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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Henry D who wrote (49135)	7/12/2001 9:59:47 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Taiwan's Chipmakers Face Worsening Sales in June July 12, 2001 (TAIPEI) -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and United Microelectronics Corp. announced June sales of NT$8.515 billion and NT$4.235 billion, respectively. Both figures are lower than analysts' expectations. TSMC, which had hoped that it would beat its May sales, reported that its June sales amounted to NT$8.515 billion, slightly lower than May's NT$8.55 billion, and down by 29.1 percent year-on-year. Its year-to-June sales amounted to NT$65.818 billion, up 9.5 percent from the year-earlier period. UMC reported June sales of NT$4.235 billion, only half the figure for June 2000, and down 14.3 percent from May. During the first half of the year, the company racked up sales of NT$38.596 billion, down 11.79 percent year-on-year. UMC reported sales of NT$15.04 billion for the second quarter in 2001, down 36.4 percent from the first quarter. The decline was roughly in line with UMC's earlier profit warning, which forecast a 35 percent drop in sales. The sharp fall in production has battered not only leading wafer foundry companies such as TSMC and UMC, but also dynamic random access memory chip makers, which face an uphill task to improve their performance as the chips' spot and contract prices fell by 30 percent in June from May. Taiwan's heavyweight DRAM companies, including Winbond Electronics Corp., Nanya Technology Corp., Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. and Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp., reported drops of between 15 percent and 34 percent in June sales from May, and were down roughly 50 percent year-on-year. Winbond reported June sales of NT$1.697 billion, and Nanya Technology reported June sales of just over NT$600 million, while Powerchip posted June sales of NT$820 million, and Vanguard generated June sales of NT$665 million. The slide in sales naturally has pulled back the profitability of the semiconductor-related companies. With the sole exception of TSMC, which claimed it sustained fractional profits in June, most of Taiwan's chip makers made losses in June. Among these chip-making leaders, UMC revealed the possibility that the company's sales in the third quarter would worsen, but TSMC said it expected a recovery in performance. Since the DRAM offering prices have continued to fall so far this month, TSMC's performance in July will be closely watched as an indicator for the industry's prospects in the near future. (NT$34.65 = US$1) (Commercial Times, Taiwan)