Global notebook shipments, excluding detachable models, surged over 10% sequentially to hit a fresh high of 60 million units in fourth-quarter 2020, mainly driven by robust demand for remote work and study amid the worsening pandemic woes, year-end e-commerce promotion campaigns and government subsidies to consumers, according to Digitimes Research.Shipments for the entire 2020 advanced over 25% on year to a 9-year high of 201 million units, Digitimes Research figures show.As brand vendors continue to pull in shipments from ODMs to thicken their inventories supporting stay-at-home economy in the months ahead, worldwide notebook shipments are expected to fall by less than 10% in first-quarter 2021, a significant improvement from previous sequential falls of 15-25% for the same quarter.Leading brand vendors are expected to post only slight sequential falls in first-quarter 2021 shipments, due partly to lower comparison basis of fourth-quarter 2020 amid significant components shortages. Top vendor HP may ramp up its shipments of Chromebooks in the quarter.Lenovo may not be able to see the same shipment momentum as its peers in first-quarter 2021 as its channel distributors in the US and Europe registered higher inventory levels in the preceding quarter.Dell, with commercial-use notebooks commanding over 60% of its shipments, may see shipments for first-quarter 2021 fall sequentially at a larger pace than HP, due to high comparison basis for fourth-quarter 2020, when both shipments to enterprise clients and those of Chromebooks increased significantly along with the resurging pandemic.In terms of ODMs in Taiwan, Quanta Computer will continue to take the lead in first-quarter 2021 on stable shipments of Apple devices and last-batch orders for education-use Chromebooks from Japan. Compal Electronics is expected to sustain the same shipment ratio of 30% in the quarter as registered a quarter earlier.

IC components prices are rising as a result of shortages amid tight foundry capacity, heaping pressure on notebook makers. ODMs are mulling hiking notebook manufacturing quotes in order to ease the pressure. Components shirtages are also affecting supply from pan el makers. Taiwan-based panel makers are expected to see shipments for small- to medium-size applications drop in first-quarter, according to Digitimes Research. In Vietnam, Taiwan-based makers of electronic products are tightening anti-disease measures as the number of COVID-19 infection cases rises in the Southeast Asian country. But the ODMs say their production remains normal.Notebook ODMs mull hiking quotes to reflect rising components costs: Taiwan-based notebook ODMs plan to raise their quotes to reflect rising component prices that have been heaping pressure on their production costs, according to industry sources.Taiwan small- to mid-size panel shipments to fall 9.5% in 1Q21, says Digitimes Research: Taiwan's shipments of small- to medium-size LCD panels are expected to fall 9.5% sequentially but up 3.9% on year to 174 million units in the first quarter of 2021, Digitimes Research estimates.Taiwan investors in northern Vietnam enhancing anti-virus efforts: Taiwan's electronics firms with manufacturing operations in northern Vietnam have all strengthened anti-virus measures following recent Covid-19 infections in two provinces, Hai Duong and Quang Ninh, so as to prevent their production from being disrupted, according to industry sources.

Taiwan's shipments of small- to medium-size LCD panels are expected to fall 9.5% sequentially but up 3.9% on year to 174 million units in the first quarter of 2021, Digitimes Research estimates.Shortages of some crucial components such as LCD driver ICs and shortened workdays in the first quarter due to the Lunar New Year holidays will weigh down makers' sequential shipment performance in the quarter, says Digitimes Research.Shipments of small- to medium-size panels decreased 25.3% on quarter and 17.8% on year to 193 million units in fourth-quarter 2020, affected by the impacts of the tightened US trade sanctions against Huawei and efforts by makers to roll out more notebook panels and over 10-inch tablet panels to satisfy market demand.Panel shipments for handset applications decreased significantly in the fourth quarter due to off-peak season effects and a ramp-up in shipments in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, tablet panel shipments gained momentum thanks to demand from clients including Amazon, and automotive panels also rebounded in line with a recovery of the global car industry.For all of 2021, Taiwan's small- to medium-size LCD panel shipments are likely to fall 6.8% on year to 790 million units as smartphone-use AMOLED panels will continue to gain momentum, eroding the market share of LCD.

