Seeing all-screen smartphones continue eroding tablet demand, tablet vendors, to differentiate the two product lines, are turning aggressively to promote 10-inch and above models with consumer-friendly prices, hoping to trigger a replacement trend. Digitimes Research expects worldwide tablet shipments to reach 128 million units in 2018 with on-year decline shrinking to around 10%.Digitimes Research expects all-screen smartphone's impact on tablet demand to weaken after 2019 and worldwide tablet shipments will remain at above 120 million units each year with a CAGR of negative 1.4% from 2018-2022.Apple, Samsung Electronics and Amazon will be the top-3 tablet vendors worldwide in 2017, while Huawei will move to fourth place, surpassing Lenovo thanks to a strategy to push product differentiation. The gap between Huawei and Lenovo gap is expected to further extend in 2018.With some vendors already adopting over 6-inch displays for their all-screen smartphones, shipments of 7.x- to 8.x-inch tablets will see increasing competition. To minimize the impact, Digitimes Research believes, tablet brands will turn to focus on promoting their 9-inch and above models, causing worldwide shipments of 9-inch and above tablets to account for over 60% of worldwide volumes in 2018.Although China-based makers together have seen increased share of worldwide 8-inch tablet shipments, their rapidly dropping 7-inch orders will benefit Taiwan's share of worldwide shipments, boosting the percentage to above 50% in 2018 as most large-size tablets will be delivered by Taiwan makers.

The top-three high speed fixed network communications firms in South Korea have adopted different marketing strategies to attract customer patronages, with the leading player Korea Telecom (KT) offering better broadband connection quality and a more complete array of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) channels, according to Digitimes Research.Against KT having the largest user numbers for both high speed fixed network communications and IPTV services, SK Broadband (SKB) is trying hard to solicit more customers with prices lower than offered by KT and highlighting the full-HD feature of all its channels, while LG U+ is actively attracting the group of viewers with less viewing time and budget by offering the lowest prices and fewer channels, Digitimes Research report showed.In terms of high speed fixed-network communications services, the three operators mainly provide three connection speeds of services - 100Mbps, 500Mbps and 1Gbps - and they render basic, advanced and high levels of IPTV services in accordance with the numbers of available channels. Of the three firms, KT collects the highest charges for the three connection speeds of services, SKB and LG U+ offer lower service rates for the 100Mbps services, but their service charges for 500Mbps and 1Gbps segments are not remarkably lower than KT's.As far as the number of IPTV channels is concerned, KT offers 215 channels for basic-level services, 225 channels for advanced-level services, and 246 for high-level services, compared with the 130-215 number range provided by SKB and 84-172 by LG U+. Monthly charges taken by KT are higher than those required by the other two rivals for offering a more comprehensive network of IPTV channels.SKB's monthly charges for three levels of IPTV services are lower than KT and higher than LG U+, but its channels are all full-HD ones, including more UHD (ultra high definition) channels than those available at KT and LG U+, indicating the company showing greater regard for higher definition.Offering fewer channels, LG U+ demands lower charges for all the three levels of IPTV services than the other two players, seeking to attract specified consumer groups.

There is large potential demand for OTA (over the air) upgrading of firmware/software for in-car electronic devices because car owners need not drive to maintenance shops merely for such upgrading, according to Digitimes Research.Automotive OTA upgrade is just burgeoning, for only 10% of automakers worldwide have had cars equipped with OTA upgrade functions, Digitimes Research indicated. This is because, unlike OTA upgrade for smartphones, tablets and PCs, hardware and software architectures as well as software codes used in cars are complicated and so is automotive OTA upgrade.Currently, automotive OTA upgrade is mostly for upgrading TCU (telematics control unit), IVI (in-vehicle infortainment), ADAS (advanced driver assistance system) and power transmission systems. Tesla has led in automotive OTA upgrade.While smartphone-use service providers are interested in stepping into automotive OTA upgrade, OTA upgrade for cars is highly complicated. For example, there may be more than 100 models of electronic control units, and the hardware/software architectures and software codes may vary from model to model.To address the complexity, automotive OTA upgrade providers have come up with solutions, including automotive electronic devices in conformity to architectures that enable automatic OTA upgrade, shortening OTA upgrade files and/or time, encrypting and differentiating OTA upgrade for information security, categorizing software at servers first and then delivering data corresponding to OTA to cars for upgrade.

