IF / News

Chipsets

Based on Huawei’s product portfolio, HSBC looks at the current key components suppliers in smartphones, telecoms and enterprise business and relevant Chinese suppliers, in order to gauge the possibility of substitution. Chinese companies can provide a similar level of quality in smartphone base band and application processors, switch chips, digital signal processors (DSP) and RF power components in telecom equipment. (HSBC report)

Touch Display

Samsung has asked Apple to pay a penalty for not buying enough iPhone displays, hoping to recoup losses from missed manufacturing goals. Samsung Display’s earnings have plummeted from USD4.9B in 2017, to USD2.3B in 2018. To offset this, Samsung Display is seeking a penalty fee for unfilled contracts, which has produced 50% less business than expected. Instead of paying cash, however, Apple has allegedly offered multiple options, including committing to OLED display orders for future products like “tablets and notebooks”. (Apple Insider, ET News, CN Beta, Mac Rumors)

Huawei’s new foldable phone patent illustrates the screen folds inwards and adopts a large external second display. The corners seem much more rounded; here too there is the side “bar” to host the camera module and it is possible to see a secondary display. (CN Beta, GizChina, LetsGoDigital)

Rising from negligible levels this year, the global market for microLED displays is expected to grow to 15.5M units in 2026 as steep declines in manufacturing costs make the emerging technology suitable for the mass market, according to IHS Markit. MicroLED shipments in 2019 and 2020 are expected to total less than 1,000. Despite the growth in acceptance, microLED shipments in 2026 will still amount to just 0.4% of the global flat-panel display market. (IHS Markit, press, CN Beta)

Camera

Credit Suisse has noted an acceleration in the shift towards triple-camera and other multi-camera phones in 2019. And, indeed, in Jan–Mar the ratio of rear multi-camera phones reached 52%, with 26% of Samsung’s phones having dual, 24% triple, and 2% quadruple cameras. Competition is intensifying between Samsung and rival Chinese makers such as Huawei and Xiaomi over camera specs. (Credit Suisse report)

LG is granted a patent from Turk patent for a smartphone with a punch hole display camera in the front. The rear view of the device reveals a setup of three cameras. (GSM Arena, Tiger Mobiles, GizChina, CN Beta)

OPPO SVP Brian Shen has indicated that under display camera technology is hard to reach mass production in 2H19, based on the current actual experience. In the future, the forehead part of the full-screen phone will no longer be dragged by components such as the front camera and sensors, so that the screen ratio can be higher. (CN Beta, My Drivers)

Memory

HSBC expects memory market turnaround to be postponed by one quarter to 3Q19 for NAND and to 4Q19 for DRAM. The server DRAM price is a key bellwether for the overall pricing outlook, but they expect it to continue to show a double-digit decline in 3Q19, mainly due to: 1) more severe off-season effects, especially in the server and PC segments; 2) the delay in the order pick-up from data center customers amid low visibility due to trade tensions between the US and China; and 3) the still-high inventories at memory makers. (HSBC report)

Battery

Nokia Bell Labs and AMBER, the SFI Centre for Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research  hosted at Trinity College Dublin, have announced they have created a new, innovative formula for battery composition that makes batteries more powerful by packing 2.5 times the battery life than anything currently on the market. (CN Beta, Nokia)

Phone

Huawei Technologies has sued the U.S. over the seizure of telecommunications equipment by American officials who were investigating whether the gear required an export license to leave the country. (Android Authority, Boomberg, Now.com)

Huawei’s consumer product line president He Gang has announced that the company had successfully achieved 100M sales as of 30 May 2019. (Phone Arena, Gizmo China, Reuters CN)

Walter Ji, president of Huawei’s consumer business group in Western Europe, has revealed that Huawei smartphones sales in western European countries have risen “in the past few days” as customers grow more confident the Chinese company will weather U.S. sanctions levied last month. The company remains committed to using Google’ Android while also preparing alternatives. (My Drivers, VOA Chinese, CN Beta, NASDAQ)

India’s Department of Telecom (DoT) will soon implement a central register of IMEI numbers to tackle the phone theft menace. The DoT will blacklist IMEI numbers that are reported to it as being stolen or lost, blocking access to cellular networks. Another objective of the central register will be to make IMEI-based lawful interception easier. (CN Beta, Business Standard, Indian Express, Android Central)

According to Credit Suisse, Apple’s latest survey calls for production of less than 1M in Apr–Jun 2019, 31M in Jul–Sep (XI R: 15M, XI: 7M, XI Max: 9M), and 48M in Oct–Dec (24M / 10M / 14M), for a 2019 total of 79M units (39M / 17M / 23M), with the XI R at 50% of the total, XI at 21%, and XI Max at 30%, largely unchanged from the 2018 mix. (Credit Suisse report)

According to Credit Suisse, Samsung’s Initial plans for 2019 targeted output of 88M units (+148% YoY) for the A series, 96M (−34%) for the J series, and 20M for the M series (new in 2019), but their March survey has already shown the A series surging to 52M units in Apr–Jun from 13M in Jan–Mar. Their latest survey now indicates 2019 non-premium segment production of 170M units for the A series, 50M for the J series, 8M for the M series, and around 5M for others. (Credit Suisse report)

Credit Suisse has estimated full-2019 output at 260M–270M units (+25–30% YoY) at Huawei, 100M units (−1%) at vivo, 105M units (−1%) at OPPO and, due to a reduction in low-end models, 115M units (−10%) at Xiaomi. (Credit Suisse report)

HSBC lists the major production sites of Taiwan ODM / EMS companies including Hon Hai (Foxconn), Pegatron, Wistron, Quanta, and Compal. (HSBC report)

HSBC has performed a scenario analysis on the earnings impact of reduced Huawei smartphone shipments as a result of trade tension. Based on the different assumptions (Huawei’s smartphone shipment shortfall, replacement rate and take away by other smartphone makers), HSBC shows the potential earnings impact for other smartphone makers (Samsung, Xiaomi). (HSBC report)

Artificial Intelligence

Walmart is using computer vision technology to monitor checkouts and deter potential theft and other causes of shrink in more than 1,000 stores. The surveillance program, internally called Missed Scan Detection, uses cameras to help identify and correct checkout scanning errors and failures. Ireland-based Everseen is one of several companies supplying Walmart with the technology. (Digital Trends, CN Beta, Business Insider)

Payment

Google has announced it has expanded its partnership with PayPal to provide merchants with more ways to accept payments online. Google Pay will benefit from PayPal integration in all 24 countries where customers can link their PayPal account to Google Pay. (Phone Arena, Google, Teller China)

Commerce

Due to low macro visibility, there appears to have been a downward trend in e-commerce investment plans at major data center companies. Compared with HSBC’s Mar 2019 announcements, there has been a 5% contraction in 2019 and 2020 budgets; budgets in China have been reduced more severely, contracting by 12%-13%. (HSBC report)