Taiwan's direct Internet connection with 12 countries/areas reached 3,400.868Gbps as of the end of third-quarter 2019, increasing 2.28% sequentially and 44.56% on year, according to government-sponsored Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC).

Quanta Computer has started shipping 5G x86 servers to Japan's Rakuten, and is in talks with a number of Europe- and US-based telecom carriers for shipments slated to kick off in the second half of 2020, according to company senior vice president Mike Yang.

Global demand for infrastructure equipment such as base stations, active antenna units, transceivers in the next-generation 5G era will increase 10-fold as compared to those required in the 4G networks, Covestro, a Germany-based supplier of specialty chemical and plastics materials, has estimated.

LG Innotek has announced it has developed an automotive communication module based on Qualcomm's 5G chip.

Huawei has announced that during the first three quarters of 2019 it generated CNY610.8 billion (US$86.05 billion) in revenues, an increase of 24.4% on year. The company's net profit margin in the period was 8.7%.

Google has unveiled its latest smartphones, the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, and will team up with Taiwan Mobile to campaign the new lineup along with its Pixel 3a and Nest Mini smart speakers in Taiwan by the end of 2019.

TSMC is expected to report record sales for 2019, driven by strong demand for its advanced manufacturing processes. Its 7nm production capacity has been fully occupied, thanks to robust orders from clients eyeing the strong growth of the 5G market. Less advanced processes, including the 16nm...

Taiwan's government will start the bidding process for the release of related frequency bands to telecom operators for 5G services on December 10, and the auctions would likely to be carried out without plans to reserve a dedicated frequency band to be available for other private enterprises or entities...

The emerging 5G and AI applications will be driving Intel's growth over the next decade, market observers believe.

Qualcomm has recently joined Taiwan's 5G Alliance and will partner with Taiwan's OEM/ODMs and academies to conduct 5G research, according to Alex Orange, senior director of Government Affairs at Qualcomm Southeast Asia&Pacific and Taiwan.

Global smartphone shipments are expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.8% during a 5-year forecast period from 2019~2024, driven by replacement demand for entry-level smartphones in emerging markets and commercialization of 5G networks, according to Digitimes Research.

China-based handset vendors are expected to be able to ramp up their 5G phone shipments significantly in the first quarter of 2020, outracing combined shipments from rival Korean brands, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, according to industry sources.

The optical communication equipment industry is expected to resume growth momentum in 2020 after three years of lackluster demand, as new 5G infrastructure construction projects kicking off in late 2019 are expected to spur upgrades in optical fiber networks, according to Taiwan-based Ezconn, a supplier...

Global demand for 5G chips supporting the sub-6 GHz standards is likely to gain momentum as telecom operators in China, which has the potential to become the world's largest market for 5G phones, have given the priority to the development of related sub-6 GHz technology instead of mmWave one, according...

In addition to benefiting system operators, handset vendors and other players, the commercialization of 5G networks will help drive a fast development of VR applications, which could become killer applications of the 5G era, according to Raymond Pao, senior vice president of VR products and strategy...

Notebook brand vendors who hesitated about moving production out of the China in the wake of the trade war are now determined that they need to do so, as the disputes between the two superpowers are unlikely to end anytime soon. The vendors are now asking their ODMs to accelerate...

Qualcomm is deepening its deployment in the Wi-Fi space as demand for IoT-related transmissions is ready for a jump-start, according to Dino Bekis, the firm's vice president and mobile and compute connectivity general manager.

While AI and 5G technologies will closely complement each other in a variety of applications, edge computing will play the most critical role in the complementarity of both technologies, prompting Qualcomm to focus its AI R&D on edge computing solutions, according to Jim Thompson, the firm's engineering...

Construction of 5G mmWave base stations has been slow worldwide except in the US due to some major challenges affecting the development of related technologies, but Qualcomm has come up with solutions to address the challenges and expects to fast develop 5G mmWave business in the US, Japan and Korea...

Combined shipments of 5G-enabled smartphones from Chinese and Korean vendors are expected to reach about 10 million units in 2019 - a result of collaboration between telecom operators and handset makers, according to market observers.

Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) is teaming up with electronic map and navigation software provider Kingwaytek Technology to build a local government-backed 5G test field in northern Taiwan for the development of IoV and autonomous solutions, according to Tsai Min-hung, a section chief of CHT's mobile business...

The entry-level to mid-tier SoC solution segment has become the main battlefield for winning 5G SoC orders as major chip players including Qualcomm, MediaTek and Unisoc are gearing up efforts to enhance their deployments in the segment, according to industry sources.

MediaTek is on track to enter volume production of its first 5G SoC for sub-6GHz networks in January 2020, having begun sampling the chips in the third quarter of 2019, according to company CFO and spokesman David Ku.

Successful development of technology concerning 5G, which pomises considerable growth potential, will be key to catapulting Taiwan into a digital economy and smart island, according to TH Tong, chairman of the Taipei Computer Association (TCA).

Components suppliers are naturally eyeing the business opportunities arising from 5G developments, with heat-sink solution providers expecting VC-based cooling solutions to become a mainstream for smartphones in 2020. For PCB makers,...