Taiwan smartphone application IC market grows significantly in 2Q09, says MIC

Taiwan smartphone application IC market volume reached 89.37 million units in the second quarter of 2009, up 33.9% sequentially, according to Taipei-based Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC). Taiwan smartphone application IC market value reached US$464.8 million in the second quarter, representing a growth of 33.7% as vendors have started to increase procurement from upstream chip suppliers and the economy is showing signs of recovery. They have also started to aggressively stock materials to meet peak-season demand in the second half. The rollout of the Apple iPhone 3GS has also contributed large chip orders.

In Taiwan's smartphone baseband processor and transceiver market, the share of HSPA ICs increased to 89.7% in the second quarter, while the share of GSM/GPRS/EDGE declined considerably to 1.2%. MIC industry analyst Edward Lin indicated, "Shipments of new terminal products, such as the Apple iPhone 3GS and HTC's Magic, Diamond2 and Pro2, benefited HSPA IC volume. EDGE IC volume declined, as production of value-line models that were launched in the second half of 2008 was halted. Therefore, the shift of mainstream smartphone specifications towards 3G and higher (HSPA) is continuing." With the major supplier Texas Instruments (TI) phasing out its baseband IC business, the market scale of EDGE ICs continues to decline.

CDMA (including EV-DO) baseband and RF chip share increased to 8.8% in the second quarter. "These ICs mainly benefited from the start of mass production of the Palm Pre. With shipment volume of the Palm Pre expected to increase in the second half of 2009 and CDMA versions of several new HTC models hitting the market, CDMA IC sales are expected to remain stable," said Lin.