Taiwan-based makers are expected to ship 31.394 million LCD monitors in second-quarter 2011, up 3.2% sequentially and 8.8% on year, and accounting for 69.9% of the global total. Digitimes Research estimates that Taiwan's total second-quarter LCD monitor shipment value will reach US$3.723 billion, or US$118.6 per unit.TPV Technology, Chimei Innolux (CMI), Qisda and Wistron will be among the top-five makers in terms of unit shipments. Of the shipments, 85% will fulfill ODM/OEM order and 15% for own-brand sales.Source: Digitimes Research, April 2011

Taipei, Taiwan, April 26, 2011 - A number of smaller handset vendors are rushing to launch low-priced (sub US$150) Android handsets targeting users in emerging markets in 2011, with related shipments forecast to reach 20-25 million units this year. The shipment total represents up to tenfold growth on 2010 shipments, and the segment will account for 12.1-15.1% of overall Android handset shipments, according to a recently published Digitimes Research Special Report.The report, titled "The rise of the low-priced Android smartphone," charts the rapid growth of the global smartphone market and the rise of Android as a smartphone platform. According to figures from Digitimes Research, global smartphone shipments for 2010 totaled 288 million units, representing 61.2% growth on the 2009 figures and accounting for nearly 20% of all mobile phone shipments.In 2010, the Android platform also gained momentum in the market, the report explains. Carriers worldwide began to partner with manufacturers such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung Electronics in an effort to outdo each other in launching high-end Android smartphones in order to entice customers to sign up for mobile data services. The end result was that Android handset shipments and sales went from strength to strength, growing so much that Android was catapulted into second place in the smartphone platform rankings.While competition in the high-end smartphone market has already been through a gradual process of warming up before finally reaching fever pitch, the low-priced Android handset market has only just got underway; demand in this sector remains far from fully tapped, and serious competition is only just starting in 2011.The report notes that handset chip manufacturers around the world are convinced that demand for low-priced Android smartphones will soon follow in the footsteps of the high-end handset market and grow rapidly over the coming years. Such firms have all made and begun to execute plans to move into the low-priced Android handset processor market, hoping to emulate the success of the feature phone turnkey solution model and grab a share of the potentially lucrative low-end sector.China- and Taiwan-based chip design firms such as MediaTek, Infomax, Rockchip and Leadcore successively launched solutions for low-priced Android handsets beginning in the second half of 2010, and major international chip vendors including Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson, Broadcom, Texas Instruments (TI) and Marvell all launched turnkey solutions for low-priced Android handsets in fourth quarter 2010 or first quarter 2011.This Digitimes Research Special Report tracks and analyzes the key players in the low-priced Android market, from the upstream turnkey solution providers to the downstream system players handset vendors, revealing the competitive advantages of the various players in this rapidly growing market segment and the prospects of the overall low-priced Android market.Shipments of low-priced Android handsets to pass the 20 million mark in 2011Source: Digitimes Research, March 2011More information about the report About DIGITIMES ResearchDIGITIMES Research is the research arm of DIGITIMES Inc, Taiwan's leading high-tech media outlet. Operating as an independent business unit, DIGITIMES Research focuses on monitoring key high-tech industries, while also guiding clients toward suitable new business as well. Market intelligence and analysis is provided to more than 1,000 corporate customers worldwide. Research and consulting services cover a full range of industries, including information and communications technology (ICT), flat panel display (FPD), renewable energy and semiconductor design and manufacturing.Contacts:Michael McManus (Michael.mcmanus@digitimes.com)Shannen Yang (Shannen.Yang@digitmes.com)

Digitimes Research estimates that Taiwan-based makers' shipments of WLAN products will total 77.421 million units in second-quarter 2011, dropping 5.3% sequentially and 19.1% on year, due to seasonality as well as indirect impact from the disasters in Japan.The forecast shipments consist of 62.751 million network interface cards and 14.670 million wireless routers.Source: Digitimes Research, April 2011

Latest data collected by Digitimes Research show that Taiwan-based optical disc drive (ODD) makers shipped 17.8 million units in first-quarter 2011, increasing 7.9% sequentially, thanks to considerable demand from the notebook segment.Slim-type and half-height models took up 52.8% and 47.2%, respectively, of the first-quarter shipments, and a further breakdown shows that DVD+RW/-RW burners accounted for 81.5%, DVD-ROM drives shared 17.7%, and Blu-ray Disc (BD) ROM drives, combo drives and burners combined for 0.8%.Source: Digitimes Research, April 2011

