​National Day (October 1) was the beginning of Golden Week in China, a week-long holiday known for high travel volumes and commerce saw reduced travel this year due to COVID restrictions, leading to a drop of 18.2% y/y in the number of tourists traveling, and a 39.3% drop y/y relative to pre-pandemic levels (2019).  Consequently domestic tourism revenue also dropped by 26.2% y/y and by 55.8% vs 2019 levels, with ~75% of A-Level tourist attractions open this year.  Chinese cultural centers sponsored 13,940 activities with 59.27m Chinese citizens participating, with the government sponsoring 9,100 “Cultural & Tourism Consumption Promotional Activities in 85 cities, funded by $39.6m in subsidies.
We expect much of the weak showing was a result of the specific restrictions on travel in a number of cities and regions due to the country’s stringent COVID rules, and a general malaise over the weakness in housing prices and the general economy in the country.  While one might expect that restrictions might be eased a bit as the Chinese Communist Party Congress meets later this week, but it seems that local officials see the restrictions as a sign of loyalty to the party and will do almost anything to prevent an outbreak in the near-term, regardless of the economic consequences.  The above travel numbers were the lowest since 2014.

Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) reported preliminary 3Q results of 76 trillion Won ($53.88b US) and operating profit of 10.8 trillion Won ($7.66b US), with sales down 1.6% q/q but up 2.7% y/y while op profit was down 23.4% q/q and down 31.7% y/y .  Both sales and op profit were below consensus of 78.3 trillion Won and 11.86 trillion Won (missed by 2.9% and 8.9% respectively).  Samsung does not provide detail on results until the call on October 27.  That said we expect the weakness in operating profit was the result of weakening demand in Samsung’s memory business, with a bit of positive momentum from Samsung Display, which saw the ramp of display production for the recent Apple (AAPL) iPhone 14 family release.
DRAM Pricing spiked last year, however, as did LCD panel prices, the reduction n COVID infections and the subsequent reductions in mandated sequestering, reduced the demand for PCs, laptops, and monitors.  Server memory remained strong even as consumer memory demand weakened, and DRAM pricing forecasts made early this year, despite being down y/y were somewhat optimistic.  By July however, server demand also began to weaken and 2022 DRAM pricing estimates were revised further downward, as shown in the table below.  As Samsung is the leader in the DRAM market, with a 43.5% share in 2Q, the impact of weaker demand and pricing is a given, with a lesser impact on SK Hynix () and Micron (MU), who have a 27.4% and 24.5% DRAM market share, with the top three accounting for 95.4% of the total market.  More detail after the conference call later this month.

