Global notebook shipments wee weaker than expected in second-quarter 2021, thanks to components shortages. Global notebook shipments will see less than 2% sequential growth in the third quarter. Smartphone AP shipments into China grew about 3% sequentially in the second quarter, and will rise by anohter 7% in the third quarter. DIGITIMES recently talked to tech venture specialist Vitaly M Golomb about the EV trends ahead of his participation in the upcoming "Asia Venturing (II): Tech-Driven Mobility" event.
IC design houses, such as MediaTek and Realtek Semiconductor, have landed a ramp-up in orders from Taiwan-based networking device makers, which are encountering longer delivery lead times at their US chip partners, according to industry sources.
India's handset market saw a milder-than-expected sequential drop in sales in second-quarter despite COVID surges, while its car industry is calling on the government not to extend preferential tariffs to Tesla.
Following the 5G commercial launch, 5G handsets have experienced a surge in shipments since 2020, and China is the foremost market in terms of volume, keeping other countries at bay.
With its Vive business and ecosystem continuing to expand, HTC saw its net losses narrow further in the second quarter of 2021 with a higher gross margin.
Micron Technology has begun volume shipments of what it claims is the world's first 176-layer NAND Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 3.1 mobile solution.
The tide of working from home has dramatically boosted the PC industry. The notebook industry has experienced rebounds from their past moderate years. Handset vendors instead seem to be drained of creativity, and it may not be easy for them to see a repeat of the prosperity in 2008-2018. Global shipments in 2021 are projected at 1.32 billion units, a moderate rise of 6.4% year-on-year.
EV development is fast acclerating. Jack Cheng, CEO of the Foxconn-led MIH Alliance, an open platofrm for EV development, believes the EV market may reach its sweet spot in 2025-2026. In the semiconductor sector, MediaTek has raised its outlook for for 2021, expecting its revenues to grow 45% this year. In China, Unisoc is seeing a sharp rise in adoption of its smartphone APs by Chinese phone vendors.
TSMC and other Taiwan partners in the chips supply chain for iPhones are gearing up to start fulfilling initial orders for new iPhones slated for launch later this year including 60 million 5G mmWave models, but shortages of peripheral chips such as acoustic and display driver ICs (DDI) may constrain actual shipments for the devices, according to industry sources.
Unisoc will see shipments of its smartphone application processors for use by China-based handset companies climb 152% on year to 68.2 million units in 2021, enabling it to unseat HiSilicon as the third largest smartphone AP supplier, according to Digitimes Research.
MediaTek has revised upward its revenue growth forecast for 2021 to 45% from the 40% estimated previously, after reporting brisk revenue and gross margin results for the second quarter.
