Smartphone application processor (AP) shipments to China vendors in fourth-quarter 2018 declined 10% on quarter with system manufacturers adjusting shipment targets downward. As system manufacturers adjusted shipment targets downward by an average of more than 10%, some even by 20%, Digitimes Research expects they will become even more conservative in shipment ramp-up and will adjust inventory levels in first-quarter 2019, resulting in a drop of 25.7% in shipments on quarter.Although the China and global smartphone markets both experienced declines in shipments in 2018, China-based vendors gained ground in overseas markets, with smartphone AP shipments to them growing. A total of 800 million smartphone processors were shipped to China vendors in 2018, up 7.5% on year.With weak demand in their domestic market, China-based vendors including Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and BBK all exerted efforts toward overseas markets in 2018. Despite the impact from rising US-China trade tension, their efforts generated results in India and Eastern Europe. This was the major growth driver hoisting smartphone AP shipments to China, with Huawei making the most contribution, which directly benefited Hisilicon.Market focus will return to the China and India markets in 2019. The smartphone market will see fiercer price and spec competitions in the under CNY1,500 (US$222.84) price range and cost-effectiveness of smartphone AP will play a crucial role influencing the competition.According to Digitimes Research's observation, the penetration of artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators among smartphones (excluding the Apple iPhones) in China dipped temporarily in fourth-quarter 2018 as AI accelerators would add to AP manufacturing costs and selling prices but their applications on end devices had yet to bring significant benefits to consumers, affecting vendors' willingness to adopt AI accelerators. However, the penetration will likely rebound in first-quarter 2019. As to process technologies, there was an obvious transition with the ratio of the 28nm node continuing declining and the 7nm node growing significantly.With governments and system manufacturers around the world actively engaging in 5G development, the market can expect to see phones with Qualcomm's 5G modem chips in first-quarter 2019, according to Digitimes Research's latest quarterly report about China's smartphone AP shipments.
Taiwan startup Osense Technology has launched a smart baseball stadium app integrating all related O2O (online to offline) services, which can be simultaneously utilized by a large audience with the assistance of fast 5G transmission.The app can offer a variety of services needed by fans visiting baseball stadiums, including transportation routes, parking information, lavatory locations, seat locations, souvenir and dining services, stadium facilities, game schedules, and updates on baseball teams, among others.The app can also offer customized information about any specific stadium or baseball team.Moreover, the app also incorporates the AR interaction element to allow users to access instant 3D data concerning performance of any specific baseball player, or to instantly replay video clips.LW Feng, the firm's strategy manager, said that traffic of thousands of users needs the support of 5G high-speed transmission technology to transmit AR and high-definition images.Feng said the app will soon be available for use by baseball fans.
Taiwan-based Asia Pacific Telecom (APTG) has diclosed its 5G accelerator program is incubating 15 startups developing innovative services covering application of smart city solutions and AI, IoT technologies, gaming and entertainment, AR/VR, traffic monitoring and retail operation.APTG is the first mobile telecom carrier to obtain a permission from National Communications Commission (NCC) to set up a 5G experimental network in Taipei City in June 2018. For the network, APTG obtained an operating license from NCC for outdoor NR (new radio) base stations in late November 2018.APTG has set up the 5G accelerator program with support from the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) and has selected 15 startups from about 300 applicants in Taiwan and abroad - seven being local teams and eight from overseas including Singapore and Indonesia.
Worldwide notebook shipments are forecast to decrease only 12.9% sequentially in the first quarter of 2019 as vendors are still seeing some unfulfilled demand created by the CPU shortages. The CPU shortage gap is also expected to shrink to below one million units in the low season.The shipments slipped 0.3% sequentially and 3% on year in the fourth quarter of 2018, Digitimes Research's number showed.Hewlett-Packard's (HP) shipments are expected to decline dramatically in the first quarter of 2019 as the company had prepared extra inventory during the previous quarter to brace for the possible impacts from US-China trade tensions and CPU shortages. Lenovo also has seen weak results in the first quarter due to the trade tensions and fierce competition from Huawei and Xiaomi in its home market.Dell will see the smallest sequential decline among the top-tier vendors in the first quarter as the enterprise sector, the vendor's main market, is usually less affected by seasonality. Apple will see better performance than that of the same period a year ago in first-quarter 2019, thanks to strong demand for its new MacBook Air.Asustek will see a sharp sequential drop in first-quarter shipments due to its business reorganization.As for Taiwan-based ODMs, Compal Electronics and Wistron will see their shipment shares rise in the first quarter of 2019 due to increases in orders from Dell.
