Global demand for LED lighting products and LED-based lighting systems and services in 2018 will increase from 2013 by 190% and 180%, respectively, and global demand for LED lighting will begin to exceed that for conventional lighting products in 2017, according to Digitimes Research.In contrast, global demand for conventional lighting products in 2018 will decrease 40% from 2013, Digitimes Research indicated.Conventional lighting products are still and will be mainstream in developing and underdeveloped countries, with about 70% of such products being compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and fluorescent lamps. Average annual decreases in CFL use will be higher than that for fluorescent lamps mainly because CFLs will face increasing price competition from LED light bulbs.

The launch of Android One smartphones by India-based vendors in their local market starting September will affect sales of current models priced at around INR6,000 (US$98) as well as low-priced models offered by Samsung Electronics, according to Digitimes Research.Google's push to launch Android One phones in India is not aimed at expanding the market share of Android OS, but rather to strengthen its control over the Android OS and end-market devices in the India market, a business model which Google can extend to other emerging markets.Meanwhile, most brand vendors are releasing more mid-range to entry-level 3G and 4G handsets for the fourth quarter of 2014 in order to minimize the impact of the new iPhone devices on sales of their high-end models.However, most vendors are pushing sales of their 3G models to emerging markets, while promoting 4G models to China and Europe, which will help eliminate competition in the China market, Digitimes Research commented.

The combined notebook shipments (not including detachable models) of the global top-5 brand vendors enjoyed on-month growth of 19% in September and were at a level similar to a year ago because of the distribution of new entry-level models. Vendors' inventory adjustments in August also contributed to the growth.Among the top-5 vendors, Asustek saw 70% on-year growth and Lenovo recorded over 40% growth in September. Hewlett-Packard (HP) was the only vendor seeing an on-year decline. However, the top-3 notebook ODMs did not perform as well as the vendors and only achieved a shipment amount similar to that seen in August.Although notebook demand has started recovering, the number of brand vendors that decided to reduce investments in the notebook market still increased. In September, both Toshiba and Samsung Electronics announced to quit from some parts of the notebook market.Toshiba has quit from China, Russia, Africa and South Korea's notebook markets, while Samsung has quit from Europe's notebook market. These markets were where the two brand vendors were weakest and their absence is expected to benefit other competitors there.Since Samsung also has given up its Chromebook business in Europe, Digitimes Research expects such a decision to cripple its attempt to expand its global Chromebook market share.Microsoft has recently announced its Windows 10 will be available in the second half of 2015. The new operating system will occupy less storage space and can be adopted in smartphones and PCs.Windows 8 users are eligible for free Windows 10 upgrade and the differences between Windows 10's and Windows 8's core designs are not as significant as those between Windows 8 and Windows 7. Therefore, Digitimes Research believes consumers' adoption of Windows 10 should come faster that for Windows 8.

Microsoft, which launched Windows 8.1 with Bing for US$249 notebooks, has recently decided to continue pushing the solution in 2015, but with some modifications on specifications and applicable markets, looking to suppress Chromebooks which have been achieving rapid growth recently.Because of the two product lines' different market positions and value created for the market, Digitimes Research believes Windows 8.1 with Bing will hurt brand vendors' profits more than its effect on suppressing Chromebook growth.Microsoft's new Windows 8.1 with Bing solution for 2015 is set to be released on February 1, 2015, and will be the third time that Microsoft has led an inexpensive notebook project in the past three years. When the notebook market was seriously impacted by tablets, Microsoft had trouble achieving results from the tablet industry, and Chromebooks also started rising.Gradually rising demand for Chromebooks is the driver pushing Microsoft to launch inexpensive solutions and the software giant's competition with Google has also extended from the mobile market to the PC industry.However, compared to Chromebooks which have created value for brand vendors and the market, Microsoft's Windows 8.1 with Bing solution is mainly about low prices and specifications, which greatly worries brand vendors participating in the project. Microsoft will need to resolve such concerns or it could lead the industry further into low-price competition.After seeing global notebook shipments suffer the first on-year drop in 2012, demand for Windows-based tablets remain weak, and Windows 8 fail to boost notebook demand as expected in the fourth quarter of 2012, Microsoft's small screen touch (SST) solution launched in early 2013 provided notebooks and tablets with 11.6-inch or below displays, low Windows 8 licensing fees to help prices drop below US$399.Although the SST solution did not perform well, a similar project still remains active in 2014.In 2013, the notebook market suffered a further shipment drop, declining 10.5% on year. However, Chromebook shipments enjoyed strong growth, boosting the volume from slightly above one million units in 2012 to over three million units in 2013, and also triggering more vendors to participate in development. The rise of Chromebooks pushed Microsoft to launch Windows 8.1 with Bing.Microsoft's solution is mainly targeting Chromebooks and is looking to help notebook products achieve price points similar to those of Chromebooks at below US$249. Microsoft is also aiming to help notebooks using its Windows 8.1 with Bing solution to feature hardware and software at least as good as those of Chromebooks, and therefore has decided to extend display size limitations to 14- and 15-inch, sizes Chromebooks do not usually adopt.

Korea- and Japan-based LCD monitor vendors are continuing to release new high-end monitors, including Samsung's 27-inch S27D850T and IIYAMA's B2888UHSU products.HDMI/DisplayPort are key features for new high-end monitors and IIYAMA is showing signs of using more Twisted Nematic (TN) technology in its recently released units.Digitimes Research believes such moves from the vendors are in order to further carve their presence in the monitor market through value-added products and increase profits as the monitor market fluctuates.

