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Q4 Taiwanese smartphone shipments may fall: MIC

“We expect iPhone sales to decrease in the fourth quarter, which will impact the shipments of its local supplier.”

— Jam Chen, Market Intelligence Center analyst

Smartphone shipments by Taiwanese manufacturers may fall slightly in the final quarter on the back of weakening demand for Apple Inc’s iPhones and intensifying competition, a Taipei-based market researcher said yesterday.

Shipments may decrease 0.4 percent to 11 million units in the fourth quarter, from 11.02 million units in the third quarter, bucking the growing trend of the smartphone industry, the Market Intelligence Center (MIC,資訊市場情報中心) forecast.

Taiwanese companies, including HTC Corp (宏達電), maker of the world’s first Android-based handset, may increase their smartphone shipments by 67 percent annually, because of the growing demand for handsets providing Internet access and PC-like computing functions.

“We expect iPhone sales to decrease in the fourth quarter, which will impact the shipments of its local supplier,” MIC analyst Jam Chen (陳冠名) said on the sidelines of a seminar.

Electronics maker Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) is the major iPhone supplier, Yuanta Securities (元大證券) said.

IPhone sales look set to drop to about 5 million units, Chen said.

Apple sold around 6.9 million iPhones in the third quarter, Canalys’ tally showed.

Competition is intensifying as more big names such as Blackberry maker Research In Motion (RIM) expand their presence in the smartphone market, and they do not count on Taiwanese manufacturers for handset supply, Chen said.

Local firms make smartphones for other companies and some, such as HTC, sell their own-brand handsets as well. HTC is the world’s biggest maker of handsets operating on Microsoft Corp’s system.

Local firms may see a 20 percent reduction in shipments to around 9 million units in the first quarter of next year, mostly as a result of seasonal factors, MIC said.

“As HTC and Apple might have their new and lower-priced handsets hit the market, based on reliable sources, that could tone down the traditionally slack demand a bit in the first quarter,” Chen said.

Chen said deepening economic recession would weaken demand for smartphones, but the impact would be milder than for other consumer electronics.

Globally, smartphone shipments could rise 32 percent at an annual pace to 161 million units this year and grow another 35 percent next year to 217 million units, Chen said.

It is worth noting that handsets powered by the new Android operating system, supported primarily by Google Inc, might account for 10 percent of overall smartphone shipments next year, eroding the share of Symbian-based handsets, MIC said.

HTC might ship up to 15 million units, including Android-based phones and its brand-name handsets, from 12.5 million units this year, while Apple could ship 21 million iPhones next year from 16 million units this year, MIC said.
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