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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hedgeclipper who wrote (8001)	1/10/2003 2:45:39 AM
From: advocatedevil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95467

"TSMC sees December sales down, UMC, Winbond do better" By Peter Clarke, Semiconductor Business News January 10, 2003 URL: siliconstrategies.com HSINCHU, Taiwan -- Sales revenue for the month of December 2002 at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., the world's largest foundry manufacturer of integrated circuits, fell by 22.7% compared with November and fell by 3.9% compared with December 2001. The company scored sales of $326.33 million. But despite a poor showing in December, TSMC's unaudited sales for the 2002 calendar year were about $4.655 billion, up 27.8% on the 2001 calendar year. United Microelectronics Corp., the world's second largest foundry maker of integrated circuits, also put out its December 2002 sales figures today (January 9, 2003). It saw a smaller decline of 8.3% compared with November 2002 to about $159.2 million. But this still meant the company scored 24.7% growth in December 2002 over December 2001. UMC's unaudited sales for the 2002 calendar year were given as about $1.95 billion, up 4.55% on 2001. Winbond Electronics Corp. said that its December 2002 sales were about $73.35 million, 24% higher than the same month a year before, while annual sales for the calendar year were about $928.5 million, up 34% from 2001. But although UMC and Winbond seemed to ride out the year-end relatively well, TSMC is a sufficiently large player to have a major influence on aggregate statistics, and will likely cast a pall over the prospects for the semiconductor industry in the first part of 2003. Harvey Chang, a TSMC spokesperson, noted that the company's book-to-bill ratio was above 1.0 in both November and December 2002, indicating growth in orders. Chang said that net sales for the fourth quarter of 2002 were slightly higher than those for the third quarter but said the company's fab utilization rate was 61% in the fourth quarter of 2002; in-line with previous forecasts but still historically low and an indicator of reduced margins. AdvocateDevil