Taiwan-based makers shipped 269.249 million small- to medium-size TFT-LCD panels during the second quarter of 2016, slipping 0.5% on quarter and 6.3% on year, according to Digitimes Research.88.2% of shipments were a-Si TFT-LCD panels and 11.8% LTPS (low-temperature poly-Si) units, Digitimes Research indicated.In terms of application, handsets accounted for 72.4% of shipments, tablets 7.5%, automotive displays 6.0%, digital cameras 3.5% and GPS PNDs 3.0%.Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) was the largest maker shipping 100.560 million units, followed by HannStar Display with 67.892 million units and Innolux with 55.024 million units. In the second quarter, CPT shut down a 4.5G factory while Innolux shifted part of the capacity at a 5G factory from small- to medium-size panels to notebook panels.Shipments in the third quarter are projected at 288.123 million units.

MediaTek should remain focused on enhancing its technology to better compete against rivals including Qualcomm, Spreadtrum and HiSilicon, and to explore new growth opportunities outside the China market, according to Digitimes Research. Becoming a technology leader in the competitive mobile-processor market could be difficult for MediaTek to achieve, but should be considered as an ultimate goal for the Taiwan-based company seeking its long-term growth, Digitimes Research said. MediaTek with its complete turnkey solutions and cost advantage has been successful in partnering with China-based handset makers. Nevertheless, the Taiwan-based firm is facing a growing threat from competitors particularly China-based players including Spreadtrum and HiSilicon, which have become more able to provide competitive turnkey solutions in the entry-level and mid-range segments, Digitimes Research indicated. While losing its advantage over its China-based rivals in the low- to mid-range segments, MediaTek is still facing strong competitiveness from Qualcomm in the high-end sector, Digitimes Research said. Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 820 has received positive feedback, and already attracted orders from Samsung, HTC, LG, Sony Mobile and Xiaomi. Despite the company's increased focus on high-end chips, low- and mid-range offerings still account for the majority of MediaTek's total mobile chip shipments, Digitimes Research noted. MediaTek's gross margin remains under downward pressure despite revenue growth. In other words, lowering prices to expand shipments and market share would not drive long-term growth. Besides, China continues to be MediaTek's biggest market. MediaTek is looking to expand its non-China-based customer portfolio, but efforts appear to have had only limited success, Digitimes Research observed. In addition, new orders from Samsung Electronics are unlikely to make a positive contribution to MediaTek's long-term business growth, Digitimes Research noted. MediaTek has reportedly shifted part of its processor orders to Samsung's foundry business in order to gain chipset orders for Samsung's mobile devices. Such a business model could bring more risks and uncertainty, Digitimes Research said.

Conventional touch panel makers, due to stagnant demand for smartphones and tablets and growing adoption of In-Cell and On-Cell touch solutions, have shifted from consumer electronics to industrial control and automotive display applications for better profitability, according to Digitimes Research.ITO film-based touch panel makers J Touch and Young Fast Optoelectronics have reduced production of touch panels used in consumer electronics and increased production of models used in industrial control and automotive displays, Digitimes Research indicated.Faced with increasing competition, makers of touch panels used in industrial control and automotive displays, mainly Transtouch Technology, Abon Touchsystems and Higgstec, have adopted ITO film to produce large-size, e.g. 65-inch, touch panels and are adding handwriting functions to increase competitiveness.In addition to touch panel makers, touch IC design houses, such as Elan Microelectronics and Goodix, have shifted to fingerprint recognition.

Two of the top-three Japan-based mobile telecom carriers, NTT DoCoMo and Softbank, have reduced the number of new phones launched for the summer of 2016 as the growth of smartphone sales in the Japan market has slowed down, according to Digitimes Research.NTT DoCoMo has so far launched only seven new models for this summer, far below those launched a year earlier and also those for the last winter/spring season. Additionally, NTT DoCoMo has also announced to extend the product life cycles of exiting models in order to ramp up sales volume for each model, Digitimes Research noted.Softbank has released only a single exclusive model for summer 2016 and has also discontinued its cooperation with Samsung Electronics to promote smartphone sales in the Japan market.In comparison, KDDI (au) has been more positive about the local handset market, releasing the highest amount of new models for summer. KDDI has also launched new smartphones and tablets in cooperation with LG Electronics. The operator also released an own-brand Android feature phone, the Aquos K SHF33, supporting Sharp's emopa artificial intelligent (AI) technology.While changing its strategy for the release of new models, NTT DoCoMo has begun to offer high-sound-quality VoLTE (HD+) service with audio frequency ranging from 50Hz to 14KHz. Three high-end smartphones, Sony Xperia X Performance, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and Sharp Aquos ZETA SH-04H, launched by NTT DoCoMo all support the service, Digitimes Research noted.

