IF / News

Touch Display

Roh Tae-moon, president and head of Samsung’s mobile division, has indicated that the company is mulling how the folding experience brings value to the consumers. Technologically, they are capable of designing phones that fold multiple times. (Android Authority, Korea Herald)

BOE Technology is likely to lose out to Samsung Display in a shipment race for handset panels in 2020 as most of China’s panel makers are to be forced to delay their production due to unsteady supplies of raw materials in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, according to Digitimes. CINNO also expects China’s smartphone sales to drop to 300M-320M units in 2020 if the outbreak is placed under control by the end of Apr 2020. (Digitimes, press, CINNO)

OPPO’s new design patent shows phone featuring a front-facing selfie camera embedded in the tiny border on top of the phone. The front camera is embedded into the black bezel of the display to fully enhance the phone’s screen ratio. (CN Beta, LetsGoDigital)

Camera

Samsung has introduced its next-generation 108MP image sensor, Samsung ISOCELL Bright HM1. With a spectrum of light-enhancing technologies spanning from Nonacell and Smart-ISO to real-time HDR, ISOCELL Bright HM1 allows brighter and more detailed 108Mp photographs and crystal-clear 8K videos at 24 frames per second (fps), even under extreme lighting conditions. (My Drivers, GizChina, Business Wire)

Optical lens and module makers Genius Electronic Optical (GSEO), Asia Optical, Ability Opto-Electronics Technology and Newmax Technology, to cope with delays in resuming production at factories in China due to the coronavirus outbreak, have adjusted shipment schedules, according to Digitimes. (Digitimes, press, Digitimes)

Battery

Xiaomi has officially released the Xiaomi GaN charger Type-C 65W. The latter 65W uses gallium nitride technology and supports up to 65W fast charging. It supports Xiaomi’s fast flash charging, PD 3.0 and other fast charging protocols. (CN Beta, IT Home, GizChina)

Connectivity

Broadcom has announced Wi-Fi 6E client device, the BCM4389. Wi-Fi 6E extends the Wi-Fi 6 standard to support the soon-to-be-operational 6GHz band with wider 160MHz channel bandwidths that double Wi-Fi speeds and cut latency in half compared to Wi-Fi 5. The BCM4389 delivers over 2Gbps of real-world speeds. (VentureBeat, AnandTech, Globe Newswire)

Phone

The GSMA, the organization behind MWC, the world’s largest mobile trade show, has announced that it is officially canceling the show in 2020 due to the coronavirus concerns. MWC is usually held annually in Barcelona, Spain, and it has a big economic impact of EUR492M, and also generates 14,100 part-time jobs. (GSMA, TechCrunch, The Verge, CN Beta, Caixin, Leiphone)

The detrimental effects of the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) on smartphone manufacturers and their supply chains will have a solid impact on 1Q20 performance. Counterpoint Research has updated its 1Q20 forecast for the Chinese smartphone market and total shipment estimates are down by nearly 30% points compared to previous calculations. Counterpoint Research now predicts 63M smartphone shipments for 1Q20. (GSM Arena, Counterpoint Research)

Essential is shutting down less than 3 years after the startup unveiled its first smartphone. Essential is done issuing updates for the Essential Phone, though it says the device will continue to work. (My Drivers, The Verge, Essential)

WhatsApp has revealed that it now has over 2B users, a figure that its parent company Facebook reached back in 2017. (Engadget, WhatsApp, My Drivers)

China’s coronavirus outbreak is set to have far-reaching impacts on the global IT industry and could undermine global demand to a great extent if related supply chains are cut off, according to Colley Hwang, president of Digitimes. Together, total global smartphone shipments will reach only 1.08B units in 2020, a contraction of 22.9% from Digitimes Reseach’s forecast of 1.4B units. If the outbreak prolongs to year-end 2020, then the global economy should be ready to face a steep fall in demand as smartphone sales in China are likely to shrink to 160M units or 40% of projected volume for the year. Consequently, global smartphone shipments could fall to as low as 600M units. (Digitimes, press, Digitimes, press)

Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun has revealed that the company has entered the Fortune Global 500 in just 9 years since its founding in 2010. Xiaomi’s revenue exceeds CNY200B in 2019. The company’s R&D investment in 2019 is about CNY7B, it is expected to be about CNY10B in 2020. (Laoyaoba, Gizmo China)

Xiaomi Mi 10 series is announced in China, featuring 6.67” 1080×2340 FHD+ Super AMOLED HiD 90Hz, Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, optical under display fingerprint: 10 – rear quad 108MP OIS-13MP ultrawide-2MP macro-2MP depth + front 20MP, 8+128 / 8+256 / 12+256GB, Android 10.0, 4780mAh 30W, 30W wireless charging, 10W reverse wireless charging, CNY3,999 (USD572) / CNY4,299 (USD615) / CNY4,699 (USD673). 10 Pro – rear quad 108MP OIS-8MP telephoto OIS-12MP portrait-20MP ultrawide +front 20MP, 8+256 / 12+256 / 12+512GB, Android 10.0, 4500mAh 65W, 30W wireless charging, 10W reverse wireless charging, CNY4,999 (USD715) / CNY5,499 (USD787) / CNY5,999 (USD860). (My Drivers, Laoyaoba, My Drivers, GSM Arena)

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Xiaomi has announced that in 2019 Xiaomi TV shipment in China has reached 10.46M units, topping the China’s TV market, and is the first Chinese brand that has more than 10M units shipment TV. (GizChina, IT Home)