Global smartphone application processor (AP) shipments are expected to come to 1.114 billion units in 2023, down 11.8% on year, mainly due to declining smartphone shipments and slow AP inventory depletion.
Application processor (AP) shipments to China-based smartphone vendors amounted to 137 million units in the fourth quarter of 2022, down 24% sequentially and 20.3% on year, and will experience another double-digit decline in the first quarter of 2023.
Shipments of application processors (APs) used in smartphones released by China-based brands went up 10.2% sequentially, but down 19.4% on year to reach 199.5 million units in the third quarter of 2022.
Soaring silicon carbide (SiC) demand from electric vehicles (EV) is leading to a tight supply of 6-inch SiC wafers, of which the cost will unlikely go down.
According to Digitimes Research's surveys and analyses, second-quarter 2022 smartphone application processor (AP) shipments to China-based vendors amounted to 181 million units, increasing 1.7% from the prior quarter but decreasing 17.1% from the prior year mainly due to China's weakening economy as well as the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and rising inflation continuingly taking a toll on consumer spending.
According to Digitimes Research's surveys and analyses, first-quarter 2022 smartphone application processor (AP) shipments to China-based vendors amounted to 178 million units, increasing 4% from the prior quarter but decreasing 16% from the prior year as Xiaomi, Oppo and Transsion ramped up inventory with their efforts to expand into Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America generating results.
Silicon (Si) semiconductor with widespread use is close to reaching the physical limits of Moore's Law and is thus being replaced by wide bandgap semiconductors of third-generation semiconductors in a growing number of applications.
Fourth-quarter 2021 smartphone AP shipments to China-based vendors amounted to 171.2 million units, plunging 30.8% from the prior quarter mainly as China-based vendors faced the situation where some components were in worse shortage than the others, on top of weak 5G phone demand and a mismatch between AP supply and demand.
