Global top 10 foundries’ total revenue grew by 6% in 3Q22
According to TrendForce’s research, the total revenue of the global top 10 foundries rose by 6% QoQ to USD 35.21 billion for 3Q22 as the release of the new iPhone series during the second half of the year generated significant stock-up activities across Apple’s supply chain.
However, the global economy shows weak performances, and factors such as China’s policy on containing COVID-19 outbreaks and high inflation continue to impact consumer confidence. As a result, peak-season demand in the year's second half has been underwhelming, and inventory consumption is proceeding slower than anticipated. This situation has led to substantial downward corrections to foundry orders as well. For 4Q22, TrendForce forecasts that the total revenue of the global top 10 foundries will register a QoQ decline, thereby terminating the boom of the past two years—when there was an uninterrupted trend of QoQ revenue growth.
Top five foundries accounted for almost 90% of the global market
Regarding individual foundries’ performances in 3Q22, the top five group was led by TSMC, followed by Samsung, UMC, GlobalFoundries, and SMIC. Their collective global market share (in revenue terms) came to 89.6%. Most foundries were directly impacted by clients slowing down their stock-up activities or significantly correcting down their orders.
Only TSMC was able to make a notable gain due to Apple’s strong stock-up demand for the SoCs deployed in this year’s new iPhone models. TSMC saw its revenue rise by 11.1% QoQ to USD 20.16 billion, and the corresponding market share expanded to 56.1%. The growth was mainly attributed to the ≤7nm nodes, whose share in the foundry’s revenue had kept climbing and reached 54% in the third quarter. Conversely, Samsung actually experienced a slight QoQ drop of 0.1% in foundry revenue even though it had also benefited from the component demand related to the new iPhone series. Partially impacted by the weakening of the Korean won, Samsung’s market share fell to 15.5%.
Turning to UMC, its revenue went up by 1.3% QoQ to around USD 2.48 billion for 3Q22. UMC’s performance was bolstered by the strengthening of the US dollar and the newly added 28nm production capacity that outputs higher-priced wafers. GlobalFoundries posted a QoQ rise of 4.1% in revenue to around USD 2.07 billion. The growth was attributed to a QoQ increase in wafer shipments as well as further optimisation in wafer ASP and product mix. Furthermore, GlobalFoundries has been maintaining its capacity utilisation rate above 90%. Taking the last spot in the group of the top five, SMIC posted a slight QoQ increase of 0.2% in revenue to around US$1.91 billion. SMIC has a product mix that is skewed towards consumer semiconductor components, so it saw smaller QoQ increases as well as QoQ declines in revenue performances across different applications and product categories as its clients had been focusing on inventory reduction. This was especially noticeable for chips used in smartphones and several kinds of consumer electronics. Nevertheless, SMIC’s revenue kept climbing because the optimization of its wafer ASP offset the issue with its product mix and the slide in its wafer shipments.
The US government further expanded its export controls against China on October 7, and this development has definitely affected SMIC as its clients have become more hesitant in ramping up wafer inputs. However, in the aspect of capital expenditure, SMIC is taking the opposite approach compared with most other foundries that have scaled back because of the changes in the market environment and the issue with the lead time for equipment orders. Against headwinds, SMIC has raised its capital expenditure for 2022 by 32% to USD 6.6 billion. SMIC wants to speed up new equipment purchases for its three new fabs located in Shenzhen, Beijing, and Shanghai in order to minimize the risks associated with the US export controls. Hence, it has raised capital expenditure in order to make advance payments on the new equipment that is set for deployment in 2023.
| Rank | Company | Revenue | Market share | |||
| 3Q22 | 2Q22 | QoQ | 3Q22 | 2Q22 | ||
| 1 | TSMC | 20,163 | 18,145 | 11.1% | 56.1% | 53.4% |
| 2 | Samsung | 5,584 | 5,588 | -0.1% | 15.5% | 16.4% |
| 3 | UMC | 2,479 | 2,448 | 1.3% | 6.9% | 7.2% |
| 4 | GlobalFoundries | 2,074 | 1,993 | 4.1% | 5.8% | 5.9% |
| 5 | SMIC | 1,907 | 1,056 | 0.2% | 5.3% | 5.6% |
| 6 | HuaHong Group | 1,200 | 1,056 | 13.6% | 3.3% | 3.1% |
| 7 | PSMC | 561 | 656 | -14.4% | 1.6% | 1.9% |
| 8 | VIS | 438 | 520 | -15.7% | 1.2% | 1.5% |
| 9 | Tower | 427 | 426 | 0.2% | 1.2% | 1.3% |
| 10 | Nexchip | 371 | 478 | 22.5% | 1.0% | 1.4% |
| Total | 35,205 | 33,213 | 6.0% | 97% | 96% | |
Samsung's revenue encompasses the contribution from its foundry business unit and Systems LSI
PSMC's revenue only refers to its foundry revenue
HuaHong Group consists of HHGrace and HLMC
Nexchip's revenue is the estimated median value of a range announced by the company
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