The leaders in the global foundry market – in terms of their revenue – are TSMC, Samsung, UMC, Global Foundries and SMIC in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to TrendForce.
Q4 2022 foundry revenue of TSMC touched $19.962 billion as compared with $5.391 billion by Samsung, $2.165 billion by UMC, $2.101 billion by Global Foundries and $1.621 billion by SMIC during the fourth quarter of 2022.
In 4Q22, the quarterly revenue of the global top 10 foundries registered a QoQ decline for the first time after 13 consecutive quarters of positive growth. The quarterly revenue of the top 10 foundries dipped 4.7 percent to $33.530 billion from 3Q22.
TrendForce projects that the quarterly revenue of the top 10 foundries will show steeper drop in Q1 2023 due to seasonality and the uncertain macroeconomic situation.
Q4 2022
Even with stock-up activities related to new iPhones and Android smartphones, TSMC posted QoQ drop of 1.0 percent in revenue to $19,962 million. However, TSMC’s revenue market share climbed to almost 60 percent mainly because tier-2 and -3 foundries took a heavier hit with respect to customers’ inventory corrections.
TSMC’s decline in the revenues from the 7/6nm nodes was mostly offset by the rise in the revenues from the 5/4nm nodes. The share of the ≤7nm nodes in TSMC’s overall revenue remained stable at 54 percent.
Samsung experienced a drop in orders for advanced processes and a general demand contraction as its customers were concentrating on inventory reduction. Samsung posted a QoQ drop of 3.5 percent in foundry revenue to $5,391 million for 4Q22. Samsung has lost a significant amount of demand for its ≤7nm nodes as Qualcomm and NVIDIA made the decision to reallocate orders for chips used in flagship hardware products. The utilization rates of Samsung’s advanced processes are projected to remain at a low level of around 60 percent through 2023. Samsung lacks the momentum to achieve a positive revenue growth for this year.
UMC saw a drop in both capacity utilization rate and wafer shipments in 4Q22 and its revenue fell by 12.7 percent QoQ to $2,165 million. UMC saw a QoQ revenue decline for both 12- and 8-inch wafer foundry services, and its 0.35/0.25μm nodes had the worse revenue performance with a QoQ decline coming to 47 percent.
GlobalFoundries revenue rose by 1.3 percent QoQ to $2,101 million thanks to the optimization in its ASP and product mixes, as well as an increase in revenue from its non-wafer business. GlobalFoundries was the only one among the top 10 to record a positive QoQ growth, and its revenue market share climbed to 6.2 percent.
SMIC saw a drop in both wafer shipments and wafer ASP. SMIC’s revenue slid by 15 percent QoQ to $1,621 million. SMIC experienced drops in smart home and consumer electronics business units despite offering price concessions. SMIC’s capacity utilization rate and revenue are expected to shrink further in 1Q23.
