The global smartphone market is experiencing a downturn, with the supply chain adopting a cautious approach. Driven by a scarcity of memory chips and a dramatic surge in storage device prices, smartphone production costs have escalated sharply. This has led manufacturers of smartphone chips (System-on-a-Chip, or SoC) to cut back on wafer orders. MediaTek has already scaled down its 4nm wafer orders, and Qualcomm has followed suit by implementing production reductions. Collectively, the two industry giants have decreased their output by 15 to 20 million 4nm smartphone chips, translating to a reduction of 20,000 to 30,000 wafers. This move underscores a significant slowdown in the smartphone sector.
