Taiwanese mobile-phone makers are expected to grow by a slower annual pace this year as China's cellphone vendors including Ning-bo Bird Co (波導) are reducing orders because of improved manufacturing capabilities, a local market researcher said yesterday.
The growth is fueled by renewed demand in the mature markets such as the US and Europe and strong demand for entry-level phones in emerging markets such as India, said Feng Lin (林育烽), a mobile-communications analyst at the Market Intelligence Center (MIC, 市場情報中心).
Handset shipments from local mobile-phone companies are expected to rise by 30 percent to around 55.5 million units this year, from 42.8 million units a year ago, the center said in a report.
But, the 30-percent growth is weaker than a year-on-year 50 percent rise last year, the report shows.
"Taiwanese mobile-phone makers should expect an end to a high-growth era," Lin said. "A reduction in orders from Chinese mobile phone vendors plays a part in the slower growth."
That should be a result of an improvement in manufacturing abilities of China's major mobile- phone players such as Ningbo Bird and TCL Corp, which are gradually increasing their in-house production on cost saving, Lin explained.
Local companies shipped an average16 percent of total handsets to the world's fastest-growing market last year after a sharp decline to around 11 percent at the end of last year from 25 percent recorded in the beginning of the year, Lin said.
Foreseeing the decline, local cellphone makers are looking to the US and European brands including Motorola Inc, Sony Ericsson Communications AB and Siemens AG in pursuit of stable orders.
"But the order increase will be limited as handset giants Nokia Corp and Samsung Electronics Co are still resistant to farming out production," the analyst said.
According to MIC, the production value of local cellphone makers will enjoy 33-percent growth to around US$4.19 billion this year from US$3.14 billion recorded last year, largely due to bigger shares of high-margin color-display phones and camera phones.
Some 8 percent of handset shipments last year were camera phones, while 35 percent of the volume was color-display phones, the center said.
In the first three months of the year, local handset makers are expected to see an 8-percent drop in shipments from the previous quarter due to the seasonal factor to around 12.9 million units, according to MIC.
The handset making sector's production value is expected to see a 33-percent growth this year, higher than the nation's information technology industry's 19.9-percent annual growth projected by MIC.
Taiwan's IT industry is expected to generate about US$68.47 billion in sales this year, up from US$57.1 billion last year, MIC said.
The research center yesterday also released its survey on local electronics companies' outlook for the first half of the year.
More than 75 percent of 124 respondents said they are bullish about an economic turnaround in the world in the first six months, compared to less than 50- percent surveyed a year ago, the center said.
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