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Highlights of the day: Compal moves production back to Taiwan for US-bound notebooks

DIGITIMES staff 0

The US-China trade war is sending many manufacturers fleeing the "world's factory," with many Taiwanese makers relocating production lines to Southeast Asia or returning home. For some notebook brand vendors, Taiwan is a preferred location for producing devices heading for the US market - a preference about which Compal has already been told by its clients. For Apple, the trade war has already taken its toll on iPhone sales in China. And it remains to be seen how the freshly launched iPhone 11 series will fare. Taiwan's supply chain players are generally cautious about the sales outlook of the new iPhones. But some believe Apple's new pricing strategy should be able to stimulate sales of the new and older-generation iPhones. And backend service providers expect stable growth in demand for chips supporting Apple's new and older iPhones because of the "friendly" pricing.

Compal turns to Taiwan for making US-bound notebooks: Compal Electronics, in response to its major brand clients' requests, is moving production of their US-bound notebooks from Vietnam to Taiwan, which is expected to turn Taiwan into the second largest notebook production base worldwide, behind only China, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

Supply chain cautious about sales of iPhone 11 lineup: The new iPhones' lack of wow factors may fail to ignite strong replacement demand in the global smartphone space where shipments have been locked in a downturn, according to sources from Taiwan's handset supply chain.

Apple new pricing strategy steals spotlight at iPhone 11 launch: The brightest spot of Apple's launch for the iPhone 11 lineup turned out to be its new pricing strategy. Apple's move will not only help boost buying sentiment for the new iPhones, but also give it more room to set prices for its future 5G-enabled iPhones.

Taiwan backend firms eyeing stable demand for new iPhones: Taiwan-based backend houses including KYEC and Chipbond expect to see stable growth in demand for baseband chips and LCD driver ICs for Apple iPhone.