SMIC is stepping up chip production, building wafer fabrication sites throughout mainland China, including in Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), a partially stated-owned publicly-listed Chinese pure-play semiconductor foundry, published its 2021 annual report on March 30, which shows its net profit increased 137.8% over the previous year to USD 1.702 billion.
SMIC’s total revenue in 2021 grew about 39.3% to USD 5.443 billion, the best in the industry, according to Jiemian News, a business news provider.
SMIC claims that the net income growth in 2021 is mainly due to the increase in sale volume and price of waferand a change of product combination. Sales volume of wafer expanded 18.4% from 5.70 million pieces in 2020 to 6.75 million pieces in 2021. The average price of wafer rose from USD 610 in 2020 to USD 738 in 2021.
The proportion of the company’s revenue from mainland China and Hong Kong in its 2021 total revenue increased to 64.0%, while the rest came from the US and European markets.
Product-wise, revenue from smart phones, consumer electronics, smart home and others accounted for 32.2%, 23.5%, 12.8%, and 31.5% respectively of the wafer fabrication income in 2021.
TrendForce, a business consulting agency, shows that SMIC is the 5th- largest contract chipmaker globally, with a market share of 5.2% in Q421. The top four contract chipmakers globally are TSMC (52.1%), Samsung (18.3%), UMC (7%) and GF (6.1%).
An ongoing global chip shortage has boosted the profits of chipmakers. SMIC is expanding its capacity, building wafer fabrication sites throughout mainland China, including in Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai. After those sites achieve full capacity, SMIC’s total capacity will double, according to Jiemian.
SMIC also announced a management reshuffle on March 17, appointing Gao Yonggang as the chairman, and Zhou Zixue resigned as the company's executive director due to health problems.
The estimated capital expenditure of SMIC in 2022 will reach USD 5 billion, or 10% of its audited total asset in 2021. And the firm predicted a gradual shift toward a structural capacity shortage in 2022 as demand eased in some segments.