TSMC alone had a 56 percent market share among foundries in the last quarter, with the top 5 having almost 90 percent. However, the following months will be interesting. The smaller contract manufacturers in particular are expecting a slump, while the industry giants will remain well utilized.
The industry king TSMC delivered a solid third quarter thanks to the initial production in the third quarter for many new products in the smartphone and PC environment and at the same time nibbled market shares from the other companies. Samsung maintains second place with almost the same share, UMC remains the third strongest force, but was unable to increase sales like Tower Semi and SMIC because they were already working at full capacity.
Globalfoundries had recently always achieved good sales and positioned itself much better than a year or two ago. Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS), on the other hand, is struggling a bit, as is Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC). They felt the effects of the weakening market early on.
The TrendForce outlook shows no surprises, rather it reflects what the industry itself has been publishing for a few weeks. Industry giant TSMC is making up for declines in production N7 and N6 processors with advanced N5 and N4 nodes, and 14nm and larger continues to do well. Nevertheless, one only expects a similar result in sales as last time, which is still a damper for the company, which has recently been spoiled by success.
Others will be worse off, and that starts with UMC and Globalfoundries. Here, however, sales and capacity utilization of the plants will probably only shrink by around 10 to 15 percent, with the fabs for smaller 200 mm wafers being particularly affected. SMIC and HuaHong are struggling with the problematic conditions surrounding the growing trade dispute with the USA. Nexchip is said to be really struggling here and is said to only be able to use around 50 percent of its no longer quite modern systems. But Taiwanese foundries are also struggling, Powerchip and Vanguard are struggling with the product mix of image sensors, ICs and other logic chips, so that utilization here too could drop to just 70 to 75 percent, with corresponding losses in sales.