The TV LCD panel market has been in decline for a number of years, a function of a relatively saturated market and more recently weak macro-economic conditions.  That said, on a long-term basis Tv panel prices have been declining, and while those declines are less evident to the consumer, those price declines actually translate into an increase in ’value’, which means the consumer is able to buy ‘more TV’ for their money.  In most cases that translates to larger TVs, or in some cases TVs with more features, higher quality, or higher resolution, which gives some credibility to a flat TV shipment scenario, but less to the decline seen in reality (see Figure 3).  
In the shorter term, especially between mid-year 2020 and mid-year 2021, there was a large spike in TV panel pricing, a function of a modest increase in demand during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and COVID related shortages that pushed panel prices higher as brands were willing to pay up for access to capacity, but as the worst of the pandemic passed, demand for TVs fell back to pre-pandemic levels and more recently to new lows.  As we have noted, panel producers have been facing a dilemma as TV panel prices reach cash costs and potentially material costs.  Do they continue to produce and lose money on every panel or do they cut production?  Either choice is an expensive one, and while panel producers were coming off a few very profitable quarters during the pandemic, profitability can dry up quickly for panel producers unless they are running fabs 24/7 at near capacity. 
Eventually panel producers gave in and began reducing utilization, but this took more than a few months of ‘wishing and hoping’ that saw TV panel prices decline at a pace rarely seen in the industry.  As the TV panel lower utilization rates began to eat through panel inventory, the rate of TV panel price declines has begun to slow (see Figure 5), and we have begun to hear that some Chinese panel producers are thinking about raising prices for certain TV panels. 
Price stability is a strong incentive for any high volume manufacturer, especially ones that have seen component costs rise significantly over the last year, and we understand that panel producers have likely been breaking even or losing money on some production projects in order to keep large customers happy, but perhaps it might be wise not to push buyers into an adversarial position so quickly, making sure that excess inventory has been eliminated and that there is some semblance of demand before increasing prices.
Much of the price talk seems to be rooted around 32” TV panels, essentially the smallest typical TV panel size, and understandably so, given that such panels are currently 10% below pre-pandemic lows and 69.7% below pandemic highs (see Figure 6) and likely a money loser for most TV panel producers, but even the slightest bit of success in raising prices on just these TV panels will begin to justify panel producers raising prices on other TV panel sizes and start the process of choking off the possibility of rescuing a dismal year for the TV industry during the upcoming holiday, that we believe can only be salvaged  with the heavy discounting that might stimulate consumers to buy TVs.
Behind our doubts as to the effectiveness of TV panel price hikes, is the fact that TV set sales during the heart of the pandemic ‘borrowed’ from the 2021 holiday season and  perhaps a bit into this year’s holidays, and a worsening economic environment will do little to stimulate incremental TV set sales this year.  With both of those factors in mind, we  see the potential for any TV panel price increases as a negative that has the potential to extend the low end of this panel cycle further into 2023, and given that the number of panel producers that produce TV panels has declined as Samsung Display (pvt) and LG Display (LPL) eliminate or reduce their LCD large panel capacity, such pricing decisions are more readily falling to Chinese panel producers, such as BOE (200725.CH), Chinastar (pvt), HKC (248.HK), and CHOT (pvt), and while the Chinese LCD panel industry shows a somewhat unified face to the outside world, there is intense competition among the players that could push TV panel prices lower if such increase attempts are rejected by TV set panel buyers.
The panel business is an easily unbalanced ecosystem, known for extremes, and while panel producers are feeling the wake-up hangover after a very big party, counting on ‘the hair of the dog’ to alleviate the pain, has little basis in fact, and drinking more, or in this case raising TV panel prices quickly, will likely only serve to extend the hangover…

​Matter is out!  Matter is a connectivity platform that was developed and is supported by hundreds of CE companies that will allow all devices that are certified by the Matter organization to interoperate.  In theory this would allow smart home devices, most of which operate on proprietary networks and protocols, to essentially control each other, giving consumers the ability to cherry pick products that fit their requirements, rather than have to stay with a particular brand for all.  The standards were officially released yesterday to developers and a number of test labs were authorized to perform the testing necessary to receive Matter certification and trademark.
There are already over 4000 Matter certified products under many product type categories, with some easily recognizable by consumers and others a bit more esoteric.  A few of the more recognizable ones are ‘smart’ plugs, ‘smart’ thermostats, ‘smart’ switch/dimmer, LED bulbs, Motorized curtain & shades, Home hubs, and smoke alarms, while blood pressure monitors, Energy consumption meters, electronic pill counters, and cellular repeaters are less obvious.
The good part of this is that if the standard is successful, you won’t need to have an app or hub to control each brand of smart devices in your house, as, in theory, they should all be able to be controlled from a common platform of your choice, such as Home Pod, Siri, or Alexa, and as should be expected, the standards are being promoted by Apple, Google (GOOG), and Amazon (AMZN), including 28 ‘promoter’ companies, 268 ‘participants’, and 228 adopters.  While the names above have taken the promotional reins for Matter, promoter Samsung Electronics seems to be unusually quiet about the release after recently signing a deal with LG Electronics (066570.KS) and Electrolux (ELUX.SE) to support Samsung’s own “Smart Things’ platform, which opens the question of whether the standard will be adopted across the industry or whether it will be the stepchild of a few CE giants that already have their VA products in your home.  Without a full commitment from almost all of the CE majors, smaller device manufacturers will hesitate to abandon their own proprietary systems, and the smart home market will remain in the mire that has kept it from growing or being useful to a broad segment of the population in the past.
We have been using smart home products since 1978 when the first X-10 smart plugs (produced by BSR[1]) appeared in RadioShack (pvt) stores, and rarely have we found any group of consumer products that are less user friendly than home automation products on a general basis, hence our skepticism about how easily a standard like Matter will be adopted across the CE space to ‘revolutionize’ the ‘smart’ industry.  Aside from the typical years of meetings to iron out the details of the standards, for which we commend the members, there is the problem of convincing both corporate and developmental executives that many of the projects that they have been developing are no longer necessary.  There will be a lot of therapy, workspace counseling, and water cooler (private Zoom more likely) grumbling before both large and small companies are willing to go all in, so our guess is that we will not know the effect of Matter until the 2023 holiday season at the earliest.  We hope it works because it is a pain to have 5 or 6 ‘smart’ apps on a phone and even more of a pain to try to find the remotes for those that are still controlled with such archaic devices.  Still waiting…
 


[1] BSR – Birmingham Sound Reproducers – At one time the holder of an 87% share of the record turntable market.

