At present, among the top 10 wafer factories, 5 have released performance reports, namely TSMC, Lianhua Electronics , SMIC , Huahong Semiconductor and World Advanced.
Judging from the report, the third quarter was really a bumper quarter, because everyone's revenue growth was very strong, and it can even be said to have hit a new high.
As shown in the figure above, among the five major foundries, TSMC grew by 48%, UMC grew by 35%, SMIC grew by 42%, Huahong 40%, and the world's advanced growth was 12.2%. Judging from this growth rate, it is indeed the prosperous era of semiconductors. The reason why
has grown so strongly is of course the chip shortage since 2020, which has led to a full increase in wafer prices. At the same time, wafer factories have expanded production, and the capacity utilization rate of has been fully increased. Some wafer factories have even exceeded 100%, and of course their revenue will increase significantly.
However, the growth story may be reversed by the third quarter. Some media even said that although the performance in the third quarter is good, this may be the best performance for fabs in the next three years, so they must cherish it.
Why is this possible the best performance in the next three years? Because wafers are currently surplus of production capacity, price reduction, production reduction and layoffs have become lingering shadows for wafer factories.
said when TSMC released its third-quarter report that TSMC predicts that revenue will not increase in the fourth quarter, and "the semiconductor industry may decline in 2023, and TSMC will not be spared."
In addition, SMIC, Huahong, UMC, etc. have expressed similar views. In fact, the clues can also be seen from capital market . Currently, in the capital market, Intel , AMD , Nvidia, TSMC, Micron , ASML, application materials, Panlin and other giants have basically been cut in half in more than a year.
capital is the most sensitive and can best predict what will happen next, because the consumer market is weak and demand is sluggish. At present, almost every company in the world's semiconductor -body fabs is cutting capital expenditures and temporarily suspending capacity construction.
Whether it is the dominant TSMC in advanced technology or UMC, which has stopped being manufactured in mature form, this is true. GM also stated that it will lay off employees, so the future prospects are very unoptimistic.
According to the previous rules of the chip industry, when the chip enters a downward cycle, it cannot be restored in a few years. So maybe three years later, it is still a conservative estimate. Maybe it will take longer for fabs to get out of the quagmire.
