UMC Posts 34% Gross Margin, Record Wafer Shipments; Board Approves Extra $3.2B Capex
UMC has more than doubled off its 52-week low of $6.97.
Summary
UMC delivered Q3 revenue of NT$74.24 billion, up 8.0% sequentially and 25.6% year-over-year, with gross margin expanding to 34.0% from 32.5% last quarter. Operating income jumped 24.7% QoQ to NT$18.64 billion, though net income of NT$16.43 billion (EPS NT$1.32) fell 61.1% QoQ purely because 2Q26 carried a NT$30 billion non-operating investment gain that did not repeat. The operating story is the strong one: wafer shipments hit a record 1.212 million 12-inch equivalents, utilization ran at 92%, and 22nm reached 18.3% of wafer revenue. Q4 guidance calls for low-single-digit shipment growth, firm ASPs, gross margin comparable to Q3 and utilization in the low-90% range. The board also approved roughly US$3.2 billion of additional capex to pull forward the Singapore and Tainan expansion — a big step-up against the US$2.0 billion 2026 cash capex plan, and a clear bet that advanced packaging and silicon photonics demand holds.
At the time of this announcement, UMC was trading at $19.27 on NYSE in the Technology sector, with a market capitalization of approximately $47.3B. The 52-week trading range was $6.97 to $28.96. This news item was assessed with positive market sentiment and an importance score of 8 out of 10. Source: BusinessWire.