Smartphone shipments to the China market came to 62.8 million units in the second quarter of 2023, edging upward 0.6% from a quarter ago and decreasing 2.2% from a year ago, according to DIGITIMES Research's latest figures from the report covering China's smartphone market.

Global top-5 brands, not including Apple, saw their combined notebook shipments slip over 20% on month in July because of the high comparison base in June and a deceleration in demand from the education procurement sector in Europe and North America, according to DIGITIMES Research's figures from July's notebook monthly update report.

According to DIGITIMES Research's statistics and analyses, second-quarter 2023 smartphone shipments by China-based smartphone vendors exhibited a 7.4% on-quarter growth but a 6.1% on-year decline. In the second half of 2023, China-based smartphone vendors are expected to step up their inventory preparation ahead of Singles' Day in China. Moreover, with overseas markets entering the strong season, smartphone shipments by China-based vendors are estimated to exhibit a single-digit growth consecutively for two quarters straight, according to DIGITIMES Research's latest figures from the China smartphone industry report.

DIGITIMES Asia has unveiled the "2023 ASC 250 Rankings." In the post-pandemic era, the Russia-Ukraine war, and global inflation, more than half of the leading 10 companies are encountering a dip in their revenue growth rates. Notably, TSMC, the heavyweight champion of semiconductor foundry, leads the pack with an impressive revenue growth rate of 33.4%. However, within the top 20 companies, CATL stands out prominently, boasting a remarkable growth rate of 138%.

Global notebook shipments, not including detachable models, performed stronger than DIGITIMES Research initially expected in the second quarter of 2023, up 20.9% sequentially and down only 5.5% on year, shrinking dramatically from those of the past several quarters. Still, the volumes are only expected to stay flat in the third quarter and dip a single-digit percentage in the fourth quarter, according to DIGITIMES Research's latest figures from the notebooks report database.

As more and more companies participating in the RE100 initiative will use 100% green energy by 2030–2050, green hydrogen is a key option in the long-term global energy transition. In view of the strong growth potential of the global hydrogen industry, Taiwan's semiconductor companies should have long-term plans for utilizing green hydrogen as a source of green energy, said Sabrina Yu, analyst and project manager at DIGITIMES Research.

According to the financial results released for the last quarter, of the five major chip applications, demand for most semiconductor applications are declining or stagnant, and only automotive semiconductors are expected to witness annual growth for 2023, with estimated annual growth of 12%, said DIGITIMES Research director Tony Huang.

Global server shipments slipped 5.7% sequentially in the second quarter and are likely to see only single-digit on-quarter growth in the third quarter due to brand vendors and CSPs both turning conservative toward the second half of the year, even though the new mainstream server CPU platforms are ready for supply, according to the latest figures from DIGITIMES Research's server report

Following the publication of the revised Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act in March 2023, the Japanese government on May 23 announced to impose export restrictions on 23 items of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, effective July 23. Based on DIGITIMES Research's observations, although the list includes equipment for photolithography, etching, thin film deposition, thermal processing, cleaning, inspection and other key semiconductor manufacturing processes, Japan is more likely to control the export of photolithography or thin film deposition equipment for advanced processes, which will hinder China's progress in advanced semiconductor manufacturing technologies.

Tesla has seen its North American Charging Standard (NACS) gaining traction after winning Ford over two months ago. However, DIGITIMES analyst Evan Chen said Combined Charging System (CCS) Type 1, the second most-used charging connector in the US, is unlikely to be phased out soon as it has government support.

Demand for generative AI (GenAI) and large language model (LLM) is rising rapidly, driven by the emergence of ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by OpenAI. For their large scale as well as the massive data sets and resources required to train LLMs, cloud service providers (CSP) are generally adopting the method of combining inference and prompt engineering for their AI solutions to support clients' customization needs, according to DIGITIMES Research's latest report focusing on the AI server industry.

US government has enacted both the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which not only aim to bolster the sales of electric vehicles but are also intended to decrease dependency on China's EV battery supply chain.