Following the liberalization of Japan's low-voltage electricity market beginning April 1, 2016, NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and SoftBank, the three largest Japan-based mobile telecom carriers, have become retailers of electricity for households and small businesses in a bid to promote sales of value-added services using their ICT capabilities, according to Digitimes Research.Newcomers in the open low-voltage electricity market fall in two categories: natural gas and oil suppliers motivated to become integrated energy suppliers and non-energy providers looking for adding value business opportunities, Digitimes Research indicated.Mobile telecom carriers have opportunities to provide smart meters and HEMS (home energy management systems) which are able to not only save power but also collect consumption data for Big Data analysis which can be referenced for providing elderly care and other services.

Shipments of smartphone-use application processors in China are expected to decline 15.9% sequentially to 145 million units in the first quarter of 2017, according to Digitimes Research. Shipments on an annual basis will grow about 7.6% from the 134.8 million units shipped in first-quarter 2016.MediaTek, among the top-three smartphone AP vendors, will suffer the largest sequential drop in first-quarter shipments, said Digitimes Research. The Taiwan-based firm's smartphone AP shipments in China will fall 18.6% sequentially to 57 million units in the first quarter of 2017, due to a lack of solutions to support LTE Cat. 7 technology as well as seasonal factors.Spreadtrum is expected to see its smartphone shipments in China decline 15.6% on quarter to 27 million units in the first quarter of 2017, Digitimes Research indicated. Shipments of Spreadtrum's 16nm 4G SoC series, dubbed SC9860, targeted at the mid-range segment failed to make a positive contribution to the company's shipments during the quarter.Qualcomm's smartphone AP shipments in China will register a smaller 12% sequential decrease in the first quarter, thanks to its more-competitive offerings, Digitimes Research noted. Qualcomm is forecast to ship 44 million units in the first quarter of 2017, up a substantial 41.9% on year. Qualcomm has enjoyed strong sales of its high-end S800-series solutions, while obtaining orders with its S600 series for mid-range devices from Xiaomi and Oppo.In addition, Qualcomm will manage to grow its share of China's smartphone AP market above 30% in the first quarter of 2017, while MediaTek's market share will drop below 40%, Digitimes Research observed. MediaTek saw its share of the China smartphone AP market fall to 40.6% in the fourth quarter of 2016 from 46% in the first two quarters of the year.

Wintel notebooks shipped by the global top-five vendors: HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer and Asustek Computer, in January 2017 decreased 35% on month but increased 10% on year, while shipments by the three largest Taiwan-based ODMs: Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics and Wistron, also slipped 30% on month but grew 20% on year, according to Digitimes Research.The on-month drop was due to off-season effects and fewer working days over the 2017 Lunar New Year holidays in late January, Digitimes Research indicated.Lenovo surpassed HP as the largest vendor in January mainly due to strong sales in China. Acer and Asustek saw January shipments fall 20% and 14% respectively on month.Meanwhile, ODM Quanta Computer saw a much smaller on-month drop in January shipments than Compal Electronics and Wistron.

Exhibitors focused LED and optoelectronics devices at Lighting Japan 2017 in Tokyo during January 18-20 on automotive applications, according to Digitimes Research.UK-based BAE Systems showcased an object-recognition deep-learning system for use in self-driving, developed through cooperation with Nvidia, Digitimes Research indicated. Infrared thermal image sensors used in the system can recognize objects in dark environments.STMicroelectronics exhibited an image sensor for use in ADAS (advanced driver assistance system) supporting HDR (high dynamic range) images.ON Semiconductor exhibited NCV78763, an in-house-developed driver IC for use in LED and laser light sources, which has been adopted by Audi for laser headlights of its R8. The headlight is able to project at long-range at high running speeds.Taiwan-based Everlight Electronics focused on devices used in in-car LED lighting and displays, while Japan-based Konica Minolta showcased OLED automotive lighting products and indicated that OLED lighting will be used in 8% of high-end automobiles in 2020.

Taiwan-based TFT-LCD panel makers together shipped 312.94 million small- to medium-size units in the fourth quarter of 2016, increasing 1.0% on quarter and 10.2% on year.88.7% of the shipments were a-Si TFT-LCD panels and 11.3% LTPS units, Digitimes Research indicated.In terms of application, handsets accounted for 78.5% of shipments, tablets 5.5%, automotive displays 5.4%, digital cameras 2.9% and PNDs 2.1%.HannStar Display was the largest maker accounting for 37.4% of the shipments, followed by Chunghwa Picture Tubes with 31.4% and Innolux 19.8%.Shipments in the first quarter of 2017 will decrease to 250.77 million panels and those in the whole year will grow 0.8% on year to 1.172 million units.

Various types of robots were exhibited at RoboDEX 2017 in Tokyo, Japan, during January 18-20, including collaborative, humanoid, assistant and receptionist robots, according to Digitimes Research.Japan-based Fanuc, in view of growing demand for IoT-integrated robots, has developed FIELD System, an open platform for such robots with AI (artificial intelligence) functions, failure early warning and detection, remote control and industrial Big Data analysis, Digitimes Research indicated.Denmark-based Universal Robots showcased R5, a collaborative robot capable of Chinese calligraphy, while Hitachi exhibited movable collaborative robots to be launched in the third quarter of 2017 at JPY17 million (US$151,200).Japan-based Kokoro showcased humanoid robots which have been used in hotel lobbies to receive visitors and will be used in Narita International Airport later in February 2017. NEC exhibited PaPeRo i, a robotic dog used to receive visitors at commercial facilities.Toshiba showcased ExPAS, a wearable assistant robot able to reduce burden on users' knees by 15kg. ExPAS is mainly for use by logistics workers and old people.

The number of FTTx subscribers increased to 228 million and 3G/4G mobile broadband Internet-access subscribers grew to 941 million in China as of the end of 2016, accounting for 76.8% of all fixed-line broadband Internet-access subscribers, and 71.2% of all mobile communications respectively, Digitimes Research cited statistics by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) as indicating.MIIT aims at 300 million FTTx subscribers and 400 million fixed-line broadband Internet-access subscribers by 2020 and is likely to attain the goal earlier, Digitimes Research indicated.The significant growth in the number of FTTx subscribers is because the China government began to implement the Broadband China Plan in August 2013, and China Mobile became the third licensee of fixed-line broadband Internet-access services at the end of that year. China Mobile has been rapidly setting up FTTx infrastructure and saw its market share for fixed-line broadband rise to 28.1% in 2016.Despite progress in overall penetration of fixed-line broadband in China, the gap in the penetration rate in urban and rural areas has widened. The average penetration rate in urban areas increased from 35.9% in 2008 to 67.2% in 2016 while rural ones rose from 11.6% to 31.7%, raising the gap from 24.3pp to 35.5pp.

There were 124.2 million smartphones shipped in the China market in the fourth quarter of 2016, increasing 8.0% on quarter and 5.3% on year and accounting for 29.6% of the global total, according to Digitimes Research.China-based vendors together accounted for 82.0% of the shipments and international ones for 18.0%, Digitimes Research indicated.Oppo was the largest China-based vendor, taking up 20.3% of the shipments, followed by Vivo with 18.7%, Huawei Technologies with 12.0%, GiONEE with 4.3%, Xiaomi Technology with 3.9% and Meizu with 3.8%. Among international vendors, Apple posted a market share of 13.2% and Samsung Electronics 4.1%.Shipments in the first quarter of 2017 will decrease to 100.2 million smartphones.

Panasonic has been developing smart towns in Japan using in-house-developed technologies and products. Panasonic sees the development of smart towns as a new long-term business, according to Digitimes Research.Panasonic began to develop Fujisawa Sustainable Smart City (Fujisawa SST) in Kanagawa Prefecture, central Japan, as the first smart town in 2013, with completion scheduled for 2018, Digitimes Research indicated. Being developed on Panasonic's abandoned factory sites covering total land area of 190,000 square meters, Fujisawa SST consists of 600 vertically integrated town houses and 400 apartment units to house 3,000 residents and is characterized as an elderly housing community.Fujisawa SST features combination of PV power generation, smart power supply from outside and natural gas-based fuel cells via connection by HEMS (home energy management systems) to maximize energy savings, with a goal of reducing carbon emissions by 70%. In addition, Fujisawa SST features LED lighting as well as smart monitoring systems and devices to decrease water consumption by 30%.Panasonic has started development of its second smart town, Tsunashima SST beside Yokohama City, central Japan and will complete the development in 2018. Unlike Fujisawa SST, Tsunashima SST is a residential/commercial mixed-use community and its system design is relatively open and based on modularization to be more flexible in a bid to attract partners to participate in development.

Seven China-based panel makers have been expanding existing or setting up new AMOLED production capacities, with total annual capacity estimated to increase from 272,000 square meters in 2016 to 1.584 million square meters in 2018, 4.464 million square meters in 2019, and 7.864 million square meters in 2020 at a 2016-2020 CAGR of 131.9%, according to Digitimes Research.In 2020, BOE Technology will be the largest China-based AMOLED panel maker accounting for 35.0% of total annual production capacity, Tianma Micro-electronics 17.6%, Visionox 14.0%, EverDisplay Optronics (Shanghai) 11.6%, China Star Optoelectronics Technology 9.5%, Truly Opto-Electronics 7.8% and Royole 4.5%, Digitimes Research indicated.In comparison, Samsung Display and LG Display had combined annual production capacity of 4.945 million square meters for AMOLED panels in 2016 and the total capacity will increase to 15.130 million square meters in 2020 at a 2016-2020 CAGR of 32.3%. However, the two South Korea-based makers are relatively focusing expansion on flexible AMOLED panels, with the proportion for flexible models to hike from 46.1% in 2016 to 72.6% in 2020.