Asustek is a clear market leader in gaming smartphones, but it is seeing growing competition from others. Lenovo reportedly has headhunted a key executie from Asustek' ROG Phone team, in a bid to accelerate its development of gaming smartphones. In the PCB market, Taiwan-based Zhen Ding and Unimicron have been keen to extend their leaderships over competitors by planning to spend big on technology R&D and production capacity expansions, despite the coronavirus pandemic, which has deterred others from making major investments. But the pandemic is expected to affect sales at Taiwan's three major pure-play foundry houses in the second half of 2020. Digitimes Research has cut its full-year forecast for Taiwan's foundry sector.
Lenovo fast tracks gaming smartphone biz by headhunting talent from Asustek: Lenovo is set to unveil a new gaming smartphone later in May as the company has recently headhunted a key executive from Asustek Computer's ROG Phone team and seen its R&D capability of gaming smartphones significantly enhanced, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
Zhen Ding, Unimicron looking to extend lead over peers via bold capex injection: The coronavirus pandemic may force many Taiwan-based PCB makers to slow down their capacity expansion plans in the short term due to uncertain market prospects, but Zhen Ding Technology and Unimicron seem unaffected and will see their capital expenses hit new highs again in 2020 seeking to further strengthen their market and technology leaderships over peers in the longer term, according to industry sources.
Digitimes Research cuts Taiwan foundry output value forecast for 2020: Digitimes Research has revised downward its Taiwan foundry output value forecast this year, as end-market demand is likely to disappoint due to the prolonged pandemic.
