Taipei, May 17, 2026, 04:04 (UTC+8)
- UMC shares in Taiwan jumped roughly 20% last week, ending Friday at NT$110 after reaching NT$118. The broader TAIEX slipped on Friday even after hitting an intraday record.
- UMC bought back 3.78 million shares on Friday for NT$406.6 million, according to a U.S. filing. That lifted its treasury shares during the period to 20.5 million.
- UMC’s next events are the annual meeting set for May 27 and the May sales numbers coming June 5.
United Microelectronics Corp is in the spotlight for its buyback as a fresh week starts. The chipmaker’s Taiwan-listed stock surged nearly 20% last week. On Friday, a U.S. filing showed UMC spent NT$406.6 million repurchasing its own shares. The Taiwan Stock Exchange was closed for the weekend and is set to open Monday at 9:00 a.m. in Taipei, with trading until 1:25 p.m.
UMC climbed Friday while the rest of the Taiwan market slipped. The TAIEX dropped 579.39 points to 41,172.36 after hitting a record intraday high of 42,408.66 earlier in the session. UMC ended the day up 1.85% at NT$110, with 411.14 million shares traded, market data showed.
The company’s ADR on the New York Stock Exchange ended Friday at $17.20, up a bit for the session. Roughly 16 million shares traded.
UMC said in a May 15 filing it bought back 3.78 million common shares at an average NT$107.57 each. The company sometimes buys back stock to use in employee plans or to cut the number of shares on the market. With this move, UMC’s treasury shares reached 20.5 million during the period, about 0.16% of all issued shares.
UMC’s board has given the go-ahead to buy as many as 50 million shares between April 30 and June 29, aiming to transfer them to staff. The purchase price is set in a range from NT$52.50 to NT$109.50 per share, after the broader programme got approved on April 29.
UMC’s rally isn’t just about the buyback. The company on May 14 said it launched a 14-nanometre embedded high-voltage FinFET platform aimed at display driver chips. UMC said its process design kit is now available for customer designs and it had been validated at Fab 12A. FinFET is a three-dimensional transistor structure used to boost power efficiency and speed.
UMC’s vice president of technology development, Steven Hsu, called the new platform a “major step forward” for the company, saying it brings FinFET technology into display driver chips “for the first time.” UMC said its 14nm process may reduce power use by as much as 40% and shrink chip area by 35% relative to its 22nm process. UMC
Stronger revenue numbers played a part. UMC posted April net sales of NT$22.66 billion, a gain of 10.8% from last year. Sales for January through April increased 6.88% to NT$83.70 billion.
UMC posted first-quarter revenue of NT$61.04 billion in late April. Gross margin was 29.2%, with net income attributable to shareholders at NT$16.17 billion. CEO Jason Wang said wafer shipments were up 2.7% from the previous quarter, pushing utilization up to 79%. Gross margin here refers to revenue left after production costs.
UMC is not in the same game as TSMC. Reuters, writing after UMC’s April results, said UMC is focused on older, more mature chipmaking nodes. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, on the other hand, is targeting advanced 2-nanometre and 1-nanometre chips for AI. For UMC, this week is about specialty processes, display drivers and price moves, not the latest AI chip race.
UMC’s pricing plans are in focus. CFO Chitung Liu told the earnings call the company will roll out “a wafer price adjustment” in the back half of 2026. CEO Jason Wang said market demand is still “resilient,” but called out memory-chip shortages and conflict in the Middle East as challenges. Reuters
But UMC isn’t moving in just one direction. The stock hit NT$118 on Friday, putting it over the board-approved buyback range and just over the NT$107.57 average price from the latest repurchase filing. If prices stall, demand for communication chips drops, or Taiwan tech stocks keep consolidating, profit-takers might step in.
Taiwan’s stock market is moving into “a phase of consolidation” after recent gains from AI and strong earnings, according to Taishin Securities Investment Advisory Deputy General Manager Huang Wen-ching. For now, analysts in Taiwan News say the path ahead rests on big technology names steadying and trading volumes staying firm. Taiwan News
Light week ahead for company events. UMC will hold its annual general meeting on May 27 at Hsinchu Science Park. The May sales numbers are due out June 5 but could shift. For now, traders are watching the buyback, Taiwan tech sentiment and how the ADR performs.
