TSMC, the world's largest chip foundry manufacturer, released the company's third quarter 2016 financial results on Thursday. According to the financial report, driven by the manufacture of chips and processors for Apple's iPhone 7 foundry, TSMC's net profit for the quarter increased by 28% year-on-year to NT $ 96.8 billion (approximately 3.08 billion US dollars), creating a new quarterly high for the company.
TSMC pointed out that in the third quarter of 2016, 16 / 20nm process shipments accounted for 31% of TSMC's wafer sales in the third quarter; 28nm process shipments accounted for 24% of wafer sales for the quarter. Overall, the revenue of the above-mentioned advanced processes (including 28nm and more advanced processes) reached 55% of the total quarterly wafer sales.
Looking forward to the fourth quarter, Liu Deyin pointed out that due to the replacement of 3G to 4G by the smartphone market in mainland China and emerging markets, coupled with the increase in demand for the multimedia and gaming market, although it is expected to be a traditional off-season, TSMC still expresses caution optimism. At present, although there is a slight inventory adjustment in the market, it still looks healthy overall. It is estimated that the performance of TSMC in the fourth quarter will be the same as that in the third quarter.
The strong performance of TSMC in the third quarter means that the company's full-year performance this year will exceed expectations. Some market analysts currently predict that TSMC's revenue this year will be 5% to 10% higher than the company had previously expected.