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keyword：Jason Tsai，
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2018/01/08
TrendForce reveals that global shipments of VR devices reached 37 million units in 2017 In terms of shipments ranking, Sony took first place, followed by Oculus Rift in second and HTC Vive in third As for 2018, TrendForce estimates that the shipments will come to 5 million units
“Thanks to PS 4 Pro’s strong sales and support from third-party developers, Sony PS VR recorded a shipment of 17 million units, accounting for the largest market share in 2017,” says Jason Tsai, analyst of TrendForce Oculus Rift and HTC Vive shipped 700,000 and 500,000 units respectively Another product, Windows Mixed Reality headset jointly launched by Microsoft and its partners Acer, Dell, Lenovo, etc, recorded a shipment of around 300,000 units in 2017
In terms of VR devices shipments for 2018, PS VR is expected to record annual shipments of 2 million backed by Sony’s rich resources in game console industry Oculus and HTC will launch new models, raising their shipments to 1 million and 600,000 units respectively, according to TrendForce’s estimation
According to Tsai, the demand for VR devices in 2016 mainly came from the novelty of new products, but the shipments growth slowed down in 2017 Currently, the niche commercial market for VR demands customization, while the consumer market for VR focuses on gaming and entertainment However, currently, there is insufficient VR game content available, which is the biggest obstacle for VR market development
This obstacle drives VR manufacturers to adjust their business goals in 2018 Tsai notes that, facing slowing market growth, VR device makers are now looking at standalone VR headsets to accelerate the market growth and to stimulate the demand Standalone VR devices are mainly used for social media, audio/video and internet services which target at general consumers For instance, Google and Facebook are now actively developing standalone VR devices, HTC has also launched Vive Focus, a new standalone device, while searching for more content providers via its platform of Vive Wave
Standalone VR devices can meet the needs of general consumers, however, consumer acceptance of these products will be the key to market growth In addition, the development of standalone VR devices is faced with potential technical challenges, including extra components such as chips, enhancement of inside-out tracking technology, improvement of battery life and heat dissipation design, etc To sum up, standalone VR devices will be the market focus in 2018, but the overall VR market will remain in the early stage of development, so the shipments will not have substantial growth until 2020
2017/09/25
The US International Commission (ITC) announced on September 22 (local time) that it has accepted Suniva’s petition to seek relief against all solar imports under Section 201 of the 1974 Trade Act Following the affirmation of Suniva’s claim, ITC will develop recommendations to safeguard the US solar market against imports from Asia EnergyTrend, TrendForce’s green energy research division, states that ITC’s ruling is expected to raise the solar trade barrier significantly and may slash the US photovoltaic (PV) demand for the whole 2018 by half
The US-based PV cell maker Suniva filed the Section 201 petition to ITC this April soon after the company declared bankruptcy According to the petition, Suniva wants the US government to severely restrict cell and module imports, regardless of where they are from, over a four-year period In the first year, Suniva wants a tariff of US$040/W per cell with a minimum import price of US$078 per module ITC formally received Suniva’s petition on May 17 and began to investigate on effects of cell imports have on the domestic solar industry
According to ITC, module imports has constituted serious injury on the domestic solar industry, so a policy remedy need to be developed in line with Section 201 of the 1974 Trade Act After announcing the go-ahead with the trade safeguard, ITC has scheduled a remedy hearing on October 3 to determine what concrete actions should be taken against solar imports Following that, the ITC will deliver its recommendation report to President Trump no later than November 13 The White House will announce whether to carry out ITC’s recommendations within 60 days (before January 12, 2018)
With ITC finding that imported modules as causing serious injury, EnergyTrend analyst Jason Tsai pointed out that the follow-up trade barrier (eg tariff rates) will be based on the price differences between domestic modules and foreign modules Another possibility the establishment of minimum import prices for cells and modules that takes account of the average production costs of US cell and module makers
“US domestic solar companies make numerous high-efficiency products,” noted Tsai “If ITC chooses not to differentiate tariff rates or import prices based on product types, then there is a strong likelihood that the trade barrier it recommends will be closer to the demands in Suniva’s petition”
ITC has also specifically investigate module exporting countries that have signed free trade agreements with the US (eg Canada, Mexico, South Korea and Singapore) Among these countries, only South Korea and Mexico are deemed to have caused injuries to the domestic industry NAFTA members (with the exception of Mexico), CAFTA-DR members and other countries that have agreements with the US (eg Singapore, Columbia, Jordan, Panama and Peru) are exempted from the global safeguard Still, South Korea and Mexico may receive a milder form of trade barrier because their special trade relationships with the US The degrees of restriction that respective module exporting countries will face will be further revealed during the October 3, when the ITC clarifies its remedy policy
