The semiconductor industry shuffled, SMIC cut orders by 146.8 billion, and made a wise decision
Due to various reasons, the global semiconductor industry is facing a comprehensive reshuffle, and more and more countries and regions have begun to weaken their dependence on American technology and develop an independent semiconductor industry chain to get rid of the impact of the external chip chain.
In this context, the substitution of domestic wafers is also accelerating, especially in the first half of this year, the United States, together with Japan, the Netherlands and other countries, further strengthened the development of advanced wafer equipment, which further stimulated the development of the domestic semiconductor industry chain.
According to data recently released by the General Administration of Customs, in the first four months of this year, China's chip imports decreased by 146.8 billion compared with the same period last year, with an average annual decline of 211%, the total import value was 105.6 billion US dollars, an average annual decrease of 256%。
This set of data illustrates two reasons: on the one hand, the global semiconductor market has indeed been hit by a huge impact, and there is a serious shortage of supply, after all, the demand for electronic products such as mobile phones and computers has fallen sharply.
On the other hand, it is the process of accelerating the substitution of domestic chips, and the sanctions imposed by the United States have made many Chinese companies worry about the near future, and have successively achieved very brilliant results in the process of domestic substitution.
The decrease in the number of imported chips can also reflect the improvement of the utilization rate of domestic chips, Huawei, Xiaomi, vivo and other manufacturers have achieved comprehensive domestic substitution in some fields, which is also one of the main reasons for the sharp decline in the number of imported chips.
In fact, it can also be concluded from the results of TSMC and SMIC that TSMC's previous highest revenue in the second quarter of this year was $16 billion, and the year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter figures will decline, and it is also announced that TSMC's performance of continuing to grow significantly year-on-year has been terminated.
Although SMIC's revenue in the first quarter also declined, the capacity utilization rate was only 681%, but at SMIC's latest earnings conference, the official made it clear that the capacity utilization rate has returned to 100%.
It is understood that the application field of the resumption of full orders is first of all display panel driver IC, mainly mobile phones, a small number of displays, as well as related image sensors, LED driver chips, etc., and the order volume basically comes from domestic enterprises.
The reshuffle of the semiconductor industry has also greatly affected TSMC, ASML and other companies, according to ** reports, TSMC's capital expenditure in 2023 will be cut to 28 billion to 32 billion US dollars, affected by TSMC's reduction of capital expenditure, Dutch lithography machine manufacturer ASML has also suffered a sharp reduction in orders.
It is reported that TSMC's orders to ASML in 2024 will decrease by 40% year-on-year, while at the same time, global semiconductor manufacturers have suffered an unprecedented Waterloo.
Storage factories have cut capex, SK hynix has cut 50%, Micron has cut 40%, Logic Factory will also cut capex, TSMC has cut 12%.
On the other hand, SMIC has not only recovered to 100% capacity utilization, but also has urgent orders, so SMIC bucked the trend against the backdrop of the global semiconductor industry downturn.
In 2022, capital expenditures at major plants around the world were well below plan;In contrast, SMIC's planned capital expenditure for 2022 was $5 billion, but the actual expenditure has reached $6.6 billion.
SMIC's financial report shows that by the end of 2022, SMIC's 8-inch wafer equivalent monthly production capacity reached 7140,000 pieces, with an annual capacity utilization rate of 92%. Heading into 2023, SMIC's capital expenditures have not been cut and are expected to be basically the same as in 2022.
SMIC has been able to achieve such steady growth because it has made the right choice: at a time when the United States continues to hinder the development of China's semiconductor industry, SMIC has decided to fully establish mature processes such as 28nm.
The future of China's semiconductor industry has been clearly visible as Chinese companies continue to expand their investment in the semiconductor field, produce more and more integrated circuit products, and promote the development of new energy vehicles, smart homes and other related industries.
However, although we have made some achievements, we can't be arrogant at this stage, we still need to overcome basic difficulties such as lithography and EDA, and only we can really control the core in our own hands in the future.