Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) says it is reducing its capital expenditure budget this year by $1 billion to $11 billion, because of disappointing demand for smartphone chips this quarter. Last week Intel also revised down its capex plans by $1.3 billion to $8.7 billion.
TSMC’s co-CEO, Mark Liu said that despite a “challenging” environment, the company will work to achieve double-digit percentage revenue growth this year. However, turnover in the current quarter is expected to decline between 6.7-8% sequentially to NT$204-207 billion ($6.6-6.8 billion), from NT$222 billion ($7.2 billion) in the previous quarter.
