SMIC hits new quarterly revenue high

SAN FRANCISCO—Chinese foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) Wednesday (Aug. 8) reported a new quarterly revenue record for the second quarter, posting sales that exceeded analysts' expectations and the company's revised sales target issued last month.   

"This is a new sales record for SMIC with a quarter-over-quarter increase of 26.8 percent and growth of 19.7 percent over the same period last year," said Tzu-Yin Chiu, SMIC's CEO, in a statement.

Chiu said SMIC benefited from strong customer demand across the board, particularly an 87 percent sequential increase in revenue from the 65- and 55-nm process nodes. "We are also experiencing a strong demand increase for our specialty processes, including power management ICs, EEPROM, and others," Chiu said.

SMIC (Shanghai) reported sales of $421.8 million, up 26.8 percent from the first quarter and up 19.7 percent compared with the second quarter of 2011. The Chinese foundry posted a net income for the quarter of $7.3 million, compared to net losses in both the previous and year-ago quarters.

Analysts had estimated SMIC's second quarter sales at approximately $402.7 million, according to Yahoo Finance. The company announced last month that it expected sales for the quarter to be between $415.9 million and $419.2 million, better than originally expected.

Chiu said SMIC's capacity utilization rate improved to 95 percent in the second quarter, up from 74 percent in the first quarter. He said the company continues to enjoy growth in sales to Chinese companies, with revenue from China increasing 28 percent sequentially, making up about one third of its total sales for the second quarter.

SMIC said it expects third quarter sales to be between $438.7 million and $447.1 million, an increase of 4 to 6 percent from the second quarter. The company's guidance exceeded consensus analysts' expectations for the third quarter, according to Yahoo Finance.


Related stories:

SMIC says Q2 sales better than expected

SMIC gets government backing for second Beijing fab

UMC's July sales bounce 9%

Foundries soar, Japanese IDMs slide in IC sales rankings

UMC net income beats estimates

TSMC says single-customer fabs make sense