Global smartphone shipments will continue to decline for the second year in 2019. Although emerging markets have demand coming from feature phone users switching to smartphones, it takes longer for consumers in mature markets to upgrade their phones, resulting in the decline in overall smartphone shipments.
Notebook shipments in 2019 are estimated to show a 1.6% increase with vendors ramping up inventory in preparation for the US-China trade war and business notebooks as well as Chromebook outperforming expectation.
According to Digitimes Research's observation, the server market is experiencing sluggish growth in 2019 with customer inventory level running high. However, as inventory depletion comes to an end, businesses continue to engage in digital transformation, AI applications become more and more popular and cloud service operators aggressively promote hybrid cloud, global server shipments are expected to grow 5% in 2020, and the growth momentum can sustain for the medium to long term.
Taiwan's handset shipments arrived at 13.8 million units in the second quarter of 2019, a level similar to that of the previous quarter, but slipping 33.2% on year.
According to Digitimes Research's observation, with global market demand on a moderate increase in second-quarter 2019, Taiwan-based semiconductor foundries showed recovery. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) and Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation (VIS) together generated total revenues of US$9.13 billion in the second quarter, up 8.9% on quarter but down 2.5% on year.
Second-quarter 2019 smartphone application processor (AP) shipments to China showed 39.1% sequential growth, higher than previously expected, buoyed by early inventory ramp-up in anticipation of rising US-China trade tensions.
Global tablet shipments amounted to 32.66 million units in second-quarter 2019, down 8.7% on quarter and 11.9% on year due to slow season, Apple's new products making little contribution to its shipments and Huawei's performance taking a hit by the US trade ban.
Taiwan's notebook shipments increased 27.5% sequentially and 11.2% on year to come to 33.53 million units in the second quarter, thanks to rising orders from vendors building up extra inventory as a precaution against the possibility of the US imposing tariffs on notebook imports.
Taiwan's handset shipments slipped 39.5% sequentially in the first quarter of 2019, while compared to the same quarter a year ago, the volume dropped 23.5%.
Global all-in-one (AIO) PC shipments will continue shrinking in 2019, following 2018's around 2% on-year drop. With issues such as US-China trade tensions and Intel's CPU shortages, and Lenovo and Apple having been cutting their orders, Taiwan makers are also expected to see their related shipments to be impacted.
