Everyone in the ICT sector had expected the 5G era to get off to a flying start in 2020 when the coronavirus hit. Major players continue to make deployments for 5G, but cannot be sure when the momentum will actually pick up. Now Taiwan-based chip vendor MediaTek, whose major market is in China, expects weaker growth for 2020. But Acer is confident that the notebook market is poised to have a strong rebound in demand in the second half of the year. For AMD, it is likely to see strong growth in sales, as PC OEM and brand vendors, and motherboard and graphics card manufacturers continue to step up their development projects for AMD's Zen 3-based Ryzen CPU series manufactured using TSMC's 7nm EUV process.

Apple has warned of iPhone supply constraints due to the coronavirus outbreak. And the iPhone is not the only Apple device whose production is being disrupted by the epidemic, as manufacturers are unlikely to start volume production as scheduled in early second-quarter 2020 for a new entry-level version of the AirPods Pro. One of the reasons for the production delays is components shortages. For consumer notebook makers, PCB supply is falling short. The outbreak has also been chilling domestic demand in China, and the local PC DIY market is bracing for a 50% or more plunge in motherboard and graphics cards sales in the first quarter.

Global smartphone shipments are expected to reach 1.278 billion units in 2020, including less than 200 million units of 5G models, taking into account the impacts of the coronavirus outbreak on China and around the world in terms of economic growth, Digitimes Research estimates.

Notebook ODMs have resumed their production in China, but face the possibility of a lack of components starting in March if their suppliers continue to be prevented from going to work by the coronavirus outbreak. Quanta Computer has started volume production at a new assembly plant in Taiwan to meet urgent needs from clients, but components shortages remain an issue. Now Digitimes Research estimates that global notebook shipments will fall 29-36% in first-quarter 2020, much steeper than previously thought.

The coronavirus outbreak is hitting hard the ICT industries and markets in China. Digitimes Research provides a preliminary estimation on the impacts on four major sectors: semiconductors, display panels, handsets and notebooks. Many manufacturers in China are slowly returning to work. The pace of recovery reportedly has been faster than expected though production for many ODMs remains low. For some in the semiconductor sector, the outbreak so far has had little impact on their orders. IC testing solutions provider Chunghwa Precision Test Tech (CHPT) continues to land major orders from first-tier vendors.

IC design houses in Taiwan and China will see the coronavirus outbreak impact their revenues for the first quarter of 2020, and foundry and backend houses may take clearer hits starting in the second quarter, according to a study by Digitimes Research on impacts of the epidemic on semiconductor, panel, handset and notebook sectors.

Global all-in-one (AIO) PC shipments totaled 3.42 million units in the fourth quarter of 2019, rounding out the volumes for the whole-year 2019 at 13.25 million units, down 3.4% on year, according to Digitimes Research's latest report on AIO PCs.

Apple's manufacturing partners may not be able resume normal production in China anytime soon in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, but it does not seem to be derailing the vendor's plan of launching the next-generation iPhones in September. In fact, Apple is keen to carve out a big slice of the 5G device market despite a late start. Apple's demand for 5nm A14 mobile application processors to support its 5G devices is likely to be 50-60% higher than that for its 7nm A13, according to industry sources. Meanwhile, server memory demand remains strong thanks to orders from datacenters although the memory industry in general is bracing for worse impacts from the outbreak to come in the second quarter.

Shipments of LCD TVs by Taiwan-based makers are expected to fall below five million units in the first quarter of 2020, down nearly 44% on quarter and over 20% on year, affected by the coronavirus outbreak and seasonality, Digitimes Research estimates.

Production disruption in China is everyone's nightmare in the IT supply chain in the wake of the coronavirus. Many makers are raising their production outside of China, and Apple reportedly is shifting its oreders to assembly lines in Taiwan for an array of products. But for Taiwan-based Foxconn - Apple's major partner for making its iPhone devices in China - the epidemic is creating tremendous pressure on its production at its plants that employ hundreds of thousdands of workers - managment of whom would be a big challenge as far as health monitoring is concerned. The outlook of Foxconn's sales in first-quarter 2020 is rather gloomy. At any rate, global handset shipments are likely to fall sharply even if the virus can be contained at the end of June.