MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.--When Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) reports its financial results on Tuesday, the company is expected to announced that its capital spending budget will hit $1.2 billion in 2003, a 25%-to-30% drop over 2002, according to a report from U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray.
The figure is significant, given that the silicon foundry giant is the world's third largest spender in the semiconductor industry, according to the report. TSMC is only behind Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Intel Corp. in terms of capital spending for 2003, according to the Minneapolis-based investment banking firm.
Korea's Samsung reported that it plans to spend $3.56 billion in semiconductor-only capital investment in 2003, up 90% from the $1.87 billion capex for last year. Capital spending for all of Samsung, including the telecommunications and digital appliance units, is projected at $5.09 billion, up 43% over $3.56 billion for 2002.
Samsung's projected 2003 semiconductor capital investment is coming close to Intel's estimated $3.5 billion to $3.9 billion capex for this year (see Jan. 17 story ).
TSMC appears to be a distant third. "We currently expect TSMC's management to guide to 2003 capital spending of about $1.2 billion, which would equate to a decline of 25%-30% from estimated 2002 capital spending of $1.65 billion," according to the report. "We believe this would be slightly below current street expectations of closer to $1.4 billion," the report said.
"Our estimate is based largely on a bottoms up analysis of specific capacity additions that the company has planned," it said. "While overall capital spending will decline in 2003, it should be noted that TSMC has been nearly non-existent from ordering any semiconductor equipment since Q302 and will most likely be quiet in Q103. We expect that TSMC will resume equipment ordering beginning in Q203."
TSMC's foundry rival, United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), will be reporting results on Wednesday of this week. UMC will not provide a full-year 2003 capital spending budget, but rather provide only quarterly forecasts, according to the report.
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