Qualcomm delivered record results in its fiscal first quarter, but executives warned that a worsening memory supply imbalance is now constraining the global smartphone market, even as underlying consumer demand remains strong.

China's smartphone market ended 2025 on a weaker note than expected, despite Apple's strong fourth-quarter earnings and the early success of the iPhone 17. December shipments fell sharply, dragging full-year volumes down and dimming hopes of a broader market rebound.

Sony has recently chosen to partner with TCL in managing its Bravia TV brand, reflecting the long-standing downturn of the Japanese vendor's television business. In Japan, once-dominant domestic TV brands have largely been replaced by rising Chinese competitors.

During MediaTek's earnings call on February 3, CEO Rick Tsai cautioned that smartphone demand is expected to encounter difficulties in 2026. Contrasting this outlook, Pegatron chairman Tzu Hsien Tung expressed a more optimistic view, highlighting the dominance of smartphones over the past 16 years and the potential for future growth driven by emerging markets.

India's smartphone market experienced a mixed trajectory in 2025, according to Counterpoint Research. The year began on a softer note, weighed down by elevated inventory and a slow product launch calendar. Momentum picked up in the second quarter, driven by fresh device launches, aggressive promotions, and festive-season channel stocking, pushing third-quarter shipments to a record quarterly value. Shipments slowed again in the fourth quarter as brands focused on inventory correction and managed rising component costs. Overall, the market grew 1% year-on-year in volume but posted a stronger 8% year-on-year growth in value, reflecting sustained premiumization.

China has for the first time formally designated "future industries," with the framework for policy support now taking shape. The move signals a shift away from conceptual discussion, placing these sectors at the core of the country's upcoming 15th Five-Year Plan.

Apple reported strong results for its fiscal first quarter of 2026, but the company's supply chain did not share in the enthusiasm. The key reason is that Apple is feeling the impact of rising prices for critical components while striving to maintain a certain gross margin range. This means increased pricing pressure on suppliers.

Amid a cautious recovery in the consumer electronics market, Apple highlighted the critical role of its iPhone series in driving overall operations in its fiscal first-quarter 2026 earnings report. The company reported record-high iPhone-related revenue this quarter, with year-over-year growth significantly outpacing the overall average and serving as the core driver of holiday-season sales expansion.

With Nvidia's next-generation Rubin Ultra platform approaching launch, the shift to 800G and 1.6T high-speed interconnects and the adoption of silicon photonics (SiPh) are set to open major growth opportunities. AI data centers are becoming the main growth driver in 2025, while 2026 is widely seen as the first year of large-scale commercial rollout for silicon photonics.

The smartphone industry is bearing the brunt of rising memory prices, and the impact is most evident in mid- to low-end models. Transsion, the Chinese smartphone maker regarded as a leading brand in emerging markets, has become one of the first handset vendors to be clearly hit by this wave of memory price increases. On the evening of January 29, 2025, Transsion announced its earnings forecast for full-year 2025, estimating annual revenue of CNY65.568 billion (US$9.4 billion), down about 4.6% year over year. Net profit is estimated at about CNY2.546 billion, plunging 54.11% year over year, nearly half of the previous year. This marks the first significant profit decline since Transsion went public.