TrendForce says Q1 top-10 global wafer foundry revenue rose 3.7% QoQ to
$47.95bn, driven by continued AI/HPC shipments and customers front-loading TV
and PC/NB orders and raising peripheral IC inventories; smartphone seasonality
largely offset by this early restocking. Foundries report improving utilization
and have signaled willingness to push wafer prices higher in H2, which could
prompt some process-node wafer prices to bottom and rebound and further
incentivize customer advance buying. Demand for AI-related advanced nodes and
power ICs have outpaced expectations, creating order spillover and capacity
squeeze. TrendForce expects top-10 foundry revenue to hit a new peak in Q2 with
a faster QoQ growth rate than Q1.