​Capital funding for display projects tends to come from internal sources, a parent organization such as Samsung Electronics to affiliate Samsung Display (pvt), or TCL (000100.CH) to subsidiary Chinastar (pvt), although in China, under long-term state-level mandates and local government policies to encourage employment, funding for display projects is an integral part of China’s push to build a world class display infrastructure.  In many cases the funding is part of the initial establishment of a project’s corporate structure and represents shared ownership between the panel producer and the provincial or local government, but that funding can continue even after the fab has begun mass production and can represent a portion of the profitability of the fab or the producer overall.
There have been rumors over the last two years that funding for display projects has become more difficult in China as the country has become the leader in the large panel LCD space and, until the middle of last year, was in a cycle that pushed display producers to near 100% utilization and record profits.  That said, the Chinese government was not satisfied with being the leader in the LCD space and also set its sights on OLED display production and even more recently on Mini-LED and Micro-Led production and research projects, with continued funding for new capacity, despite some of the difficulties that Chinese OLED producers have faced relative to OLED process technology, competition from more established OLED producers (Samsung Display and LG Display (LPL)), and the makings of a market that could face oversupply.
As 3Q results for OLED panel producers are not available to date, we expect it will be a more difficult quarter for those that are not in the Apple small panel OLED display supply chain which includes China’s largest OLED producer BOE (200725.CH), along with SDC and LGD, and those subsidies will help to ease the losses that many Chinese small panel OLED producers will be facing in 3Q and potentially 4Q.  One positive is that the subsidies given to Chinese panel producers, whether they are for new capacity or as incremental operating capital, must be disclosed if the company is public, which can help to understand the effect that such subsidies have on operating results.
Visionox (002387.CH) is a Chinese producer of small panel OLED displays.  The company operates three OLED fabs, one Gen 5.5 in Kunshan, and two Gen 6 fabs in Gu’an and Hebei.  Visionox has been producing OLED displays since 2015, although both Gen 6 fabs are relatively new (2021 and 2018 respectively), costing between $4.5b and $6.3b US, with the company’s share of the small panel OLED market ~5% in terms of units shipped.  Visionox has been operating at a net loss for a number of years and in a recent filing disclosed that it has received $55.5m US from the Hebei South Gu’an Hi-Tech Industrial Development District Management Committee since June 2020 and is due to collect another $42.9m in subsequent quarters toward the construction and operation of just one of the company’s Gen 6 fabs.  While the allocation of the subsidy was only 1.7% of operating income in 1Q, based on the remaining amount due, it will continue to support the expansion and continued operation of that fab for many quarters to follow, and this support is dedicated to one specific Visionox fab.
There are lots of ways in which subsidies can be given, both in China and in other countries, with the US favoring large tax rebate incentives while others share construction or similar costs, but aside from the initial capital subsidies that typically create a state or local majority holding in the project, operating subsidies and tax forgiveness seem to continue regardless of the operating results of the entity.  Only recently have we seen public instances where managements were held responsible for a project’s demise in China, with many just continuing to lose money with flowery descriptions of ‘improving’ results and ‘continued progress’ toward profitability.  Of course, other panel producers do give themselves many back-patting sessions, even when profits are scarce, but in Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, panel producers rarely have the ability to rely on subsidies, most of which have expired years ago.  There is always a day of reckoning for panel producers, and the demise of Chunghwa Picture Tube (defunct) in Taiwan, or the closing of Panasonic’s (6752.JP) display business in Japan , but those subsidies can hide a host of business issues that would likely come to light more rapidly in a non-subsidized environment.

