Global smartphone production is expected to decline 12 percent annually this quarter, as plant activity is delayed in China due to Beijing’s efforts to contain the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak, market intelligence firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said on Monday.
Output is expected to drop to a five-year low of 275 million units, TrendForce said in a report.
Uncertainty about when employees would return to work in China would lead to a delay in the monthly delivery of key components needed in smartphone production, it said.
The import and export of some key components, such as active and passive components, as well as camera modules, would further affect the production of smartphones due to an industry shortage, it added.
The outbreak is not expected to cause an immediate break in the supply chain, as smartphone manufacturers stocked up their inventories before the Lunar New Year holiday and the first quarter is a low season, TrendForce said.
Samsung Electronics Co, whose production is mainly based in Vietnam, is expected to be mostly spared from the outbreak’s effects, the report said.
However, as the company sources some of its components from China, overall production is expected to decline 3 percent to 71.5 million units, compared with a previous forecast of 73.7 million units, it said.
China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) would fare worse, especially following poor sales during the Lunar New Year holiday, TrendForce said.
Having been blacklisted by the US and barred from installing Google Mobile Services on its new models, Huawei is becoming increasingly reliant on its home market, but the outbreak has prompted TrendForce to trim its previous forecast for Huawei by 15 percent to 42.5 million units this quarter, it said.
TrendForce also lowered its output forecasts for other Chinese smartphone vendors, such as Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀) and Vivo Communication Technology Co (維沃), as they are equally dependent on domestic demand.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
Taipei is today suspending its US$2.5 trillion stock market as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed-income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Yesterday, schools and offices were closed in several cities and counties in southern and eastern Taiwan, including in the key industrial port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwan, which started canceling flights, ship sailings and some train services earlier this week, has wind and rain advisories in place for much of the island. It regularly experiences typhoons, and in July shut offices and schools as
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
RSS