Worldwide notebook shipments are estimated to reach 41.65 million units in the fourth quarter, up 6.4% sequentially as demand from the year-end holidays is expected to pick up strongly, while Apple's fourth-generation MacBook Pro products have entered mass production, helping related upstream supply return to a stable balance. Although Chromebooks and China-based brand vendors are expected to perform weakly in the quarter, their negative influences will only have a minor impact. The quarter will also see the industry enjoy its first on-year growth after eight consecutive quarters of decline.Hewlett-Packard (HP) will remain the largest notebook vendor in the fourth quarter, while its shipment gap with Lenovo will continue to widen as the China-based vendor is seriously impacted by high channel inventory and business reorganization, according to Digitimes Research's latest notebook report.Dell has shifted some of its resources to push the consumer notebook sector for the fourth quarter. This will allow the company to achieve growth in the quarter despite the enterprise sector's weakening demand. Apple's new notebook products have seen some negative feedback in design and price, but their major hardware upgrades and new Touch Bar design are still expected to attract many users to replace their old Apple systems. With the shipment growth, Apple is expected to return as the fourth largest vendor worldwide in the fourth quarter.Combined shipments of US-based top-tier vendors - HP, Dell and Apple - will also account for over 50% of worldwide shipments. Asustek Computer will become the fifth largest and its gap with the sixth largest Acer will widen as Acer has turned conservative about its shipments, looking to maintain its high gross margins.As for Taiwan-based ODMs, Quanta Computer will enjoy strong orders from Apple for the fourth quarter, but falling orders from its other clients had limited its growth. Compal Electronics will achieve a growth at a level similar to that of the overall shipments. Pegatron Technology, largest manufacturing partner of Asustek, will perform the best among the ODMs in the fourth quarter.

Samsung Electronics launched seven 32- to 55-inch smart digital signage solutions with thicknesses of 29.9mm and bezel sizes of 6.9mm in the second half of 2016, equipped with in-house-developed Samsung Smart Signage Platform and Tizen operating system, according to Digitimes Research.While conventional digital signage basically displays information and advertising content only, smart digital signage is interactive with users and enables remote system management via touch and sensing functions as well as wireless Internet connection, Digitimes Research indicated.Samsung Display, Samsung Electronics' affiliate, has developed 110-inch Ultra HD waterproof and dustproof display panels for digital signage.Although Windows is currently the dominant operating system for digital signage due to advantages of compatibility with Windows-based IT devices and complete software development kit, Samsung Electronics has extended Linux-based Tizen from smartphones to digital signage.

The global volume of LED chips used in TV backlighting in 2017 will increase slightly on year, with Ultra HD, HDR and quantum dot models expected to increase usage, while direct-type backlights, OLED and adoption of flip-chip LED backlighting to decrease usage, according to Digitimes Research.The increase will mostly come from Ultra HD TVs, because such models will take up 36.5% of all LCD TVs to be shipped in the year, rising 11.6pp on year, and an Ultra HD TV uses 30-50% more LED chips than a Full HD one, Digitimes Research indicated.HDR and quantum dot TVs will contribute slightly to the increase as their shares of the 2017 shipments will be less than 5% each although a HDR TV or quantum dot TV uses many LED chips.Direct-type LED-backlit TVs will see major reductions in the use of LED chips in 2017, and they will take up 64% of all LED-backlit TVs (the remaining 36% will be edge-type). And adoption of flip-chip LED devices will decrease the use of chips in TV backlighting.However, OLED TVs' impact on the LED backlighting sector will be minimal, for the shipment proportion for such TVs will be only 0.72%.

