Taiwan's smartphone market shipped around 5 million units in 2025, remaining stable despite factors like high market penetration, longer replacement cycles, and inflation, according to Senao International. Leading brands Apple, Samsung, Oppo, and Vivo each reported operational gains amid evolving consumer preferences.

Taiwan Mobile's AI data center (AIDC) in Guishan in northern Taiwan is already fully leased after it officially began operations in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to the company's president, Jamie Lin. The company expects the AIDC to start contributing revenue from January 2026, with profitability achievable within its first year of operation.

Samsung Electronics recently launched its tri-fold smartphone, the Galaxy Z TriFold. Despite its high price point, the device continues to sell strongly worldwide. However, Samsung reportedly remains cautious about increasing production due to the device's extremely high costs, which leave the company with little to no profit margin.

Taiwan Mobile (TWM) has accelerated its AI application deployment, positioning self-developed AI solutions as a key growth engine for future operations. The company's president, Jamie Lin, highlighted that TWM's proprietary AI offerings, including large language models (LLM) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies, are expected to achieve triple-digit growth by 2026.

Tariffs, inflation, and geopolitical risk continue to cloud the global economy, while the smartphone industry faces fresh pressure from higher upstream material costs and component shortages. As 2026 approaches, several structural issues are set to define the market's direction.

The global unmanned vehicle market is booming with explosive growth. This surge has revitalized existing sectors while boosting related supply chains that are now targeting a second growth curve. Key component suppliers, such as those from the communication technology and IC design sector,s are seizing new business opportunities.

Data centers are entering a new phase of infrastructure upgrades in 2026, feeding off generative AI under Nvidia's leadership. While silicon photonics (SiPh) and co-packaged optics (CPO) technologies are still in the deployment stage, the optical communications industry is expected to move into commercialization by 2026.

The development paths for artificial intelligence (AI) integration in smartphones are diverging as ByteDance extends its collaborations with multiple brands, while technology giants Apple Inc. and Alphabet maintain a standardized application programming interface (API) strategy. Following the December 2025 launch of the Doubao phone M153 in partnership with ZTE Corporation's Nubia, recent reports indicate that ByteDance is broadening its AI smartphone alliances to include Vivo, Lenovo Group, and Transsion.

Apple Inc. has unveiled an AI imaging technology called DarkDiff, designed to improve photo clarity in low-light conditions by integrating generative diffusion models into the camera's image signal processor (ISP). While effective in reducing blur and enhancing detail, the technology's high computational demands currently limit its deployment on consumer devices.

Taiwan's smartphone market is expected to face another challenging year in 2026, as rising device prices, extended replacement cycles, and persistent memory supply constraints limit shipment growth, even as higher average selling prices support revenue expansion.

Huawei Technologies has lifted the share of Chinese-made components in its latest premium smartphones to nearly 60% by value, underscoring how years of US export controls have accelerated domestic capabilities across key technologies. Recent teardowns show that localization has moved well beyond low-cost or peripheral parts. Huawei is now sourcing processors, memory, and displays domestically — components that were once firmly dominated by suppliers from the US, Japan, and South Korea.