February sales were even stronger than January's at foundry pair Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) and United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC).
TSMC is the market leader in foundry wafer production and about five times the size of UMC but for once the smaller company's growth rates eclipsed those of the larger. Both companies' figures are likely to have benefited from the fact that Chinese new year fell in January in 2014 but was in February in 2013. This will have served to supress January 2014 sales and increase February 2014 sales compared with the year before.
TSMC sales for February 2014 were NT$46.83 billion (about $1.55 billion), a decrease of 9.0 percent from January 2014 and up 13.7 percent over February 2013. Revenues for January through February 2014 totaled NT$98.26 billion (about $3.24 billion), an increase of 10.9 percent compared to the same period in 2013.
UMC's February sales were NT$10.34 billion (about $341 million), up sequentially from January and up 18.5 percent from February 2013. UMC's sales to date in 2014 are NT$20.40 billion (about $675 million), up 12.2 percent on the same period in 2013.
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