While ITC has decided to enact the Section 201 safeguard, there still no news about mandated deposits for solar imports Some US solar companies with the help of their overseas suppliers will stock up aggressively during this immediate period However, most US solar companies will wait until after the October 3 remedy hearing before stepping up their stock-up efforts
“The deposit policy will probably be announced after the ITC has sent its recommendation report to the Trump administration,” said Tsai “Until then, module makers still have limited time to make shipments to the US and help local companies there build up their inventories This is especially true for module makers that are highly dependent on exporting to the US, such as those based in South Korea and Southeast Asia”
EnergyTrend’s analysis on customs data has found that US imported around 5GW of PV modules from the start of this May to the end of this August Currently, it would take about six months (two quarterly periods) to exhaust the total module inventory in the US for the entire 2017 Furthermore, module makers will not see tangible trade barrier related to the Section 201 safeguard from September 23 to November 13 This period presents an opportunity for them to export to the US Taking all these factors into consideration, EnergyTrend projects the overall module inventory in US will finally be exhausted in the second quarter of 2018 Only by then will the next large wave of demand for module imports start to emerge
Because much of the solar imports into the US consists of low-price modules for utility-scale ground-mounted PV plants, the high trade barrier indicated by the latest ITC ruling will sharply reduce the demand for these products If the trade barrier related to the Section 201 safeguard is extremely high, then the costs of modules in the US will soar In such a scenario, the US PV demand for the entire 2018 is forecast to plummet to 55GW The chance of recovery will have to wait until 2019
By that time, the government may adjust the measures related to the Section 201 safeguard, or the domestic production capacity for cells and modules may have expanded during this period of import relief
2017/09/11
Major technology companies have been developing solutions and platforms for 3D sensing, which is expected to be featured on the upcoming iPhone devices Market intelligence TrendForce anticipates that from 2017 onward, the market for 3D sensing solutions used in mobile devices will witness leaping growth The total value of the global market for 3D sensing modules used in mobile devices is estimated to reach US$15 billion in 2017 and is forecast to grow at a massive CAGR of 209% to around US$14 billion in 2020 Note that the 3D sensing module that is being discussed includes IR transmitter and receiver components
Some of the 3D sensing solutions that are now available on the market include Intel’s RealSense, Google’s Tango and the REAL3 Image Sensor family jointly developed by Infineon and PMD Technologies More recently, Qualcomm and another fabless semiconductor company Himax also announced that they will be combining their 3D sensing technologies as to accelerate their entry into associated application markets The activities from these solution developers are also driving the demand for related hardware, benefitting component suppliers such as AMS, Heptagon and Lumentum
Microsoft was one of the early adopters of 3D sensing Its Surface Pro 4, which was released in 2015, carried a 3D sensing module Since then, brands such as Google, Lenovo and ASUS have also launched smartphones featuring 3D sensing as to gauge the market for related mobile applications
TrendForce analyst Jason Tsai noted that the strong likelihood of Apple adding the 3D sensing feature into its 10th anniversary iPhone refresh means that the market for 3D sensing hardware will expand at an accelerated pace “Based on an analysis model that includes iPhone-driven demand, the global market for 3D sensing modules used in mobile devices is projected to register a spectacular annual growth rate of 703% in the total value for 2017,” said Tsai
The arrival of iPhone devices with 3D sensing would generate significant interests in the related hardware from Samsung, Huawei and other smartphone brands “Over the next two to three years, the third-party software developers will produce more mobile apps that require the 3D sensing function,” Tsai pointed out “As 3D sensing apps mature, smartphone makers will also accelerate the incorporation of related hardware into their mainstream offerings TrendForce therefore expects another demand surge in the mobile 3D sensing market in 2019”
Tsai added that the 3D sensing feature on smartphones is currently used mainly for tasks that involve facial recognition of the user, such as unlocking the device and mobile payment The market growth momentum for 3D sensing hardware will depend on component suppliers and smartphone makers finding low-cost, useful and wide-ranging applications “From the perspective of smartphone makers, the development of third-party apps will be influential to raising the overall price-performance ratio of 3D sensing modules,” said Tsai
2017/08/17
The latest PV market analysis from EnergyTrend, a division of TrendForce, finds that the average global spot price of polysilicon has surged by 20% between the end of July and the middle of August The polysilicon supply has tightened up suddenly because the leading supplier in China had to do an emergency repair at one of its factories This added to the pressure on the supply caused by annual plant maintenance works carried out by other suppliers
The squeeze on the polysilicon supply will start to loosen in the middle of September, when the US market awaits for the preliminary decision by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) on Suniva’s petition However, some polysilicon suppliers have plant maintenance tasks scheduled into the third quarter Therefore, the overall available polysilicon stock will still be quite limited TrendForce anticipates polysilicon prices to drop again in September, but the average spot price in China is not expected to go under RMB 135 per kilogram