​Tech rag headlines over the last two years have been ripe with a constant stream of semiconductor capacity expansion projects across the globe, with the US competing with South Korea, Japan, Europe, China, India, and APAC to offer up the best possible deals to attract major semiconductor fabs to spend a chunk of those trillions of dollars that have been allocated toward increasing global semiconductor capacity.  While the fabs themselves get most of the headlines, there are hundreds of companies that are essential for those fabs or are necessary parts of those industries that feed semiconductor demand.
With the total funding for September reaching $2.9b we looked a bit more closely at who and what was attracting those dollars.  The folks at semiengineering.com were nice enough to put together a list of funding for start-ups that occurred in September, which we parsed a bit to see  what sub-groups received the most and least funding.
There were 105 start-ups funded in September, totaling $2.978b US, although 19 of the 105 did not disclose the funding amount, with the largest category being materials, a space that rarely gets mentioned unless there is a shortage of a particular material or a rapid rise or fall in the price.  Batteries were 2nd in terms of funding which is not a surprise given the focus on EV, and CPU 3rd, also not surprising with AI being mentioned by almost everyone as a way to differentiate their products, regardless of whether its has real relevance.  While AR/VR, an outgrowth of the popularity of using the word ‘metaverse’, saw relatively small funding on a per company basis, it was tied for 3rd with materials for the most number of companies funded.  The full list of 105 companies and the details on each company can be seen here, thanks to semiengineering.com.

Last week we noted that demand for small panel (primarily smartphone applications) rigid OLED displays in 2Q was considerably below expectations (missed by 25.9%), coming in down 19.5% q/q and down 33.2% y/y.  Much of the small panel OLED demand shortfall came from Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and Xiaomi (1810.HK), and has led to expectations for 3Q small panel OLED rigid demand to decline by 25.9% q/q and by 46.5% y/y.  While these are certainly concerning data points, we also noted that small panel rigid OLED displays are an increasingly smaller part of overall small panel OLED displays, falling to 38.6% in 2Q and averaging 40.1% in 1H after 2021’s average of 44.0%, which puts the focus more specifically on small panel flexible OLED displays for a better understanding of demand for the smartphone OLED display market.
Now that we have full demand data for small panel flexible OLED displays, we note that the results for flexible OLED displays in 2Q was only off by 1.9% putting 2Q composite small panel OLED demand 12.85% below expectations, not a great number but certainly better than the rigid miss.  As can be seen in the table below, while both Apple (AAPL) and Vivo (pvt) came in above small panel flexible OLED expectations, Apple represented 49.6% of actual small panel flexible OLED demand in 2Q and was the only brand that saw better than expected results in the composite, with the composite itself being down 13.6% q/q and down 3.4% y/y.

The weak results in 2Q and the ongoing macro challenges facing the smartphone market have brought down expectations for small panel OLED demand in 3Q although there is hope for a relatively small amount of q/q growth (3.4%), as shown in the table below.  While these expectations translate to a decline of 20.3% (composite) on a y/y basis Apple, Honor (pvt) and Huawei (pvt) are expected to see q/q increases, with only Huawei seeing a y/y increase, a result of the extremely poor results Huawei saw in 2021 due to US trade restrictions. 
All in, another weak quarter for smartphones continues to put a damper on small panel OLED growth, despite an increasing share of the overall smartphone market, with Apple the only substantial standout.  As the iPhone 14 series was announced on September 7, much of the 3Q actual results will rest on the new iPhone line’s popularity during the last 15 days of the month, and based on those results, Apple will determine it order rate for 4Q.  In 2020 and 2021 Apple increased orders q/q in 4Q (11.9% and 71.5% respectively) while the y/y increase was less than 1%.  While we expect Apple is optimistic about customer demand for the iPhone 14 series, we assume they will temper that enthusiasm a bit as the macro-economic situation  continues to weigh on consumer spending, which would lead us to expect Apple’s full year small panel OLED demand to be ~200m units, up 9.8% y/y.  Given that almost all of Apple’s iPhone models (old and new) are OLED, this gives a good approximation of Apple’s 2022 display demand, which should translate into shipments, less build and transport timing and existing inventory.

Way back in April of 2019 On Semiconductor (ON) agreed to purchase the Global Foundries (GFS[1]) Fab 10, a fab GF purchased from IBM (IBM) less than four years earlier.  While $100m of the $430m was paid upfront, the balance due will be paid when the deal officially closes at the end of this year.  As ON did not acquire full ownership back in 2019, the two companies reached an agreement where the GF foundry would supply wafer production to ON starting in 2020, while ON was granted rights to GF’s 300mm wafer technology.  When the deal closes ON will produce 300mm wafers for GF through 2025.  As part of the deal Empire State Development provided grants of $17.5m and $22.5m in tax credits toward the purchase that have been and will be paid out over 10 years.
On Semi has offered jobs to what we expect is the 950+ workers directly involved with Fab 10 according to NYS notices, and Global Foundries is expected to offer the remaining ~150 employees employment at the company’s Fab 8 located in Malta, NY.  On Semi has also committed to spending ~$720m over that same 10 year period to enhance the site and hire additional personnel from the region.  While those directly involved in the fab will see little change other than a new name on their paychecks, the GF fab in Malta is ~2 ¼ hours away and would be quite a haul for those that have to make that hike every day.


