In 3Q20, the smartphone industry benefitted from the gradual easing of pandemic containment measures worldwide, the arrival of year-end holiday season, and the expanded production targets by smartphone brands looking to capture Huawei’s lost market shares, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. These factors together drove up global smartphone production to 336 million units in 3Q20, a 20% increase QoQ, which is the highest QoQ growth in recent years.
Thanks to subsidies by various governments worldwide, the New Energy Vehicle market, including BEVs and PHEVs, maintained a positive growth in sales performance despite the major downturn experienced by the overall automotive market, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. Total New Energy Vehicle sales for 2020 are expected to reach 2.4 million units, a 19.8% increase YoY.
Total NAND Flash revenue reached US$14.5 billion in 3Q20, a 0.3% increase QoQ, while total NAND Flash bit shipment rose by 9% QoQ, but the ASP fell by 9% QoQ, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. The market situation in 3Q20 can be attributed to the rising demand from the consumer electronics end as well as the recovering smartphone demand before the year-end peak sales season. Notably, in the PC market, the rise of distance education contributed to the growing number and scale of Chromebook tenders, but the increase in the demand for Chromebook devices has not led to a significant increase in NAND Flash consumption because storage capacity is rather limited for this kind of notebook computer. Moreover, clients in the server and data center segments had aggressively stocked up on components and server barebones during 2Q20 due to worries about the impact of the pandemic on the supply chain. Hence, their inventories reached a fairly high level by 3Q20. Clients are now under pressure to control and reduce their inventories during this second half of the year. With them scaling back procurement, the overall NAND Flash demand has also weakened, leading to a downward turn in the contract prices of most NAND Flash products.
Owing to the shipment restrictions imposed by the U.S. government, Huawei announced on November 17 that it will sell its subsidiary Honor, including all business units and assets, in order to protect Honor’s brand equity and the livelihood of its employees, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. Despite the change of ownership, however, “new Honor” still has to cope with the shortage of foundry capacity in 2021, leading to a forecasted market share of 2%, while Huawei’s market share is expected to reach 4%. It should be pointed out that Apple is expected to capture some demand that was previously aimed at Huawei’s high-end smartphones. At the same time, Huawei’s Chinese competitors Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo are expected to ramp up device production. Hence, the volume of new smartphones coming from these sources will exceed the estimated market share gap left by Huawei. Also, if the smartphone market does not have sufficient demand to accommodate the overly inflated production plans in 2021, then brands may have to readjust their production targets.
Owing to the gradual legalization of marijuana cultivation and the pandemic-induced surge of recreational and medical marijuana markets in North America, horticultural LED has become one of the fastest-growing lighting markets in 2020, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. Moreover, as the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the food supply chain starts to surface, capital expenditure (CAPEX) for indoor agricultural infrastructure has once again shown an upward momentum due to the rising demand for equipment replacement and procurement, resulting in a rapid growth in enterprise orders for horticultural LED. Global yearly horticultural LED revenue is expected to reach US $158 million in 2020, a 39.7% increase YoY.