United Microelectronics Corporation, the second Taiwanese largest contract manufacturer of semiconductors, today reported its revenues for September 2002. The company is not as successful as its arch-rival TSMC, who reported their figures yesterday (see this news-story), declaring 29.2% growth in sales this year compared to 2001, however, it still performed pretty well.

UMC’s net sales in September achieved $171 07 million, down 6.2% compared to the previous month, but still 43.84% better than a year before. The company’s revenue for the 9 month was roughly 1.419 billion, 1.30% decrease from 2001.

As we told you several times, there will be no industry recovery this year. Hence, UMC is likely to report revenue decline in 2002 from the previous year. Moreover, with IBM entering the market of semiconductors’ contract manufacturing, UMC, just like TSMC and the others, may eventually start loosing its market share. Luckily for them, the process will probably not start this year. While in 2003, especially in the second half, analysts predict that the demand on personal computers will rise, as a result, the market of semiconductors will prosper.