11-4: Apple accounted for 103.6% of smartphone industry operating profits in 3Q16; Huawei’s Richard Yu indicates that the company wants to become the world’s 2nd largest smartphone maker in 2 years, beating Apple; etc.
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Chipset |
| Massive government investment in China’s semiconductor industry risks distorting the global market for integrated circuits, leading to damaging overcapacity and stifling innovation, U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker warned. She sharply criticized a USD150B plan by the Chinese government to expand the share of Chinese-made Ics in the domestic market to 70% by 2025, from 9% now. (CN Beta, Business Insider, Daily Times)
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| Samsung has announced an expansion of its foundry production process offerings with a fourth generation 14nm process known as 14LPU. It is joined by a new 10nm process, 10LPU, too, offering better performance, area reductions and cost savings to potential customers. Process design kits for new 14LPU and 10LPU processes will be available 2Q17. (TechNews, Kit Guru) |
| ASML will invest and collaborate with optics specialist Carl Zeiss SMT to deliver a version of EUV systems with a numerical aperture (NA) greater than 0.5, but they will not be ready for volume production until about 2024. ASML is spending nearly USD2B as part of the new effort. (EE Times, Bloomberg, NASDAQ, Seeking Alpha, Digitimes)
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| Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is proceeding with plans to build South China’s first 12” fab at an existing facility in the city of Shenzhen, China. Construction is scheduled to start by the end of 2016, and production will ramp up by the end of 2017. (EE Times, P5W, CNFOL)
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| Marvell Technology said it plans to cut about 900 jobs globally and sell non-core assets in a bid to lower costs by as much as USD190M annually. (CN Beta, PR Newswire, WSJ, Fortune) |
| Intel is acquiring VR camera maker Voke, of which technology is used by broadcasters to capture the action in stereo so that it can be viewed from different angles while maintaining a sense of depth and proportion. (Android Headlines, ZDNet, WSJ, PC World, Intel, Recode, Heix, Tencent)
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| Lattice Semiconductor, one of the last independent FPGA companies, has just announced that it has agreed to be acquired by Canyon Bridge Capital Partners — a newly formed, global private equity buyout fund that is headquartered in Palo Alto, California — for approximately USD1.3B inclusive of Lattice’s net debt. (EE Times, Yahoo, WSJ, OfWeek, EE Focus) |
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Touch Display |
| According to Digitimes Research, while global handset-panel shipments will grow from 2.545B units in 2017 to 2.757B units in 2021, a CAGR of 2.0%, TFT-LCD panels will slip from 2.095B to 1.630B units at CAGR of negative 6.1%, while AMOLED panel shipments will rise from 450M to 1.127B units, a CAGR of 25.8% over the period. (Digitimes, press) |
| Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) is planning to nurture an internal team to create a new startup, Linkooh to push into the digital signage market. Linkooh has cooperated with Taiwan Railways Administration to install several different-sized public displays at Taipei Main Station and uses its AR technologies and multimedia platform to display ads. (Digitimes, HiAPK, Patently Apple, Asia Nikkei, Huohua)
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| Qeexo’s FingerSense enables users to quickly access powerful functions, simply by using a knuckle to draw or knock on the screen. It is available on Huawei Mate 9. (Market Wired, Android Headlines)
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| A recently published Samsung patent application reveals that Samsung could be working on a compact projector that resembles the Gear 360. It can be used on surfaces like a table or a wall, but also on the windshield of a car. (Android Headlines, Sam Mobile, CN Beta)
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Camera |
| Canon patent for a variable optical lowpass filter for the AE sensor in the viewfinder. It seems this technology is being used on Sony RX1rII camera. (CN Beta, Canon Watch, The New Camera, Egami)
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Memory |
| City College of New York has found a way to store data inside artificially grown diamonds using small defects inside the gems. To do this, they targeted diamonds whose crystalline structures had small gaps called nitrogen vacancy centers where carbon atoms should be. (CN Beta, Futurism, Phys, Live Science)
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Battery |
| The US government said it will establish 48 electric-vehicle charging corridors across the country. This national network of chargers will cover nearly 25,000 miles of highways across 35 different states. (CN Beta, CNET, Reuters, SF Gate)
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Biometrics |
| Carnegie Mellon University developed a 3D-printed pair of sunglasses that cost all of USD0.22 to manufacture. The sunglasses fools advanced facial recognition software by altering small bits of color information in a face. (CN Beta, Motherboard, New Scientist, TNW)
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| According to Digitimes Research, global market value for biometrics will increase from USD14.6B to USD31.4B in 2020, and that for facial recognition alone will increase from USD3.8B to USD10.1B, with the proportion to rise from 26.0% to 32.2%. This is expected to increase demand for infrared (IR) LED devices which are used to enhance accuracy of facial recognition. (Digitimes, press, Aiweibang)
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Smartphones |