LCD TV panel supply will be tight in second-quarter 2011 because of unstable supply of some of the components. Digitimes Research predicts that Taiwan-based makers will ship 10.93 million LCD TVs in the second quarter, up 6.3% sequentially and 39.2% on year.Taiwan makers' total LCD TV shipments will reach 54.88 million units in 2011, accounting for 26% of the global total.Source: Digitimes Research, April 2011

Taiwan-based manufacturers shipped a total of 30.42 million LCD monitors in the first quarter of 2011, down 3.7% sequentially, according to latest data collected by Digitimes Research.While the contraction rate for the first-quarter monitor shipments suffered by Korea makers was higher than that of Taiwan vendors', the ratio of shipments from Taiwan makers to global monitor shipments dropped 0.1 percentage point to 69.9% in the first quarter due to increased shipments from China and other emerging countries, the Digitimes Research data show.First-quarter monitor shipments from Taiwan makers still represented an increase of 3.8% from a year earlier, indicating the industry remained healthy. Additionally, the impact of the March 11 Japan earthquake on global monitor shipments was limited, as evidenced by over 30-40% sequential shipment growth rates recorded by Taiwan makers in March.Source: Digitimes Research, April 2011

Latest data collected by Digitimes Research show that Taiwan makers' large-size LCD panel shipments (9-inch and larger models and including those for tablet PCs) decreased 1.4% sequentially to 65.15 million units in the first quarter of 2011.In comparison, global shipments of large-size flat panels were down 5% to 160.72 million units during the same period with shipments from Taiwan makers accounting for a 40.5% share.With sales of LCD TVs from international major players falling short of their targets and China-based TV vendors recording flat performance during the first quarter, Taiwan's LCD panel makers saw their first-quarter shipments of TV panels decline 4.8% sequentially.With regard to shipments of IT panels, including those for monitor, notebook and tablet PC applications, the performance of Taiwan-based makers was better than industry average.Among Taiwan's makers, Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) posted the highest 3.3% sequential growth rate in shipments of large-size LCD panels in the first quarter, while AU Optronics (AUO) saw its large-size panel shipments edge up 1.4% on quarter, buoyed by increased shipments for IT applications.Although LG Display saw its large-size LCD panel shipments drop 15% sequentially in the first quarter, shipments of table PC panels by Taiwan-based makers still lagged far behind those shipped by LG Display, the Digitimes Research data show.Source: Digitimes Research, April 2011

After three consecutive quarters of unsatisfactory performance, Taiwan's notebook shipments in the second quarter of 2011 are expected to remain weak and as shortages of components such as ICs for optical drives and hard drives, caused by Japan's earthquake on March 11, will start impacting the notebook supply chain in the quarter, despite Taiwan's notebook shipments will still see a sequential growth of 6.1%, they will see a drop of 2.1% compared to the volume a year ago, while global notebook shipments to see 8.8% growth on quarter and only 3.7% on year, according to Digitimes Research senior analyst Joanne Chien.Global notebook shipments in the first half of 2011 are expected to reach only 98.02 million units and with the second-half currently still offering no big surprises, while netbook shipments are dropping, Chien believes that global notebook shipments in 2011 may grow only 5.8% on year to 210 million units, marking the first time for the notebook market to see annual growth that is not a double-digit percentage and also lower than the 20.1% in 2010.As for the netbook segment, Acer's strategy of adjusting its orders for the second quarter will result in Taiwan notebook makers' total netbook shipments to drop to around 4.5 million units in the quarter. Although Taiwan's traditional notebook shipments will still achieve a growth of 9% sequentially, on-year growth will only reach 1.4%, a lot lower than 50% in the same quarter a year ago.For the second quarter of 2011, Apple, Asustek Computer and Acer will be the top-three players having increased notebook order volumes to their partners, with Apple mainly benefiting from its newly launched MacBook Pro notebooks, while Asustek and Acer both had smooth inventory digestion.As for notebook makers, Inventec, which used to be the fourth-largest notebook maker worldwide, will drop to number six in the second quarter with Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) to take fourth place with shipments of more than four million units in the quarter. Inventec's shipment volume in the second quarter will also have a gap of about 1.2 million units with the fifth largest, Pegatron Technology, Chien added.Source: Digitimes Research, compiled by Digitimes, April 2011

