IC designers look to steady demand from feature phone sector

IC designers look to steady demand from feature phone sectorCage Chao, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Friday 6 July 2012]Despite increasing popularity of smartphones, demand for feature phones still remains steady in China and other emerging markets, and this will help drive revenue growth at Taiwan-based IC design houses in the third quarter of 2012, according to industry sources.

The latest market data shows that global shipments of feature phones posted an unexpected sequential gain in the second quarter of 2012, indicating that demand for feature phones has not been squeezed out completely by the rise of smartphones, commented the sources.

Some Taiwan-based IC design houses have also landed more windfall orders recently, since top-tier handset solution vendors have shifted their focus to the entry-level and mid-range smartphone segment, resulting in a balance in the supply and demand of chipset solutions for feature phones, pointed out the sources.

ILI Technology, a vendor of small- and medium-size LCD driver ICs and touch controller ICs, saw its revenues grow 8.6% on month and 62.2% on year to NT$885 million (US$29.6 million) in June, buoyed by demand from the feature phone sector, the sources indicated.

Driver IC vendor Sitronix Technology is expected to report revenues of NT$460-480 million for June, which will be the company's highest monthly figures for the past 24 months, the sources estimated.

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