DIGITIMES estimates that the combined revenue of Taiwan's major wafer foundry houses will reach US$27.71 billion in the first quarter of 2025, a quarterly decrease of 5.8%. However, as AI/HPC chip demand continues to be strong and consumer electronics inventory is being gradually replenished, revenue in the second quarter is expected to rebound 5.7% quarterly to US$29.3 billion.
It is worth noting that demand for mature chipmaking processes will not see significant recovery in the first half of 2025, while Chinese foundries will move a large amount of new capacity to production.
Therefore, Taiwanese foundry houses will still come under pressure to reduce prices for mature processes. In addition, US president Donald Trump's trade and technology policies will also be interfering with the operations of the Taiwanese makers.
Chart 1: Key factors affecting Taiwan wafer foundry industry in 1H25
Chart 2: Global major IT products on-year shipment growth, 2022-2025
Chart 3: Taiwan key wafer foundry revenues, 4Q23-2Q25 (US$b)
Chart 6: Taiwan foundry revenue share by manufacturing node, 4Q23-1Q25
Chart 7: Taiwan key wafer foundry annual revenues, 2021-2025 (US$b)
Chart 9: TSMC advanced packaging capacity deployment in Taiwan, 2025
Chart 11: Taiwanese foundries' revenue outlook and key topics
