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.

Taiwan-based makers together shipped 312.94 million small- to medium-size (below 9-inch) TFT-LCD panels in the fourth quarter of 2016, increasing 1.0% on quarter and 10.2% on year, according to Digitimes Research.In terms of application, handsets accounted for 78.5% of the shipments, tablets for 5.5%, automotive displays for 5.4%, digital cameras for 2.9%, PNDs (portable/personal navigation devices) for 2.1%.Digitimes Research indicated that a-Si TFT-LCD panels accounted for 88.7% of the shipments and LTPS (low-temperature poly-Si) TFT-LCD units for 11.3%, HannStar Display was the largest maker taking up 37.4% of the shipments, followed by Chunghwa Picture Tubes with 31.4% and Innolux with 19.8%.Shipments in the first quarter of 2017 are forecast at 250.77 million units.

Taiwan-based makers shipped a total of 61.37 million large-size (9-inch and above) TFT-LCD panels during the fourth quarter of 2016, decreasing 1.5% on quarter but increasing 2% on year, according to Digitimes Research.TV panels accounted for 30% of shipments, notebook-use units for 31.6%, LCD monitor-use units 21.1% and tablet-use units 14.3%, Digitimes Research indicated.Innolux shipped 11.18 million TV panels, 10.25 million notebook-use units, 5.99 million monitor-use units and 2.49 million tablet-use units, while AU Optronics shipped 7.21 million TV panels, 9.17 million notebook-use units, 6.97 million monitor-use units and 3.37 million tablet-use units. In addition, Chunghwa Picture Tubes and HannStar Display shipped 2.51 million and 380,000 tablet-use panels.Shipments in 2016 stood at 231 million panels, slipping 2.3% on year. There will be 57.07 million panels shipped in the first quarter of 2017.

Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have been strengthening development of digital signage technology, with the former applying transparent and mirror display technology and developing Ultra HD LCD and LED displays for digital signage and the latter applying curved-surface AMOLED technology to enhance PID (public information display) design, according to Digitimes Research.In terms of software used in digital signage, Samsung has developed Smart Signage Platform based on its Tizen operating system, while LG pre-installs webOS in its digital signage to enable connection with smartphones, tablets and notebooks, Digitimes Research indicated.Samsung has offered 33- to 55-inch digital signage for commercial use and won adoption from Italy-based cruise operator MSC Cruises.In addition, SK Telecom has offered Smart Signage, a cloud computing-based platform for remote management of interactive digital signage displays.

It may be difficult for China-based AMOLED panel makers to obtain orders from Apple and other international smartphone vendors at least in the next five years das they are technologically inferior to Samsung Display, but their products are likely to be adopted by local smartphone vendors whose global market share is rising, according to Digitimes Research.China-based makers have been developing AMOLED technology and are setting up production lines, with total production capacity expected to exceed 50% of the corresponding total for Samsung Display and LG Display in 2020, Digitimes Research indicated.China AMOLED makers face two major barriers: hiking resolution and harnessing plastic substrate technology. Samsung Display is significantly superior to China-based makers in these two areas.For the two key technologies, China-based EverDispaly Optronics (Shanghai) in 2017 is expected to attain the level that Samsung Display reached in 2014. EverDisplay is lagging three years behind, while other China-based makers are further behind by 1-2 more years.In manufacturing AMOLED panels, yield rates for evaporating light-emitting materials are a bottleneck and the yield rates decrease as resolution increases. Among China-based makers, only EverDisplay and Truly Opto-Electronics are capable of producing Full HD AMOLED panels currently, and Kunshan Govisionox Optoelectronics, BOE Technology and Tianma Micro-electronics may be able to do that between the end of 2017 and mid-2018.Samsung Display began production of flexible AMOLED panels using PI (polyimide) material in the second half of 2014. China-based makers have unveiled such panels but cannot start volume production until 2018.

3G/4G mobile broadband Internet-access subscribers accounted for 46% of all mobile communication subscribers in the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) market in 2015 and the penetration is expected to rise to 60% in 2017, with 10% of mobile broadband Internet-access subscribers to be 4G (LTE) ones, according to Digitimes Research.The increase in penetration is mainly because growth in the number of mobile communication subscribers has slowed down, and pre-paid cards take up a large proportion of mobile communication subscribers prompting mobile telecom carriers to offer inexpensive pre-paid cards to provide easy and cheap Internet-access services, Digitimes Research indicated.In 2016, 113 million smartphones were sold in seven ASEAN countries (excluding Cambodia, Laos and Brunei), accounting for 8% of global total sales. 59% of the 113 million smartphones were of 3G models and 39% were 4G ones. Samsung Electronics, China-based Oppo, Thailand-based True, Taiwan-based Asustek Computer and India-based Lava were leading smartphone vendors in the ASEAN market in 2016.

In the Japan market, mobile operator KDDI set up a smart drone platform to store photographs and video in a database in the fourth quarter of 2016, while MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) Rakuten Mobile launched Mavic Pro, a drone developed by China-based DJI, for bundled sale in the quarter, according to Digitimes Research.KDDI's smart drone platform consists of drones produced by Japan-based Prodrone, 3D maps supplied by Japan-based digital map provider Zenrin for navigation, an operational management system for remote control, supporting cloud computing-based services.Mavic Pro supports 4K video recording and can be controlled by smartphones with wireless communication distance up to 4km and maximum flight time of 27 minutes. Rakuten Mobile offers Mavic Pro for sale bundled with smartphones and SIM cards, with varying discounts in price depending on smartphone models.Mobile telecom carriers NTT DoCoMo also promoted drone services in October 2016 and Softbank tested use of drones as base stations in December, Digitimes Research indicated.