Although mobile broadband Internet-access (3G/4G) subscribers in the India market rapidly increased to 93.15 million in mid-2015, the country faces three main problems in boosting services: huge gaps in deployment of mobile Internet-access networks between rural and urban areas, unhealthy price competition arising from too many mobile telecom carriers, and a lack of long-tern government planning in allocating frequency band units, according to Digitimes Research.There were 299 million mobile Internet-access subscribers in India at the end of June 2015 and 67.6% of them were 2G users, Digitimes Research indicated.The unhealthy price competition is because India's low regulatory barriers have attracted many foreign mobile telecom carriers and consequently 12 first-tier operators (including local ones) compete in 22 telecom markets across India. Low-price competition has resulted in the globally lowest ARPU (average revenue per user) and in turn led to slow construction of infrastructure. The largest local mobile telecom carrier Bharti Airtel, for example, kicked off 3G commercial operations in 2011 and 4G commercial operations in April 2012 but 3G and 4G networks cover only 40% and 11% of India's population.

In 2016, China's smartphone panel capacity is expected to increase steadily in 2016, as key makers Tianma Micro-electronics and BOE Technology increase capacity and other makers including GVO from Kunshan and Truly Opto-electronics increase the share of smartphone panels they produce, according to a recent Digitimes Research Special Report.Tianma, based in Shenzhen, plans to expand its sixth-generation LTPS TFT LCD production lines in Xiamen in fourth-quarter 2016, while BOE plans to have its sixth-generation LTPS TFT LCD production lines in Chengdu enter mass production at the end of 2016, indicated Digitimes Research.Digitimes Research predicts Tianma's high-end smartphone panel shipments to exceed 10 million units in fourth-quarter 2016, as the firm has the most LTPS TFT LCD capacity in China. BOE is predicted to see handset panel shipments be close to 90 million units during the boom season in third-quarter 2016, as the firm has the most handset panel capacity in China.The report, titled "China smartphone touch-panel industry 2016 forecast," forecasts that by the end of 2016, high-end smartphone Full HD panel prices in China will drop to below US$12/unit with the on-year decrease expected at 23.1%.

The global application processor (AP) market will grow 8.5% in 2016, reaching 1.78 billion units, according to a recent Digitimes Research Special Report. The growth rate in 2016 will surpass the annual growth of 7.9% seen in 2015.Intel is expected to show the strongest growth among vendors with 25% growth in 2016, as it launches new low-cost 4G solutions. However, Qualcomm will remain the market leader on expected shipments of 430 million units. The US-based vendor is forecast to experience 7.5% yearly growth, with its share remaining at about 24%.The report, titled "2016 global AP demand forecast" notes that while some traditional AP markets, such as for tablets, will shrink this year, other emerging applications including for automobile electronics, set-top boxes, virtual reality (VR) and smart watches are booming.Digitimes Research did point out that the AP market will continue being dominated by communication devices. APs shipped with basebands will account for 81% of the market in 2016, up from 77% in 2015.

With IT products such as smartphone and Internet of Things (IoT) devices being designed with considerations of high performance, low cost, low power consumption and small form factor, IC makers have been pushing 16/14nm processes and developing 10nm processes to satisfy demand. However, as Moore's Law starts slowing the pace of advancement, many IC makers have crossed into the packaging industry to continue to meet demand.Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) Chip on Wafer on Substrate (CoWoS) manufacturing process based on Through Si Via (TSV) for 2.5D chips finished development in the second half of 2011. The process has been used to manufacture Xilinx FPGAs and AMD GPUs but faced issues with its over-large IC area and high manufacturing costs. In response, the IC maker came out with Fan-out Wafer level Package (FOWLP) technology which it combined with the CoWoS manufacturing process to form its Integrated Fan-out (InFO) packaging solution.In addition to TSMC, several other packaging service providers and IDMs such as Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE), Amkor, STATS, Infineon, and Freescale have all developed their own FOWLP solutions.Although FOWLP technology has advantages in terms of low cost, improved performance and small form factor, its integration level with the IC process and time to market are both weaker than those of PoP and SiP technologies. Therefore, some IC makers have started developing Wafer Level System in Package (WLSiP) technology using FOWLP technology as the base to further improve the integration level. Meanwhile, to further reduce costs and PCB usage area, Samsung Electronics has come out with an ePoP solution.Digitimes Research expects the development of FOWLP technology to gradually advance to 3D chips and next-generation WLSiP technology. Meanwhile, development of TSV 3D IC integration technology is unlikely to show results until 2019-2020.

With Japan-based Mizuho Bank and Mitsubishi Tokyo UFJ Bank having recently crossed into the Financial Technology (FinTech) industry, FinTech has become a new trend. However, Japan's financial organizations are tightly ruled by local policies, and therefore FinTech may see difficulties realizing its full potential. Instead, telecom carriers, which are not regulated as strictly as banks and have advantages in user base and telecommunication technologies, are likely to become the main drivers of FinTech technology.FinTech Association Japan was established in September 2015 by 20 founding companies, many of which were startups, and now has a membership roster that includes Japan's largest banks such as Mizuho Bank, Mitsubishi Tokyo UFJ Bank and Mitsui Sumitomo Bank as well as telecom carriers NTT DoCoMo and KDDI au 2, according to Digitimes Research's latest report about the FinTech industry in Japan.The three banks' investments in financial IT are expected to grow in a CAGR of 3.4% from 2014-2019. The channel system and customer management categories are the areas with the highest investments. Networks and mobile banking businesses under the channel system category are the foundation of FinTech.Compared to Europe and North America, Japan's FinTech development is rather behind mainly due to limitations imposed by Japan's Banking Act. Policy forbids Japan's financial organizations to have an over 5% stake in a non-finance-based company, limiting banks in Japan from investing heavily in startups. Meanwhile, Japan's telecom carriers will have an easier time accessing FinTech technology as they have been providing their users with convenient mobile payment services since the feature phone era.

Apple is expected to ship 9.8 million iPads in the first quarter of 2016, historically its lowest quarterly level, with decreases of 39.1% on quarter and nearly 20% on year, according to Digitimes Research.There will be an estimated 46.65 million tablets shipped globally in the first quarter of 2016, slipping 28.6% on quarter and 8.6% on year, Digitimes Research indicated. In addition to iPad models, the shipments will include 21.5 million tablets to be launched by brand vendors, and 15.4 million units by white-box vendors, sequentially decreasing 25.9% and 24.1%, respectively.Apple will account for 21% of global shipments, followed by Samsung Electronics with 14%, Lenovo 7.2%, Amazon 5.8%, Huawei Device 4%, Asustek Computer 2.7%, Microsoft and TCL each with 2.6%, LG Electronics 1.8% and Acer 1.2%.7-inch models will account for 35.4% of shipments, 7.9-inch 13.8%, 8.x-inch 6.1%, 9.x-inch 23.8%, 10.x-inch 10.1% and 11-inch and above 10.8%.Taiwan-based ODMs/OEMs will ship 14.5 million tablets in the quarter, dropping 37.8% on quarter and 17.6% on year. Foxconn Electronics (the largest OEM for iPad) will take up 60.5% of the shipments, followed by Compal Electronics with 15.8%, Pegatron 10.4%, Quanta Computer 4.7% and Wistron 1.3%.