| BMO Capital Markets analyst Tim Long estimates that Apple accounted for 103.6% of smartphone industry operating profits in 3Q16. Its share is over 100% because other vendors lost money in the business, resulting in Apple having more smartphone profit than the industry netted overall. Samsung is number 2 with 0.9% share. (CN Beta, Yahoo, Investors, Apple Insider, 91.com, CC Time) |
| Huawei‘s consumer business executive in chief, Richard Yu, indicates that the company wants to become the world’s 2nd-largest smartphone maker in 2 years, beating Apple for its spot in the top-2 next to leader Samsung. (Phone Arena, Reuters, Branding in Asia, My Drivers)
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| “We’re going to work very hard to gain consumer trust and regain our brand,” stated Gregory Lee, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics North America. “2017 is going to be a tremendous brand and confidence rebuilding year for us.” (Android Headlines, Business Journals, Mobile World Live, Universmartphone, Hexun)
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| Appboy’s data comes from an analysis of 100+ million daily app devices from Oct. 20-27. It shows the Google Pixel reaching 0.016% of market share and Pixel XL 0.020% 1 week after release. In comparison, it took the Nexus 6P over 2 weeks to reach a similar level. In all, volume grew by 274% for the Pixel and 158% for the XL 1 week after launch. (GSM Arena, 9to5Google, CN Beta, 163)
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| Android’s director of security Adrian Ludwig remarked Google’s advancements in securing its mobile platform, and putting it in direct comparison with Apple iOS, saying for almost all threat models, they are nearly identical in terms of their platform-level capabilities. (TechNews, 9to5Google, Motherboard)
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| Lenovo has posted its financial results for the quarter ending 30 Sept. 2016 (fiscal Q2)—net profit of USD157M, overall revenue USD11.2B (down 8% on year, up 12% on quarter). Lenovo shipped 14M phones in the quarter, up 25% from 1Q15. Sales from the mobile division amounted to USD2B. (Phone Arena, Lenovo, Android Central, Yesky, Sina)
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| According to Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, he revealed that they are making changes to its mobile app to focus more on video. (Ubergizmo, Bloomberg, USA Today, CBS News, Discover-USA, Sina)
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| Meizu PRO 6s is launched – 5.2” FHD 3D touch display, MediaTek Helio X25 processor, 12MP OIS + 5MP cameras, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage, Android 6.0 (Flyme OS), 3060mAh battery, CNY2699. (CN Beta, GizChina, Android Authority)
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| Huawei Mate 9 is official and with a specific Porsche Design version, both powered by Huawei Kirin 960 processor, dual Leica 20MP (monochrome)-12MP (colour) OIS + 8MP cameras, Android 7.0 (EMUI 5.0), USB Type-C, fingerprint sensor, LTE, dual-SIM, 4000mAh battery: Mate 9 – 5.9” FHD IPS LCD display, 4GB RAM, EUR699. Porsche Design Mate 9 – 5.5” QHD AMOLED curved-edge display, 6GB RAM, EUR1395. (Android Central, Android Headlines, CN Beta, Gizmo China)
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| Samsung W2017 clamshell phone is unveiled in China – 4.2” FHD Super AMOLED display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, 12MP + 5MP cameras, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage, Android 6.0, LTE, fingerprint sensor, wireless charging, 2300mAh battery, CNY20,000. (GSM Arena, CN Beta, Sam Mobile)
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Tablets and PC |
| Home-oriented TCL Xess with Amazon Alexa built-in – 17.3” FHD display, 1.5GHz octa-core processor, 3GB RAM, 64GB storage, Android 5.1, USD499. (GSM Arena, TCL, Android Headlines, Chilicious)
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Wearables |
| According to Canalys, total smartwatch shipments exceeded 6.1M for 3Q16, an annual increase of 60%. Apple shipped 2.8M smartwatches in 3Q16, with the release of the new Series 1 and Series 2 models. (Canalys, press, CN Beta)
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| Rikard Steiber, SVP of Virtual Reality at HTC, indicates that updated Vive virtual reality headsets are on the way, ones that would likely see form factor updates. (TechCrunch, Ubergizmo, Sohu) |
| HTC is building out its recently announced Viveport Arcade program, with an eye toward turning public virtual reality gaming into a USD100M industry over the next 2 years. The VR games can be commercially licensed for public Vive installations at movie theaters, internet cafes, or full VR arcades like Viveland in Taiwan. (TechCrunch, PC World, Digital Trends, The Verge, PR Newswire, Baidu VR+) |
| GoPro announced dismal 3Q16 results, swinging to a loss of USD104M, from USD18.7M in profit a year ago. Revenue dropped 40% to USD240M. GoPro said its guidance for the upcoming 4Q16 would be for USD625M in revenue, and for the full year USD1.25B~1.3B in sales. (TechNews, Reuters, WSJ, USA Today, ZDNET)
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Internet of Things |
| Philips and Xiaomi have announced the signing of a joint-venture agreement that will help them “design and develop connected LED luminaires and lamps for Xiaomi’s wireless smart home platform”. (Android Headlines, CNET, TechPP, TechWeb, 10JQKA, 163)
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Economy |
| Alibaba Group Holding has released its 3Q16 financial report, with consolidated revenues hiking 54.67% on year to reach CNY34.292B (USD5.142B). Alibaba Group had 450 million mobile active users, 439 million active buyers and 651,000 Aliyun customers in Sept. 2016. (Digitimes, Forbes, Reuters, ZDNet, NY Times, Business Insider, iFeng, TechWeb, Alibaba)
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