Apple chipmaker TSMC saw its revenue fall by 15% year-on-year in March. The bad news comes on the heels of iPhone assembler Foxconn last week reporting a 21% drop in revenue during the same month.
Foxconn, which handles 80% of Apple’s iPhone assembly, reported last week that it experienced a year-on-year fall of 21.1%. The company says that it also expects a decline during the current quarter.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg says TSMC revenue saw a “sharp” drop in the same month.
First-quarter revenue at the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of chips was NT$508.6 billion ($16.7 billion), according to Bloomberg calculations, falling shy of average analyst forecasts of NT$525.5 billion. A sharp slowdown in March contributed to that miss: sales were down 15% last month relative to the prior year, at NT$145.4 billion, TSMC said.
TSMC says that the revenue drop is expected to continue in the current quarter, before recovering in the second half of the year. It expects the negative growth in this quarter to be smaller, somewhere in the “mid-to-high single digits.”
The report blames reduced demand on interest rate increases, high inflation, and the banking crisis. In times like these, many consumers are cutting back on discretionary spending, such as buying a new iPhone.
We’ll soon see how Apple performed during its fiscal second quarter, as the Cupertino firm will report its earnings results for the second fiscal quarter (first calendar quarter) of 2023 on Thursday, May 4. A conference call to discuss second fiscal quarter results and business updates is scheduled for later that day, at 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET.
(Via 9to5Mac)