Cellular M2M (machine to machine) IoT is expected to be fast developing in the China market since the China government in 2009 included IoT industries as a focus of the nation's long-term development. China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom have been actively deploying IoT networks, according to Digitimes Research.The China government has come up with policies and strategies to boost development and application of IoT technology since 2010 and an IoT ecosystem has formed in China, Digitimes Research indicated. However, over 85% of the members of the IoT ecosystem are small- to medium-size businesses and almost no firms are capable of integrating hardware with software to provide IoT services and developing IoT solutions.For cellular M2M IoT, the number of connected devices stood at 94.4 million at the end of 2015 and is expected to keep increasing to 140 million and 350 million in 2016 and 2020 respectively, while the corresponding production value will rise from CNY750 billion (US$119 billion) in 2015 to CNY910 billion in 2016 and CNY1.585 trillion in 2020.As 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) in June 2016 completed standardization of Narrow Band (NB)-IoT, a LPWAN (low power wide area network) technology for cellular M2M IoT application, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom will shift cellular M2M IoT operation from being based on 2G/3G networks to NB-IoT networks. China Mobile plans to use 900MHz for NB-IoT operation. China Unicom chooses 900MHz and 1800MHz and China Telecom uses 800MHz. The three mobile telecom carriers will begin NB-IoT trial operation in selected cities in 2017.

Shipments of smartphones by Taiwan-based brand vendors and handset ODMs declined 35% on year to 12.36 million units in the third quarter of 2016, according to data compiled by Digitimes Research.Lower-than-expected shipments from brand vendors HTC, Asustek Computer and Acer resulted in decreased orders at ODMs, including Compal Electronics, the Foxconn Group, Arima Communications and Wistron, for the third quarter, Digitimes Research said.Although Compal and Arima have begun shipping new models to Sony Mobile Communications since the third quarter, the orders for the new smartphones were lower than originally expected, Digitimes Research noted.While shipments from Arima to LG Electronics in the third quarter were comparable to those shipped a quarter earlier, Wistron's shipments to BlackBerry have continued to decline.Asustek and HTC remained the top-two smartphone vendors in the third quarter but saw their shipments increase slightly on quarter.Asustek began to ship its ZenFone 3 series products in the third quarter, but the shipment volume was lower than originally planned due to a shortage of display products. HTC started shipping Google's Pixel smartphones in September, which did not contribute much to its third-quarter shipments.

October 2016 average retail pricing for 7W LED light bulbs (equivalent to 40W incandescents) in the China market increased 4.9% from August to CNY27.8 (US$4.10), while 9W models (equivalent to 60W incandescents) also rose 13.9% to CNY30.30, according to Digitimes Research.Average retail prices for 40W- and 60W-equivalent LED light bulbs in Japan in October stood at JPY1,368 (US$13) and JPY1,912, respectively, growing 5.8% from August and slipping 3.2%, Digitimes Research indicated.October average retail prices for 40W- and 60W-equivalent LED light bulbs in other markets were: KRW7,890 (US$7.10, up 0.7% from August) and KRW12,579 (up 2.3%) in South Korea; US$17.20 (down 6%) and US$21 (up 3.4%) in the US; EUR6.70 (US$7.40, down 1.5%) and EUR7.90 (down 3.7%) in Europe.Philips 40W-equivalent LED light bulbs and Osram 60W-equivalent models for sale in South Korea had the highest average lumen-price ratios of 121.4lm/US$ and 201.8lm/US$ respectively in October. In terms of luminous efficiency, Toshiba 40W-equivalent LED light bulbs and 60W-equivalent models available in Japan had the highest average levels of 84.2lm/W and that of 107.8lm/W in October.

Taiwan-based makers shipped 62.29 million large-size (9-inch and above) TFT-LCD panels in the third quarter of 2016, increasing 6.7% on quarter and 6.2% on year, and accounting for 34.3% of the global total, according to Digitimes Research.In terms of applications, notebooks accounted for 32.0% of shipments, TVs 30.0%, monitors 21.8% and 9-inch and above tablets 13.3%, Digitimes Research indicated.Innolux shipped 11.36 million TV panels, 10.33 million notebook-use units, 6.05 million monitor-use units and 2.38 million tablet-use units in the third quarter, while AU Optronics shipped 7.34 million TV panels, 9.60 million notebook-use units, 7.45 million monitor-use units and 3.33 million tablet-use units. In addition, Chunghwa Picture Tubes shipped 2.25 million tablet-use panels and HannStar Display 350,000 tablet-use units and 90,000 monitor-use units.Taiwan-based makers' shipments in the fourth quarter will decline 4.4% sequentially to 59.53 million panels.

