Year-end holiday demand in the fourth quarter of 2022 was seriously undermined by the economic downturn brought by rising global inflation and mature markets' interest rate hikes with global notebook shipments estimated to slip 16% sequentially and over 40% on year, and the situation is unlikely to improve much in the first quarter of 2023, according to DIGITIMES Research's figures from the latest report covering Taiwan's notebook industry.
China-based smartphone vendors together shipped over 150 million smartphones in fourth-quarter 2022, growing 6.6% on quarter but plunging 21.4% on year, according to DIGITIMES Research's latest report detailing China's smartphone industry.
The analog IC industry is more resilient than other semiconductor sub-sectors, with better value output not only during the two economic downturns in the past 10 years, but also inventory adjustment in Q3 2022, according to DIGITIMES Research analyst David Ma.
Fourth-quarter 2022 global server shipments declined 7.1% from the prior quarter and 4.3% from the prior year as China-based datacenter operators, as well as server brands, exhibited sluggish shipment momentum while cloud service providers including Meta and Google had weakening demand, according to figures from the latest server report.
Automotive electrification facilitates the growth of new EV companies. According to DIGITIMES Research, emerging businesses tend to rely on contract manufacturers for car-making, so they can focus on building brands and marketing.
Third-quarter and fourth-quarter 2022 global smartphone shipments are set to come to 277 million units and 311 million units, respectively, each showing a double-digit on-year decline, according to DIGITIMES Research's latest report on the global smartphone market
In the post-epidemic era, the overall auto market has been affected by chip shortages, coupled with the Russian-Ukrainian war and inflation, resulting in poor sales performance. In contrast, electric vehicle (EV) sales ramp up around the globe. According to DIGITIMES research, the annual sales of EV reached 9.78 million units in 2022, with an annual growth rate of 49% in 2023, it is expected to exceed 14 million units, with 9 million units in China.
Taiwan-based manufacturers' combined 2022 server-related revenues are estimated to have grown nearly 16% to amount to NT$2.12 trillion, an increase much larger than their shipments' 6.1% increase. According to DIGITIMES Research Analyst Frank Kung, citing the latest server shipment figures, it was driven by the ODMs having higher volumes of high-end HPC/AI servers and US-based large datacenter operators' continuous strong demand for cloud servers, high-speed networking equipment and storage devices,
The semiconductor industry has boomed in recent years. The global semiconductor is projected to exceed US$1 trillion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 7%. Among the five key applications, automobile is the most promising, with sales growth far higher than the industry average.
As China is reopening to the world amid a domestic resurgence of infections, how will China's role as the world's dominant production site for notebook PCs change in the long run? Will there be another disruption in the supply chain this year around the Chinese New Year holidays? Analysts said probably not.
Car display shipments during 2022 are forecast to remain short of 200 million sheets. Notably, center control display (CCD) shipments are expected to decrease to 95.3 million sheets for 2022, according to forecasts made by DIGITIMES Research.
The global server market continued to enjoy strong demand from large datacenter operators in 2022. Robust demand for cloud services and hybrid working schedules after the easing of the pandemic and the stable supply of ICs and components in the second half also boosted full-year 2022 global server shipments by 6.1% from a year ago, according to DIGITIMES Research Analyst Frank Kung, citing the latest server shipment figures.
