Recently, SMIC, the most bullish chip foundry company in Chinese mainland, released its first quarter 2024 report, which showed that the revenue in the first quarter exceeded $1.75 billion.
As soon as this data was revealed, everyone cheered, because it represented SMIC, officially surpassing GF of the United States and UMC in Taiwan Province to become the world's second largest exclusive foundry, second only to TSMC.
However, behind this $1.75 billion, you should also pay attention to a figure, that is, 81.6% of SMIC's revenue comes from China, a record high.
As shown in the figure below, we can see that the proportion is 75.5% in 2023Q1, 80.8% in 2023Q4, and as high as 81.6% in 2024Q1.
The corresponding from the United States is 19.6% in 2023Q1, then 15.7% in 2023Q4, and 14.9% in 2024Q1.
This change in numbers, especially compared with the United States, is actually of great significance, which means that SMIC's gradual return to China is based on the big market of China, which is the foundation of SMIC and the confidence of SMIC's continuous expansion.
You must know that in the past, the proportion of SMIC's revenue in China was about 50%, and the proportion of the United States was as high as 40%, almost half.
Later, due to the tension of the external situation, the United States continued to suppress Chinese chips and restrict various equipment and technologies, so SMIC returned to China and undertook more orders from Chinese chip design factories, and the proportion of China became higher and higher.
Correspondingly, we can look at TSMC, the world's No. 1 foundry, located in Taiwan, China, but its revenue from China is getting less and less, especially after rejecting Huawei's order, China contributed more than 20% of the revenue of the former TSMC, and now it is only about 10%.
There are more and more orders from the United States, and the top 10 customers of TSMC are basically American customers, and the United States provides more than 70% of the revenue.
In addition, TSMC has planned to invest $65 billion to build 5nm, 3nm, and 2nm chip factories in the United States.
Different choices determine how far it can go in the future to a certain extent, so the question is, can SMIC catch up with TSMC in the future? I think so, so let's wait and see.