TrendForce’s latest investigations have found that the arrival of China’s 618 mid-year shopping season as well as inventory levels of consumer electronics reaching healthier levels, have prompted customers to begin restocking components, resulting in urgent orders for wafer foundries. This surge in demand has significantly improved capacity utilization rates compared to the previous quarter. Additionally, strong demand for AI servers further boosted the total revenue of the world’s top ten wafer foundries by 9.6% in 2Q24—reaching $32 billion.
TrendForce reports that memory module makers have been aggressively increasing their DRAM inventories since 3Q23, with inventory levels rising to 11–17 weeks by 2Q24. However, demand for consumer electronics has not rebounded as expected. For instance, smartphone inventories in China have reached excessive levels, and notebook purchases have been delayed as consumers await new AI-powered PCs, leading to continued market contraction.
TrendForce reveals that sales of advanced packaging equipment are expected to grow by more than 10% in 2024, with the potential to exceed 20% in 2025. This growth is being driven by major semiconductor manufacturers’ ongoing expansion of advanced packaging capacity and the rapidly expanding global AI server market.
TrendForce’s latest investigations reveal that branded TV shipments in 1H24 reached 90.717 million units globally, representing a YoY increase of 0.8%. Demand varied across regions as China experienced weaker-than-expected TV sales due to a sluggish real estate market and changing viewing habits among younger consumers. In North America, persistently low-priced competition helped sustain demand, while in Europe, a combination of sporting events and a low base from the previous two years due to inflation contributed to better-than-expected TV shipments in the first half of the year.
TrendForce’s latest investigations into backplane technology for displays reveal that OLED has become the mainstream display solution for smartphones, pushing the penetration rate of mid-to-high-end backplane technologies such as LTPS and LTPO in the smartphone market to nearly 57% in 2024. The penetration rate is expected to challenge 60% in 2025, thanks to improvements in yield and effective cost control. Additionally, AMOLED panels are rapidly expanding into other IT markets, which is projected to boost the penetration of oxide and LTPO backplanes.
