(Yicai Global) Nov. 12 -- Shares of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation slid after China’s biggest chipmaker announced the departure of a second senior executive in just two months and despite it reporting record high revenue for the third quarter.

SMIC [SHA: 688981] ended 3.9 percent lower in Shanghai today at CNY56.16 (USD8.79), after earlier dropping as much as 5.7 percent. In Hong Kong, the company’s stock lost 3.8 percent to HKD22.60 (USD2.90).

Vice Chairman Chiang Shangyi, 75, has resigned to spend more time with his family, SMIC said in a filing yesterday. He had been at the firm for less than a year and his departure follows that of former Chairman Zhou Zixue in September for health reasons. Besides Chiang, three other board members quit, including Liang Mengsong, who will remain as co-Chief Executive.

The departure of senior executives will have no impact on the chipmaker’s operations and management, SMIC said.

Chiang joined the Shanghai-based company on Dec. 15 last year. Before that he was vice president of research and development and chief operating officer at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, and was still an advisor to TSMC’s president after leaving.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange sent a supervisory letter to SMIC late yesterday, but the content was not disclosed.

Record Revenue

Revenue rose 21.5 percent to CNY9.3 billion (USD1.5 billion) in the three months ended Sept. 30 from a year earlier, SMIC’s third-quarter earnings report showed yesterday. Net profit gained 22.6 percent to CNY2.1 billion (USD329 million).

Revenue was up 5.5 percent from the previous quarter, but profit plunged 51 percent.

SMIC sold over 1.7 million wafers in the third quarter, up 19.4 percent year on year. Smartphone sales contributed 31.5 percent of income. Revenue from FinFET 28 nanometer wafers accounted for 18.2 percent of the total, a gain of 3.7 percent from the prior three months.

SMIC expects revenue to increase between 11 percent and 13 percent this quarter from the third quarter, and gross profit margin to be between 31 percent and 33 percent. Full-year revenue growth and gross profit margin targets were both raised to about 29 percent.

SMIC believes that the overall business climate remains good, and the company’s production capacity is expected to remain insufficient to meet customer demand until next year. Based on this year’s rapid growth, revenue growth is expected to be no lower than the industry average in 2022, it said.

Editor: Peter Thomas