Taiwan's notebook shipments dropped 9.8% sequentially and 2.6% on year to only 41.42 million units in the first quarter of 2011. Global notebook shipments also dropped 8.9% sequentially and 1.7% on year to 46.94 million units due to weak overall demand plus Intel's defective chip incident, according to Digitimes Research senior analyst Joanne Chien.In addition to the weak performance of netbooks, Chien believes that the traditional notebook segment is also facing a challenge from tablet PCs with the segment's shipments in the first quarter down 9.9% sequentially and saw no growth on year.However, under the unfriendly economic status, China-based Lenovo and the US-based Apple still managed to achieve excellent performance for the first quarter. Taiwan's traditional notebook shipments to Lenovo in the first quarter surpassed those of Dell and were only 0.5pp less than Acer at number two.Although Apple has also been affected by Intel's defective incident, the strong market demand for its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, still allowed the company to place total orders of 2.8 million notebooks with its upstream ODM/OEM partners. Of which, about 20%, or 600,000 units were orders for MacBook Air, Chien added.

A presentation recently prepared for Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) had been made available for publication. The presentation highlights business opportunities for companies from an Asian perspective.For readers interested in accessing the original presentation, a link is provided at the end of the article. - The global ICT industry faces four main challenges.- Events from the 2008 financial crisis to the 2011 Japanese earthquakes demonstrate that the market faces unstable demand.- The global electronics industry is also faced with the problems of increasing oversupply and market concentration, leading to shrinking profit margins.- Taking the display panel industry as an example, although many countries have tried to develop their panel industries, to date only Taiwan and South Korea have done so on a significant economic scale, but they nevertheless face overly long investment cycles and profitability issues.- Emerging markets account for an increasingly large share of the global market; the US, Western Europe and Japan accounted for 75% of the global PC market 20 years ago, whereas today, emerging markets account for more than half of the PC market.- Another major variable in the global technology industry is the rapid rise and increasing involvement of China; the China market accounts for a increasingly large share of the global market, with the country's economic development and accumulated investment power making it a key topic for the global technology industry.- More than 350 millions PCs were shipped in 2010.- As markets in the Asia Pacific region have developed rapidly, countries in the region have also come to play key roles in the electronics industry itself.- In addition to notebook computers, which are produced almost 100% by Asia Pacific nations, countries in the region also play a vital role in everything from mobile phones to TV sets.- Consequently, Asia Pacific nations excluding Japan already contribute some 57.7% to global IC components, a figure that is projected to continue to rise in the years to come.- Taiwan is an indispensable part of the global ICT industry- Taiwan is at the forefront of industries including notebook computers, wafer contract foundries, IC encapsulation testing and IC design.- The commercial opportunities created by large-scale manufacturing in Taiwan have been eagerly pursued by technology firms worldwide.- The next few slides give an overview of the status quo for the industry in Taiwan, as well as the possible models for collaboration between global technology companies and Taiwan.- Statistics from Digitimes show that Taiwan had a total of 735 listed electronics companies at the end of 2010.- The total combined revenues of these companies in 2010 was US$411b, while the industry growth rate for 2010 was 31.6%.- The ICT manufacturing industry, which is principally focused on the assembly and manufacture of products such as PCs and mobile phones, is the largest of the major industries, with total revenues of US$220b in 2010.- The second largest industry is the optoelectronics industry, which mainly focusing on manufacturing upstream and downstream products for display panels, and was worth US$53.2b in 2010.- The semiconductor industry, which covers areas including wafer foundries, encapsulation testing, IC manufacturing and IC design, was worth US$51.2b in 2010.- In other fields such as network communications, general components and electronics distribution, Taiwan-based firms have not only generated enormous revenues within Taiwan itself, but have also actively moved into the Asia Pacific region, enabling them to become key partners for world-class companies.- ICT manufacturing-focused firms are the largest of Taiwan's electronics companies.- Foxconn's revenues for 2010 were US$71.2b, making it the world's largest EMS firm.- If FIH (Foxconn International Holdings), which is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, and Foxconn Group's other subsidiaries are added in, the figure rises to over US$100b.- Other major firms including Quanta, Compal, Wistron, Acer and Inventec also have annual revenues in excess of US$100 billion, and are important partners for global giants such as Hewlett-Packard (HP), Apple and Dell.- Next generation electronics industries in Taiwan revolve around personal computers; Gartner estimates that the global PC market will expand from 350m units in 2010 to some 409m units.