Starting this month, companies in Apple Inc’s iPhone supply chain are expected to see monthly sales grow, as mass production of new iPhone models is on the horizon, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said.
“We expect the most significant features upgraded for new iPhones in the second half of 2020 to be 5G and camera function,” Yuanta analyst Nicole Tu (塗景婷) said in a report on Wednesday.
“Thus, we believe suppliers of these components will benefit most either in terms of an increase in quality or quantity of components needed versus suppliers of other components, who will likely suffer from fiercer price pressure due to the sluggish macroeconomic outlook and greater competition,” she said.
Handset camera lens manufacturers Largan Precision Co (大立光) and Genius Electronic Optical Co (玉晶光), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Win Semiconductors Corp (穩懋), silicon substrate maker Kinsus Interconnect Technology Corp (景碩), printed circuit board (PCB) maker Zhen Ding Technology Holding Ltd (臻鼎), copper-clad laminate maker Elite Material Co (台光電) and metal casing supplier Casetek Holdings Ltd (鎧勝) are expected to benefit the most, the Yuanta report said.
“Our [supply chain] checks suggest that PCB suppliers will likely start new iPhone mass production in June, followed by panel and lens makers from July,” Tu said.
However, Yuanta is less optimistic about sales growth for iPhone assembly makers such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), Pegatron Corp (和碩) and Wistron Corp (緯創).
“We suspect the [iPhone] mass production schedule may be pushed out to September-October period versus the previous schedule of August-September period, indicating a one-month delay vs the normal delivery date,” Tu said, referring to iPhone assembly.
The COVID-19 pandemic-spurred work-from-home trend mostly benefited non-Apple tablet and notebook computers in the second quarter, Yuanta said.
Apple’s iPad and Macbook suppliers are expected to see monthly sales growth in the third quarter — after the planned launches of new iPad and Macbook models — while some upstream component suppliers might start mass production at the end of the third quarter, it said.
Some of the firms likely to benefit from mass production of the new models include touchpanel maker General Interface Solution Holding Ltd (業成), light metal casing and enclosure supplier Catcher Technology Co (可成), LCD backlight module maker Radiant Opto-Electronics Corp (瑞儀), mixed-signal ICs and display chips supplier Parade Technologies Ltd (譜瑞), Taiwan Surface Mounting Technology Corp (台灣表面黏), flexible PCB maker Flexium Interconnect Inc (台郡) and backlighting solutions supplier Global Lighting Technologies Inc (茂林), it said.
In related news, NH Investment & Securities Co sees the pandemic continuing to boost PC demand, which in turn would generate robust demand for networking chips, notebook chip solutions, healthcare sensors and microcontrollers through October.
Along with greater demand for non-face-to-face services due to COVID-19, the introduction of Wi-Fi certified 6 products is contributing to strong chip sales growth, analyst Doh Hyun-woo said in NH Investment’s note on Wednesday.
ASML Holding NV’s new advanced chip machines have a daunting price tag, said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), one of the Dutch company’s biggest clients. “The cost is very high,” TSMC senior vice president Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, referring to ASML’s latest system known as high-NA extreme ultraviolet (EUV). “I like the high-NA EUV’s capability, but I don’t like the sticker price,” Zhang said. ASML’s new chip machine can imprint semiconductors with lines that are just 8 nanometers thick — 1.7 times smaller than the previous generation. The machines cost 350 million euros (US$378 million)
Apple Inc has closed in on an agreement with OpenAI to use the start-up’s technology on the iPhone, part of a broader push to bring artificial intelligence (AI) features to its devices, people familiar with the matter said. The two sides have been finalizing terms for a pact to use ChatGPT features in Apple’s iOS 18, the next iPhone operating system, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation is private. Apple also has held talks with Alphabet Inc’s Google about licensing its Gemini chatbot. Those discussions have not led to an agreement, but are ongoing. An OpenAI
INSATIABLE: Almost all AI innovators are working with the chipmaker to address the rapidly growing AI-related demand for energy-efficient computing power, the CEO said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported about 60 percent annual growth in revenue for last month, benefiting from rapidly growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing applications. Revenue last month expanded to NT$236.02 billion (US$7.28 billion), compared with NT$147.9 billion in April last year, the second-highest level in company history, TSMC said in a statement. On a monthly basis, revenue surged 20.9 percent, from NT$195.21 billion in March. As AI-related applications continue to show strong growth, TSMC expects revenue to expand about 27.6 percent year-on-year during the current quarter to between US$19.6 billion and US$20.4 billion. That would
‘FULL SUPPORT’: Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said he hopes more companies would settle in the prefecture to create an area similar to Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science Park The newly elected governor of Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture said he is ready to ensure wide-ranging support to woo Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to build its third Japanese chip factory there. Concerns of groundwater shortages when TSMC’s two plants begin operations in the prefecture’s Kikuyo have spurred discussions about the possibility of tapping unused dam water, Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said in an interview on Saturday. While Kimura said talks about a third plant have yet to occur, Bloomberg had reported TSMC is already considering its third Japanese fab — also in Kumamoto — which would make more advanced chips. “We are