Taiwan tech firms have made considerable achievements in the EV sector, having entered the supply chain of Tesla. But as the car market is still dominated by traditional marques who are now also keen to continue the market of future cars, Taiwan tech firms face quite some hurdles to entering the supply chains of these major car vendors. With the easing of the pandemic possibly slowing demand for devices supporting stay-at-home needs, chip vendors are now said to be expecting Chromebook shipments to grow at a slower pace in 2021. Corning has announced a moderate price hike to its display glass substrates in third-quarter 2021 to reflect rising production costs.

Taiwan's PC monitor shipments are expected to grow about 3% on both sequential and on-year bases in the second quarter of 2021, as shortages of related components and materials continue to constrain growths, according to Digitimes Research.

LED probing, testing and sorting equipment maker FiTech is ramping up its OEM testing and sorting capacity for miniLED chips, having recently completed the corresponding capacity expansion project.

Taiwan-based polymer materials supplier U-Best Polymer Industry is expected to start shipping its hard coat (HC) films to Chinese handset vendors for foldable smartphone applications in the third quarter of 2021 at the earliest, according to company president NH Huang.

LED driver IC design-house Macroblock will start ramping up its shipments of miniLED-backlight solutions in the second half of 2021, targeting notebook and large-size TV applications.

The top-100 tech firms in Asia are mostly based in Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan, with the car and tech products/equipment sectors making up the two largest groups, according to Asia Supply Chain 100 (ASC 100), the freshly released research results by Digitimes. The ASC 100 study, based on the companies' revenues, profit and market cap, wil be renewed annually. In the notebook industry, makers are using more aluminum-alloy components to replace copper ones, as copper prices stay at high levels.

More companies in Taiwan, Korea and China are likely to continue committing investments to develop mini/microLED products before 2025, boosting the advancement of the display industry, according to Chan Pin Chong, executive vice president of Kulicke & Soffa Industries (K&S).

Countries in Southeast Asia and South Asia stand a chance of becoming rising stars in the midst of supply chain shifts and the move toward shorter supply chains and localization. Four Indian firms and one Indonesian firm entered Digitimes' Asia Supply Chain 100 (ASC100). By region, Tata Motors at No. 22 in ASC100 is the champion in Southeast Asia and South Asia, followed by Indonesia's Astra International (No. 68) and India's Mahindra & Mahindra (No. 69), Maruti Suzuki (No. 74) and Motherson Sumi (No. 89). ASC 100 is a study based on the companies' revenues, profit and market cap that will be renewed annually.

Companies in the "tech products and equipment" and "automotive manufacturing" sectors account for half of the Digitimes' Asia Supply Chain 100 (ASC 100) list, but semiconductor firms well lead the list in both average profit and average market value. ASC 100 is a newly released reseach on Asia's top 100 tech firms. ASC 100 is a study based on the companies' revenues, profit and market cap that will be renewed annually.

Benefiting from the US-China tech war and sharp chip shortages following the pandemic outbreak, and with automotive clients competing for foundry capacity support, the entire semiconductor industry is poised to enjoy robust order momentum through 2022, allowing semiconductor stocks to gain traction in the market. TSMC and Samsung Electronics, now the world's only two companies able to commercialize sub-7 nm foundry nodes, have been in a two-horse race for grabbing the crown in the Digitimes' Asia Supply Chain 100 (ASC 100) research, ranking first and second, respectively, by market capitalization in 2020. ASC 100 is a study based on the companies' revenues, profit and market cap that will be renewed annually.

Of the companies in Digitimes' Asia Supply Chain 100 (ASC 100), Samsung Electronics had the highest net income US$22.1 billion in 2020. But TSMC - in third place in overall net income - had the highest net profit margin of 38.7%, way higher than Samsung's 11%. ASC 100 is a new released research on Asia's top 100 tech firms - a study based on the companies' revenues, profit and market cap that will be renewed annually.