(Bloomberg) -- Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. is expediting its plans to build more capacity as a US-led multinational campaign is putting more restrictions on China’s access to advanced foreign technologies.
“Some of our customers have won new opportunities due to geopolitics-induced changes in the supply chain,” SMIC Co-Chief Executive Officer Zhao Haijun told analysts during a post-earnings call on Friday. “We are growing capacity at a speed faster than originally planned.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government has been encouraging companies to prioritize the use of domestically-developed products to help the country achieve self-sufficiency in strategic fields such as automotive chips. While Zhao did not name any customer, Huawei Technologies Co. is a key player in this effort, having worked with SMIC on producing the 7-nanometer processor for its Mate series last year that rivaled global leaders like Qualcomm Inc.
China’s top chipmaker will have completed production lines that will provide an additional monthly capacity of 60,000 300-millimeter wafers by December, compared to previous plans of adding monthly output of 30,000 to 50,000 wafers on the same schedule, Zhao added.
Chinese firms from Huawei to automotive chip designers are relying more on SMIC and other domestic plants to fabricate their semiconductor components, faced with technological curbs imposed by the US and its allies.
The Shanghai-based company is seeing demand greater than its supplies with certain process technologies and its pricing is trending upward sequentially, Zhao said, as customers are seeking to have more chips made in China.
SMIC shares jumped more than 9% in early trading in Hong Kong on Friday, after the company reported better-than-expected earnings the day before.
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