IF / News

This week’s issue is a bit late, passed the weekend, and already a new Monday:

Headlines:

• Nokia is planning to re-enter the smartphone business in 2017
• HTC denies rumors it is selling its smartphone business
• ZTE Corp has won a further reprieve to 27 Feb. 2017 on export restrictions by the U.S. government
• Google has announced that form early 2017 will cease support for Android 2.3 and Android 3.0
• Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella states that Microsoft will continue to stay in the phone market with “unique features”
• Intel has issued a statement to deny its withdrawal from the wearables market
• MediaTek announced the launch of its UltraCast technology
• MediaTek reportedly intends to invest in electric car company NextEV
• Because of huge debt, Qualcomm and MediaTek allegedly have stopped supplying chipsets to LeEco
• TSMC’s 7nm reportedly might be moved up from originally planned 1Q18 to 4Q17
• Huawei’s next generation Kirin 970 will be Huawei’s first to be built on the TSMC 10nm process
• Spreadtrum has placed 40nm chip orders with United Microelectronics (UMC) recently-opened 12” wafer fab in Xiamen
• Samsung is reportedly in the process of making a bid for QD Vision
• Japan Display Inc (JDI) says close to securing JPY100B (USD1.3B) bailout from Innovation Network Corp. (INCJ) of Japan
• JDI has announced a dedicated VR display—LTPS TFT-LCD display has a screen size of 3.42” with a pixel density of 651ppi
• LG Innotek united forces with Apple to develop a smartphone camera module which enables 3D photographing

Numbers:

• According to Gartner, 3Q16 worldwide sales of smartphones grew by 5.4% on year, reaching 373M units
• As 3 big operators in China have offered subsidies for purchasing smartphones to promote 4G subscriptions, 2016 smartphone shipments to the China market are expected to reach about 500M units
• According to Strategy Analytics, Apple dominated and captured a record 91% share of all smartphone profits worldwide in 3Q16
• Total shipments for the first 3 quarters of the year to 198M units of handsets shipped in India , CMR said
• According to IDC, tablet shipments in India inclusive of slate and detachables clocked 1.06M in 3Q16