For startups expanding overseas, the most challenging is often not about obtaining capital or orders, but rather cross-cultural operations and collaboration. Evy Chang, head of investor relations at Vietnam-based Wiziin, comes from a mixed cultural background - Taiwanese and Indonesian - knows much about such challenges. Before moving to Vietnam two years ago, Chang had worked as management consultant at the Business Development Institute (BDI) and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in Shanghai.During a recent interview by Digitimes, Chang talked about how Taiwanese companies and startups can overcome the challenges of cultural sensitivity when operating in Southeast Asia.Q: Vietnam has signed free trade agreements (FTAs) with many countries, attracting many manufacturing industries to invest and set up factories in the country. But how can investors overcome the disadvantage of unfamiliar environments when operating overseas?A: Taiwan is good at manufacturing, but frankly speaking, Vietnam is no longer a cheap place to run mannufacturing operations. So you must not still think about how to use the cheap labor in Vietnam; but rather how to transform along with Vietnam. Therefore, we should face the reality, understand the needs of local consumers and customers, and transform in line with the local conditions. I have been doing fieldwork in university and graduate school studying the cross-border expansion of Taiwanese businesses, and I deeply feel that it will be very difficult to work oveaseas markets if one refuses to get out of his or her own comfort zone.Even if you move Vietnam, you will still have to step out of the small circle you are familiar with, or you would find yourself mingling with foreign expatriates. In District 2 where many foreign expatriates gather in Vietnam, the atmosphere is very much like the West. If most of your colleagues are still foreigners, and you live in a place where most of the people are foreigners, you won't know Vietnam well.Q: What should I do then?You must be willing to put yourself in an uncomfortable situation all the time, because there is no faster learning opportunity than making yourself a minority. In my previous company, less than 10 of the 100 employees were foreigners, and I was highly immersed in the local culture as I spent time with them every day. Although there were many challenges, it was the quickest way to learn.It is necessary to learn the local language. If you speak English, you will be able to jump around in the urban areas of Ho Chi Minh City, Singapore, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, but it will be hard to look at a menu without pictures. If you are the founder of a new business and do not speak the local language, it is important to find a partner who speaks it and who is familiar with the local system and culture to be the chief of operations and help you keep an eye on all the operations and execution.You set the general direction, but you need him to drive it and restate it in a way that the locals understand. This is especially important when pushing for change in your company's systems. Often, we all have good intentions, but when there is a language barrier and you are not sensitive enough to the language and culture, I'm afraid everyone will be upset when the order is given. The ideal person for such a partner is a local who speaks the local language and understands culture but who has lived overseas for a long time.There are many Vietnamese who speak Vietnamese, but have grown up in the West and have returned to Vietnam to start their own businesses in the past few years. Although teamwork is always a matter of integration, it saves a lot of effort to find a reliable person who understands the local area.Q: The manufacturing industry likes to talk about overseas expansion in terms of "replicating business models," but it's actually very difficult in the complex and diverse Southeast and South Asia, isn't it?A: This is probably because the manufacturing process is very clear: three raw materials are added together and the result is three. But in the service industry, one plus one plus one does not necessarily equal three. Take North, Central and South Vietnam for example. Many people see opportunities in Vietnam's manufacturing industry, which is concentrated in Binh Duong, west of Ho Chi Minh City, the home base of Taiwan's manufacturing industry.The bustling scene of traffic and horns that I experience every day when I commute to work is mainly in districts 1-4 of the more than a dozen districts of Ho Chi Minh City with nine million people. Da Nang in the central part of the country is known as the Hawaii of Vietnam and is a famous vacation spot, and there are many Internet technology companies there. But not far from there are rural areas where people still live in traditional houses.Indonesia is actually the same. You can't look at the Southeast Asian market as a collective one with 900 million people. You have to identify your target groups of customers. Is it the top 10% of the pyramid in Vietnam? Or the top 20% in Java? And then you move on from there.Vietnamese people are more hardworking, and their values are more similar to those of Taiwanese people, because Confucianism does have a deep influence on Vietnamese culture. In every culture, there is a big framework of "what I live for." It is worthwhile for entrepreneurs who want to expand their presence in Southeast Asia to understand the influence of these cultural backgrounds on the local people.Q: Taiwanese companies are learning to become multinational companies. What advice would you give them, given your cultural background and experience in working with multinational colleagues?A: One of the weaknesses of Taiwan is that we are very homogeneous and therefore take a lot of things for granted and lack sensitivity to other cultures. Cross-country operations may encounter people from multiple cultures working together, and the need to communicate and reach consensus is not something we are familiar with. We have also seen some large technology conglomerates go to overseas markets and still follow the corporate culture of the parent company, lacking a bridge and buffer for communication, thus causing many conflicts.We also need to find the right person who is familiar with the local culture and system, and to learn how to immerse ourselves in the local culture.It is very important to find such a person to take on this role, otherwise there is no way to deal with the problem of people in the organization. It is often the people who are the most complicated. It is very important to let each person give full play to his or her strengths in the position he or she is given. It is not that Taiwanese do not have an international outlook, but they are not accustomed to the existence of people who are different from us. There is no right or wrong culture, but we tend to put foreigners either too high or too low, without getting used to the fact that they have different thinking and values.Many people respond by adapting to what they perceive as the higher side and abandoning the lower side altogether, or by thinking that the lower side must conform to them. In fact, it is more important to find a third way between two different cultures and values, not to divide "either you or me" but to find "us," to enter into the cultural context and values of the other side, and to communicate in a way that he or she can understand.Evy Chang, head of investor relations at WiziinPhoto: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes, January 2021

