Taiwan handset makers originally expected to continue receiving orders for Lumia series products from Microsoft Mobile and also acquire new orders from Amazon and Facebook in 2014, but according to the latest upstream information acquired by Digitimes Research, Taiwan makers were not able to land orders from Amazon and Facebook as expected, and may even see their orders for Lumia-branded Windows Phones decrease.
From the fourth quarter of 2013 to the first half of 2014, Compal Electronics and FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of the Foxconn Group, had both been talking with Amazon about cooperation and also received requests for quotation (RFQ) from the vendor.
After more than half a year of negotiations, and Amazon even released its in-house designed Fire Phone, Amazon has not yet fully established its smartphone outsourcing plans, causing Compal and FIH Mobile to fail to land Amazon's smartphone ODM orders in 2014 as expected.
In the second half of 2013, Facebook started cooperating with Compal Communications, which was still an independent company at the time, to outsource smartphone ODM orders. After Compal's merger with Compal Communications in the first half of 2014, and having shipped several thousands of entry-level Android smartphones to Facebook, Compal's cooperation with Facebook ended and the two firms have not had any other cooperation so far.
As for Nokia's smartphone department, which was acquired by Microsoft and is now Microsoft Mobile, Taiwan's smartphone makers originally expected the vendor, which has support from Microsoft's enormous resources, to expand its ODM orders for Lumia series Windows Phone in 2014, but instead the vendor has been cutting Taiwan makers' ODM orders since the third quarter of 2014, fully terminating smartphone and tablet projects that have not yet entered mass production, as it has turned to focus on business reorganization and cost reductions.
Digitimes Research believes Taiwan smartphone makers' ODM orders from Microsoft Mobile, Facebook and Amazon will need to wait until the second quarter of 2015 or even the second half of 2015 to have a chance to see improvements.