“This drastic decrease in polysilicon supply is just too great and will have an impact across the PV supply chain,” said EnergyTrend analyst Jason Tsai “A large portion of the current polysilicon demand that was arranged earlier by the downstream markets will not be met even if polysilicon supplier have released their emergency reserves and buyers scoured the market Spot prices of multi-Si wafers have also jumped since the shortage of polysilicon limited their supply”
Furthermore, PV cell suppliers based in Taiwan or have factories in third-party countries are now dealing with an influx of orders, as August is the peak demand period in the US and Europe To keep up shipments, they will have to bear the polysilicon cost increase that the wafer suppliers have passed on to them in the form higher wafer prices Small-and medium-size PV cell suppliers in China do not have a lot of orders from foreign markets, so they can lower their capacity utilization rates to moderate the effect of rising polysilicon cost On the whole, the upstream sections of the PV supply chain are beginning to reap a greater share of the profit margin
On the demand side, US solar companies have pulled PV module orders ahead so that products will enter the US before the ITC announces its preliminary ruling on Suniva’s petition on September 22 Both module exporters and importers want to minimize the risk of paying cash deposits for duties that may be imposed following the September ruling Thus, module shipments by sea must leave their departing ports no later than in the latter half of August
With most deliveries made before September, the effect of Suniva’s petition on the demand across the supply chain will be less significant Hence, there is a strong chance that demand and prices along the multi-Si product chain will start to fall during September Prices and demand for mono-Si products on the other hand will be driven by China’s Top Runner Program in the same period Since the grid-connection deadline for solar projects under the Top Runner Program is September 30, the mono-Si demand is expected to peak in the near term on account of the installation rush Polysilicon prices will be supported by the tight supply and the demand from the mono-Si market
2017/07/14
The US has further lowered the antidumping and countervailing (AD/CVD) rates imposed on Chinese and Taiwanese solar imports in 2012 and 2014, according official statements on the recent AD/CVD reviews conducted by the US Department of Commerce Many PV cells and module manufacturers have managed to evade US trade barriers by setting up factories in third-party countries, majority of them in Southeast Asia However, TrendForce’s green energy division EnergyTrend believes that the reduction of AD/CVD rates will have an impact on the global market this third quarter
Module orders from the US have grown significantly since the second quarter of 2017, as Suniva’s petition to the US International Trade Commission for relief against solar imports (under Section 201 of the 1974 Trade Act) has increased uncertainties and risks in the market Although the overall production capacity in third-party countries has expanded, it is still insufficient to meet the surging demand With prices of non-Chinese cells and modules rising, US and European buyers in the downstream of the supply chain are considering different sources and options
The US government has treated the 2012 and 2014 AD/CVD review as five separate cases The table below shows their current statuses Note that information and rate calculations are based on various official announcements from government agencies in the US, China and Taiwan
EnergyTrend analyst Jason Tsai pointed out that PV product manufacturers have evaded or minimized the costs resulted from the US trade barriers by first utilizing their production capacities in third-party countries, where the AD/CVD rates are zero If they assemble modules in these countries but use Taiwanese cells, their modules are going to be hit with rates ranging from 356% to 42% If they resort to using facilities in China or Taiwan for both cell and module production, then AC/CVD rates for these products will be the range of 218% to 3137%
Before the results of the latest AD/CVD reviews were announced, Taiwanese cell suppliers had been hit with AD rates ranging from 1145% to 2755% The barrier to the US market was extremely high for Taiwanese products compared with products made in countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia
The US investigation of Suniva’s petition, on the other hand, has created a demand surge that cannot be met by just relying on factories in the third-party countries The deployment of Taiwanese cells in non-Chinese modules has kept prices from rising sharply The amount of orders from the US and Europe will determine whether this practice will continue to keep module prices stable However, some module orders have even gone to India and Turkey, which are not traditional sources for non-Chinese module imports With the outcome of Suniva’s petition unresolved, Taiwanese cell suppliers can expect an increase in sales volumes and prices this third quarter
Despite the additional cost resulted from AD/CVD, China-based solar companies have been able to maintain sufficient profit margins in the US, where the average prices of multi-Si and mono-Si PERC modules have now reached US$038 and US$046 per watt respectively Prices could still go up in the US sometime near the end of September Therefore, Chinese manufacturers may consider expanding their US-bound exports during the off season of August By doing this, they could capture more market share, raise utilization of their domestic production capacities and ease the price decline for modules in their home market If there is an influx Chinese products in the US market, the price upswing related to the risks of Suniva’s petition could moderate, with the average price of multi-Si modules estimated to reach the upper limit of US$041 per watt
