Taiwan's semiconductor giant reports record high profit in 2015

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's leading chip producer, announced record high net profit growth in 2015, despite slowdown in the fourth quarter.

Its revenue increased by 10.6 percent to 843.5 billion New Taiwan dollars (25.14 billion US dollars) from 2014 to 2015, while the net profit in 2015 increased by 16.2 percent to 306.57 billion New Taiwan dollars, the company said in a press release Thursday.

However, its gross margin for 2015 fell 0.8 percentage points from 2014 to 48.7 percent.

The financial figures for the fourth quarter of 2015 were not as pretty as the annual ones. Net profit dropped by 3.3 percent to 72.84 billion New Taiwan dollars from the third quarter and 8.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2014.

The fourth quarter's revenue, 203.52 billion New Taiwan dollars, also dropped quarterly by 4.2 percent and annually by 8.9 percent.

Lora Ho, chief financial officer and spokesperson of the company, attributed the slowdown in the fourth quarter to the performance in the mainland market.

As Chinese mainland's small phone market has showed signs of recovery, the TSMC revenue in the first quarter of this year is likely to stop reducing and remain at the similar level as the fourth quarter, Ho said.

Last month, the company announced that it will open a factory in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province to cater to the growth in the mainland market.

The company ranks third among semiconductor firms across the world, following Intel and Samsung, based on an annual revenue of 23.25 billion U.S. Dollars in 2014. Endi