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Digitimes Research: Taiwan handset shipments drop 1.6% sequentially in 1Q14

Luke Lin, DIGITIMES Research, Taipei

Chi Mei Communication Systems (CMCS) saw a significant increase in handset shipments in first-quarter 2014, because of Nokia's joint design manufacturing (JDM) orders for feature phones, while Compal Communications also achieved sequential shipment growth. Only Arima Communications suffered a slight drop.

Overall handset ODM shipments from Taiwan makers grew sequentially.

HTC's own-brand handset shipments continued to drop in the first quarter since its mainstream handsets had already been on the market for quite a while and demand for its new mid-range models launched at the end of fourth-quarter 2013 and first-quarter 2014 was weaker than expected.

With ODMs' shipment growth almost offseting the drop in own-brand shipment s, Taiwan's overall handset shipments in the first quarter declined only 1.6% on quarter, but on an annual basis, they rose 40%, figures collected by Digitimes Research show.

As for smartphones alone, Taiwan's ODM shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonality. Moreover, HTC's new own-brand flagship model was not unveiled until the end of the first quarter. As a result, Taiwan's smartphone shipments decreased 16.8% sequentially in the first quarter.