你們業績下滑怪中國咯 Chips on the slide

Results below targets? Blame China. It is a one-size-fits-all excuse: from fried chicken to cars, companies are pinning their woes on the slowdown in the Middle Kingdom. It is probably true, though the place is so big and opaque, who will ever really know?

業績達不到目標？怪中國。這是一個普遍適用的藉口：從炸雞到汽車，許多行業的公司都把自身困境歸因於“中央王國”經濟增長放緩。這很可能是實情，不過，中國那麼大、那麼不透明，誰能真正弄清情況呢？

On Thursday, Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer TSMC joined the list. It reported its first year on year decline in quarterly earnings in three years. Its fourth-quarter revenues, it says, will post their first decline in four years. Finally, it cut its investment budget for this year by 30 per cent, to $8bn. One of the principal causes? China’s slowdown, which comes on top of sluggish smartphone growth globally.

週四，臺灣半導體生產商臺積電(TSMC)加入了這一行列。該公司報告稱，其季度盈利出現了3年來的首次同比下滑。該公司還預計第四季度營收將出現4年來的首次下降。最終，臺積電把今年的投資預算削減了30%，至80億美元。原因是什麼？除了全球智能手機銷售增長乏力，中國經濟放緩也是一個主要原因。

Cycles are hard to predict but semiconductor demand appears to be taking a hard turn down. This week Intel, too, said it would cut investment. Inventories have been building at semiconductor companies. PC sales have been moribund for some time; analyst Gartner expects a 4 per cent shipment decline for 2015. And just as demand has softened, the world’s largest volume smartphone producer, Samsung, has been making more chips internally — bad timing for everyone else in the industry.

週期是很難預測的，但半導體需求似乎正步入大幅下降軌道。本週，英特爾(Intel)也表示將減少投資。半導體生產商的庫存不斷積壓。個人電腦(PC)銷售一段時間以來表現低迷；研究機構高德納(Gartner)預計，2015年PC發貨量將減少4%。就在需求減弱之際，全球產量最高的智能手機廠商三星(Sumsung)卻一直在擴大內部的芯片產量，這對該行業的其餘公司來說可不是什麼好消息。

TSMC is lucky to have support from strong Apple orders which, analysts surmise, are making up for reduced demand elsewhere. Yet Apple is a fickle customer, playing TSMC off against Samsung on pricing, and the latter has lately been winning the race for technology leadership. Apple’s power helps to explain why TSMC’s gross profit margin fell 2 percentage points from the year before, to 48 per cent.

幸運的是，來自蘋果(Apple)的大量訂單爲臺積電提供了支持。分析師推測，蘋果訂單彌補了其他地區的需求減少。不過，蘋果是一個反覆無常的客戶，挑起了臺積電與三星在定價方面的爭鬥，後者近來在爭奪科技領導地位的競賽中不斷獲勝。蘋果強大的力量，解釋了臺積電的毛利潤率爲何比去年同期下降兩個百分點、降至48%。

Cycles are temporary and TSMC is good at riding them out. Over the past decade return on equity has fallen below 20 per cent only once. Its balance sheet, with a net cash position, is very strong.

週期是暫時性的，臺積電總能安穩地度過艱難時期。過去10年裏，其股本回報率僅有一次降至20%以下。由於保持着淨現金，臺積電的資產負債表非常穩健。

But China may present a structural problem, too. It wants to beef up its domestic technology capabilities. So far, it is not going well; national chip champion SMIC lags behind in technology and a recent Tsinghua bid for Micron was rebuffed. But China is not going to quit the chip business easily — and the blame game has only just begun.

但中國或許會給臺積電帶來一個結構性難題。中國希望發展國內科技產業。到目前爲止，這一方面的進展不太順利；大陸芯片領軍企業中芯國際(SMIC)在技術上落後於人，不久前紫光科技試圖收購美光科技(Micron)卻被拒絕。但中國不會輕易放棄芯片業——“找藉口”的遊戲纔剛剛開始。