United Microelectronics posted third-quarter revenue of NT$74.24 billion, up 8 percent on the previous quarter and 25.6 percent from a year earlier, as fab utilisation reached 92 percent.
Wafer shipments rose 7.3 percent to more than 1.2 million 12-inch equivalent wafers, a record. Gross margin came in at 34 percent. Net income attributable to shareholders was NT$16.43 billion, or NT$1.32 per share.
Work at the leading edge gets the attention, but UMC competes where chips are made on older processes and sold on cost and reliability. Several of its 12-inch fabs ran at full capacity in the quarter while 8-inch lines had room to spare.
The mix shifted upward. Chips at 40 nanometres and below made up 51 percent of wafer revenue, and the 22-nanometre node set a record at 18.3 percent.
Chief executive Jason Wang said demand held across all segments and that specialty products would keep growing into the fourth quarter, helped by the early ramp of advanced packaging and silicon photonics lines. Those two businesses take a foundry into assembly and optical interconnect, where margins are better than in commodity logic.
For the coming quarter UMC guides to stable shipments and utilisation, a cautious read at a time when memory prices and AI demand have lifted forecasts across the industry.