Because of Intel CPU shortages and the US-China trade tensions, worldwide all-in-one (AIO) PC shipments in 2018 slipped slightly from a year ago, according to Digitimes Research.As the uncertainties created by the trade tensions are unlikely to dissipate anytime soon, most AIO PC vendors have become conservative about their shipments in 2019 with Digitimes Research expecting overall AIO PC shipments in 2019 to stay at about the same level as that in 2018.Of the worldwide top-4 AIO PC brands (Lenovo, Apple, HP and Dell), Dell had the strongest shipment growth in 2018.Dell's AIO PC shipments are expected to continue enjoying a slight increase in 2019 as the company will continue aggressively pushing shipments, while Micro-Star International (MSI) will have the strongest shipment growth in the year thanks to the contribution from its gaming models.On the manufacturing front, the third-place maker Compal Electronics and fourth-place Pegatron both enjoyed shipment growths in 2018, narrowing the between them and the top-2, Quanta Computer and Wistron. For 2019, the top-3 makers will all see on-year shipment declines.
Shadoworks Studio, founded in 2016 to develop VR and AR solutions, will focus its business on education, entertainment and industry applications in 2019, according to company chairman Andy Peng.In terms of education, such segments as cultural experience and simulation experience are what Shadoworks is actively tapping into, Peng said, adding that his company has teamed up with many education units promoting VR experiences.He continued that entertainment will be a sector seeing quieter development in 2019, and only a few top players among over 1,000 developers of entertainment VR solutions and games can manage to maintain profitable operations in the year.Based on his observation about the AR market, Peng said, AR mobile games have experienced constant quality upgrades, but it will take some more time for the industry to develop its market scale.Peng continued that one of the problems that need to be addressed is that the hardware battery life can hardly support high power consumption of software systems. He said that a handset's battery power will run out quickly if it is used to run AR games, and parents usually will not allow their children to play such games, which may affect the development of the AR mobile game sector.Shadoworks Studio chairman Andy PengPhoto: Mark Tsai, Digitimes, February 2019
Taiwan received 11 million visitors in 2018 and the number of tourism businesses has grown 21% over the past three years, indicating tourism in Taiwan is booming. With do-it-yourself trips quickly taking over guided tours to become the mainstream, traveler behavior is changing and travel experiences are being reshaped. This has prompted more and more tourism and hospitality companies to engage in new ways of conducting business and come up with new ideas on how to help travelers gain access to information faster and easier.Yung-Hui Chou, director-general, Tourism Bureau, comments that as the government agency in charge, the bureau is looking to help tourism and hospitality businesses upgrade and leverage Taiwan's technological strength to promote smart travel. "When data undergoes analysis, it becomes more useful and valuable," says Chou.Raising the bar on transportation services for travelersInnovative technologies have reshaped how people travel. According to Chou, transportation services are the lines that connect the dots on people's journey. Transportation services can encompass the collection of pre-travel information, transfers between modes of transport during travel, gathering of traveler feedback and analysis of tourism hotspots after travel. Whether and how such transportation information is made available, used and analyzed plays an influential role on people's travel experience. However, transportation has not fully engaged with tourism until now. The Tourism Bureau is taking the initiative to consolidate the information and present it in eight different languages on the itravel website. By providing information on travel, transportation, tourist attractions, gourmet food among others in the form of webpages, which travelers can easily browse without having to download apps to their smartphones, the Tourism Bureau hopes to enable a smoother and more enjoyable travel experience.The Tourism Bureau also endeavors to leverage technologies to raise traveler satisfaction. First of all, to resolve traffic and overcrowding issues at major events such as the Lantern Festival, parades and New Year's Eve celebrations, it is working with Chunghwa Telecom to gain access to the actual amount of people flow by tracking cellular signaling data as well as traffic flow information from the Directorate General of Highways. The Tourism Bureau looks to use push notifications to inform travelers at crowded areas of people and traffic flow conditions in real time so that they can avoid congestions and thereby get diverted to less crowded areas. The Tourism Bureau also hopes to make use of cellular signaling to effectively calculate attendance at an event, further estimate and assess the commercial value the event can generate and conduct post-event review for future improvement.The Tourism Bureau's use of cellular signaling has been field tested at Alishan Scenic Area and Sun Moon Lake. Travelers receive push notifications from telecom operators and are kept informed of real-time road conditions. Traffic authorities such as those in charge of traffic control, highways and interchanges can respond to actual traffic flow conditions with different control solutions.Balancing cross-region tourism developments in TaiwanAlthough Taiwan is receiving an increasing number of international tourists in recent years, most of them only visit northern Taiwan. In an effort to balance tourism developments across the island, the Tourism Bureau will collaborate with local travel agencies and airport authorities to offer compelling airfare discounts to international visitors entering Taiwan through airports in central and southern Taiwan, thereby diverting tourist flow to the regions.Tailoring guidance services for different types of businessesThe Tourism Bureau implements different guidance programs suited to fit young startups and seasoned veterans in the tourism business. To new companies that are full of innovative ideas, the Tourism Bureau will ease regulations and open up databases to help them realize their ideas. It will also hold brainstorming contests