Chinese components maker BYD Electronics saw a drop in profits for the first quarter of 2026. The subsidiary of EV maker BYD reported its first-quarter results on April 28, including a 95.5% annual drop in profit attributable to its parent company, hitting CNY27.83 million (US$4.1 million).
Memory distributor Supreme Electronics (Supreme) saw its revenue double in the first quarter of 2026, driven by a sharp rise in memory prices. DRAM and Flash accounted for nearly 90% of total sales, with server revenue share reaching about 40%—surpassing mobile for the first time. Strong demand from cloud service providers (CSPs) is driving server memory prices higher, a trend expected to extend into the second quarter of 2026.
OpenAI's agentic AI phone could reshape mobile markets and supply chains by forcing incumbents to respond. Still, success depends on delivering both interface breakthroughs and competitive cost-performance for mainstream buyers and attracting users.
The Taiwan smartphone market showed resilience after the Lunar New Year peak as manufacturers introduced multiple new flagship models, and industry sources said the launches should help narrow a forecasted decline in the second quarter. Mobile channel operators reported that Taiwan's phone shipments reached nearly 418,000 units in March 2026, down about 1% from February's 420,000 units, while revenue rose nearly 1% as premium device sales increased.
Chinese smartphone manufacturers accelerated product cycles in response to rising upstream component costs and weak sales, as memory price increases in 2026 squeezed margins and prompted firms to shift focus to higher-margin models. According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, March 2026 shipments in China totaled 21.15 million units, down 7.1% year-over-year, while 5G phone shipments reached 19.67 million units, a 1.3% increase and 93% of total shipments.
India's smartphone manufacturing expanded 8% year on year in 2025, driven by a 28% surge in exports and modest domestic sell-in growth of 1%, according to Counterpoint Research. Exports accounted for about one-third of all phones made in India, underscoring the sector's deepening export orientation.
India is accelerating its semiconductor ambitions, from Micron Technology's Sanand ramp to new fabrication and advanced packaging projects, while expanding design partnerships. At the same time, regulatory pressure on Apple, weakening smartphone demand, and solar policy tensions highlight challenges alongside growing global supply-chain integration.
Global Wi-Fi router shipments are increasingly driven by telecom operators' upgrade cycles and tender deployments rather than consumer demand, with traditional seasonality continuing to weaken. Since 2025, the market has shown a pattern of weaker peak seasons and firmer off-seasons.
South Korea's three leading telecom operators—SK Telecom (SKT), KT, and LG U+—signaled a decisive shift beyond connectivity at the World IT Show (WIS) 2026, held April 22–24 in Seoul, unveiling AI-centric strategies spanning agents, applications, and infrastructure as they position themselves as full-stack AI platform providers.
Samsung Electronics executive chairman Lee Jae-yong's bold acquisition of premium audio brand Harman for KRW9.4 trillion (approx. US$6.3 billion) a decade ago has paid off, with the American subsidiary of Samsung posting historic highs in both revenue and operating profit.
The surge in optical module stocks reflects a deeper shift in AI infrastructure: the bottleneck is no longer computing power alone, but how that power is connected.
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