October

By Suzanne Deffree -- Electronic News, 11/10/2006

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. saw October sales stay in line with September returns, today reporting $818 million (26.85 billion new Taiwanese dollars) in revenue for the month.

The sales were essentially flat with TSMC’s September results and showed an increase of 2.4 percent year-over-year.

Although the monthly results were far from TSMC’s best report, the number one foundry managed to outdo its rival, UMC, which reported its October numbers earlier this week. Sales of $276.2 million (9.05 billion TWD) were near flat year-over-year and down on a sequential basis at the second place foundry.

TSMC’s revenues for the January through October period came in at about $8.13 billion (266.8 billion TWD), an increase of more than 27 percent from the 2005 period.

October started TSMC’s Q4, a quarter the company has warned would be weaker than its Q3 for which it reported Q3 revenues of $2.48 billion (82.48 billion TWD) in sales.

In related news, TSMC’s board approved a number of spending plans for the company this week, including capital appropriation of $1.13 billion to expand 65nm and 90nm process capacity in 300mm wafer fabs.