The COVID-19 pandemic has compelled governments worldwide to impose border closures and regional lockdowns, which led to significant declines in various countries’ GDPs this year. As economic and social activities around the world have stagnated, the performance of the smartphone industry was severely damaged in 2Q20. According to TrendForce’s latest investigations, total smartphone production reached 286 million units in 2Q20, a slight QoQ rebound of 2.2%, but a 16.7% decrease YoY, which is the largest quarterly YoY drop in history.
Downstream foundry clients are currently exhibiting strong demand due to upcoming year-end shopping festivities in Europe and North America and the National Day long weekend and Singles’ Day sales promotions in China, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. The strong momentum from downstream clients has in turn brought about a stable growth in foundries’ capacities and wafer input orders, with total foundry revenue projected to growth by 14% YoY in 3Q20.
On August 17, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the latest revisions to its Entity List, which now includes 38 additional Huawei subsidiaries. Suppliers are prohibited from providing semiconductor products and components manufactured with U.S. equipment and software to Huawei and its subsidiaries. TrendForce provides the following analyses on the impacts that the expanded sanctions against Huawei have on five tech industries, including semiconductors, memory products, smartphones, display panels, and 5G communications.
TV panel prices have been maintaining their upswing in August, with 55-inch panels and 32-inch panels each registering price hikes of about 10%, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. IT panel prices have also been gradually rising, thanks to stable demand from end-markets. Most panel manufacturers are thus expected to make a rebound out of the seven consecutive quarterly losses they had previously suffered and finally turn a profit, in either August or September. As such, the panel industry is projected to make a significant improvement in terms of profitability in 3Q20.
The last cyclical upturn in DRAM contract prices began at the start of 2020 and was led by server DRAM, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. In 2Q20, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic shocked the global economy, but OEMs maintained or even stepped up procurement of components because they feared disruptions in the supply chain. As a result, DRAM suppliers’ bit shipments surpassed expectations for the quarter, in turn widening the overall increase in DRAM ASP and raising the global DRAM revenue by 15.4% QoQ in 2Q20 to US$17.1 billion.