Smartphone shipments in the China market reached 112.8 million units in the third quarter of 2017, increasing 18.6% sequentially but decreasing 1.9% on year. China shipments accounted for 31.3% of the global smartphone shipments in the quarter, according to Digitimes Research.Buoyed by Single's Day promotional campaigns and the release of iPhone X by Apple and new models by other brands, smartphone shipments in China are expected to top 128.9 million units in the fourth quarter of 2017, Digitimes Research estimates.Inventory replenishments by Huawei, Oppo and Vivo contributed to the sequential shipment growth in the third quarter. However, Huawei is likely to pay more attention on boosting sales in overseas markets in the fourth quarter, while adopting a more conservative approach in the domestic front to avoid an inventory build-up. On the other hand, Oppo and Vivo will continue to push sales in the fourth quarter to maintain their market share.Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi Technology and Apple were the top-5 vendors in the China market in the third quarter. Huawei managed to maintain its top-vendor title due in part to its efforts to clear out its inventories and brisk sales of its mid-tier and entry-level models. Xiaomi lagged behind Oppo and Vivo as the vendor counted more on oversea shipments. Meanwhile, Apple gained a boost on the release of iPhone 8 devices and price cuts for old models.Looking into the fourth quarter, Apple is likely to outrace Xiaomi to capture the fourth position in China thanks to the release of iPhone X, while Huawei, Oppo and Vivo will be able to maintain their current rankings.

Since SONY introduced the 18650 cylindrical lithium-ion battery in 1992, kick-starting the commercialization of lithium-ion batteries, the technology has been advancing with applications becoming more and more widespread, ranging from consumer electronics to electric cars and solar panels. Among these, electric cars are considered a high growth market for lithium-ion batteries.The promising outlook for lithium-ion automotive batteries has also spurred booming opportunities for related equipment. The market is expected to show more than 20% CAGR over the next few years, attracting numerous vendors to scramble for a share of the market. There are increasingly intense competitions throughout the front-end (electrode), mid-tier (battery cell) and back-end (packaging and testing) segments. To set themselves apart from their rivals, makers of equipment for lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars are all looking to raise production capacity and reduce costs and therefore are growingly evaluating and adopting EtherCAT. This has given rise to the popularity of EtherCAT, which enables multiple advantages including motion control with optimal compatibility and precise synchronization.Equipment for making lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars is generally of immense scale. Mixers, coaters, roller presses and flaking mills used during pre-process and electrode sheet laminators used during mid-process all include a massive number of axes and I/O points. As such, using a high-performance automation control system to allow as many axes and I/O points as possible to work in synchronization is critical to raising operation efficiency. However, traditional control technologies such as MNET and HSL use the RS485 communication protocol with less-than-optimal transmission efficiency so signal exchanges between axes take longer cycles during distributed motion control operations. This results in difficulty in achieving synchronization and therefore most processes can only work on a single-action basis, which falls short of vendor expectation to boost production capacity.A combination of compatible master and slave equipment delivers high CP valueDrawing on his experience in corresponding with a battery equipment supplier to electric car makers Tesla and BYD, Chia-Wei Yang, market development manager, automation business center, ADLINK, said the supplier has realized in order to increase equipment efficiency and thereby help lithium-ion battery making customers raise production yield, motion control has to advance from "single action" to "synchronous action" with the more co-moving axes the better. Accordingly, seeing that new generation motion control and I/O control technologies are necessary to achieve such purpose, the supplier evaluated several solutions including PROFINET, EtherNet/IP and EtherCAT and finally selected EtherCAT.The supplier made the choice mainly because EtherCAT can help increase production yield and also provide the additional benefit of cost saving.EtherCAT Technology Group now has over 4,500 members worldwide producing an accumulative total of more than 800 EtherCAT-enabled products. With the consortium of vendors joining forces to support the development of the open standard platform, in theory, the technology has great potential as long as suppliers of EtherCAT masters put in R&D efforts to make corresponding drivers available to EtherCAT slaves that are widely used on the market and ensure they pass stringent certification to guarantee compatibility between masters and slaves of different brands.The supplier tested the compatibility between six servomotors that its own equipment could support and several different brands of EtherCAT master controllers and found ADLINK's Talos series can work with all six servomotors without any problem. This means the supplier will no longer be limited to a single brand of motor and can freely choose the motor with the best cost performance value without changing software programs to maintain maximum cost-effectiveness.Synchronous motion across modules becomes a realityIn fact, besides hardware, software development efficiency also decides system costs. The supplier was using ADLINK's RS485-based control solutions as well as ADLINK's APS Function Library to accelerate development cycle because of the reusability of existing software programs. As such, when the supplier made the decision to upgrade from legacy systems to EtherCAT, it chose ADLINK's EtherCAT solution for an expedited transition (it would be necessary to rewrite software programs for EtherCAT masters of other vendors). A seamless upgrade was completed in two weeks thanks to the use of existing APS Function Library.Yang added if non-APS users are to adopt ADLINK's EtherCAT solution, it will be necessary to re-develop software. However, ADLINK will offer sample code and assign engineers to provide necessary assistance to help customers smooth out any bumps during the transition and accelerate the process.The above-mentioned automotive battery equipment supplier is now able to fill in gaps between its supply and demand that has long been put on hold. The process originally supporting only simple synchronous action has entered a new era of multi-axis synchronous action. High efficiency of up to eight axes moving in synchronization can now be achieved. Furthermore, old hardware module architecture prohibits cross-module synchronous action so some process steps have to be divided into several actions. It takes time for the process flow to transition from one action to the next. Now with EtherCAT, a single Ethernet cable can connect all pieces of slave equipment, overcoming module barriers and easily combining multiple actions into one with cross-module synchronization.Multi-axis and cross-module synchronous action has enabled giant leaps in productivity. The electric car battery equipment supplier has seen a 20%-30% upsurge in production yield and a 15% reduction in production costs, enjoying the benefit from a significant boost in its competitiveness.Now with EtherCAT, a single Ethernet cable can connect all pieces of slave equipment, overcoming module barriers and easily combining multiple actions into one with cross-module synchronization.