Samsung Display will dispose of 7G TFT-LCD production equipment by the end of 2016 and China-based LCD module maker Truly Semiconductors is more likely than panel makers BOE Technology and China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) to become the buyer, according to Digitimes Research.As Samsung Display has shifted focus to small- to medium-size AMOLED panels and large-size LCD panels for high-end application, it will stop operation of its L7-1 line in South Korea and sell the equipment to make way for building a 6G AMOLED line there, Digitimes Research indicated. The 6G AMOLED line is scheduled to come into operation in first-half 2018.BOE and CSOT may seek to purchase the equipment, as they each supply about 20% of TV panels used by Samsung Electronics. However, Truly Semiconductors has acquired a 4.5G AMOLED factory and a 5G a-Si LCD line from Samsung Display and produces LCD panels for automotive displays, and is therefore more likely to acquire the L7-1 equipment.

The growing availability of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) devices will offer growth opportunities for a number of component suppliers, including sensors, infrared (IR)/laser transmitters and LED chips, according to Digitimes Research.Since the VR platform products designed for arcade machines and PCs require a high degree of immersive effect and also stress on positioning, tracking and interactive functionalities, these platforms need more sensor parts, said Digitimes Research .The VR/AR hardware systems also need to utilize a number of 6- to 9-axis inertial measurement units (IMUs) as the basic element for somatosensory control.The VR head-mounted display (HMD) devices also require the installation of more MEMS parts and IR/LED sensing components to detect the positions and movements of a target, Digitimes Research added.

China's IC industry production value is forecast to rise 15% to US$66.64 billion in 2016, according to Digitimes Research.China's IC industry production value grew to US$57.97 billion in 2015 from US$21.03 billion in 2010 representing a CAGR of 19.1% during the five-year period, said Digitimes Research. Growth was driven by the region's continued economic growth, as well as significant growth in shipments of smartphones, mainly entry-level and mid-range models.Despite decelerating smartphone shipment growth and uncertainty about the global economy outlook, China's domestic IC sector continues to grow steadily. Coupled with the government's subsidy programs to drive industry growth, China's IC production value is expected to increase 15% on year in 2016, Digitimes Research noted.The production value of China's IC design sector climbed to US$21.28 billion in 2015 from US$5.66 billion in 2010 which reached a CAGR of 30.3% during the five-year period, Digitimes Research indicated. Growth of the sector outperformed that of China's other IC sectors.Combined revenues of China's top-10 fabless firms grew by a CAGR of 30.1% from 2011 to 2015, Digitimes Research said. China's top-10 fabless firms saw their combined revenues account for about 40% of China's overall IC design industry production value indicating the non-top 10 design companies in China also play another growth driver of the region's overall IC design industry production value. Digitimes Research also predicted there will be more than 1,000 China-based IC design houses during the period of the country's 13th five-year plan.

Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming powerful driving forces of business transformation. The technologies to connect devices for monitoring and managing things have inspired many startups to explore the immense possibilities in the IoT industry.According to Mckinsey 2015 report, the potential economic value of the IoT is estimated to be US$11.1 trillion per year in 2025. Although the value of improved health monitoring and consumer electronics could reach $1.1 trillion per year by 2025, the firm said that business-to-business (B2B) applications will create more value than purely consumer applications. While wristbands, fitness trackers and smart watches attract the most attention and can create significant values in past few years, the report suggested that the B2B business can generate nearly 70 percent of potential value enabled by IoT technologies. In other word, the B2B sector deserves more investment and resources.Enterprises do not want to slow down the pace of adopting IoT solution. however IoT technology such as cloud infrastructure, Hadoop, Big Data analytics schemes, open source software tools and etc are not easy tasks for enterprises. Some IT experts even worried that the required resources and technology will not be available for most of enterprises. That explains why only 21% of enterprises implement or test IoT solutions. Enterprises need more help from IoT technology providers.Founded in 2011, General Mobile Corporation, or called GMobi, is in response to the huge demand for mobile device industry and provide value-add services to assist enterprises to build up all content and allow developers to expand to the target markets with its unique PaaS(Platform as a Service) technologies. The company is aiming in emerging market including India, Russia, Middle East and south East Asia countries.Paul Wu, CEO of GMobi, talked about PaaS services in the interview with DIGITIMES. Prior to GMobi, Paul worked for developing internet platform for smartphones at MediaTek and Foxconn. His years of experiences in China allowed him to build up mobile service ecosystem with several China big online rivals. The cooperated project with Nokia in the early time, Paul highlighted, provided a great opportunity to deeply looking into the Indian mobile phone market. The strategy to go to Indian market is the clear goal for GMobi when starting developing global business.GMobi's Firmware Over-The-Air and Mobile Care technologies managing 160 millions devices in the worldToday, GMobi solutions provide an end-to-end, customized, firmware over-the-air (FOTA) updating service for Android mobile devices. Currently, the GMobi enabled software management services are being used by OEM including smartphones, tablets, smart watches and wristbands, such as Micromax, Cherry, Advan, FLY, Intex and etc There are three key advantages as to why GMobi can leverage its previous mobile experiences to connected car industry:First of all, Firmware Over-The-Air (FOTA). As Android operating system demands continue to grow, especially in emerging markets, through GMobi FOTA turnkey services, OEMs can always provide software updates to users with new OS versions, latest features and bugs fixed. The OTA solutions reduce customer services cost, fix any software issues, provide most up to date features in just a minute.It plays a pivotal role to increase brand loyalty and to build a corporate image for OEMS.The second is the Mobile Care. This is a unique software virtualization technologies applying to mobile devices to help OEMs to remotely manage the client mobile devices. GMobi Mobile Care include better software migration, increased device security and isolation, faster time to market, enhanced device performance, and cost savings. The Mobile Care solution bundles several reporting systems to generate statistics to track OTA status, bugs fixing, software version control and customer feedbacks.The third is GMobi's proven PaaS cloud platform currently managing 160 million devices and the volume continuous to grow. This is the strength building upon over-the-air software and firmware upgrading services in the smartphones, smart TVs and wearable markets. GMobi has a very strong presence in OTA service in the world, Paul proudly pointed out.Consumers in emerging markets have high expectations from local brands to offer innovative mobile devices, which is why OEMs choose GMobi solutions. It is reliable, flexible and proven services to handle versatile requirements from highly competitive and rapid changing markets.Successful in India, the GMobi first way to successThe Indian market has immense potential of smartphone business. It is the second most populous country in the world but lower penetration rate of mobile phones. In emerging markets, local OEMs are taking away market share from the world leading mobile phone brands such as Samsung. These local OEMs are successful because they know how to create competitive pricing, customize user experiences and offer the same features as other international brands, said Paul. He was determine to enter India market and initiated the cooperated projects with Micromax in 2011.Paul knew Micromax Informatics since he was still at MediaTek. At that time, Micromax started its business as a distributor for Nokia mobile phones. When Mediatek introduced all ranges of chipsets which provide turnkey solutions to many local mobile phone brands, Micromax took the opportunity and became an OEM itself and slowly build up its leading position in the local marketLike any new players that started their business, Micromax suffered from the Time-To-Market pressure, it needs to establish a rigid production schedule with suppliers just to be able to deliver products with very short lead time. Mostly, there was no enough time to test all software features . GMobi's FOTA solution provides in time support to help Micromax to shorten its time to market and software development cycles to win the market share and strong presence in India market.There is a story to show how GMobi leverage its unique technical strength to support Micromax solving the local constrains on interoperability and Internet infrastructure. The full version of Android operating system takes about 1 gigabyte file size. In India, the internet connection speed varied by regions and Telecoms ranged from 2G to 4G LTE protocols. The 1 gigabyte sized OTA could not be transmitted in a 2G network. GMobi fixed this problem by reducing software package size and include only the patches files. GMobi R&D teams introduced tools to build OTA files only by incremental codes between different Android OS. The technology removed common build file and provided a cleaner build file, which is much smaller than the original full version. GMobi OTA technology reduced the transfer file sizes from gigabyte to megabyte and delivered equally benefits to all mobile devices that connect to GMobi platform. With the confidence of Indian market development, Micromax push APP stores and other mobile advertising services to ramp up the profits from smartphone market. Both mobile advertising and payment are important services that help Micromax to gain financial incomes. These two features allowing users to make in app purchase, make payment via text messages and mobile wallets or subscribe certain services that are pushed to their phones.. The paymen will added to the monthly phone bill or deducted from a pre-paid balance used by mobile phone operators, It is a very good solution consider the credit card penetration rate is still very low in India. Each transaction contribute to both GMobi and OEM's revenue. There are 40 million smartphones connected to GMobi platform. The growth is promising.Other than our successful business engagement with local mobile brands, GMobi also have substantial development in connected devices such as Smart TVs, wearables and POS. Meanwhile, Paul also mentioned that more robots coming to factories. China manufacturers will significantly accelerate their use of robots over the next few years as expected to dramatically boost productivity and took advantage of low-cost manufacturing against payroll growth of labors. The robots also require software upgrade. There will be more business opportunities for GMobi.GMobi delivers a superior OTA service targeting the automotive market with Trend Micro IoT security technologiesGlobal automotive companies are more aware of the importance of a software-driven user experience inside the cars. The infotainment, navigation, telematics, and rear-seat entertainment systems become high-end embedded systems with which new features can be added through constant software updates. This will be a perfect place for developing OTA services. Carmakers are looking into OTA technologies can add functions for new entertainment and safety services throughout the car's lifetime. When combining software upgrade and automotive-grade systems, a proper secured separation should be put in place to prevent any malware or misbehaved applications from gaining access to the car's functionality. This is why cyber security playing an important role for Car OTA services.GMobi is in collaboration with Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cyber security solutions to provide layered data security to protect information on mobile devices, endpoints, gateways, servers and cloud platforms. Trend Micro offers IoT security SDKs (Software Development Kit) to provide the full visibility of risk assessment. The combined strength of both parties will enable global car manufacturers and mobile device suppliers to enhance service offerings, reduce development costs, and explore mobile application opportunities under a secured networking environment and keeping the systems securely isolated.Paul highlighted, GMobi's gaol is to provide OTA service for car manufacturers starting in 2018. GMobi has hosted several ongoing projects to kickoff and explore the business opportunities with European and Japanese car manufacturers. Frankly speaking, although some car components and system are too critical to be compromised and it will take time for car manufacturers to put OTA solutions in place for those parts, but in some it is a chance for infotainment system such as navigation, multimedia, and climate control to automatically upgrade through GMobi OTA services. OTA services for infotainment system can save up over hundreds dollars cost in one car, and ultimately tens of millions dollars in total savings per year.GMobi is one of the top 3 OTA service providers in the world. GMobi will take the opportunity to leap into the new industry. With the essential foundation gaining from the smartphone markets and experience to host more than 160 million devices, GMobi is planning to expand into car OTA services with the support of all employees and a strong determination to win. OTA service is an unavoidable trend, but the market demands and customers expectations are also moving GMobi forward. GMobi will soon become a leading supplier for comprehensive and full-featured OTA solution in automotive industry.Paul Wu, CEO of GMobi

