Taipei, Jan. 14 (CNA) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電), the world's largest contract chip maker, said Thursday that its earnings for 2015 were the highest in its 29-year history.

The company posted NT$306.57 billion (US$9.15 billion) in net profit for 2015, a 16.2 percent annual increase. TSMC's 2015 earnings per share was NT$11.82, compared with NT$10.18 the previous year, and its consolidated sales rose 10.6 percent to NT$843.497 billion, it said.

The chip maker said its net profit, EPS and consolidated sales broke all of its past records.

However, TSMC said, its gross margin for 2015 fell 0.8 percentage points from a year earlier to 48.7 percent.

In the fourth quarter of 2015, the company's net profit dropped by a quarterly 3.3 percent to NT$72.84 billion due to inventory adjustments, it reported.

The year-on-year drop in net profits for that quarter was 8.9 percent, it said.

The company's EPS in the fourth quarter of last year was NT$2.81, compared with NT$2.91 in the previous quarter.

(By Jackson Chang and Frances Huang; click here for the updated story.)
Enditem/pc