About 218 million smartphone application processors (APs) were shipped to China-based handset vendors in the second quarter of 2021, up about 3% sequentially, according to Digitimes Research. Shipments are forecast to register another sequential growth of 6.9% in the third quarter.
Procurement orders from the education segment reached the peak in the second quarter, while demand for gaming and enterprise notebooks also remained robust, but worldwide notebook shipments still performed weaker-than-expected in the second quarter of 2021, as a result of worsening shortages of panels, graphics cards, ICs, and substrates.
Taiwan makers' TV shipments reached 7.16 million units in the second quarter of 2021, up 14.3% sequentially, as related makers had strengthened their component procurement via overbooking.
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.
In terms of the global electric vehicle (EV) supply chain, Taiwan-based ICT makers are relatively competitive in EV components and sub-systems and less competitive in batteries, according to Digitimes Research.
Taiwan-based makers' server-related revenues are expected to climb 7.6% on year in 2021, buoyed by growing demand from cloud service operators, while global server shipments will pick up 5.6% on year.
China government has always attached great importance to advances of the semiconductor sector, but semiconductors' vital role to industrial and national development is clear amid the country's trade war with the US. This Digitimes Research Special Report reviews the results of China's efforts to build its semiconductor ecosystem during the 13th 5-year Plan (2015-2020), and looks at the plans set out in its 14th 5-year Plan (2021-2025) to raise China's IC self-sufficiency.