[1] Global Foundries was formed as part of the AMD divestiture in 2009 and received $1.5b to take over the IBM fabs in Fishkill (Fab 10) and Essex Junction, Vermont (Fab 9).  GF was owned by the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Abu Dhabi until 2021.

Mini-LEDs and their smaller cousins, Micro-LEDs have been and continue to be touted as the ‘display technology of the future’ and while research into the development and commercialization of these types of displays is still in early stages, every once and a while something comes along that we believe is noteworthy enough to lift itself out of the morass of hype and gobbledygook that surrounds pretty much everything in the highly competitive CE space.  Some of this is technical, but an understanding of the technology is essential to understanding why it has the potential to be a game changer for the Micro-LED industry in particular, although we also want to note that the technology described below is just beginning to be scaled up to commercial levels, and while we believe samples are being evaluated by a number of display manufacturers, there has been no acceptance of the technology on a commercial scale.
That said, the company, Porotech (pvt) seems to have solved two particularly difficult problems that face the use of Micro-LEDs in the commercial display market.  The first is that Micro-LEDs, by their very nature, are small, anywhere from 2um to 100um, or from the approximate width of a DNA molecule to the thickness of a human hair, making them difficult to produce and even more difficult to move without damage.  Given that there are 8.29m pixels in a 4K full color display, with each pixel being comprised of thre (Red, green, and blue) sub-pixels, a single 4K Micro-LED display would entail the production and transfer of 24.88m Micro-LEDs.  The industry has been working toward moving away from typical semiconductor pick-and-place techniques for moving Micro-LEDs from the wafers they are produced on to display substrates, but even the most sophisticated processes take time to move that many Micro-LEDs, which equates to high cost.
One factor that helps the transfer process is that both blue and green LEDs can be produced on  the same wafer, speeding up the transfer process, but red Micro-LEDs are produced using a different material base, which means that whatever process is used to pull blue or green die from a wafer, has to stop and load another wafer with red Micro-LEDs in order to complete the full transfer process.  Additionally, the performance of red Micro-LEDs declines more quickly than blue or green as the size of the LEDs decreases, and the necessity to produce displays with ever smaller pixels is a key part of why the display industry is looking for materials that can exceed the limits of current LCD or OLED technology, allowing the high resolution displays needed for realistic AR/VR and other displays.
P{orotech has come up with a way to allow all three Micro-LEDs to be produced on the same wafer by etching ‘pores’ in the wafer material using a relatively simple electro-chemical process that creates ‘nano-pores’ under the surface of the material on which the Micro-LEDs are produced.  This allows he material to absorb the extra Indium atoms that the red Micro-LEDs normally produce which reduce its performance, giving all three colors roughly the same characteristics without a separate wafer process.  As the production and transfer cost savings of being able to produce all three Micro-LEDs on one wafer is substantial and the cost of the wafer pre-processing (pore creation) is low, the concept solves both the red performance problems and lessens the cost of the Micro-LED production and transfer cycle.
By itself- the ability to form all three Micro-LED colors on the same wafer while still maintaining similar characteristics is an accomplishment, but Porotech has taken their technology further and made the process even more simple.  The company has developed what it calls Dynamic Pixel Tuning, a process by which it is able to change the color of a sub-pixel by changing the driver characteristics.  Therefore, in theory, three ‘generic’ sub-pixels could become red, green, or blue sub-pixels by changing the driving characteristics of each, essentially allowing the entire Micro-LED production wafer to be the same LED, making production far simpler and making the necessity of placing individual red, green, and blue sub-pixels in the correct position unnecessary.
But, while each ‘generic’ sub-pixel can now become a red, green or blue emitter, there is still the necessity to balance the color brightness given how the human eye perceives colors, just as OLED pixel patterns have more green area than red or blue, and the idea of a ‘generic’, simple to produce Micro-LED sub-pixels is key to cost reduction.  It seems that Porotech has discovered that by varying another driver characteristic the brightness of each LED can be controlled, giving the system the ability to generate full color Micro-LED displays using a more easily produced single Micro-LED structure that is able to perform the same functions as three separately produced and transferred Micro-LEDs.
There is a catch, and that is the driver circuitry typically used for Micro-LEDs would have to change and would likely be more complex, but given the single Micro-LED structure being used, and the ability to create Micro-LED displays directly on TFT silicon, would allow for ultra-high resolution AR/VR displays that would be far more expensive to produce using current Micro-LED fabrication methods.  Even in larger applications such as TV, the concept of a single Micro-LED structure that can create any of the three primary colors will go a long way toward lowering the cost of the technology.
While what the technology shown here promises is certainly significant, it actually serves an additional function, and one that typically has a very high cost.  When Micro-LEDs are transferred from production wafers to a final substrate, they must be placed precisely to match up with the driver electronics, with the entire transfer process having to be gentle enough not to damage these very small Micro-LEDs.  When looking at the number of Micro-LEDs that need to be transferred for just one 4K display (24.88m), even a five 9’s system would generate 249 non-working Micro-LED sub-pixels, a number that would render an OLED display unusable.  After the transfer process is completed in a typical Micro-LED system, each sub-pixel is tested and the non-operating sub-pixels must be removed and replaced, a process that is infinitely more expensive than the transfer itself.
There are some who propose placing a 2nd blank sub-pixel next to each active one that can be used if the original pixel is found to be damaged, but that would double the number of red, green, and blue Micro-LEDs that need to be created and transferred into position for each display, also doubling the cost and TACT time.  Given the ‘generic’ characteristics of the Porotech Micro-LED, the cost of such a ‘double’ system would be considerably lower both at the production level and at the transfer level, making it a more viable alternative to the ‘remove and replace’ techniques that are used today.
So, the technology that this little company has developed seems to have solved a number of issues that are plaguing the rapid commercialization of Micro-LEDs, and while the technology is just getting to the pre-scale stage, it seems to have considerable promise as to moving the world of Micro-LEDs along a bit faster than one might have thought.  As with all new technology and processes, there is no guarantee that the Porotech technology can scale or actually be practical enough for move to mass production at a cost that is lower than existing Micro-LED technologies, but at least on the surface, it seems to have considerable promise and is therefore worth a continued look.
Please note we have no connection to Porotech or any of the company’s officers or staff and have not discussed this note with the company or anyone associated with Porotech in any way.  We have not received compensation in regards to this note from the company or any other sponsoring party and have no financial stake in the company or any invested entities.
​

