According to Taiwan's MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute), an ICT industry research institute based in Taipei, the full-year shipment volume of Taiwan's Smartphone industry in 2013 is expected to reach 251.0 million units, up 22.5% year on year. The industry's shipment value is projected to total around US$54.2 billion in 2013, posting a 19.7% growth compared to US$45.2 billion in 2012.
Dragged down by patent lawsuits and the shortage of products, the overall shipment volume of the Taiwanese Smartphone industry did not live up to expectations in 2012. However, after stepping out of the shadow of patent lawsuits, it is anticipated that the industry's shipment volume will see a year-on-year growth in 2013.
According to the analyst of MIC, as several international mobile phone branded vendors are seeking transformation, Taiwanese contract manufacturers will face more uncertainties when securing branded orders. Given the fact that the IC design house MediaTek has rolled out several Smartphone reference designs with high cost-performance ratio, these solutions have helped Chinese vendors and white-box vendors lower the barriers to enter the Smartphone industry. This, however, also has resulted in the reduced orders outsourced by international branded vendors for Taiwanese contract manufacturers.
In 2013, with major international brands succeeding in transformation, more contract manufacturing orders are expected to be released. For example, Sony's market-flooding strategy to launch various mobile phones at the same time and Nokia's Windows Phone models are expected to spur demand for contract manufacturing services. However, as Chinese mobile phone makers are going to contract manufacture mobile phones for Motorola in the future, the number of Motorola's orders outsourced to Taiwanese manufacturers is expected to be affected.
Affected by Samsung's Smartphones which features larger screen sizes, Apple - the largest client of Taiwanese contract manufacturers - has seen a slowdown in market demand for its iPhones with relatively small-sized screens. In the future, whether Apple will change its one-product-per-year strategy and flood the market with several iPhones instead of one to tap different market needs will be crucial to Apple's market share and will affect shipment performance of the Taiwanese Smartphone industry.
With Taiwanese Smartphone branded vendors' efforts to explore new market opportunities in emerging countries, the industry's ASP (Average Selling Price) has been declining. Nevertheless, Taiwanese contract manufacturers have begun developing their 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) product design capabilities since the second half of 2012. This is expected to help expand their product mix and increase mobile phone ASP. MIC predicts that the industry's ASP will drop slightly from US$221 in 2012 to US$216 in 2013 but the industry's shipment value in 2013 will still manage to sustain an approximately 20% growth year on year.
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About MIC
Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC), based in Taipei, Taiwan, was founded in 1987. MIC is Taiwan's premier IT industry research and consulting firm providing intelligence, in-depth analysis, and strategic consulting services on global IT product and technology trends, focusing on markets and industries in Asia-Pacific. MIC is part of the Institute for Information Industry.https://mic.iii.org.tw/english