TrendForce reports that suppliers significantly reduced production targets in the first quarter of last year to address severe inventory accumulation in channels. Consequently, even though 1Q24 smartphone production was below pre-pandemic levels of over 300 million units, it still achieved a seemingly impressive 18.7% YoY growth, with a total shipment of 296 million units.
TrendForce reveals that the DRAM industry experienced a 5.1% revenue increase in 1Q24 compared to the previous quarter. This growth—reaching US$18.35 billion—was driven by rising contract prices for mainstream products, with the price increase being more significant than in 4Q23. As a result, most companies in the industry continued to see revenue growth.
As indicated by the survey of global market intelligence firm TrendForce, 1Q24 marked the entry of a traditional off-season for the consumer end, where the sporadic appearance of urgent orders within the supply chain were mostly replenishment of inventory among individual clients, and exhibited sluggishness in momentum on the whole. Simultaneously, automotive and industrial equipment applications have been receiving ongoing revisions in forecast under escalating economic risks, including inflation, geopolitical conflicts, and energy shortages. AI servers, attributed to the extensive CapEx input and competitions among major global CSPs, as well as the establishment of LLMs (Large Language Models) between enterprises, became the sole support for the supply chain throughout 1Q24. On account of aforementioned factors, the top 10 global foundries generated a total revenue of US$29.2 billion at a QoQ drop of 4.3% in 1Q24.
As indicated by TrendForce’s latest survey, global NB shipment remains inhibited in market dynamics due to geopolitics and high interest rates throughout 2024. Generally speaking, demand for replacement of entry consumer and educational models served as the actuation for market activeness for 1H24, whereas the pending stabilization of the economy and additional launches of AI NBs in 2H24 would stimulate the need of upgrading to high-performance NBs among enterprises. Annual shipment is projected at 173.45 million units at a YoY growth of 3.6% in 2024.
TrendForce research reveals that after experiencing low capacity utilization in the first quarter, the EV battery industry saw a significant recovery in market demand starting in March. April’s peak season led to a surge in demand, boosting lithium battery production and slightly raising EV battery prices. In May, the market continued its peak season trend with stable demand and prices. Monthly ASP for square ternary, square LFP, and pouch ternary cells were CNY 0.50/Wh, 0.43/Wh, and 0.52/Wh, respectively.