​In our 05/02/22 note we indicated that despite Xiaomi (1810. HK) being the best-selling smartphone on the subcontinent only a month before, the government of India decided to freeze the company’s assets, continuing an investigation that accused the company of transferring large amounts of capital out of the country under the guise of 'royalty payments’ that violated Indian statutes.  The government alleged that since 2015 Xiaomi had been using this method to move what was alleged to be over $680m, with the implication that company employees had given misleading information to local banks in order to exact the transactions.
It seems that Xiaomi’s appeal fell on deaf ears as the Appeals Court agreed with the earlier decision and confirmed the legality of the seizure of $682m in Xiaomi assets, of which ~84% is said to be royalty payment to be made to Qualcomm (QCOM), with both companies supporting each other in that they agree that a legal agreement to license Qualcomm’s IP was the ultimate end for the capital transferred, with Xiaomi adding, “We will continue to use all means to protect the reputation and interests of the company and our stakeholders,” although it is going to be a difficult task considering India has also accused and fined a number of other Chinese smartphone brands over violations said to have been made in recent years.
Under the more obvious alleged violations, there has been considerable bad vlood between China and India over border conflicts that began in 2020 when conflicts over a road being built by Indian workers was said to cross into disputed land between the two countries.  Since then India has been closely watching for incursions by Chinese military, and has taken a very aggressive stance toward Chinese smartphone brands, we believe partly as a  a public face toward Chinese aggression, but also as a way to lessen the dominance that Chinese smartphone brands have in India, in order to give Indian brands a helping hand.  While whether the allegations against Xiaomi, Oppo (pvt) and other Chinese smartphone brands are legitimate or not, the conflict does not help India’s programs to encourage display and semiconductor companies to build actual production facilities on the sub-continent, especially given the history of the Indian government’s incentive programs, which have come and gone a number of times as administrations changed.  Not quite biting the hand that feeds you, but maybe nipping at the fingers…