The Q1 smartphone market grew 7.8% q-o-q to 289.4 million units, says IDC. It was the third consecutive quarter of market growth,

Notes:

? Data are preliminary and subject to change.

• Company shipments are branded device shipments and exclude OEM sales for all vendors.
• The “Company” represents the current parent company (or holding company) for all brands owned and operated as a subsidiary.
• Figures represent new shipments only and exclude refurbished units.

2023  sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment fell  1.3% to $106.3 billion from 2022’s   record $107.6 billion, says SEMI.

China was the biggest market, growing 29% y-o-y to $36.6 billion, followed by Korea which fell 7% to $19.9 billion and Taiwan which fell 27% to $19.6 billion.

The US market rose 15%, the EU fell 3%, Japan fell 5% and RoW fell 39%.

“Despite a slight dip in global equipment sales, the semiconductor industry continues to show strength, with strategic investments fueling growths in key regions,” says SEMI CEO Ajit Manocha, “the  overall results for the year were better than anticipated by most industry followers.”

Wafer processing equipment sales rose 1%, other front-end segment billings increased by 10%, assembly and packaging equipment  fell 30% and test equipment fell 17%.

TSMC had Q1 revenue up 16.5% y-o-y at $18.54 billion up from $16.72 billion Q1 2023.

For March, TSMC had revenues that were  34.3% up y-o-y and 7.5% up m-o-m at $6.2 billion.

It was the biggest m-o-m rise since November 2022.

After two years of decline, the worldwide traditional PC market returned to growth during the first quarter of 2024 (1Q24) with 59.8 million shipments, growing 1.5% year over year, according to  IDC

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In Q1 2024, global PC shipments finally returned to pre-pandemic levels as volumes rivaled those seen in 1Q19 when 60.5 million units were shipped.

With inflation numbers trending down, PC shipments have begun to recover in most regions, leading to growth in the Americas as well as Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). However, the deflationary pressures in China directly impacted the global PC market.

As the largest consumer of desktop PCs, weak demand in China led to yet another quarter of declines for global desktop shipments, which already faced pressure from notebooks as the preferred form factor.

“Despite China’s struggles, the recovery is expected to continue in 2024 as newer AI PCs hit shelves later this year and as commercial buyers begin refreshing the PCs that were purchased during the pandemic,” says IDC’s Jitesh Ubrani.

Among the top 5 companies, Lenovo once again held the top spot and outgrew the market largely due to the steep decline in shipments experienced in 1Q23.

Apple’s strong growth was also due to an outsized decline in the prior year.

Notes:

* IDC declares a statistical tie in the Personal Computing Device market when there is a difference of one tenth of one percent (0.1%) or less in the shipment shares among two or more vendors.

• Traditional PCs include Desktops, Notebooks, and Workstations and do not include Tablets or x86 Servers. Detachable Tablets and Slate Tablets are part of the Personal Computing Device Tracker but are not addressed in this press release.
• Shipments include shipments to distribution channels or end users. OEM sales are counted under the company/brand under which they are sold.

Earlier today, TSMC evacuated some of its fabs in Taiwan after an earthquake and is evaluating the loss of production.

“TSMC’s safety systems are operating normally,” says the company, “to ensure the safety of personnel, some fabs were evacuated according to company procedure. We are currently confirming the details of the impact.”

TSMC said construction sites were normal upon initial inspection, but the company decided to suspend work at the sites for the day.

Staff evacuated from some plants have started to return to work.

The earthquake measured 7.4 on the Richter Scale – the worst quake Taiwan has suffered for 25 years.