Q2 Foundry Revenue Up 9.6% to $32B Amid Urgent Orders

According to the latest data from TrendForce, the revenue of the top ten semiconductor foundries surged by 9.6% quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter, reaching $32 billion. This growth is primarily driven by the recent 618 Mid-Year Shopping Festival in China and the restoration of healthy inventory levels for consumer electronics. These factors have led to increased orders for consumer electronic components, significantly boosting foundry capacity utilization. Additionally, there is sustained strong demand for AI server-related components.

The top five foundries maintained their positions, with TSMC, Samsung, SMIC, UMC, and GlobalFoundries leading the rankings. The sixth through tenth positions are held by Hua Hong Semiconductor, Tower Semiconductor, World Advanced, Powerchip, and Hefei Microelectronics. World Advanced notably climbed to eighth place, benefitting from a surge in orders for display driver ICs (DDIs) and power management ICs (PMICs).

Looking ahead, TrendForce anticipates a traditional peak in inventory stocking for the third quarter. Although global economic uncertainties may affect consumer confidence, new product releases in smartphones and PCs/laptops are expected to drive demand for system-on-chips (SoCs) and related integrated circuits (ICs). Furthermore, the rapid expansion in AI server-related high-performance computing (HPC) is projected to continue through the end of the year, with some advanced process orders extending into 2025. This ongoing demand is expected to be a key driver of revenue growth for semiconductor foundries in 2024.

Overall, TrendForce projects that with improved capacity utilization in both advanced and mature process technologies, the revenue of the top ten semiconductor foundries will likely see further growth in Q3, with a quarterly increase anticipated to be consistent with that of Q2.