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Demand for newer iPhones hasn’t matched the booming customer response to the iPhone 6 in 2014.PHOTO:VINCENT YU/ASSOCIATED PRESS
(THE WALL STREET JOURNAL) Companies that make parts forAppleInc.are warning of lower first-half revenue this year, in a sign of slowing sales of the latest iPhones.
Taiwan Semiconductor ManufacturingCo., which manufactures the chips that run iPhones and other popular electronic devices, forecastThursdayits first-quarter revenue would decline as much as 11% from the previous year, citingsoft demandfor high-end smartphones.
Apple components contribute 20% of sales forTSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker, according toaCredit Suissereport.
Largan PrecisionCo., which supplies iPhone camera modules,said it expects “quite a weak” first quarter, whileCatcher TechnologyCo., a maker of iPhone metal casings, said its revenue for the first half would be flat from a year earlier. Largan and Catcher are based in Taiwan.
South Korea’sSamsung ElectronicsCo., which also supplies the computing brains in smartphones, known as processors,earlier this monthsaid it expects competition will intensify for all of Samsung’s main products, including memory chips. In addition to supplying components to Apple, Samsung competes with the U.S.-based company in selling smartphones.
The year’s first half is traditionally a slow season for Apple’s supply chain and the broader gadget industry.But this year’s slowdown could be more pronounced, withsluggish salesof the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6 Plus launched last fall, compared with the booming popularity of theiPhone 6in 2014, said people familiar with iPhone production.
Apple has cut its order forecasts to iPhone suppliers in the past few months, The Wall Street Journalreported last week. Such concerns havepushed Apple’s stock pricebelow $100for the first timein 15 monthsand hit stocks of iPhone suppliers.
“We see a reduction in high-end smartphone demand,” saidMark Liu,one ofTSMC’s co-chief executives, at an investor conferenceon Thursday, without mentioning specific customers. He said China and other emerging markets, however, were showing “signs of recovery” and thatTSMCexpects to return to growth after the first quarter.
TSMCforecast revenue of between198 billion New Taiwan dollars and NT$201 billion (US$5.93 billion and US$6.02 billion) for the first quarter, down 9.5% to 11%froma year earlierand off 1.2% to 2.7% from the fourth quarter.
Still, the company said it expects to boost capital expenditure thisyear by 10% to 20% to between $9 billion and $10 billion.
Mr. Liu saidTSMCexpects the global smartphone market to hold up better than other electronics segments in 2016.TSMCforecast 8% growth in global smartphone-unit shipments this year, versus 3% and 7% declines for personal and tablet computers, respectively.
Suppliers are giving brighter outlooks for the full year, however, with Apple expected to launch a next-generation iPhone that is likely to have more new features than the iPhone 6S, based on the company’s pattern of a significant iPhone upgrade every two years.
A spokesman forPegatronCorp., which makes some iPhones,said his Taiwan-based company expected its smartphone sales to grow for the full year. He declined to comment on the outlook for the first half.
C.C. Wei,anotherTSMCco-chief executive, said the company plans to begin production of chips in the second quarter, using its new “InFO” technology that allows for thinner chipsets—and therefore slimmer gadgets.
This technology won’t be widely adopted byTSMC’s customers in 2016, but there will be “a few, very large-volume customers,” he said. Bernstein Research analystMark Liwrote in a report in October that Apple will beTSMC’s only meaningful customer for InFO this year, with the technology allowing better performance and a thinner chipset for the next-generation iPhone.
A spokeswoman for Apple referred to comments made by Apple Chief ExecutiveTim Cookon anearnings call in 2013, during which he said it wasdifficult to accurately extrapolate business outlooks from individual data points in the supply chain.
“There’s just an inordinately long list of things that would make any single data point not a great proxy for what’s going on,” Mr. Cook said at the time.
TSMCsaidThursdayits fourth-quarter net profit fell8.9%to NT$72.84 billion from NT$79.99 billion a year earlier. The result marks a slowdown from the previous year’s rapid growth, whenTSMCbegan supplying processors forApple’s iPhones and tablets. In the 2014 fourth quarter,the company’s profit rose 79% to a new quarterly record.
TSMC said its revenue fell8.5%to NT$203.52billion for the three months ended Dec. 31, from NT$222.52 billion a year earlier.
