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.

Among biometrics technologies, facial recognition is in growing application due to its being contactless, quick recognition and easy to use, and this is expected to increase demand for infrared (IR) LED devices which are used to enhance accuracy of facial recognition, according to Digitimes Research.Although fingerprint recognition is the most popular biometrics technology, it entails contact of fingers and thus is mostly applied to personal mobile devices, Digitimes Research indicated. In comparison, facial recognition is not only applied to mobile devices but also widely used for personal identification at public facilities such as airports.In order to hike accuracy of facial recognition, facial images have been upgraded from 2D level to 3D level and 3D images necessitate IR LED devices for depth scanning of faces to build 3D facial models. In addition, many vendors have developed image sensing software applications to hike capability of recognizing algorithms, such as Facebook-developed DeepFace, Apple-developed iPhoto and Microsoft-developed facial recognition API.Global market value for biometrics will increase from US$14.6 billion to US$31.4 billion in 2020, and that for facial recognition alone will increase from US$3.8 billion to US$10.1 billion, with the proportion to rise from 26.0% to 32.2%.

Taiwan-based TFT-LCD panel makers shipped 309.749 million small- to medium-size panels in the third quarter of 2016, increasing 15.0% on quarter and 0.8% on year, according to Digitimes Research.a-Si TFT-LCD panels took up 89.2% of the shipments and LTPS (low-temperature poly-Si) TFT-LCD units 10.8%, Digitimes Research indicated.In terms of applications, handsets accounted for 74.78% of the shipments, automotive displays for 5.72%, tablets for 5.66%, digital cameras for 3.67% and PNDs (portable navigation devices) for 2.72%.Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) was the largest maker accounting for 34.98% of the shipments, followed by HannStar Display with 31.84% and Innolux with 19.67%. However, HannStar Display's shipments grew 45.3% on quarter due to large growth in production of panels used in feature phones, while CPT's and Innolux's rose 7.7% and 10.7% respectively.Taiwan-based makers will ship 295.271 million small- to medium-size panels in the fourth quarter, slipping 4.7% on quarter but growing 4.0% on year.HannStar Display ranked second in shipmentsPhoto: HannStar Display

Taiwan-based ODMs, OEMs and OBMs together shipped 9.565 million LCD TVs in the third quarter of 2016, growing 13.2% on quarter and 4.7% on year, according to Digitimes Research.North America was the largest regional market accounting for 41.2% of shipments, Asia 31.3%, Europe 17.9% and others 9.6%, Digitimes Research indicated.Ultra HD models took up 19.1% of shipments and HD models 80.9%. In terms of screen size, below 32-inch models accounted for 10.8% of shipments, 32-inch 22.4%, 39-inch 3.2%, 40-/43-inch 27.2%, 46- to 49-inch 9.6% and 50-inch and above 26.8%.While 28.1% of shipments were for own-brand sale, US- and Europe-based vendors accounted for 28.2% of shipments, vendors from Japan 22.7%, China 16.0% and others 5.0%.TPV Technology took up 54.4% of shipments, followed by Foxconn Electronics 23.0%, Amtran Technology 9.6%, Compal Electronics 5.8% and Wistron 3.8%.There will be an estimated 10.215 million LCD TVs shipped globally in the fourth quarter, growing 6.8% on quarter but dipping 0.2% on year.