Chip vendors have been striving to obtain capacity support from Taiwan-based foundry houses, which nevertheless have been unable to meet all demand due to tight capacity. The foundries are prioritizing long-term clients. The foundries also have given priority to automotive chip clients, but support for them will increase at the expense of some Taiwanese IC design houses who may see delays in shipments. The pandemic has created unexpectedly strong demand for some industry sectors, such as LCD. Taiwan-based panel maker AUO will keep production lines running at full throttle during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday in mid February to satisfy clients' demand.Foundries to prioritize long-term orders amid tight capacity: Taiwan-based foundries intend to give supply priorities to long-term and established clients amid tight capacity, according to industry sources.Automotive chip demand could slow growth at Taiwan IC suppliers: Taiwan's wafer foundry houses are under increasing pressure to allocate more capacity for automotive chips, which in turn could undermine shipments of Taiwan-based IC suppliers in the second half of 2021, according to industry sources.AUO to run production at full utilization during upcoming holiday: LCD panel maker AUO will manage to maintain full capacity at its facilities in Taiwan and China during Lunar New Year to meet robust demand from clients, according to company chairman Paul Peng.

The just-concluded Automotive World Expo 2021 in Tokyo was characterized by hardware/software-integrated solutions to create connected, autonomous, shared/service and electric (CASE) vehicles, showing the trend of digital transformation for the car industry.Japan-based Rohm showcased a variety of automotive components, including SiC power semiconductor devices with high voltage tolerance and low power consumption, power management ICs supporting ADAS and LiDARs, driver ICs used in LED automotive lighting.Rohm's subsidiary LAPIS Technology showcased image controller ICs used in electronic rear-view mirrors and correcting images projected on windshields from head-up displays.Rohm plans to invest JPY60 billion (US$579 million) to expand production capacity for SiC power semiconductor devices over the next five years, aiming to hike its corresponding global market share from 20% at present to 30%.Xilinx exhibited Zynq UltraScale+, an in-house-developed multi-processor SoC that has been adopted for EyeSight, an ADAS installed on Subaru Levorg car model, with the SoC providing safety functions of adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning, collision warning and active brake. The SoC is an FPGA that can be updated to match Subaru's upgrading autonomous software via OTA (over-the-air programming).Japan-based taxi app JapanTaxi showcased an autonomous taxicab with LiDARs installed on the top, automotive cameras on sides and an autonomous control device in the trunk. With autonomous software provided by Japan-based self-driving software developer Tier IV, the cab is under trial run in Tokyo and Aichi Prefecture, central Japan.Coping with the coronavirus pandemic, Japan-based MaaS (mobility as a service) operator Mobility Plus exhibited a cold-chain logistics vehicle equipped with freezing storage under minus 120 degrees Celsius - much lower than those for general cold-chain transportation cars - for delivering COVID-19 vaccines.Honda Motor showcased Honda Fleet Management, a cloud-based logistics management system for fleets of motorcycles used in last-mile deliveries of goods.Japan-based JVCKenwood exhibited STZ-DR00, a SDK for logistics operators and insurance companies to develop software for analyzing real-time data collected by car movement recorders. The SDK enables processing of far-transmitted AIoT messages in short time and at low cost and its function library can provide additional functions such as ADAS, VoIP and DMS (driver monitoring system).

MediaTek is optimistic about its operation in 2021, with revenues expected to rise up to 8% sequentially in the first quarter of 2021 thanks to clients' robust orders, and the momentum is also expected to benefit MediaTek's backend services partners. Many of them are set to increase their capacity support to the chip designer in 2021. Meanwhile, carmakers in Germany, Japan and the US are lining up for the capacity support from Taiwan-based wafer foundries due to seriously shortages of chips.Backend firms upbeat about demand for MediaTek chips: Backend houses in the supply chain of MediaTek have expressed optimism about demand for the fabless client's 5G, Wi-Fi 6 and automotive chip solutions in 2021, and are ramping up capacity support for the chipmaker, according to industry sources.MediaTek expects up to 8% revenue growth in 1Q21: MediaTek expects to post revenue growth of up to 8% sequentially to between NT$96.4 billion (US$3.44 billion) and NT$104.1 billion in the first quarter of 2021. Despite foundry capacity constraints, overall demand will grow outperforming seasonal patterns during the quarter, according to company CEO Rick Tsai.Automotive chip suppliers queuing up for capacity support: Automotive chip suppliers are queuing up for capacity support from foundries, particularly 8-inch ones, and may be prompted to accept higher quotes for more capacity, according to industry sources.

