TSMC is expecting 20% growth this year, said CEO Morris Chang earlier today, while he expects the overall foundry industry to grow 12%, and the overall semiconductor industry to grow only 5%.
That’s in contrast to leading analysts with IC Insights forecasting double digit overall growth for the semiconductor market and Future Horizons forecasting 9% with the proviso “ it could very easily go to double digits."
For TSMC, Smartphones and tablets are the big drivers, said Chang, and the company expects a second half benefit from the growing use of 45nm processes. He expects to see the year end with increased market share for TSMC.
Currently TSMC’s share of the foundry industry is 50%.
Chang seems to see Samsung as its biggest threat among foundry rivals. A year ago Samsung was ‘not on our radar’ as a foundry player, said Chang. Now it is.
Last year Samsung was the ninth largest foundry player with $420m of foundry sales compared to TSMC’s $13bn.
In 2010 TSMC was 3x bigger than the No.2 player UMC on $4bn and almost 4x bigger than the No.3 player GloFo.
Downside uncertainties in Chang’s forecast were European debt problems and China’s economic tightening.