Four out of the top-5 notebook brands experienced on-year shipment declines in October mainly because of weak demand from the consumer sector. The vendors' refocusing their strategies onto boosting profitability from expanding shipment volumes also impacted negatively their shipment performances.Hewlett-Packard (HP) was the only vendor with on-year growth in October shipments, increasing by 11% thanks to its aggressive promotions and marketing. Lenovo's shipments slipped both sequentially and on-year in October, according to Digitimes Research's latest notebook reports.Dell, unable to acquire short-term orders for consumer notebook models as it did in late 2016, saw its shipments decrease 18.1% on year in October. Asustek Computer and Acer both had on-year drops in October shipments, but Asustek performed better than Acer, seeing shipments slip only 4.3% on year, compared to Acer's 17.8%.As for the top-3 ODMs, Quanta Computer outperformed both Compal Electronics and Wistron in October with an on-year shipment growth of 7% thanks to increased orders from HP and Asustek Computer. Compal and Wistron both witnessed on-year shipment declines in the month.

October 2017 average retail price for 7W LED light bulbs (40W incandescent equivalents) in China decreased 3.2% from August 2017 to reach CNY24.3 (US$3.8), while 9W models (60W incandescent equivalents) also saw pricing drop 27.2% to CNY23.5, according to Digitimes Research.Average retail prices for 40W- and 60W-equivalent LED light bulbs in Japan in October stood at JPY2,110 (US$19.0) and JPY1,875 respectively, the former growing 47.9% from August and the latter rising 3.0%, Digitimes Research indicated.October average retail prices for 40W- and 60W-equivalent LED light bulbs in other markets were: KRW7,978 (US$7.20, up 4.2% from August) and KRW12,299 (up 0.3%) in South Korea; US$16.90 (up 6.3%) and US$19.8 (down 2.5%) in the US; EUR4.80 (US$5.60, up 4.3%) and EUR9.50 (up 8.0%) in Europe.Philips 40W-equivalent LED light bulbs and Osram 60W-equivalent models for sale in South Korea had the highest average lumen-price ratios of 117.5lm/US$ and 254.4lm/US$ respectively in October. In terms of luminous efficiency, Mitsubishi Electric 40W-equivalent LED light bulbs and Toshiba 60W-equivalent models available in Japan had the highest average level of 95.5lm/W and that of 108.2lm/W respectively in October.