ARM's Mali is expected to become the mainstream GPU architecture for China-based application processors (APs) in the second half of 2014 in terms of market share, surpassing Imagination significantly. However, in the high-end segment, Mali's share will be slightly weaker than that of Qualcomm's GPU architecture due to Qualcomm's advantages in chip design, but will still perform better than Imagination's solution.Among the solutions, Nvidia's GPU architecture has the best performance and its latest GPU core is able to deliver strong performance with low power consumption. Although Nvidia only has limited clients, its shipment growth in 2014 is expected to be better than in previous years, according to figures from Digitimes Research.Vivante has been losing clients and only has two clients in the second half of 2014. The company's market share is also expected to decline in 2014.High definition (HD) mobile has become the main marketing point for mobile devices and even products in different price segments are all heading toward the same development direction: When increasing resolution on mobile devices, in addition to optimizing multimedia applications, developers also need to satisfy demand for 3D gaming applications, which have been appearing rapidly.After experiencing fierce price competition, China's mobile device market started looking for ways to recover and strengthening multimedia applications and releasing high-end HD products have become a new strategy.The GPU is a key component for handling multimedia applications and each GPU solution has its own unique advantages in the balance between technology and costs. GPU solution providers' marketing is also greatly influencing their market shares. Currently, ARM is mainly expanding its market base using its pricing advantages. After gaining the upper hand in the ecosystem, the company is expected to gradually enter into the high-end territory to further stabilize its market position to help edge out its competitors.

The government in India, at the end of 2012, implemented the National Telecom Policy, a set of reform policies including nationwide licensing in place of regional licenses, enforcement of regulations on the use and auctioning of frequency bands, mechanisms for mobile telecom carriers to withdraw from the market, and phone number portability, as well as goals to pave the way for healthy development of the local mobile telecom market, according to Digitimes Research.Mainly due to unbalanced market competition and telecom regulations, the number of mobile communication subscribers in India grew over 20 fold during 2003-2012, Digitimes Research indicated. Following the implementation of the National Telecom policy, the number decreased by about 30 million from a peak in 2012 to 904 million in the first quarter of 2014.However, India's mobile telecom market has been toward healthy development, as indicated by rebounding ARPU (average revenue per user), growing mobile Internet-access penetration in rural areas, and mobile telecom carriers' swing from losses to profitability, according to statistics by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Despite the improvement, more than 80% of mobile Internet-access subscribers use GPRS/EDGE networks, signifying the need to upgrade network infrastructure.

After visiting China's smartphone industry in August and September, Digitimes Research found that demand for 4G smartphones in China did not rise as expected and most vendors' domestic shipments did not achieve any growth.Digitimes Research estimates that even if China's top-three telecom carriers strengthen their promotions for the fourth quarter, vendors that focus mainly on domestic shipments such as CoolPad, Lenovo and Xiaomi, are still unlikely to achieve their shipment targets for 2014.With China Mobile's TD-LTE service starting to operate at the end of 2013, China-based smartphone vendors originally expected 4G smartphone demand to improve significantly in the third quarter after seeing the business opportunity fail to take off in the first half, but demand did not improve as expected in the third quarter.China-based CoolPad, which turned all its smartphone product lines to support 4G in the first half, accumulated a large excess inventory of 4G smartphones in the channel from January-April. Since its sales in the third quarter remained weak, the vendor's orders to its upstream supply chain were greatly reduced for the quarter.Lenovo, which started launching 4G smartphones at the end of the second quarter, had issues with 3G inventory from the first half and saw its shipments impacted in the third quarter. Seeing demand for 4G models remaining unclear, the vendor is taking a conservative approach about placing 4G orders.Xiaomi, which saw its ranking increase significantly in the first half, also faced weak 4G smartphone demand in the third quarter. The vendor's 4G-based Hongmi sales did not stand out, causing its quarterly shipments to fail to achieve as strong a growth as before.China's smartphone market is seeing mild growth in 2014 because the market has already reached a plateau. Even with China telecom carriers' plans to push mid-range and entry-level 4G smartphones in the fourth quarter, which will boost CoolPad, Lenovo and Xiaomi's 4G smartphone shipments, it will be traded with a significant reduction in 3G model shipments.As a result, the three China-based first-tier vendors, which still heavily rely on domestic sales, are unlikely to achieve their shipment goals for 2014.

No mid-range digital cameras for sale at US$300-400 were launched in the global market in the third quarter of 2014 possibly due to increasing competition from smartphones, according to Digitimes Research.In order to increase differentiation between digital cameras and smartphone cameras, vendors have increased optical optical zoom specifications, with 12x optical zoom models taking up 75% of newly launched digital cameras, Digitimes Research indicated. In addition, more and more digital cameras support Wi-Fi, including the Panasonic FZ1000, TZ60, TZ61, TZ56 and SZ8 as well as Samsung Electronics WB351. Wi-Fi-enabled models account for 75% of newly launched digital cameras. The FZ1000, TZ60 and TZ61 also support NFC functionality.Among seven major Japan-based digital camera vendors, Nikon, Sony and Olympus did not launch new consumer models in the third quarter.

Bit demand for non-PC DRAM, mainly niche mobile DRAM and server-use DRAM, will increase 38% on year in the second half of 2014, much higher than 2.7% for standard DRAM, according to Digitimes Research.In particular, bit demand for server-use DRAM will soar by an annual rate of 46.6% in the second half of 2014 due to fast growing cloud computing and big data applications.While the ratio of specialty DRAM to the total niche DRAM market is relatively low, the increasing application of specialty memory chips by flat-panel TVs will ramp up the on-year bit growth rate of specialty DRAM to 22.5% in the second half, Digitimes Research added.Additionally, the bit growth rate of mobile DRAM will significantly surpass that of standard DRAM in 2015, making mobile DRAM the mainstream memory chips in the market.