In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, many firms in the IT world have revised their business outlook for first-quarter 2020. But TSMC still sees significant demand for its foundry services, reportedly seeing its upcoming 5nm capacity fully book by clients. Its major handset chip clients, such as MediaTek, are all gearing up shipments for 5G applications. The handset market is still clearly transitioning to 5G, but overall handset shipments in China plunged in February, thanks to the epidemic.
TSMC to kick off 5nm chip production in April: TSMC is set to kick off volume production of chips built using 5nm process technology in April, and has already seen the process capacity fully booked by clients, according to industry sources.
MediaTek ramping up 5G chip shipments despite outbreak: MediaTek has started ramping up its 5G chip shipments, driving up its revenues for the first two months of 2020 by 25.11% on year to reach NT$30.43 billion (US$1.01 billion), with the sales performance much better than expected despite the coronavirus outbreak, according to industry sources.
China handset shipments fall over 50% in February: Handset shipments in the China market fell 56% on year to 6.384 million units in February 2020, as the coronavirus outbreak halved demand for mobile devices, according to data compiled by China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT).