China touch panel makers shipped 148.8 million touch panels in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to the latest DIGITIMES Research China Touch Panel Tracker. The report for the first quarter indicated that shipments will drop about 5% on seasonality.
China-based smartphone players' shipments to markets outside of China currently account for 20% of their total volume. As demand from the local market - which has been their main growth driver - is weakening and the China-based players' combined shipments will only grow by 26.7% on year in 2014, expanding their presence in overseas markets has become a priority.
Intel and Asustek Computer released dual OS tablets at CES 2014 that combine Windows and Android operating systems into one unit in an attempt to tackle a new segment in the tablet market. However, due to pressure from Google, Asustek has postponed plans to release its TD300 tablet that was presented at CES 2014...
The global top-five notebook brand vendors and top-three makers both suffered 0-3% of on-month shipment declines in February, a range similar to that a year ago. The decline in February was caused mainly by inventory adjustments in the month...
The Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2014 demonstrated some new trends of the tablet industry: tablets with phone functions are starting to catch attention from brand vendors; some major brand vendors are developing tablets for the niche market, a sign of their concerns over the future tablet market; and China-based brand vendors, apart from Lenovo, are also competitive in the tablet market.
Digitimes Research considers ARM's new Cortex-A17 and existing Cortex-A12 processors to be basically the same based on their architectures, except for the Cortex-A17's support for big.LITTLE architecture...
As part of Toshiba, OCZ Storage Solutions is able to leverage Toshiba's NAND and combine it with its proprietary controllers, firmware and software. Toshiba's financial strength has also put OCZ in a better position to compete in the rapidly growing SSD market.
Taiwan-based panel makers had conservative developments in expanding production capacity for LTPS TFT LCD technology in 2013 amid increased competition from Japan-, Korea- and China-based makers. However, from 2014 to 2016 Taiwan makers are expected to increase production capacity on 6.5G and 4.5G, according to Digitimes Research.
On December 17, 2013, China-based touch panel maker Truly Optoelectronics announced that it had entered a joint venture with the Huizhou City Government to invest in a 4.5G AMOLED line that will go into production in the second half of 2015 and have a production capacity of about 15,000 substrates a month...
