Taiwan Semiconductor Reports 4Q Net-Income Rise of 0.7%
17 Gennaio 2019 - 09:17AM
Dow Jones News
By Kenan Machado
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. Thursday reported a
0.7% year-over-year rise in net income for the fourth quarter,
which ended December, citing higher revenue thanks to increasing
use of its extremely precise chips used by Apple and others, as
well as a more favorable exchange rate.
Net income rose to 99.98 billion new Taiwan dollars (US$3.244
billion) from NT$99.29 billion a year earlier, the world's largest
contract maker of semiconductors said on its website.
Revenue rose 4.4% year over year to NT$289.77 billion. In U.S.
dollar terms, revenue rose 2% from a year earlier to $9.40
billion.
The revenue increase came largely from customers' increased
demand for products using the company's 7-nanometer manufacturing
process, the company said. The distance between certain chip
components is measured in nanometers.
Additionally, a more favorable foreign-exchange rate in the
three months through december helped boost revenue, the company
said.
Taiwan Semiconductor said chips made using the 7-nanometer
process contributed to 23% of total chip revenue in the fourth
quarter, up from 11% in the previous quarter and none a year
earlier. Chips using the process made up for 9% of overall chip
revenue in the full year of 2018 from none a year earlier.
Apple's iPhone XS and XS Max phones that are powered by the
Cupertino, California-based company's A12 Bionic chip, the phone's
central processing unit, are built using the 7-nanometer chip
manufacturing process. The process allows chip makers to pack more
components into a denser design, offering more capabilities.
Apple's A12 chip has some 6.9 billion transistors.
Taiwan Semiconductor's operating margin dropped 0.4 percentage
points to 37.0% in the quarter ended December from the same period
a year earlier. Shares closed up 1.4% at NT$220.50 a share in
Taipei on Thursday.
-Write to Kenan Machado at kenan.machado@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 17, 2019 03:02 ET (08:02 GMT)
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