The global production value for high-brightness LED chips will increase from US$13.179 billion in 2017 to US$15.250 billion in 2021 during 2017-2021 at an annual compound growth rate (CAGR) of 3.7%, according to Digitimes Research.While Osram Opto Semiconductors and China-based first-tier makers will expand production capacity for high-brightness LED chips, China-based makers are expected to trigger price-cut competition and therefore global production value for such chips will grow mildly during 2017-2021, Digitimes Research indicated. In particular, China's overall LED production value will increase quickly from CNY620.0 billion (US$92.5 billion) in 2017 to CNY1.300 trillion in 2021 at a CAGR of 16.2%.In terms of high-brightness LED chip applications, lighting and automotive lighting/displays will grow at a CAGR of 12.0% and 11.3% respectively in global production value during 2017-2021, global production value for use in handsets and backlighting of LCD TVs will remain flat in 2017 and then decrease beginning 2018, that for use in backlighting of IT products will slip 5-10% each year and that for use in indoor/outdoor displays will increase 0-5% each year.For LED lighting in particular, the global market value will grow from US$40.424 billion in 2017 to US$70.510 billion in 2021, with the penetration of all lighting products to rise from 36.7% to 70.2%.In addition to visible-light LED chips, infrared (IR) LED chips have market-niche application including sensing in gaming, biometrics, distance measurement, IoT (Internet of Things) and automotive sensors while ultraviolet (UV) LED chips are mostly used for industrial purposes. The global production value for IR LED chips will increase at a CAGR of 30% during 2017-2021 and that for UV LED chips at a CAGR of 18%.

Samsung Electronics has launched SUHD (super Ultra HD) TVs, a QD (quantum dot) TV, to compete with OLED TVs launched by LG Electronics, but Samsung Electronics' development of QD display technology is geared toward QLED (quantum dot LED), according to Digitimes Research.Light emissions based on QD materials is of two modes, photoluminescence and electroluminescence, with the former including types of QDEF (QD enhancement film) LCD, QDCF (QD color filter) LCD, QD-OLED hybrid, RGB (red, green, blue) QD LED and the later mainly being QLED, Digitimes Research indicated.SUHD TVs are of the QDEF LCD type, and QDCF LCD TVs, with a wide color gamut reaching 98% of Rec. 2020 standards, will be launched in 2017.Samsung Electronics plans to begin production of QLED TVs in 2019. QLED TVs will have lower production cost and longer service life than OLED models. However, production of QLED TVs currently is faced with technological problems, mainly short service life of blue-color QD materials and how to precisely and evenly coat red, green, blue QD materials.

Global shipments of small- to medium-size panels will decrease from 2.647 billion units in 2017 to 2.189 billion units in 2021 or a CAGR of negative 4.6%, according to Digitimes Research.The decrease will be mainly due to fast growing adoption of AMOLED panels for smartphones, Digitimes Research indicated. In view of the trend, Samsung Display, LG Display and Japan Display have or plan to shut down TFT-LCD factories, mostly 5G and 6G facilities, to expand AMOLED capacity.While global handset-panel shipments will grow from 2.545 billion units in 2017 to 2.757 billion units in 2021, a CAGR of 2.0%,TFT-LCD panels will slip from 2.095 billion to 1.630 million units at CAGR of negative 6.1%, while AMOLED panel shipments will rise from 450 million to 1.127 billion units, a CAGR of 25.8% over the period.Japan Display, Sharp, BOE Technology, Tianma Micro-electronics, EverDisplay Optronics (Shanghai) and Visionox are each expected to start AMOLED panel production in 2018-2019.As local vendors have dominated China smartphone market, and a few are seeing increasing global market shares, China will overtake Taiwan in terms of TFT-LCD handset-panel shipments in 2016 or 2017.