Taipei, Oct. 25, 2012 (CENS)--Market research firm Gartner predicts Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) to likely take over all of Apple's processor contracts from Samsung by 2014.
During a recently held forum on semiconductor technology in Taipei, Gartner predicted Samsung's LSI unit to put out as many as 700,000 wafers for Apple processors throughout this year, valued at US$2.1 billion based on US$3,000 as minimum unit price for each wafer.
The world's first market consulting firm to specify value of contracts, Gartner predicts that should Samsung lose contracts completely to TSMC, currently the world's No.1 silicon foundry provider, TSMC would see revenue increase at least 10%, on which TSMC has declined to comment.
Gartner believes the ongoing patent lawsuits between Apple and Samsung would compel Apple to hedge risk by diversifying foundry sources, with Apple likely to find other sources by 2014 and TSMC a likely candidate.
Gartner predicts TSMC's revenue for this year at US$16 billion. The foundry's market value has recently risen to new high of NT$2.3484 trillion (US$78 billion), accounting 11.11% of Taiwan's total stock market value to top all of the island's public companies.
(by Ken Liu)