and offer prize money to encourage startups to come up with creative service models that solve travelers' pain points. Chou emphasizes, "A government agency should be the provider of data, rather than a player of the game."To traditional firms that are a majority in the tourism business, the Tourism Bureau is endeavoring to help them transform themselves. By helping them make use of subscription-based ERP systems, they can digitize traditional operations. By giving them access to analyzed data, they can benefit from better utilization of hospitality resources and augment their competitiveness. By engaging in discussions, the Tourism Bureau also provides consultation and guidance to help traditional businesses upgrade their offerings to something that customers nowadays are more interested in.ConclusionThe integration of ICT technology has made travel information that used to be exclusively accessible by the tourism industry now available to the general public. With travel information at their fingertips, people are now growingly opting for self-guided tours. In keeping abreast with the trend, the Tourism Bureau has set the policy to build up a platform to promote widespread availability of travel information. Helping the hosts of small and medium tourism businesses that are not tech-savvy transform themselves will be the Tourism Bureau's goal over the next few years.Yung-Hui Chou, director-general, Tourism Bureau
Since its inception in March 2017, Taiwan startup BravoAI has been devoted to applying computing vision (CV), natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to help domestic insurance firms screen insurance applications and handle insurance claim settlements, aiming to help insurers sharply cut their operating costs, according to company founder and chairman Jack Chao.Chao said Taiwan's overall life insurance operating efficiency leaves great room for improvement, citing 2017 statistics as indicating that administration costs of the country's life insurance industry amounted to NT$2.2 trillion (US$71.37 billion), accounting for 57% of the industry's total premium incomes and far outnumbering NT$1.66 trillion in actual claims settled in the year.In analyzing business operation procedures of life insurers, BravoAI has found that insurers usually utilize a lot of labor force screening insurance applications and settling compensation claims. But the time-consuming and complicated job can be easily done with the application of CV, NLP and deep machine learning, thereby not only boosting operating efficiency but also creating new values, according to Chao.While deep learning, AI, and IA (intelligence augmentation) must be all based on big data, global financial service providers including insurers still lag behind other sectors in incorporating these IT technologies due to security concerns, although they have amassed comprehensive customer and historical data.By leveraging its technological advantages, Bravo AI has worked out an automatic non-life claim settlement solution utilizing AI to process documents, medical images, and property insurance pictures to help insurers make accurate decisions in the shortest time possible, Chao revealed.The solution can achieve up to 98.5% in judgment and decision accuracy and proves to be 200 times faster than manpower processing, effectively helping insurers curb insurance fraud by clients. Accordingly, Chao disclosed, the solution has won patronage from many property insurance firms including Tokio Marine Newa Insurance.Besides automatic claim settlement solution, BravoAI will move to release new solutions to create more values for clients, including those for smart insurance application screening, insurance portfolio examination, insurance cycle evaluation and risk management, according to Chao.Chao continued that his company is also integrating experiences in serving insurance firms and blockchain technology to develop solutions acceptable to insurers, hospitals, general public and the government.BravoAI founder and chairman Jack Chao (second left) and his management teamPhoto: Company, February 2019
While many tech startups are devoted to developing smart data analysis technologies, Taiwan startup Authentic Intelligence focuses more on applications of the technologies, according to company CEO Peter Li.Li said his company has singled out specific consumer-oriented artificial intelligence technology from the convergence of data science, domain knowledge and human nature of consumers, with vertical and minute AI technologies also likely to be developed from data science and domain knowledge.In applying psychology to analyze consumer spending, Li commented, mental traits count more than "behavior" and therefore only through deep analysis of core mental traits of consumers can accurate consumer behavior analysis be achieved.Compared with other data-based AI technologies, commercial application technologies will concern enterprises more, Li stressed. In the analysis of personal experiences of consumers, the data involved are usually quite fragmented, which must be combined into an overall facet for further analysis if the essence of domain knowledge can be absorbed in a short time, according to Lee.
Authentic Intelligence has been dedicated to creating concrete data application values for enterprises with smart data analysis technology services since its inception in July 2018, according to company CEO Peter Li.Li said his company name shares the same initials of artificial intelligence (AI), aiming to apply smart technology to help enterprises address related data application issues and create new values.Li disclosed that his company has helped Taiwan's Shinkong Mitsukoshi Department Store chain analyze the shopping data of up to 2.5 million member consumers by applying big data analysis software SAS (statistics analysis system), successfully reducing the cost of printing promotional DMs by 50% to only NT$250 million (US$8.11 million) while allowing the chain to score the same revenues of NT$7.5 billion during annual promotional campaigns.Li commented that the maturing of GPU technology and the ever-advancing computing power have kept driving down data collection costs, accelerating the development of data science.In terms of IoT applications, Li continued, data analysis technology must focus on making predictions rather than adjusting parameters on production lines, so as to create more diverse commercial values.Authentic Intelligence CEO Peter LiPhoto: Mark Tsai, Digitimes, February 2019
