Chi Mei Communication Systems (CMCS) saw a significant increase in handset shipments in first-quarter 2014, because of Nokia's joint design manufacturing (JDM) orders for feature phones, while Compal Communications also achieved sequential shipment growth. Only Arima Communications suffered a slight drop.
Overall handset ODM shipments from Taiwan makers grew sequentially.
HTC's own-brand handset shipments continued to drop in the first quarter since its mainstream handsets had already been on the market for quite a while and demand for its new mid-range models launched at the end of fourth-quarter 2013 and first-quarter 2014 was weaker than expected.
With ODMs' shipment growth almost offseting the drop in own-brand shipment s, Taiwan's overall handset shipments in the first quarter declined only 1.6% on quarter, but on an annual basis, they rose 40%, figures collected by Digitimes Research show.
As for smartphones alone, Taiwan's ODM shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonality. Moreover, HTC's new own-brand flagship model was not unveiled until the end of the first quarter. As a result, Taiwan's smartphone shipments decreased 16.8% sequentially in the first quarter.