With to a lack of growth momentum in the traditional mainstream TV and monitor markets, most flat panel makers have paid more attention on the development niche applications for large-sized panels such as public information displays (PIDs), automotive display boards and gaming devices, according to Digitimes Research.While large-sized panels for PID applications place emphasis on bezel-less frames and strong environmental tolerance, the production of automobile displays have adopted such curved surfaces and dynamic local dimming along with the expanding screen sizes. With regard to gaming applications, the panels will stress fast response time and high color saturation. Panels for these three types of applications all feature aspect ratios of 21:9 and wider ones.For PID devices, the ultra-thin1.8mm narrow bezel frames have become the mainstream due to rising demand for ultra large spliced wall panels, and their requirements for high temperature and humidity tolerance are also more stringent than ordinary panels.Meanwhile, panel products with a 144Hz refresh rate, 500,000:1 high dynamic contrast, and an Adobe RGB 99% of the ultra-high color saturation (equivalent to about 92% NTSC) has become the standards for gaming panels.With regard to automobile panels, the aspect ratio of dashboard products has been doubled from 24:9 to 48:9, in order to cope with multimedia demand by vehicles. For the purpose of energy conservation, major panel makers are also incorporating TV-use backlighting technology into their production of automobile boards. The specifications of curved-surface panels also come with more diverse designs than TV and monitor panels to match exterior designs of various types of automobiles.For large-sized touch panels, the metal grid technology still remains the mainstream, while nano-silver technology seems to have begun fading away. However, Germany-based BASF has continued foraying into the nano-silver sector with promising prospects to make gains in the flexible panel market, Digitimes Research believes.

Global MEMS microphone shipments will increase to 4.8 billion units in 2017 from 4.4 billion units in 2016, and the volume will reach over 5.0 billion units in 2018, according to Digitimes Research.Global MEMS microphone shipments surpassed for the first time those of ECMs (electret condenser microphones) in 2015, reaching 3.8 billion units.MEMS microphone shipments have been mainly driven by growing demand for voice-control smart speakers, for which MEMS microphones are a key voice-command component, Digitimes Research indicated.Among various MEMS microphone applications, smartphones account for the largest portion, followed by notebooks and tablets. MEMS microphones are also used in headphones, digital video recorders, automotive electronic, medical care and IoT (Internet of Things) devices.MEMS microphones, audio ICs and micro-speakers are main audio components used in smartphones, notebooks and tablets.US-based Knowles Electronics and China-based GoerTek and AAC Technologies Holdings were the global top-3 MEMS microphone vendors in 2016, with Sony and Infineon Technologies mainly undertaking outsourced production. IDMs including STMicroelectronics, Bosch, TDK and Omron, are also MEMS microphone suppliers.Amazon, Google, Apple, Sony, Bose and Harman International Industries have launched smart speakers and/or devices with voice assistance functions.To enhance smart speakers' sound reception, it is necessary to not only improve performance of MEMS microphones but also match MEMS microphones with sound source positioning, noise- and echo-cancelling hardware/software systems.

Competition in China's smart speaker market is heating up: Alibaba is pushing sales of its Tmall Genie to the business sector; JD.com is promoting its next-generation smart speaker, the DingDong 2; and Xiaomi Technology has forayed into the entry-level segment with its Mi AI speaker, according to Digitimes Research.For the Single's Day online shopping day on November 11, Alibaba has launched aggressive campaigns by setting its Tmall Genie speaker at CNY99 (US$14.91), and the pre-orders received so far has exceeded the total amount of the DingDong speakers sold by JD.com in 2016. In addition to targeting the consumer market, Alibaba is also pushing the sale of the Tmall Genie to restaurants, aviation companies and retail chain operators.The second-generation DingDong 2, co-developed by JD.com and iFlytek, comes with improved speech recognition capability, allows users to set up their own wake-up language, and features an LED display which enables users to make direct commands by gestures. But DingDong 2's price tag of CNY799 is much higher than that of Tmall Genie's.Meanwhile, other vendors including Lenovo, Haier and Mobvoi all have launched their own smart speakers, while Internet service giants Tencent Holdings and Baidu have also stepped into the segment through the introduction of related smart voice platforms. Xiaomi, a relatively newcomer to the smart speaker industry, is pushing the sale of its Mi AI speakers at a competitive price of CNY299, which is likely to lead to a number of entry-level products from smaller businesses to be phased out from the market, Digitimes Research believes.