Taiwan-based makers will ship 41.579 million smartphone-use touch panels in the second quarter of 2015, increasing 23.5% on quarter but decreasing 22.3% on year, 8.941 million tablet-use units, up 7.2% and down 15% respectively, and 2.175 million notebook-use units, up 34% and 16.0% respectively, according to Digitimes Research.

China-based TFT-LCD panel maker BOE Technology will expand monthly capacity at its 8.5G production line in Chongqing, western China, from 90,000 glass substrates to 120,000 units, according to Digitimes Research.

China makers' shipments of touch panels for smartphone, tablet and notebook applications dropped 17.4%, 31.7% and 33.5% respectively in the first quarter of 2015, according to Digitimes Research.

Tablet application processor (AP) shipments to China are estimated to grow 18.6% sequentially in the second quarter of 2015 to reach about 29 million units as demand from the end market starts to recover. Top-3 suppliers in China's tablet AP market, MediaTek, Rockchip and Intel, together will contribute 59.1% of total tablet AP shipments in the second quarter, down 0.8pp from a quarter ago...

Panel makers in Asia have continued to strengthen their financial performances in 2015 as panel pricing has remained similar to that in 2014 while overall production costs have dropped, leading to increased profits for most makers, according to Digitimes Research.

Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell, Lenovo, Acer and Asustek Computer, the five largest notebook vendors, saw combined shipments in April decrease 32% on month, while Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics and Wistron, the world's three largest notebook ODMs, saw combined shipments in April slip 16% on month, according to Digitimes Research's latest monthly notebook shipment report.

Taiwan makers' shipments of LCD TVs reached 7.48 million in the first quarter of 2015, down over 30% on quarter and the lowest since the first quarter of 2010, according to Digitimes Research.

Global tablet shipments are expected to stay flat from a quarter ago and reach 49.31 million units in the second quarter of 2015, but compared to the same quarter a year ago, the volume will drop close to 10%. Apple's iPad shipments are expected to decline to 9.8 million units, down 30% on year, according to Digitimes Research's latest report about global tablets.

Japan's online video market is expected to grow significantly starting the second half of 2015 when Netflix begins to offer its services, NTT DoCoMo launches its dTV Terminal program and the local top-five cable TV operators start offering free online video services, according to Digitimes Research.

Networking chipset vendors including Broadcom, Cavium and Applied Micro Circuit (AMCC) have taken the initiative to replace PowerPC and MIPS architectures with ARM's for developments of server processor solutions for new networking communication equipment, including SDN (software-defined networking) and NFV (network functions virtualization) devices, according to Digitimes Research.