As smartphone markets become saturated, suppliers look to foldable phones as a potential demand-stimulating design. Samsung and Huawei etc. have put several concept phones on display in MWC 2019. WitsView, a division of TrendForce, holds that foldable phones are still in the stages of market-response observation and product-design adjustment, and predicts for them a meager smartphone market penetration rate of 0.1% in 2019. Foldable phones penetration rates will have to wait until more panel providers join the game and panel costs see significant improvements for a chance to rise above 1% in 2021, and accelerate past 3.4% in 2022.
The latest analysis of the PC DRAM market from DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, finds that most contracts are now monthly deals rather than quarterly deals, with February even seeing a most unusual, large down-correction in prices. The current quarterly decline dropped from the originally projected 25% to nearly 30%, resulting in the sharpest decline in a single season since 2011.
According to TrendForce's latest statistics, the global top ten IC design companies, ranked by revenue, have just come out, with Broadcom, Qualcomm and NVIDIA, taking first, second and third, respectively. Among the top ten, Qualcomm suffered the largest decline due to the weak smartphone demand, with its revenue dropping by 3.9%; MediaTek was likewise impacted by the unsatisfactory smartphone demand, and suffered a decline of 0.7% (in USD) in annual revenue, but only 0.1% in TWD.
According to the latest investigation by WitsView, the optoelectronics division of TrendForce, prices have recently dropped below cash costs for some TV panel sizes; for example, 32-inch TV panel quotes have dropped below US$40. As prices are expected to near rock bottom and drop no further, demand of TV brands shall see a gradual return, causing small and medium-sized TV prices to rebound in March.
Investigations by DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, show that DRAM quotes have taken a turn for the worse in 4Q18, causing the total revenue in the DRAM industry to fall. Due to high inventory levels on the demand end, purchases have become few and little, in turn causing a sales bit decline QoQ for most DRAM vendors. Under this double decline of both quantity and price, the global DRAM revenue fell by 18.3% QoQ in 4Q18.