China-based Suning Holdings is trialing unmanned last-mile delivery of online purchased merchandise items to buyers in place of conventional delivery by couriers to avoid possible coronavirus infections via person-to-person contact, according to China-based media reports.

With the coronavirus starting to widely spread in many countries outside of China, the semiconductor industry has grown concerned that its performance may be influenced; however, in China, the upstream supply chain there has gradually picked up their paces in production resumption with IC design houses expect their shipments to rise in March. Meanwhile, VisEra, a subsidiary of TSMC is setting up a new color filter plant in Taiwan and is striving for orders from Sony.

The coronavirus outbreak has derailed production and consumer demand in China - the biggest manufacturing base for mobile devices and one of the biggest markets for them.

The coronavirus outbreak is expected to drive many manufacturers, especially those in the electronics sector, to accelerate production relocation from China and rearrange their capacity globalization deployments, but China will remain a global manufacturing powerhouse with unrivalled advantages, including huge domestic demand.

The flat panel industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, as China-based makers have major production lines in Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic. And as global panel production is set to be cut by 20% in February, panel prices are also rising. The epidemic has disrupted productions across almost all ICT sectors, leaving many firms without componets and material supplies. Taiwan-based passive components maker Yageo has disclosed that its MLCC and chip resistor inventory has reached 10-year low levels, and it is mulling raising prices. But firms have not been deterred by the virus from advancing their production technologies. Memory makers Nanya and CXMT are gearing up for 10nm-class chip production.

The global server shipments so far have only been mildly affected by labor shortages in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, but if the epidemic cannot be contained by the end of March, the server supply chain is expected to be significantly undermined by components shortages, according to Digitimes Research.

Spatial Topology Technology has combined its indoor positioning system with Bluetooth trackers developed by Tracmo and smart thermometer patches produced by iWEECARE to form a solution that monitors real-time body temperatures of people who are suspected of COVUD-19 infection and isolated for quarantine at their homes or government-designated places, according to Spatial Topology.

Taiwan's PC monitor shipments are expected to drop 15% sequentially in the first quarter of 2020, as some clients had demanded advanced shipments a quarter earlier and the effects of the coronavirus outbreak will continue to impact production, Digitimes Research says.

Digitimes Research has revised downward its 5G smartphone shipment forecast for the second quarter and also all of 2020 in the wake of the coronavirus impact.

While the cancellation of MWC 2020 and the locked-down management in many cities in China due to the coronavirus outbreak have raised concerns about the development of 5G, the epidemic may end up with limited impacts on the operations of telecom firms as well as the deployments of 5G infrastructure in 2020 if it can be contained by mid-year, according to Digitimes Research.