Taiwan's three leading smartphone manufacturers Asus, HTC, and Acer are all unable to meet sales targets for 2016.

Asus expects to ship 20 million smartphones in 2016, which is lower than its sales target of 25 million units. The main reason for its unsatisfactory sales performance is attributed to its weak smartphone sales in mainland China, America, and Europe. Moreover, the shipment delay of its ZenFone 3 also affected the sales.

HTC faced a similar situation as Asus. The company shipped 18 million smartphones in 2015 and lost its title of "largest smartphone maker in Taiwan" to Asus. In 2016, HTC's smartphone shipment expects to be between 10 million and 12 million units. HTC's smartphones sales saw a rapid decline in mainland China, America, and Europe.

As for Acer, industry watchers predicted that its smartphone shipments will be less than five million in 2016, which is not yet half of its 10 million unit target.

Higher saturation, lower priced phones, and shrinking margins have all contributed to the overall malaise within the industry too.