Semiconductor manufacturers TSMC and UMC report sales increase; at the same time semiconductor manufacturing equipment spending declined.

10 April 2010, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company TSMC published its March 2010 Sales Report, revealing that revenues for January through March 2010 totaled NT$92.19 billion, an increase of 133.4 percent compared to the same period in 2009. UMC, number two behind TSMC, has also reported an important sales increase for March 2010. TSMC and UMC indicated both to increase their investment to be able to answer to the increasing demand for new computers, mobile phone and televisions, requiring ever stronger semiconductors.

At the same time, according to research bureau Gartner, worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment spending declined by 46 percent in 2009. Worldwide semiconductor capital equipment spending totaled $16.6 billion in 2009, a 45.8 percent decline from 2008, according to final results by Gartner. In major segments, wafer fab equipment declined 47 percent, while back-end equipment (BEE) decreased 40 percent, as both areas were hit hard by reductions in capital spending. "In the past two years, the semiconductor industry responded to increasingly bad economic news by rapidly stopping all but essential spending in an attempt to preserve cash in uncertain economic times," said Dean Freeman, research vice president for Gartner's semiconductor manufacturing research group.

Top 10 Worldwide Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Vendors by Revenue Estimates (Millions of U.S. Dollars)

 Click here for full Gartner press release.