Gartner, a market information advisory firm, said on Jan. 15 that global DRAM sales growth for 2015 is expected to be more moderate than a year earlier as market demand and supply has been tilting toward a balance.

Gartner’s latest report said that DRAM sales are expected to grow 7.7% before the end of this year, compared with a skyrocketing 31.7% year-on-year increase recorded in 2014.

“DRAM pricing was unusually firm in 2014 due to short supply, which propelled DRAM to be the fastest-growing device type in 2014,” Gartner’s report said.

Gartner said that major DRAM suppliers, including Taiwan’s Nanya Technology Corp (TPE: 2408) and Inotera Memories Inc (TPE: 3474) were benefitted from such an uptrend and reported strong revenue and solid earnings in 2014. Nanya and Inotera, meanwhile, are both DRAM manufacturing arms of conglomerate Formosa Plastics Group (TPE: 1301).

“DRAM supply and demand will be in line in 2015, driving pricing down by a more traditional 16.8% and reducing annual DRAM revenue growth to 7.7%,” Gartner said.

For the semiconductor industry’s sales for 2015, Gartner said that a total of US$358 billion can be expected, which will be 5.4% up from a year earlier, compared with a 7.9% increase seen in 2014.

“DRAM returns to more traditional price reductions and the industry burns off excess holiday inventory,” Gartner said.

The 5.4% growth also represented a downward revision of a previous estimate of a 5.8% increase Gartner made in the fourth quarter of 2014, the advisory firm said. The firm said that industrial applications and wireless applications, which are mainly driven by mobile phones, are expected to be the biggest growth market for semiconductors in 2015.

In the meantime, Gartner said that the industrial electronics segment could enjoy a 9.1% sales growth in 2015, outperforming the entire semiconductor sector. The advisory firm said that the growth in the industrial electronics segment will largely result from solid demand for LED lighting applications for industrial and residential purposes and smart city projects.

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Tech research firm Gartner said on Jan. 7 that the global tablet market growth will continue to slow down this year.

“The collapse of the tablet market in 2014 was alarming,” said Ranjit Atwal, a research director for Gartner.

Atwal’s remarks were referred to the paltry 4.3% year-on-year increase to 207 units for 2014.

Gartner estimated that global tablet shipments will reach 233 million units in 2015, which will be an 8% increase from last year, when the tablet market saw a steep drop.

Atwal said that global sales for tablets during the past two years were growing in double-digits. The drop, however, can be referred to the lifetime of tablets is being extended, and the lack of innovation in hardware which refrains consumers from upgrading.

“Tablets are shared out amongst family members and software upgrades, especially for iOS devices, keep the tablets current,” Atwal said.

For the mobile phone segment, Gartner said that global mobile phone shipments will continue to grow 3.7% year-on-year to 1.91 billion units in 2015 and reach 1.97 billion units in 2016.

Annette Zimmermann, another research director for Gartner, said that the smartphone market is becoming polarized between the high- and low-end market price points. On one hand, she said, the premium phone with an average selling price at US$447 in 2014 saw growth dominated by iOS, and on the other end of the spectrum you have Android and other open OS phones’ growth area in the basic phone segment, where the average phone costs US$100.

“For the mid-range smartphones, the market opportunity is becoming increasingly limited,” she said.

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Most smartphones will be cheaper than US$100 each by 2020: Gartner

Gartner (NYSE: IT) said on Dec. 11 that 78% of smartphones will cost no more than US$100 by 2020.

Gartner’s latest research and analysis said that by 2018, 78% of the world’s smartphones will be available in developing countries.

The research said that most of smartphone users in these developing countries are attracted to those smartphone models with basic functions, while the development of luxury or top-of-the-line smartphone models has reached to a bottleneck.

Gartner said that the average price of basic smartphones will be between US$25 and US$78 each by 2018. China’s brand names, meanwhile, will grow fast and occupy most of the global market.

EBay to lay off some 1,000 employees

The Wall Street Journal reported on Dec. 10 that eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) may lay off some 1,000 employees sometime early next year.

The newspaper reported that approximately 3,000 eBay employees will be impacted by the shrinking plan, while the company is also planning to make PayPal an individual company. Wall Street Journal reported that most of those who will be laid off belong to eBay.com and StarHub.

EBay spokesman did not either confirm or deny the allegation as of press time.

CGN Power lights up Hong Kong bourse

CGN Power (HKG: 1816) shares leapt a fifth during the company’s Hong Kong debut, as investors bet that China’s attempts to cut its reliance on coal will benefit Chinese nuclear producers.

Despite of Japan’s nuclear disaster in 2011, the Chinese government continued the construction of its 28 nuclear power plants. Nomura analysts gave CGN stock a 12-month price target of HK$4.10 on Dec. 10, saying that its strong capacity growth, rising demand and government support should lift its performance.

Last month, the company stated that it wanted to double its number of plants within five years.

Wintek lays off 7,000 employees of its factory in China

Wintek (TPE: 2384), Taiwan’s touch screen maker, laid off more than 7,000 employees from its Dongguan factory on Dec. 10, as more than 200 Chinese suppliers spent the past week protesting unpaid debts of US$37.25 million as they claimed.

One of the suppliers said that Wintek had closed suddenly and that there was no way to contact the company, as all the Taiwanese mangers had run off.

Wintek reported a loss of US$320.5 million last year, and another US$100 million in the first six months of this year. The company was once a long-term supplier for Apple.

The post Cross-strait News Daily Round-up for Dec. 11 appeared first on VR World.

The days of the grand shift away from tablets to PCs appear to be in their twilight, according to a new report from Gartner.

As the tablet market is now saturated, with market penetration in the 40-to-50% range, consumers are taking a long hard look at making a PC their next purchase.

“The transition from PCs to tablets has faded,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “Positive results in Western Europe and North America can be a sign of gradual recovery for the PC industry.”

Gartner says that worldwide PC shipments reached 79.4 million units in the penultimate quarter of 2014, a 0.5% drop from the same time last year. Kitagawa is also quoted as saying that numbers show “positive results” in the mature markets of Western Europe and North America — signs of a slow but stable recovery in the PC market overall.

“Consumers’ wallets were gradually coming back to PCs, although back to school sales season was not exceptional,” Kitagawa said. “More availability of affordable touch-based laptops, price drops of thin and light laptops, and 2-in-1 hybrid laptops will attract consumers this holiday season.”

Gartner’s numbers show that Lenovo (HKG: 0992) maintains its position as the top PC supplier, with a 19.8% cut of the market while Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ) is in second place with a 17.9%.

You still need to compute

For as much as tablets have their appeal, functionally the devices are quite limited. One can only consume media on them. The devices’ input functionality, however, is handicapped by their very nature of being only for passive consumption. Common tasks such as proper word processing or office work are impossible.

Eventually consumers will have to upgrade their PCs. Windows XP is dead, and Visa is on its way out. Windows 10, a mea culpa for the sins of Windows 8, is coming soon. Many manufacturers have quite compelling options now that make PCs as aesthetically pleasing as Macbooks. PCs remain an important tool for everyone, and a combination of a overdue upgrade cycle and competitive options from manufacturers give users the reason they need to buy a new PC.  

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