- A growth rate of 15.9% is predicted.- As tablet devices like the iPad continue to make inroads into the market, growth in the global computer market is likely to fall short of such optimistic forecasts in 2011; however, manufacturing systems for tablet computers are also highly dependent on Taiwan-based companies, and so changes in the market will have a very limited impact on Taiwan.- Taiwan is the world's number one producer of notebook computers, and average monthly production has been known to exceed 14m units per month.- Assuming that each unit requires components and materials worth US$400, Taiwan-based firms purchase nearly US$70.0b of such items globally each year.- The booming notebook industry also provides an excellent foundation for the development of Taiwan's display panel and IC design industries.- The largest purchasers of products from Taiwan globally include HP, Dell, Sony, Apple, Samsung and Lenovo.Among the ranks of new buyers which have become increasingly important in recent years are Nokia, NTT Docomo and Verizon, all of which buy network communications products from Taiwan and a number of major channel firms and electronics companies from emerging markets.- Taiwan-based companies have also worked closely with firms such as Microsoft, Oracle and IBM to cater for international purchasing in a number of areas by setting up highly specialized supply chain (SCM) and ERP management systems.- Taiwan's electronics industry previously centered on notebook computers, but has undergone significant structural changes in recent years in response to the wave of enthusiasm for smartphones and tablet computers.- Major global manufacturers eager to benefit from Taiwan's stable product chains have gradually handed over most of their smartphone and tablet production to Taiwan-based companies.- This has given rise to a trend for major upstream component manufacturers to promote their key technologies in Taiwan.- Taiwan has become a battleground for new technology, with Taipei's annual Computex computer show a already a key moment in the industry calendar.- Booming demand from the industry has helped Taiwan's IC design industry to flourish since the mid-1990s.- The wafer foundry industry has also been a critical factor in the development of Taiwan's IC design industry.- The world's two largest pure play wafer foundry firms are also both Taiwan-based companies, with TSMC alone accounting for nearly half of the global market.- According to analysis by Digitimes Research, North American IC design firms contribute roughly 61% of wafer foundry revenues.- Asia Pacific nations' contribution has also exhibited strong growth in recent years.- Taiwan accounts for approximately 21% of the global IC design industry, while China accounts for a further 9%.- As a result of Taiwan's burgeoning wafer foundry and IC manufacturing industries, Taiwan's key companies need to pour in large sums every year to update or invest in equipment.- TSMC's 2011 capital expenditure will reach US$7.8b.- Information from SEMI shows that total expenditure on semiconductor equipment from Taiwan was US$9.18b in 2010, with this figure set to rise to US$9.28b in 2011.- Taiwan's semiconductor equipment demand is the world's largest, accounting for around 30% of the global market.- Due to the importance of the Taiwan market, the world's most renowned semiconductor equipment firms have all established service centers or research centers in Taiwan.- Taiwan is the world's second largest semiconductor materials market after Japan.- Taiwan's semiconductor materials market grew from US$6.87b in 2009 to an estimated US$9.11b in 2010, representing a growth rate of 36.2%.- Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Taiwan will overtake Japan in 2011 to become the world's largest market.- Taiwan also exerts a great deal of influence in the China market.- Consequently, global upstream materials firms all maintain an active presence in Taiwan, from where they can serve the entire Asia Pacific market.- The global solar photovoltaic (PV) market is projected to reach 20.8GWp in 2011.- Germany and Italy collectively account for more than half of this market.- Following the major earthquake in Japan, even more importance is likely to be attached to the green energy industry.- China is currently the world's largest manufacturer of solar cells, followed by Taiwan in second place.- Total global production capacity is projected to rise from the 4Q10 figure of 30.3GWp to 58.0GWp in 4Q11.- China and Taiwan have been the most proactive of the various countries that are expanding production capacity.- Taiwan's total capacity is projected to rise from the 4Q10 figure of 5,446MWp to 10,788MWp in 4Q11.- Taiwan accounts for over 18% of total global capacity.- As the global industry has gradually matured, the resulting pressure has led the Taiwan industry to move further upstream, with the silicon wafer industry also making rapid progress.- China accounts for more than 60% of capacity in the major nations, but issues of over-investment have arisen.- Taiwan's total investment in silicon wafers will grow from 5,635MWp in 4Q10 to 7,090MWp in 4Q11.- Statistics on Taiwan's listed companies indicated that Taiwan's solar cell industry is already worth nearly US$4.0b.- The solar PV wafer and module industries are also of considerable size.- The Taiwan-based firms have generally opted to team up with companies in the individual countries for final assembly work.- Capitalizing on Taiwan's edge in production management, which derives from its manufacturing industry.To download the original powerpoint presentation, click here.