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.

IC designers in Taiwan are poised to embrace the most lucrative year in 2021 amid the persistent crunch of chips, but they are also facing increasing cost pressure on developing new-generation chip solutions, which may reshape the IC design sector and restructure terminal chip markets as a result. All these prompted them to form alliances with peers and partners in other semiconductor segments or integrating subsidiaries to build their own fleet of design forces, according to industry sources.

Major OSATs, including ASE Technology and Powertech Technology (PTI), are already engaged in talks with their substrate suppliers about orders for 2023, according to industry sources.

Taiwan-based Coretronic, dedicated to LCD backlight solutions and digital projectors, has projected its shipments for TV and commercial-use notebook applications to grow significantly in the third quarter of 2021 and those for education-use Chromebooks will stay flat.

LED probing, testing and sorting equipment maker FitTech has obtained orders with shipments scheduled until the second half of 2022, according to the company.

LCD panel maker AU Optronics (AUO) expects to post a 1-3% sequential increase in area shipments with a 4-6% rise in product ASPs for the third quarter of 2021, thanks to improvements in product portfolios driven by more commercial applications, according to company chairman Paul Peng.

Industrial sources indicated that the Indian government is blocking China's solar modules from coming to India, in an attempt to reduce dependence on China.

The India government and India-based automakers and motorcycle makers have been actively boosting the development and domestic production of two-, three- and four-wheel electric vehicles (EVs), but the ambition is impacting the local supply chain makers.

The deployment of EV power charging facilities in Taiwan is not yet sufficient, in order to meet the demand for the fast-growing development of electric vehicles (EVs). Kim Tsai, chairman for the Taiwan E-intelligent Vehicle & Green Energy Tech Association (TEGA) and also chairman for Mobiletron Electronics and RAC Electric Vehicles suggests a solution of reusing retired EV power batteries in energy storage systems to make up smart power grids for EV power charging in residential communities.

Power supply maker and energy management solution provider Delta Electronics, based on order visibility, expects consolidated revenues for third-quarter 2021 to significantly increase on quarter, according to company chairman Yancey Hai.

Aliyun, the largest cloud datacenter operator in China and an affiliate of Alibaba, is pushing to establish standards and modularization of immersion liquid cooling solutions, according to industry sources.

Chromebook demand has begun shrinking since early July, and consumer and gaming notebooks are expected to see sales decelerate dramatically in 2022. But the enterprise segment is expected to serve as the key shipment growth driver for the notebook industry next year, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

Apple is expected to significantly increase its pull-ins of components shipments for new iPhones in the second half of the year, driven by its impressive growth in market share in China for high-end 5G models, according to industry sources.

Sales of smartphone in India took a hit by the resurgence of COVID-19 in the second quarter this year, but when compared with the same period in 2020, sales have seen considerable growth of 82%, rising to 33 million units, according to Counterpoint Research.

India's handset market saw a milder-than-expected sequential drop in sales in second-quarter despite COVID surges, while its car industry is calling on the government not to extend preferential tariffs to Tesla.