South Korea's tablet shipments have been dropping after reaching a peak in 2011 due to the rapid appearance of large-size smartphones and phablets, which are gradually replacing consumer demand for tablets in Korea.

According to the statistics from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the number of fixed-line subscribers in China reached 185 million as of the third quarter of 2013, up only by 9% compared to the same quarter a year ago.

South Korea's Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE) will invest in the nation's touch panel industry and has set up a plan that will bump up South Korea's global touch panel market share from 10% in 2012 to 25% by 2015 followed by 35% in 2020, according to Digitimes Research.

The global top-five notebook brand vendors and top-three ODMs, after enjoying on-month shipment growths in November, suffered on-month drops of 12% and 11% in December, respectively, better than Digitimes Research's original expectations due to extended orders from both the enterprise and consumer markets, and orders that shifted forward for production in December because of the Lunar New Year...

The year 2013 saw the rise of Ultra HD TVs, larger-size smartphones, increased competition from mobile device makers in China, as well as a decline in the monitor market in addition to many other changes. Looking ahead at 2014, here are some predictions in the technology segment for 2014 that are currently being talked about in the market.

Genesis Photonics Inc. (GPI), which has been devoted to developing LED epitaxial wafer and chip technology for over 10 years, has made great strides in flip-chip packaging. GPI has developed MATCH LED and eutectic bonding technology, both of which improve reliability of LED lighting fixtures, allowing them to meet stringent outdoor lighting requirements and reduce production and after-sales costs.

China touch panel makers are continuing to merge with one another in order to bump up their competition in the market, which has now brought down the number of touch panel makers in China from over 1,000 to roughly 500-600, according to Digitimes Research.

At the end of November 2013, MediaTek announced a new near field communication technology called Hotknot, which does not require NFC chips or antennas to work, and the technology has already received supports from China-based Internet players Alibaba and Tencent and will be adopted into the former's Alipay payment system and the latter's WeChat messagig services.

As demand for DSCs is waning, brand vendors are turning cautious about releasing new models. In 2013, the top-7 vendors released a total of only 81 DSC models, a sharp drop of over 40% from 2012. Fujifilm, which used to flood the market with multiple models, had a dramatic drop in the number of new models in 2013, while Nikon was the only vendor with an increase.

Asustek Computer and Apple are currently the top-2 tablet vendors in Japan. In terms of operating system, Google and Apple led the tablet market in Japan with Android and iOS together accounting for 94.4% of the sales in January-October 2013.