A recent report reveals that TSMC will be responsible for 70 percent production of Apple A9 and A9X chips. The remaining percentage will be assigned to Samsung.
The A9 chip is designated for the 2015 iPhone, while its A9X cousin will be landing in the 2015 iPad. Production of the chips is expected to help raise TSMC's revenues by up to 3 or 4 percent in 2015. This will eventually lead to an increase in earnings per share this year and even in 2016 — by up to 12 percent and 7 percent, respectively.
"We believe TSMC will earn most of the A9 orders thanks to its superior yield ramp and manufacturing excellence in mass production," said Rick Hsu and Olivia Hsu of Daiwa Securities in a statement.
"We expect TSMC to earn all of Apple's A9X orders for the next generation iPad and most of the A9 for the next generation of iPhone, aggregating to an allocation of over 70 percent."
The Japanese brokerage added that TSMC should expect the production to begin contributing to its revenues in the August to October period. This will be possible as the initial production of the A9X chip is slated to commence in March while the A9 chip will begin its production in April.
"Previously, we assumed TSMC would earn only A9X orders," said the brokerage. "We now expect the addition of A9."
Several rumors have previously suggested that Samsung would produce the majority of Apple's A9 chip sets, and that the Galaxy maker would be taking the lead against TSMC in producing the chips.
An opposing rumor in early 2015 posited that Taiwan-based TSMC would be the company responsible for production of the A9.
The latest development in what has seemed like a tug-of-war between Samsung and TSMC had somehow settled the issue and confirmed that Apple doesn't intend to rely much on Samsung as the chip supplier anymore.
Dubbed the world's largest contract chip maker, TSMC saw a drop in its sales in February, by 28.1 percent, which the company attributes to the month's lower number of working days.
Nevertheless, February's record of sales is still higher in the grand scheme — with the company experiencing 33.8 percent in growth compared with the same month last year. That number, coupled with the rising demand for mobile devices, suggests that the semiconductor industry will have an overall better performance this year than in 2014.
PHOTO: Håkan Dahlström I Flickr
