By Benjamin Carton, Joannes Mongardini, and Yiqun Li
February 8, 2018
Demand for smartphones is highly cyclical and related to the release of new models (photo: iStock by GettyImages).
Over a decade of spectacular growth, demand for smartphones has created a new global tech cycle that last year produced a new smartphone for every fifth person on earth.
This has created a complex and evolving supply chain across Asia, changing the export and growth performance of several countries. While our recent analysis of Chinese smartphone exports suggests that the global market may be saturated, demand for other electronics continues to support rising semiconductor production in Asia. […]