Just days after Intel seemingly dismissed speculation about expanding outsourcing to TSMC, sources from Taiwan's supply chain have disclosed that the US chip vendor has plans to have the pure-play foundry fabricate its core CPUs at 3nm node in 2022. In the display sector, LCD panel prices are set to rise again in first-quarter 2021, thanks to strong demand amid component shortages. For touch panel makers TPK and GIS, they stand a good chance of receiving most of the orders from Apple for iPad devices in 2021.TSMC to make 3nm chips for Intel, sources claim: TSMC has already struck a deal with Intel under which the pure-play foundry will use 3nm process technology to manufacture the US vendor's core CPU products, with volume production scheduled for the second half of 2022, according to sources familiar with the matter.LCD panel prices to rise over 10% in 1Q21: LCD panel prices are poised to rise another 10% on average to hit a four-year high in first-quarter 2021, having been raised by 15-20% in the previous quarter, according to industry sources.TPK, GIS to share most touch-panel module orders for iPad in 2021, say sources: Taiwan's top-two touch-panel module makers TPK Holding and General Interface Solution (GIS) are likely to share the majority of Apple's iPad device orders in 2021, according to industry sources.

Amazon Web Service (AWS) has announced industrial AI solutions designed specifically for the manufacturing industry that provides sensor and image recognition equipment.The move has helped AWS expand its business coverage to the AIoT market and showed that public cloud services providers are already able to enhance their AI as a service (AIaaS) from general purposes to applications for specific industries, Digitimes Research noted.This will accelerate the penetration of AI and help industries conduct digital transformation, but will undermine AI startups as well as existing AIoT device makers and service providers.Many public cloud platforms have offered general-type AIaaS to satisfy their enterprise clients' needs, but lacking domain knowhow, many enterprises find the platforms difficult to use, resulting in weak demand for the services. To improve the situation, public cloud service providers have begun releasing AI solutions for specific industries.

Taiwan is the leader in many semiconductor sectors, but the "last mile" in terms of logistics and shipping centers is missing in the country - a gap that WPG Holdings is ready to fill with its plans to support the Taoyuan Aerotropolis project, according to Frank Yeh, vice chairman of the IC distributor.The last mile for logistics and shipping centers has been often held by Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, but WPG's LaaS (logistics as a service) digital transformation platform will play a major part in the development project around the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to bridge that gap in the semiconductor supply chain, said Yeh.Yeh, who is in charge of digital transformation at WPG Holdings, noted that in terms of warehousing for leading US chip vendors, Qualcomm is mainly based in Singapore, Nvidia in Hong Kong, and Broadcom in Malaysia.But Taiwan plays an important role in the upstream semiconductor supply chain, with Taiwan's top design houses, such as MediaTek, and Rexchip and major chip vendors from the US and China, all relying on support from foundry houses, such as TSMC and UMC, from OSAT providers, such as ASE Technology Holding, and IC substrate suppliers, such as Unimicron, Yeh said.Among them, TSMC can provide one-stop services from wafer foundry to advanced packaging and testing for the most advanced chips such as Apple's APs and HPCs.Though the manufacturing of ICs is done in Taiwan, the shipping centers for them are not, said Yeh.WPG has seen its smart warehousing transforming from 1.0 and 2.0 to the present 3.0, which is the LaaS model, which will be further implemented in Taoyuan Aerotropolis, said Yeh.Yeh believes turning Taoyuan into a global shipping center and integrating into the supply chain the "warehousing OEM" model will make Taiwan's semiconductor supply chain a complete one - or an "Taiwan IDM," said Yeh.Yeh said this is the ultimate goal - turning Taiwan into a global semiconductor logistics center - of the MoU that WPG and Taoyuan Aerotropolis have singed.Yeh estimates that the logistics center should be able to start operation as early as 2024.Such smart warehousing operations at Taoyuan Aerotropolis will require considerable investment, but it will be neccessary if one needs to serve customers who set up factories in Vietnam or India amid the US-China trade war, said Yeh.WPG has first "practiced" from the Hong Kong warehouse and completed smart warehousing 1.0, Yeh said. Its operations in southern China serves Chinese customers and has regional functions, which is 2.0; and the warehouse in Taoyuan will be the smart warehousing 3.0 version, which is the most important and most comprehensive, he said.According to Yeh, in Singapore, for example, the management of semiconductor-related warehousing services is carried out in traditional ways, with only two warehouses and no value-added services, and the cost for clients is even higher. It is similar in Hong Kong.Customers are aware of these difficulties, but there is no better solution, Yeh said, adding if they can ship out the chips from warehouses in Taoyuan, the labor and time costs will be much lower.