IF / News

Chipsets

After announcing that Apple is about to end its relationship with its supplier, Imagination Technology is now starting the dispute process. Now Imagination plans to sell 2 of its core business units. (CN Beta, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Ars Technica, Reuters)

TSMC has reportedly developing a 7nm process and trial production began in Apr 2017. The report also reveals that full fledge production may actually commence in 2018. Thus, Qualcomm next generation Snapdragon 845 and 840 as well as Apple A12 processor are reportedly being manufactured by TSMC with 7nm process. (Gizmo China, Laoyaoba, IT Home)

According to “Made in China 2025” initiative, by 2025, the government targets 10% self-sufficiency in passenger jets by 2025, and 40%  for mobile phone chips, compared with 80% for electric cars and 70% for industrial robots. In 2025, that would equate to 20 to 30 planes, according to jet-market forecasts. (WSJ, WSJ[cn], Laoyaoba, Fox Business)

Department of Energy’s (DoE’s) Brookhaven National Laboratory has claimed a world record, saying they have patterned devices with feature sizes as small as 1nm. Brookhaven scientists made clever use of an electron microscope to pattern the material at even smaller sizes than is normally possible with electron-beam lithography (EBL).  (TechNews, EE Times, ESM China)

Touch Display

At the Baselworld 2017 watch and jewelry show in Switzerland during 23-30 Mar 2017, 11 fashion brands showcased smartwatches, and nine of them adopted 1.2” and 1.4” circle-shaped AMOLED panels produced by AU Optronics (AUO). AUO said it will begin shipments of such AMOLED panels in 2Q17 and expects quarterly shipments to reach 1M units in 2H17. (Digitimes, press, Yahoo)

OLED materials maker Universal Display’s 1Q17 revenue in 1Q17 rose to USD55.6M. For 2017, the company raised its revenue outlook to a range of USD260M~280M, versus what had been a range of USD230M~250M. (Laoyaoba, Money DJ, LED Inside, Barron’s, blog)

Supply chain reveals that Huawei P10’s Japanese display supplier did not put anti-fingerprint coating on the display causing negative impact on the consumers. Huawei is out of option because the supplier insists the coating would impact the user experience. Huawei has considered now to add in another supplier, i.e., Tianma for the display. Yet, they are yet to comment on this. (Laoyaoba, Money-Link, Yahoo)

China Display Optoelectronics (CSOT) announced that Shenzhen CSOT has agreed to acquire 53.81% shares in the Company through its subsidiary High Value Ventures Limited, which was registered in the British Virgin Islands.  (Laoyaoba, IT Business Net)

Touchscreen and LCD driver solution provider FocalTech Systems has reported net losses of NTD8.199M (USD272,928) for 1Q17.  FocalTech’s shipments of single-chip integrated driver controller (IDC) solutions reached over 10M units in 1Q17. FocalTech and other LCD driver IC vendors will be forced to overhaul the designs of their LCD driver ICs in order to cope with the rising adoption of LCD displays with an aspect ratio of 18:9 by smartphone makers. (Digitimes, press, FocalTech, Money DJ, 51Touch)

Camera

Gionee VP, Yu Lei has teased the company’s upcoming smartphone, the Gionee S10 via a post on Weibo. The Gionee S10 is rumoured to pack a dual camera setup both at the front and back. (Gizmo China, CN Beta)

Connectivity

Express Wi-Fi is one of Facebook’s many connectivity initiatives under its internet.org umbrella. Facebook is now launching the service commercially in India and has partnered with the Indian telecom firm Bharti Airtel, which plans to bring an additional 20,000 hotspots online, starting in the next few months.  (Internet.org, TechCrunch, Sina)

Smartphones

According to Counterpoint Research, the smartphones shipments in China grew a modest 4% annually during 1Q17 and declined a massive 20% sequentially. Much of that growth came from high volume, low price sales of phones in the USD100-199 and USD300-399 segments. OPPO and vivo were the fastest growing brands followed by Huawei. (Counterpoint, press, Apple Insider, Sina)

Smartphone users are spending more time in apps than in years past, and now access over 30 apps on a monthly basis, according to App Annie. These 30 apps work out to being roughly 1/3~1/2 of the apps users have installed on their smartphones. And using those apps is a daily habit, as people now launch an average of at least 9 apps per day, the report found. (App Annie, report, TechCrunch, Sina)

OPPO and vivo would spend about INR2,200 crore on marketing this year in India, which would exceed the marketing budget of Samsung, LG, Videocon and Sony. The tactic of the Chinese duo is aimed at overtaking market leader Samsung in the next one year in the INR6,000-20,000 smartphone segment, which accounts for 78% of the market.  (CN Beta, Business Insider, Economic Times)

Facebook has reported revenue of USD8B, and mobile advertising sales made up 85% of advertising revenue, up from 82% for the same period the year before. Facebook’s user base grew to 1.94B monthly active users, 1.3B of whom log on every day. (CN Beta, Facebook, CNBC, Financial Times)

OPPO F3 is launched in India with dual selfie camera – 5.5” FHD in-cell TFT LCD display, MediaTek MT6750T processor, 13MP PDAF + dual front 16MP – 8MP cameras, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage, Android 6.0, 3200mAh battery, INR19,990. (GizChina, Gizmo China)

PCs / Tablets

The worldwide tablet market once again contracted in 1Q17 with total shipments of 36.2M, a year-over-year decline of 8.5%, according to IDC. Apple experienced its 13th consecutive quarter of year-over-year shipment decline despite being the market leader in 1Q17. Samsung remained the number 2 tablet provider despite seeing shipments decline 1.1% year over year in 1Q17.  (IDC, press, Liliputing, iFeng)

According Strategy Analytics, in 1Q17 global tablet shipment has reached 42.1M units, a 10% drop on year. Apple iOS shipments came in below projections at 8.9M iPads in 1Q17 leaving it with a worldwide market share of 21% of the tablet market. (Strategy Analytics, press)

Apple CEO Tim Cook indicates that revenue grew 14% to a new March quarter record and gained market share thanks to strong demand for new MacBook Pros. The Mac business has generated over USD25B in revenue over the past 4 quarters. He stressed that they are investing aggressively in its future. (CN Beta, Apple Insider)

Wearables

According to Strategy Analytics, global wearables shipments reached 22M units in 1Q17. Apple captured 16% market share and became the world’s largest wearables vendor, overtaking Fitbit. Apple sold an estimated 3.5M Apple Watch units during the three-month period ending in March, up 59% from 2.2M units sold during the same time last year.  (Apple Insider, Business Wire, Strategy Analytics, press, Sina, DoNews)

Facebook announced that Oculus Story Studio is being shut down. The studio’s 50 staffers are encouraged to apply for new jobs within Oculus, but all ongoing projects of the studio are being cancelled. Oculus officially unveiled Story Studio to the world in early 2015. (Engadget, Oculus, Variety, Digital Trends, Baidu, Leiphone)

Internet of Things

General Electric (GE) Amazon Alexa-enabled table lamp, dubbed the C by GE Sol (or just Sol) is launched with USD200. Users can adjust the 60W equivalent light to either “daylight or soft white color temperatures” with voice or through the C by GE app. (Pocket-Lint, GE, PC Mag, CNET, Sohu, TechWeb)