Samsung is rumored to have lowered its wafer foundry quotations by 5% to 15% this quarter. This price reduction covers various processes in order to attract customers to invest in wafers and increase production capacity utilization.

According to industry insiders, Samsung's price cuts are mainly due to the fact that the current market demand is not as good as expected. On the one hand, it needs to rely on price cuts to win over TSMC's advanced process customers. At the same time, it will also put pressure on Taiwanese manufacturers such as UMC and World Advanced Technology.

Industry insiders pointed out that the global consumer electronics boom has not yet improved, and wafer foundry orders are weak. Last year, several Korean wafer foundry manufacturers adopted a warm shutdown (Warm Shutdown) strategy to resist industry market conditions.

Even though TSMC, the leader in wafer foundry, has always provided stable quotations and rarely adjusted prices, it was reported at the end of last year that it rarely offered discounts on photomask costs for some mature processes, and at the same time encouraged customers to launch new products. As for the 7nm process, which has low capacity utilization, the price discount range depends on the customer's order volume.

In addition, Taiwanese manufacturers such as UMC, Advanced Micro Devices, and Power Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd., which mainly use mature processes, have also announced plans to reduce prices by double-digit percentages in the first quarter of this year in the fourth quarter of 2023. The price reduction for project customers is as high as 15% to 20%. The price is the largest since the epidemic.

With the economy still uncertain, the industry's recovery is limited, and competitors on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and South Korea are resorting to price reduction strategies to grab orders, Samsung, which had previously made no move, has also announced that it will cut prices by 5% to 15% this season and release " The price can be negotiated” attitude to keep up with competitors.

The industry emphasized that although it has been more than a year since semiconductors entered the inventory adjustment period, and many products that have been revised first have received urgent orders, this quarter is the traditional off-season, and wafer foundries such as TSMC, Samsung, UMC, Power Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and World Advanced Still facing a huge burden in the off-season, the first priority is to support production capacity utilization in order to stabilize financial performance. Lowering prices to attract customers to film is the fastest and most effective way.

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