The Taiwanese supply chain has relied on the stable demand from Apple. However, it has recently received news that delivery of the Mac series will be significantly reduced. In addition, Apple is also advocating for the diversification of its production sites. All of this has created increased pressure on the Taiwanese supply chain.

Foxconn Electronics has reported consolidated revenues of NT$660.363 billion (US$22.01 billion) for January, the historically highest monthly level for January with growth of 4.93% on month and 48.15% on year.

Taiwanese startups can no longer involve in "me-too" or "me-better" businesses, but must plan ahead and develop "me-only" technologies. The reasons are because the scales of Taiwanese venture capital (VC) and local market are limited, and does not have an advantage in demographic dividend. Mr. Michael Kao, President of Taiwan ITRI New Venture Association (TINVA) said that environmental, social, and governance (ESG), pharmaceuticals, smart manufacturing, and the semiconductor industries are some of the cutting-edge technologies that Taiwan should plan ahead and invest in. Given Taiwan's complete information and communications technology (ICT) industry chain, there is a good chance that Taiwan can gear to become a key hub for innovations and startups for the Asia Pacific region.

Mr. Wufu Chen, Chairman of Acorn Campus Taiwan pointed out that, facing a new wave of lifestyle paradigm shift, he and his company will assist Taiwan in forming an international team with globalized visions and help Taiwanese startups connect with international talents, markets, and capital. On top of technological skills, members of the international team should also possess international vision and perspective. They must be able to define their market and customers, and engage in dialogs with the international market, thereby establishing a footing for the new economy and industry developments in Taiwan.

All firms with considerable business scales in Taiwan's electronics industry are publicly traded. When they release their tentative annual financial indicators, we can already grasp the growth momentum of the industry, as well as the interactions between different industry sectors and the medium- and long-term outlook. DIGITIMES has again collected data on the ICT product manufacturing, semiconductors, optoelectronics, IC distribution and components sectors, providing readers with a comprehensive picture of the electronics industry and an outlook of the industry trends in 2023.

As seen on Apple's latest financial results, the world's largest company by market cap suffered from a weak economy and supply constraints that led to the worst holiday performance for Apple in four years.

Taiwan's IC design houses are expected to breath a slight sigh of relief in late first quarter or the second quarter thanks to frequent influx of rush orders, but end-market sources said current chip inventories, particularly those for PC applications, have yet to reach targeted levels and will take some more time to digest.

Amid India's push to build a self-reliant manufacturing ecosystem for electronics such as EVs and mobile phones, India seeks to extend exemptions for basic customs duty in the latest budget proposal.

AMD has reported revenue surged 44% on year to a record high of US$23.6 billion in 2022, buoyed by strong sales of AMD's embedded and data center chips. The processor vendor expects its data center and embedded segments to continue growing this year.

Industrial PC makers saw significant shipment momentum in 2022 as the easing of the pandemic rebooted investments in infrastructure and other industries, but uncertainties lying ahead in 2023 are prompting them to be more cautious about their growth prospects.

Taiwan-based makers received export orders totaling US$52.17 billion in December 2022, down 23.2% on year, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).

Intel is in talks with specific PC vendors to cut prices for previous generations of Alder Lake processors, including Core i9 processors, by as much as 20%, according to industry sources.

Acer founder Stan Shih warned that now is the time for all PC companies to think about their transformation strategies after Intel posted one of its worst losses.

LG Electronics has sourced OLED panels from Samsung Display for its new Gram Style notebooks, marking the first time Samsung has supplied LG with OLED panels, according to Korean media reports.

ODMs should see the market improve in the second half of 2023, according to Quanta Computer vice chairman CC Leung, adding that companies should still stay cautious over the year.

The new 14-and 16-inch MacBook Pro models just unveiled by Apple both support the newest Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax) wireless communication standard, which is expected to notably drive up the penetration of the upgraded spec in notebooks, according to industry sources.

Computex, Taiwan's largest IT exhibition show, after three years of shrinkage in scale from 2020-2022, will be resumed fully in 2023, going from May 30-June 2, according to Taipei Computer Association (TCA).

Taiwan's fabless makers of high-speed transmission interface ICs are expected to embrace a sure recovery in market demand in the second half of 2023, though they are still under inventory depletion pressure in the short term, according to supply chain sources.

Apple recently announced that Quanta Computer kicked off shipments of the latest MacBook Pro series in December, according to industry sources.

As the industry upgrades to faster connectivity technologies, such as 5G NR and Wi-Fi 6/6E, IC inspection labs remain optimistic about wireless communication device demand in 2023.

This year will see a substantial rise in the adoption of DDR5 memory in data centers and other server applications.

Apple has unveiled the new Mac mini, supercharged by M2 and the all-new M2 Pro. With the M2 chip, Mac mini is even more powerful, capable, and affordable with a new starting price of just US$599.

Apple has announced the new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max, Apple's next-generation pro silicon that brings even more power-efficient performance and battery life to pro users.

ODM Wistron expects flat shipment growth in 2023, while the global PC market braces for a possible single-digit decrease, according to company president and CEO Jeff Lin.

ASUS announced on January 16 an alliance with Freedom Systems to comprehensively connect devices, cloud services, information security and IT technologies to create an all-in-one Device-as-a-Service (DaaS) offering.