Stefan Mileschin

Weaker smartphone demand

TSMC has cut its revenue growth forecast for 2018 to 10 percent from the previously estimated 10-15 percent claiming that there is weaker than expected smartphone demand and growing uncertainty facing the cryptocurrency mining market.

Company co-CEO CC Wei said that TSMC's revenues in US dollars will likely grow by about 10 percent on year in the second quarter of 2018, Wei indicated. Demand for smartphones remains "soft", partially offset by strength in sales generated from the high performance computing (HPC) segment during the quarter, Wei said.

TSMC is reportedly a contract manufacturer of Apple, Huawei's chip arm HiSilicon Technology and MediaTek.

TSMC's revenues for first-quarter 2018, which grew 6.1 percent on year but fell 10.6 percent sequentially, came within the company's guidance given three months ago. Strong demand for HPC such as crypto mining and growth in demand for automotive and IoT applications mitigated the impact of a seasonal slowdown in smartphone demand during the quarter, Wei indicated.

Wei warned of a lack of sustainability in crypto mining demand. Bitmain Technologies and Canaan Creative are reportedly among TSMC's major clients engaged in the crypto mining field.

The outfit thinks that during the second quarter, revenues will fall 7-8 percent sequentially with gross margin slipping below 50 percent.

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