The global sales of Android-based smartphones have been a disappointment affecting negatively the performance of Taiwan-based IC design houses, according to industry sources.
Particularly in China's smartphone market, the share of Android phones has shrunk due to increased popularity of Apple's iPhones, said the sources.
The share of Android phones in China's smartphone market is likely to fall further in 2016, the sources indicated. Taiwan-based IC design houses engaged in the supply chain of Android phones are aware of a potential cutback in orders from their Android handset customers, the sources said.
Meanwhile, intense competition among non-Apple brand vendors is expected to further drop average selling prices for Android phones in 2016, the sources noted. All these negative factors could bring uncontrollable variables to companies including MediaTek, Novatek and Realtek in their revenue and gross margin performance next year, the sources said.
