Smartwatch sales slowed in 2024, but global demand has returned to growth in 2025, and first-quarter 2026 sales are still rising year on year. For consumers worldwide, the shift suggests that AI, health monitoring, and premium upgrades are helping the category resist broader weakness in consumer electronics markets.

Taiwanese lithium-iron phosphate cathode maker Aleees is changing course after winning a major US order, moving away from licensing its technology and toward in-house production. The shift reflects tighter US supply-chain demands, rising demand from energy storage and artificial intelligence data centers, and growing competition among non-Chinese suppliers globally.

Tata Electronics, the Indian contract manufacturer that assembles iPhones and supplies other global technology companies, has confirmed a cybersecurity incident after the extortion group World Leaks published more than 630 gigabytes of data taken from the company’s systems. The cache, posted on the group’s dark-web leak site, contains 204,341 files and folders drawn from Tata Electronics’ internal file servers.

Hanmi Semiconductor has launched FC Bonder 3.5, a new flip-chip bonding tool for AI system semiconductor packaging, as the South Korean equipment maker looks to broaden its advanced packaging business beyond TC bonders for high-bandwidth memory and supply global foundry and OSAT customers, ETNews and Yonhap reported.