Taipei, Nov. 15 (CNA) The production value of the local integrated circuit (IC) sector rose more than 5 percent from a year earlier, reversing a decline in the previous two quarters, on the back of the launch of new electronic devices and investment in 5G infrastructure, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said Friday.
Data compiled by the MOEA's statistics department showed that the output of Taiwan's semiconductor sector totaled NT$396 billion (US$12.98 billion), up 5.1 percent from a year earlier.
The third-quarter growth reversed a 10.8 percent year-on-year decline in the first quarter, which suffered from weakening smartphone sales and falling cryptocurrency transactions, and a 3.1 percent drop in the second quarter, when the industry suffered inventory adjustments, the data indicated.
In the first nine months of this year, the production value of the local IC industry stood at NT$1.06 trillion, still down 2.8 percent from a year earlier, the MOEA said.
In the third quarter, outbound sales accounted for almost 87 percent of the total output in the industry, with the ratio at 84.1 percent for the first nine months of the year, the MOEA said.
It forecast that due to strong demand in the fourth quarter, the local IC industry is likely to see additional positive growth in output in the quarter, which will help the industry record a year-on-year increase in production value for the whole of 2019 to another record high after the previous high of NT$1.51 trillion seen in 2018.
Before 2019, the local IC sector witnessed its output hitting new highs for six years in a row, the MOEA said.
In the first nine months of the year, the pure wafer foundry segment posted NT$877.4 billion in production value, accounting for about 83 percent of the total IC output in Taiwan.
The pure wafer foundry segment posted NT$1.22 trillion in output value in 2018, a record high for the seventh consecutive year.
The MOEA said that on the back of reviving global demand, pure wafer foundry operators are expected to enjoy a new high in output value in 2019.
The MOEA cited a research report by market advisory firm TrendForce Corp. as saying that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. took a 50.5-percent share of the global pure wafer foundry market in the third quarter, ahead of Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea with 18.5 percent and U.S.-based GlobalFoundries Inc. with 8.3 percent, Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp. with 6.7 percent and China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. with 4.4 percent.
