Foundry Revenue +35% in Q1 2022 WOW!

[Daniel Nenni]

TSMC and UMC are definitely profiting from the chip shortage narrative. Manufacturing utilization and wafer pricing is at an all time high. The question is: How long will the pandemic fueled semiconductor surge last? TSMC, our semiconductor bellwether, expects a 25% YoY growth which I think that is conservative. It will probably be closer to 30%. The semiconductor industry as a whole is still expecting 10-15% YoY growth. My guess is 15%. Even with inflation and political sanctions I think there is enough demand to backfill the pending forecast cuts from Apple and others, absolutely.

TSMC net revenue for March 2022 rose 35% year-over-year to $5.94 billion or NT$171.97 billion, up 17% from February and 33.2% year-over-year. Revenue for the January to March period came in at $16.97 billion or NT$491.08 billion, an increase of 35.5% year-over-year.

• UMC net revenue for March 2022 rose 33.22% Y/Y to NT$22.14 billion. In February sales grew 39.21% Y/Y. Revenue for the January to March period came in at NT$63.42 billion and increase of 34.66% Y/Y.

 

[hist78]

With the threat of the war, inflation, recession, crash, oversupply, and overbuilt of capacity, we still have foundries achieved quarterly 35% YoY growth and some industries can't even get enough semiconductors to keep their production lines running.

It's a strange and exciting moment of semiconductor industry.

 

[Ronhsin Hsu]

Hi. Dan,
Super summary. Much appreciated!
One minor twig : UMC ‘s monthly and quarterly sales shown are in “thousands”. So, it should have been in NT$xx.xx B,
Instead of NT$xx.xx M.

 

[hist78]

If TSMC can keep this quarterly 35% Year over Year growth for the rest three quarters, they may have a chance to catch up Intel forecasted $76 billion revenue in 2022. This calculation is based on TSMC's US$56.82 billion 2021 revenue.

Granted there are many factors such as the war, inflation, interest rate, recession, oversupply, supply chain constraints, TSMC's capacity and pricing policy, and geopolitics that can negatively impact this scenario.

 

[Xebec]

If TSMC can keep this quarterly 35% Year over Year growth for the rest three quarters, they may have a chance to catch up Intel forecasted $76 billion revenue in 2022. This calculation is based on TSMC's US$56.82 billion 2021 revenue.

Granted there are many factors such as the war, inflation, interest rate, recession, oversupply, supply chain constraints, TSMC's capacity and pricing policy, and geopolitics that can negatively impact this scenario.

Not to distract from TSMC's achievement -- but doesn't inflation (in a vacuum) help them with YoY results?

 

[hist78]

Not to distract from TSMC's achievement -- but doesn't inflation (in a vacuum) help them with YoY results?

Price hike is helping plus more orders across all market and technology segments.

 

[fansink]

If TSMC can keep this quarterly 35% Year over Year growth for the rest three quarters, they may have a chance to catch up Intel forecasted $76 billion revenue in 2022. This calculation is based on TSMC's US$56.82 billion 2021 revenue.

Granted there are many factors such as the war, inflation, interest rate, recession, oversupply, supply chain constraints, TSMC's capacity and pricing policy, and geopolitics that can negatively impact this scenario.

Last I heard, TSMC said they were not changing their initial 2022 guidance of ~30% YOY, which would put them near TW$2.1T US$71.4B. We should get updated guidance during 1Q22 earnings release, this Wednesday, April 13th, at ~10:30 PM PDT.

First Quarter Record Revenue is rare, and hopefully results an excellent year ahead.