Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC)(TPE: 2330) said on Feb. 10 that the total volume of its sales in January hit a record high, due to the growth of the demand for the high-end 28-nm and 20-nm processors.

TSMC posted US$2.77 billion sales for January, up 25.3% from a month earlier and a massive 69.4% from a year earlier. The figure also beat the previous month-high of US$2.6 billion, which was recorded in October last year.

While the conventional wisdom always said that the first quarter of the year would always be a slow season for global semiconductor sector, TSMC’s latest performances in terms of its sales did not reflect that saying at all. Integrated circuit designers, indeed, are suffering from a slow season but they continued to place their orders to foundry operators to secure chip supply for the future. TSMC, meanwhile, is one of the benefited suppliers.

In January, TSMC forecast that its consolidated sales would range between US$7.13 billion and US$7.23 billion during first quarter. The prediction beat an earlier market forecast of a 3% to 5% drop caused by slow season effects.

TSMC said that the company will be confident of the rest of this year whether it is slow seasons. But, TSMC said that a month-on-month decline for February can be expected anyway, due to a reduced number of working days because of the Lunar New Year.

Meanwhile, United Microelectronics Corp (UMC)(TPE: 2303), TSMC’s rival, reported that its consolidated sales for January rose 5.6% from a month earlier to US$415 million on the back of solid demand for its 28nm process, fending off slow season impact. The figure for UMC’s sales in January was also up 28% from a year earlier.

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