Due to uncertainties in the global economic conditions, the DRAM market has seen oversupply for the first half of 2015. The industry are having difficulties consuming PC DRAM capacity because the notebook shipments have been weak. As a result, the contract prices for PC DRAM have been falling.
The IC sector is spurred by demands related to IoT businesses and 4G LTE technologies, but it is also dragged down by the below-expectation sales of PCs and mobile devices. On the whole, the sector’s revenue performance has been slightly disappointing so far this year.
At the start of this year, the United States Department of Commerce conducted a preliminary review of the anti-dumping and countervailing (AD/CVD) measures against Chinese photovoltaic (PV) cell imports for 2012 and reduced the overall tariff rate from 30% to 17.5%. Consequently, advantages are lost for Taiwanese cell manufacturers facing tariff rates between 11.45% and 27.55%. Cell prices since then have also seen a steady decline.