US-based SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) International on May 31, 2016 published SAE TIR (technical information report) J2954 document, a milestone to commercialize wireless power charging of PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) and EVs.SAE TIR J2954, formally called Wireless Power Transfer for Light-duty Plug-in/Electric Vehicles and Alignment Methodology, establishes an industry-wide specification guideline that defines acceptable criteria for interoperability, electromagnetic compatibility, minimum performance, safety and testing for wireless charging of plug-in electric vehicles.In comparison with conventional power charging of plug-in electric vehicles, wireless power charging does not entail establishment of dedicated charging piles or stations and instead, can be done at parking places equipped with simple facilities including charging boxes connected to power grids and vehicle/ground assembly coil sets, Digitimes Research Indicated.SAE TIR J2954 specifies a common frequency of operation at 85KHz band (81.39KHz-90KHz) for interoperability of wireless power transfer. In addition, there are four classes of wireless power transfer levels: 3.7KW, 7.7KW, 11KW and 22KW.In addition to SAE TIR J2954, IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) has specified IEC TC69 and ISO (International Organization for Standardization) has TC22/SC37 for wireless power charging. However, SAE TIR J2954 has won support from 11 international automobile makers including General Motors, Ford, Daimler, Chrysler, Toyota and Honda, four electric bus makers including Volvo and BYD as well as 14 automotive part and component makers.

Global production value for high-brightness LED chips in 2017 will reach US$13.179 billion, growing 2.8% on year, according to Digitimes Research.There will be 303.754 billion high-brightness LED chips shipped globally in 2017, increasing 23.9% on year, but the corresponding average selling price will decrease 17%, Digitimes Research indicated.Of the shipments, 200.396 billion units or 66.0% will be used in LED lighting, rising 39.2% on year; 33.187 billion units (10.9%) in mobile devices (mainly smartphones), up 0.9%; 17.154 billion units (5.6%) in LED display boards, up 7.6%; 14.290 billion units (4.7%) in backlighting of LCD TVs, up 2.6%; 14.124 billion units (4.6%) in automotive displays, up 15.3%; and 15.756 billion units (5.2%) in backlighting of tablet, notebook and LCD monitor screens, down 8.9%.The large growth in high-brightness LED chips used in lighting will be because global LED penetration of all lighting products will rise to 36.7% in 2017.

With demand for all-in-one PCs from the consumer sector continuing dropping, Digitimes Research estimates shipments decreased 4.8% on year to reach around 12 million units in 2016, and the volume in 2017 is expected to stay flat.All-in-one PC shipments in 2016 had a smaller on-year decline than that of overall worldwide desktop shipments and therefore, the product's share of the worldwide desktop shipments reached 10.4% in the year, the highest ever, Digitimes Research's figures showed.Lenovo remained the largest all-in-one PC vendor and its shipment difference with the second-place Hewlett-Packard (HP) expanded in 2016 since HP and third-place Apple both saw over 10% on-year shipment declines.The top-3 players together contributed 72.3% of the worldwide shipments in 2016 and the top-4 players 84.3%.For ODMs, with second-place TPV-Inventa leaving the all-in-one PC sector, the rankings have been reshuffled. Most of TPV-Inventa's orders were taken over by Compal Electronics and Asia Vital Components (AVC).

First-tier China-based touch panel makers, in view of decreased orders for projected capacitive touch solutions (out-cell) used in smartphones due to increasing adoption of in-cell and on-cell touch solutions, have extended production to full bonding of TFT-LCD display panels and touch modules, cover glass, fingerprint recognition modules, iris recognition modules, industrial and automotive displays, according to Digitimes Research.For example, Shenzhen O-film Touch has developed air touch and force sensing technologies, Jiangxi Holitech Technology has stepped into production of electronic labels, Chung Hua EELY Enterprise has developed touch panels made of a metal mesh layer and a silver nanowire layer for combination with flexible AMOLED panels, Digitimes Research indicated. Cover glass maker Lens Technology has developed algorithm for fingerprint and iris recognition and won adoption for smartphones from Samsung Electronics, Microsoft and Fujitsu.In contrast with touch panel makers, touch IC design houses, such as US-based Synaptics, Taiwan-based FocalTech Systems and Himax Technologies and China-based Goodix, have gained footholds in the market segment of in-cell touch solutions. Taiwan-based Parade Technologies has developed integrated display driver IC and touch IC solutions and promoted such solutions among China-based LTPS TFT-LCD panel makers.

AT&T has launched DirectTV Now, the third virtual pay-TV platform in the US market, at a minimum monthly charge rate of US$35, lower than competitors', for more than 100 live channels.AT&T in 2015 acquired satellite live TV DirectTV and then launched DirectTV services, and DirectTV Now is an OTT (over the top) edition of DirectTV.In addition to relatively low charge rates, AT&T offers zero-rating for DirectTV Now subscribers, that is, no charge for Internet traffic of streaming video. While AT&T is expected to be unable to profit or even bear operating losses from operating DirectTV Now, AT&T can attract additional mobile Internet-access subscribers from operation of the virtual pay-TV, Digitimes Research believes. However, US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in November 2016 was concerned about that zero-rating results in unfair competition against other OTT and mobile Internet services providers. In mid-December, AT&T disagreed with FCC's opinion.Sling TV, a virtual pay-TV platform operated by Dish Network's subsidiary, has been in competition with DiretTV Now through launching App at Comcast X1, a set-top box (STB) for Comcast Xfinity TV, to enable Comcast Xfinity TV subscribers to subscribe for Sling TV 425 channels in 21 non-English languages. In addition, Sling TV has offered AirTV, a hybrid STB for watching Sling TV channels as well as ABC and NBC terrestrial TV channels and local terrestrial TV channels.

MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) services have seen fast growing demand in Japan mainly due to the government asking mobile telecom carriers to unlock SIM cards and stop offering zero-price smartphones bundled with 2-year contracts in a bid to enliven the market. However, MVNOs are likely to be under pressure from mergers due to price-cut competition, according to Digitimes Research.All MVNOs in Japan had 47.17 million subscribers in total as of the end of March 2016 (the end of fiscal year 2015), including 5.394 million users of low-cost SIM cards sold or leased mostly independent of smartphones, Digitimes Research cited Japan-based MM Research Institute as indicating.MVNOs' rates have average monthly fees standing at JPY2,072 (US$17.5), approximately one-third the monthly rates offered by the three major telecom carriers: NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and SoftBank. The lowest monthly rate SIM cards cost only JPY300.The Japan government plans to allow MVNOs to introduce HLR (home location register) and HSS (home subscriber server) to enable them to manage SIM databases and provide in-house-developed services. However, the rolling out these features will cost JPY3-4 billion, which small MVNOs cannot afford, and therefore will not stay competitive.

pureLiFi, a developer of Li-Fi a wireless communication technology based on visible light communication, has improved data transfer rates from 5Mbps originally to 10Mbps and further to 40Mbps, making Li-Fi a technological complement to Wi-Fi, according to Digitimes Research.In comparison with Wi-Fi, Li-Fi has disadvantages of higher cost, immature technology, short transmission distances (about three meters only) and inability to penetrate walls, and therefore can only complement Wi-Fi, Digitimes Research indicated.pureLiFi, spun off from the University of Edinburgh in the UK in 2012, unveiled its first-generation technology Li-ist in 2014, second-generation Li-Flame in 2015, and third-generation LiFi-X in 2016. LiFi-X APs (access points) support PoE (power over Ethernet), PLC (power line communication) and LED lighting products.While there are no significant commercial uses for Li-Fi and no large hardware ODMs or OEMs have adopted it, Li-Fi became the IEEE 802.15.7 standard in 2014 and is expected to see nice market usage in underwater communications as well as inside hospitals and passenger airplanes which are sensitive to interference from radio signals.

There were 112.3 million smartphones shipped in the China market during the third quarter of 2016, increasing 5.2% on quarter and 5.8% on year and accounting for 30.9% of the global total. International vendors shipped 17.1 million units, accounting for 15.2% of the shipments and decreasing 2.8% on quarter and 36.7% on year, according to Digitimes Research.The growth in shipments was mainly because China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom continued to subsidize purchases of smartphones, mostly inexpensive models, to encourage the shift of 2G and 3G subscribers to 4G, Digitimes Research indicated. As of the end of the third quarter, China Mobile had 480.7 million 4G subscribers, China Telecom 107.5 million and China Unicom 88.9 million.Among China-based vendors, Oppo had the largest market share at 19.9% of shipments, followed by Vivo with 15.9%, Huawei Technologies 12.1%, Xiaomi Technology 6.3%, GiONEE 5.5%, LeEco 3.8%, Meizu 3.7%, ZTE 2.1%, Coolpad 1.9%, Lenovo 1.6% and Hisense 1.2%. Apple, Samsung Electronics and HTC were the three largest international vendors with market shares of 9.3%, 5.1% and 0.4% respectively.In the fourth quarter of 2016, 118.4 million smartphones will ship in the China market, including 22.5 million units by non-China-based international vendors.

The worldwide top-5 notebook brand vendors' combined shipments grew 8% on month in November, while the top-3 ODMs' notebook shipments increased 10% thanks to rising sales from North America during Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions. Demand for Apple's new MacBook products has also been rising and contributed to the top-3 ODMs' combined shipments.Among the top-5 brand vendors, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Asustek Computer had better performances than the others in November. HP's shipments in the month grew strongly, reaching the second highest level so far in 2016. The growth also further extended the US-based vendor's shipment gap with the second-largest Lenovo to around one million units, according to Digitimes Research's latest notebook monthly shipment update report under Taiwan Mobile Device Tracker.Asustek enjoyed strong shipments in its mainstream and key notebooks in November, giving it a rebound from the downturn in October to achieve 40% on-month growth. The company's November shipments have been the highest in 2016 so far.As for the top-3 ODMs, Quanta achieved the best performance with an on-month shipment growth of over 30% since the company is the sole supplier of Apple's MacBook Pro products in 2016. Its orders from HP and Asustek also increased from a month ago.Quanta also returned as the largest ODM in November, surpassing last month's leader Compal Electronics.Top-4 to -5 ODMs Inventec and Pegatron Technology also saw their shipments grow more than 15% on month in November due to increased orders placed by HP and Asustek.

Global demand for gaming hardware, software and services is projected at a CAGR of 6.6% from US$99.6 billion in 2016 to US$118.6 billion in 2019 and because gaming notebooks, desktops, monitors and even keyboards and mice are offering visual effects, makers of LED devices are expected to benefit from the growing demand, according to Digitimes Research.In addition to gaming, global market value for e-sports in 2016 is estimated at US$891 million, for which, Asia, North America and Europe together account for over 90%, Digitimes Research indicated.LEDs are used to backlight gaming notebooks, smartphones and monitors as well as gaming keyboards, mice and headsets.In addition to gaming, demand for LED chips used sensing is increasing along with fast growing demand for VR, as 20-40 LED chips, including infrared models, are used in a single VR system.