According to Digitimes Research's surveys and analyses, second-quarter 2022 smartphone application processor (AP) shipments to China-based vendors amounted to 181 million units, increasing 1.7% from the prior quarter but decreasing 17.1% from the prior year mainly due to China's weakening economy as well as the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and rising inflation continuingly taking a toll on consumer spending.

According to Digitimes Research's statistics, global tablet shipments amounted to 31.95 million units in second-quarter 2022, coming short of expectation, as the market fell under negative influences including low season effects and rising global inflation as well as China's COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, which mainly affected the supply side.

According to Digitimes Research's statistics and analyses, with sales in China remaining sluggish and rising inflation dampening consumer spending in overseas markets, China-based smartphone vendors' channel inventory levels ran high and their shipments continued to decline in second-quarter 2022, amounting to 150 million units, down 5.2% from a quarter ago and 4.6% from a year ago.

Taiwan's notebook shipments performed weaker than expected in the second quarter of 2022, slipping 17.1% sequentially and 24.2% on year to below 40 million units.

Key observation factors for the Asia Enterprise special report of the week of July 23-29 mainly focus on the passing of the CHIPS and Science Act; Kioxia's investment in the volume production of the 162-layer 3D NAND flash and the fact that the company remains seriously behind Micron and Samsung Electronics despite the Japanese government's JPY92.9 billion (US$710 million) subsidies; and Baidu's announcement to begin volume producing Apollo RT6 unmanned vehicle, which costs only CNY250,000 (US$37,500) and will accelerate the commercialization of Robotaxi.

Key observation factors for the Asia Enterprise special report of the week of July 16-22 include the utilization of gallium oxide (Ga2O3) epitaxy capacity of Japanese startup Novel Crystal, which is estimated to begin in 2025. Meanwhile, SK Hynix halting the construction of its new plant and Samsung Electronics reducing the production of CIS show the Korean semiconductor companies are turning conservative about the second half of 2022.

Taiwan-based manufacturers are stepping up efforts toward the electric vehicle (EV) sector and downstream EV manufacturing, midstream power systems and upstream battery materials are all areas with promising potential.

This issue we will focus on investments by Wise Road Capital and JAC Capital into smart tech sectors, such as IC design and IoT, in China's push for local semiconductor development; the intelligent value-added development of energy storage systems by Japanese companies; the cooperation between SAIC Group and QingTao Energy Development in the solid-state battery R&D.