Samsung Display has dominated global production and supply of smartphone-use AMOLED panels and will maintain the leading status over the next few years, with its shipments to increase to 560 million units in 2019, hiking 114% from 2015, according to Digitimes Research.Samsung Electronics is Samsung Display's largest client for smartphone-use AMOLED panels and will remain so over the next few years, with demand to grow from 239 million units in 2016 to 290 million units in 2019, Digitimes Research indicated.Apple is expected to initially adopt AMOLED panels for iPhones to be launched in 2017, with Samsung Display's supply estimated at 40 million units in 2017, 80 million units in 2018 and 120 million units in 2019.Several China-based smartphone vendors, including Vivo, Oppo, GiONEE, Huawei Technologies and Lenovo, have adopted or decided to adopt AMOLED panels, and Samsung Display's combined shipments to them will increase from 99 million units in 2016 to 150 million units in 2019.As Japan Display, Sharp, China- and Taiwan-based panel makers plan to step into AMOLED panels, Samsung Display may begin to face competition in 2019 or 2020.

Samsung Display and LG Display, in order to put pressure on competitors, has focused on AMOLED panels and will continue expansion of AMOLED production capacities, with combined AMOLED capacity to increase at a CAGR of 33.1% during 2015-2019, according to Digitimes Research.The two companies' combined annual capacity for AMOLED panels will increase from 6.093 million square meters in 2015 to 19.1 million square meters in 2019, Digitimes Research indicated. If broken down by generation, combined annual AMOLED capacity at 8G and above factories will increase from 1.815 million square meters in 2015 to 7.079 million square meters in 2019, and at 4.5-6G factories from 4.278 million square meters to 12.021 million square meters.Demand for smartphone-use AMOLED panels from Samsung Electronics and Apple alone in 2019 will exceed 420 million units. In addition to smartphones, AMOLED panels will be used in tablets, automotive displays and TVs.