Construction of 5G infrastructure in China has not lost much steam despite the coronavirus pandemic. The country's telecom carriers have recently stepped up their 5G equipment procurment, with Huawei and ZTE emerging as big winners of their projects. But it remains to be seen how strong the 5G market segment in China will be this year. Overall smartphone shipments by Chinese vendors - to both the domestic and overseas markets - dropped sharply in first-quarter 2020, with their second-quarter shipments likely to fall further, according to Digitimes Research. In the semiconductor sector, Samsung is bent on challenging TSMC in a race to advance manufacturing processes. Samsung is expected to spend big this year on EUV fab tools.
Huawei, ZTE step up pull-ins for 5G base station equipment: China-based telecom equipment providers, mainly Huawei and ZTE, have stepped up their pace of components orders for 5G infrastructure after winning bids for construction of 5G base stations from the country's three telecom operators recently, according to sources from related supply chain makers.
Smartphone shipments by Chinese vendors fall in 1Q20, says Digitimes Research: Shipments of smartphones by China's handset makers totaled 108 million units in the first quarter of 2020, declining 26.2% from a year earlier, Digitimes Research has found.
Samsung to spend big on EUV fab tools in 2020: Samsung Electronics is gearing up for mass production of 5nm chips later this year to further enhance its FinFET process offerings that leverage extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology.
