The global demand for semiconductor components in the second half of the year will be noticeably stronger compared with the first half due to the effect of the traditional peak season. TrendForce currently estimates that the global foundry revenue in 3Q19 will increase by 13% QoQ. TSMC, Samsung, and GlobalFoundries will again take first, second, and third place respectively in the revenue ranking. TSMC’s revenue market share is estimated at 50.5% in 3Q19, whereas the market shares of Samsung and Global foundries are estimated at 18.5% and 8% respectively for the same period. Although the end demand will be driven by the positive seasonality in 2H19, its growth will be lower compared with 2H18 due to the uncertainties around the US-China trade disputes. TrendForce thus expects the rebound in the semiconductor market during the year’s second half to be significantly weaker compared with the same period of the previous years.
Taiwan’s Lite-On Technology Corp. (Lite-On) announced on August 30 that it will offload the entire stake of its SSD business to Toshiba Memory Holdings Corp. (TMCHD). The purchase price is provisionally set at US$165 million, and the transaction is scheduled to be completed by 1H20. TrendForce’s preliminary assessment of this deal finds that Lite-On’s SSD business has significant advantages in operational efficiency and flexibility. Thus, the acquisition could be a major boon to TMCHD in terms of enhancing the range and quality of product offerings.
According to the newest statistics by TrendForce, the global top ten IC design companies for 2Q19 ranked by revenue have just been released, in which we see revenues of the top five all falling YoY. This was due to the US-China trade war, mounting inventory levels along the supply chain and less-than-satisfactory global demand for consumer electronics, including smartphones, tablets, notebooks, LCDs, TVs, servers etc. NVIDIA registered the largest decline among the five: 20.1%. This is also the first time in three years that Nvidia's seen YoY revenue declines for three consecutive quarters.
According to investigations by TrendForce, smartphone demand has already made it out of the gloomy offseason of 2Q19, with production volume coming to 344 million units, a 10.5% QoQ growth. Yet the many uncertainties circulating in the international market still caused smartphone production volume to weaken by 2.4% YoY in 2Q19, with the top six being Samsung, Huawei, Apple, OPPO, Xiaomi and Vivo in descending order.
According to the newest 2019 Global Automotive LED Market Report- Passenger Car and Box Truck report by LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, the global automotive market has been showing declines since 2018 amid global trade frictions and economic recessions, but the penetration rates of LEDs in various major automotive lighting products continued to rise. Furthermore, new energy cars have a greater demand for LEDs than traditional cars do while boasting a faster growth in shipments. This will cause the volume of and revenue for automotive LED products to maintain modest growth in future years, with global automotive LED revenue forecast to arrive at US$3.17 billion in 2019 and to register a CAGR of 7% during the forecast period 2018-2023.
