Taiwan chip giant upbeat
TMSC is Cube's foundry
news.com
By Reuters
Special to CNET NEWS.COM
June 15, 1998, 6:55 a.m. PT
The global semiconductor industry's outlook is bright despite chipmakers' tumbling share prices, the chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said on Sunday.
"The semiconductor industry's medium- and long-term prospects are fairly optimistic," the microchip powerhouse chairman Morris Chang said on state television.
Taiwan Semiconductor is the world's leading manufacturer of made-to-order "foundry" chips.
Chang declined to comment on Taiwan's Semicon's big price slide, but said he was "cautiously optimistic" about the industry's outlook in the second half of 1998. Chang urged investors to carefully select companies according to their fundamentals and not to be disturbed by the industry's cyclical fluctuations.
Taiwan Semicon fell through its year-low T$100 to T$96.5 last week, 44 percent below its year-high of T$173. It ended at T$101.5 on Friday.
Taiwan Semicon, which goes ex-dividend on Monday, is Taiwan's leading blue chip and a widely watched barometer of wider market performance. Analysts have said Taiwan Semicon's performance on its ex-dividend day would be seen as a key indicator for recently sluggish high-tech stocks.
Taiwan's volatile stock market plunged 519.62 points or 6.8 percent on the week and 10 percent in June as investors, spooked by Japan's economic woes and Taiwan's battered currency, rushed to dump shares.
Trend-setting technology shares were hit severely. Taiwan Semicon reported 29.6 percent year-on-year sales growth in May, to T$4.056 billion. The May sales total, although up in annual terms, marked a 10.4 percent fall from the April level of T$4.525 billion. Taiwan Semicon has said it expects the global semiconductor industry to face continuing challenges in 1998, hurt by Asia's economic slowdown, an oversupply of components products and intense price-cutting pressure.
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