Worldwide notebook shipments enjoyed a slight growth of 0.6% sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2015 thanks to stable demand from the year-end holidays in Europe and North America plus brand vendors have been pushing new Windows 10-based entry-level and mid-range notebooks.
This Digitimes Research Special Report explains the dynamics of the global AP market by analyzing key trends in the market including the shift to 4G, the market strategy of the key AP vendors and GPU providers and the role various applications have in influencing demand. Overall, Digitimes Research forecasts that the global application processor market will grow 8.5% in 2016 to reach 1.78 billion shipments.
The launch of Windows 10 devices and the availability of Intel's Skylake-U processors shored up Taiwan makers' notebook shipments sequentially in the third quarter of 2015. But that cannot hide the fact that the notebook market in general continues to head towards a decline.
Asustek was the only Taiwan-based handset brand vendor that saw shipment growth in the thrid quarter of 2015. Its shipments already surpassed those from HTC, the once top Taiwan smartphone brand who is now struggling.
Taiwan's handset shipments registered growth in second-quarter 2015 thanks to impressive increases in shipments from Asustek and Acer. The strong showing of Asustek was in sharp contrast to the problems haunting HTC, whose global vendor rankings continued to slip.
The global notebook market remained sluggish in the second quarter of 2015. The seasonal pattern that has governed the notebook market previously will not appear in 2015, with Taiwan makers set to see on-year declines in the shipments during the second half of the year.
The wearables market is a growing focal point for many vendors and players in the display panel supply chain. This Digitimes Research Special Report looks at developments in panel applications in the wearable industry, with a specific focus on panel makers in Greater China. The report also covers the investments being made moving forward (through 2017) in order to meet end-market demand, including capacity expansion for small- to medium-size TFT LCD and AMOLED panels.
This Digitimes Research Special Report details Intel's mobile AP strategies, status, advantages, partnerships and operating system support for different smart mobile device markets. It analyzes the CPU giant's operation progress in different industries in 2014 and forecasts Intel's development and direction for 2015 and beyond.
Most of Taiwan's handset makers felt strong seasonal effects in the first quarter. Foxconn suffered particularly as a result of drastic drops in orders from Sony Mobile and Microsoft Mobile.
DSCs continue to be cannibalized by smartphones with increasingly better camera functions. Taiwan's DSC makers saw a short-lived rebound in shipments in fourth-quarter 2014, but slipped back to a downward trend in first-quarter 2015.
The retail market was unable to digest the massive inventory of inexpensive notebooks in first-quarter 2015. The result was drastic drops in orders from vendors for their Taiwan-based ODMs, who were hit by the worst-ever sequential decline in shipments they had ever seen.
The server market did not perform well in 2014 though rising demand from Internet data centers (IDCs) and China brands helped global shipments (measured by motherboards) grow 7.1% to 10.4 million. Using this as the base for growth, in 2015 the market is expected to see shipment growth of 13.5%, with Taiwan makers accounting for 88%. With Taiwan playing a major role in the global supply chain, this Digitimes Research Special Report focuses on shipment data and customer relationships between Taiwan makers and global OEMs and major data centers.
