According to TrendForce's latest statistics, the global top ten IC design companies, ranked by revenue, have just come out, with Broadcom, Qualcomm and NVIDIA, taking first, second and third, respectively. Among the top ten, Qualcomm suffered the largest decline due to the weak smartphone demand, with its revenue dropping by 3.9%; MediaTek was likewise impacted by the unsatisfactory smartphone demand, and suffered a decline of 0.7% (in USD) in annual revenue, but only 0.1% in TWD.
According to the latest investigation by WitsView, the optoelectronics division of TrendForce, prices have recently dropped below cash costs for some TV panel sizes; for example, 32-inch TV panel quotes have dropped below US$40. As prices are expected to near rock bottom and drop no further, demand of TV brands shall see a gradual return, causing small and medium-sized TV prices to rebound in March.
Investigations by DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, show that DRAM quotes have taken a turn for the worse in 4Q18, causing the total revenue in the DRAM industry to fall. Due to high inventory levels on the demand end, purchases have become few and little, in turn causing a sales bit decline QoQ for most DRAM vendors. Under this double decline of both quantity and price, the global DRAM revenue fell by 18.3% QoQ in 4Q18.
DRAMeXchange, a division of the global market research firm TrendForce, reports that the rising economic uncertainties caused some server manufacturers to delay restocking or cancel orders, and compelled those upstream in the supply chain to make adjustments to their production lines, damaging their ability to stock up. Furthermore, Apple sales did not meet expectations in the new quarter, and the need to switch phones experienced a decline; laptop demands were impacted by the Intel CPU shortage. Bit-shipments did not perform as well as expected, despite the continual increase in average memory storage. All this led to a drop in revenue by 16.8% QoQ for brand owners in 4Q18.
According to the latest report of TrendForce- Breakdown Analysis of China’s Semiconductor Industry, the revenue of China’s IC design industry reached RMB 251.5 billion in 2018, an annual growth of nearly 23%. HiSilicon, Unisoc, and Beijing OmniVision Technologies ranked top three in the 2018 revenue ranking. Looking ahead to 2019, China will continue to seek chip self-sufficiency, driving the growth of domestic IC design industry. The revenue is expected to total RMB 296.5 billion, but the YoY growth rate is moderated to 17.9% due to a series of headwinds, including the weak demand outlook for consumer electronics, the slowdown in global economy, and uncertainties brought by the U.S.-China trade war.