Due to better-than-expected demand and channel retailers strengthening their promotions, some US-based tablet vendors achieved strong shipments, helping global tablet shipments grow 23.9% sequentially to reach 65.34 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015. But compared to the same quarter a year ago, the volume still decreased 13.8%.Although iPad Pro shipment performance was the main focus for market watchers, the iPad Air 2 was the major contributor of Apple's tablet shipments of 16.1 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015 thanks to channel retailers' aggressive promotions, according to Digitimes Research's latest report about global tablet shipments.White-box players' tablet shipments in the fourth quarter of 2015 were only 20.3 million units, down nearly 5% sequentially because of competition from first-tier brand vendors' low-cost models in Europe and North America, Intel canceling its subsidies, and the fact that white-box players have turned to supply large-size Windows-based tablets with higher prices and better profits.Non-Apple brand vendors performed the best in the fourth quarter of 2015, shipping 28.94 million units, up 6.4% on year. Among the vendors, Samsung mainly focused on its inexpensive 7-inch tablet with phone functionality and a 9.6-inch model; however, their shipments only had limited growth.Amazon mass shipped its low-price Fire 7 tablet in the fourth quarter of 2015 and by taking demand away from white-box players' models, the US-based vendor's tablet shipments grew significantly on year in the quarter.With a complete product lineup and strong shipments both in China and overseas markets, Huawei's tablet shipments surpassed those of Asustek Computer for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2015.Because of Apple and Amazon's better-than-expected shipments, Taiwan ODMs had strong tablet shipments in the fourth quarter of 2015, shipping 23.32 million units altogether. Thanks to the iPad Air and the iPad Pro, Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) contributed almost 60% of the volume. Compal mainly benefited from the iPad mini 2 and Amazon's Fire 7.Foxconn and Compal together accounted for over 80% of Taiwan's tablet shipments in the quarter.

The production value of South Korea's memory chip industry is expected to decline around 10% sequentially in the first quarter of 2016, due mainly to falling chip prices, according Digitimes Research.South Korea's production value of memory chips, including DRAM and NAND flash devices, dropped 9% sequentially to KRW12.62 trillion (US$10.9 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2015, said Digitimes Research. The total production value consisted of KRW8.52 trillion for DRAM and KRW4.1 trillion for NAND flash, which represented sequential decreases of 11.5% and 3.3%, respectively.For all of 2015, the production value of South Korea's memory chip industry reached a record KRW52.5 trillion, Digitimes Research indicated. During the year, the DRAM sector generated KRW36.5 trillion accounting for 69.5% of the country's total production value of memory chips.In 2015, South Korea accounted for more than 60% of the worldwide memory-IC industry output value, Digitimes Research noted. In the DRAM field, the country grabbed a larger share at more than 70%.

Shipments of smartphone-use application processors in China are expected to decline 19.8% sequentially to 136 million units in the first quarter of 2016, according to Digitimes Research.Device vendors already pre-stocked sufficient inventory in the fourth quarter of 2015, and have slowed down their pace of orders, said Digitimes Research. Also, fewer working days caused by the Lunar New Year holidays will lead to lower production in the first quarter.In the first quarter, Spreadtrum will suffer a shipment decline which will be larger than its competitors', Digitimes Research indicated. Spreadtrum's shipment share will slide 0.8pp on quarter to 25.8%.MediaTek will post a nearly 20% shipment decline in the first quarter compared to fourth-quarter 2015, Digitimes Research said. Despite the shipment drop, MediaTek's shipment share will climb 0.6pp on quarter to 39%.Meanwhile, Qualcomm's shipments will decrease around 10% sequentially in the first quarter of 2016, but its shipment share will rise to 22.8%, Digitimes Research noted.

Japan-based Konica Minolta exhibited flexible OLED lighting panels based on a roll-to-roll process at Lighting Japan 2016 in Tokyo during January 13-15, showing that it is a global leader in OLED lighting, according to Digitimes Research.Konica Minolta has set up a factory specifically for producing flexible OLED lighting panels with investment of JPY10.0 billion (US$83.3 million), Digitimes Research indicated. The factory has a monthly production capacity of one million 50mm by 30mm flexible OLED panels, and Konica Minolta aims at annual revenues of JPY50 billion in 2020.Konica Minolta has chosen resin-based substrates instead of metal or glass to make flexible OLED lighting panels. As LED lighting has advantages over OLED lighting in terms of production costs, luminous efficiency and service life, Konica Minolta-produced OLED lighting panels are designed to target special purposes.Konica Minolta is expected to reach a global market share of 16.7% for OLED lighting in 2020, followed by LG Display with 20%.