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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) yesterday posted its first sequential growth in revenue in three months, aided by a recovery in smartphone demand in China.
Revenue expanded 21.4 percent to NT$70.86 billion (US$2.12 billion) last month from December’s NT$58.35 billion, according to a company statement.
On an annual basis, revenue shrank 18.7 percent from NT$87.12 billion.
With demand from “China and emerging markets showing signs of a recovery, we forecast a mild revenue decline for the first quarter of 2016,” TSMC co-chief executive officer Mark Liu told investors last month.
TSMC, which supplies chips for Apple Inc’s iPhone 6 series, expects revenue to fall by between 1.24 percent and 2.71 percent sequentially to between NT$198 billion and NT$201 billion this quarter.
Following the magnitude 6.4 earthquake that hit Tainan, the chipmaker said that day that equipment at its southern plant would be fully restored in two to three days.
The quake damaged wafers in-production at the time, but did not cause any structural damage to the company’s Fab 14 and Fab 6 at the Tainan Science Park, it said.
The company expects wafer shipments this quarter to drop by about 1 percent in the aftermath of the quake.
INNOLUX
In related news, LCD panelmaker Innolux Corp said that about 85 percent of its production lines at its Tainan plant resumed operation on Saturday last week.
However, it will take about a week more for production to be fully restored, it said in a statement released on Sunday.
The natural disaster along with fewer working days due to the Lunar New Year holidays would reduce revenue this month by a low single digit percentage, the nation’s biggest flat-panel manufacturer said.