3-24: Leaked Meizu 2016 product roadmap; China big 3 operators combined revenue in 2015 is CNY1276.6bln; Adult website partnering with VR vendor providing VR content; etc.
Alleged 2016 product roadmap of Meizu is leaked, revealing 7 new handsets, 70% of which powered by MediaTek Helio; Apple working with 3rd party to provide VR headgear that works with iPhone in the following 2 years; Adult porn site partnering with VR vendor providing VR content; China big 3 operators combined revenue in 2015 is CNY1276.6 billion; Intel officially declares the pattern of production “Tick-Tock” dead; LG Display expands production of AMOLED; etc.
|
Chipsets |
| Intel officially declares the pattern of production “Tick-Tock” dead according to its latest 10-K filing. However, Intel expects to lengthen the amount of time they will utilize out 14nm and next-generation 10nm process technologies, further optimizing products and process technologies while meeting the yearly market cadence for product introductions. (CN Beta, TechSpot, Motley Fool, 10-K Filing)
|
| BlueFin Research partners Analysts Steve Mullane and Paul Peterson today write that chip foundries have finally worked through the worst of the collapse in inventory from the end of 2015, though demand appears still weak for personal computers and smartphones. Apple A10 wafer starts at TSMC are projected to exceed 50Kwpm in June. (TechNews, Barron’s, press) |
| From the leaked 2016 product roadmap of Meizu, it has 7 new smartphones this year, and 70% of those are actually using MediaTek Helio series. (TechNews)
|
|
Display |
| LG Display has decided to invest KRW10 trillion (USD8.63 billion) over the next 3 years to expand its AMOLED production capacity, mainly to set up P10 factory which can house more than 6 AMOLED production lines, according to Digitimes Research. (Digitimes, press) |
|
Memory |
| Samsung demos its first ball grid array (BGA) based SSD chip, PM971 SSD, which supports sequential read speed of up to 1500MB/s and sequential write speed of up to 600MB/s, suggesting that it relies on PCIe 3.0 interface. (AnandTech, Slash Gear, CN Beta)
|
|
Battery |
| Tesla has quietly removed all references to its 10-kilowatt-hour residential battery from the Powerwall website, as well as the company’s press kit. Tesla representative confirmed the 10-kilowatt-hour option has been discontinued. (TechNews, Green Tech Media)
|
|
Biometrics |
| Google formally announced opening up its speech recognition API to third-party developers Google Cloud Speech API, which will cover over 80 languages and will work with any application in real-time streaming or batch mode. (CN Beta, Android Headlines, TechCrunch)
|
|
Connectivity |
| China three operators total revenue in 2015 reached CNY1276.6 billion, a 2% increase from last year; and the combined net profit reached CNY139.1 billion, flat compared to 2014, averagely CNY380 million. (CN Beta, Sina)
|
| China Telecom 2015 full-year net profit was CNY20.05 billion, a 2.1% YoY. Net profit in 2015 was lifted by a CNY3.94 billion one-off gain from the sale of telecommunications towers and related assets. (CN Beta, Market Watch) |
| China Unicom established an alliance to promote the development of 4K high-resolution videos in China. (CN Beta, China Daily) |
| Based on Akamai, global average connection speed in 4Q15 increased 8.6% to 5.6Mbps from 3Q15, a 23% increase YoY. South Korea had the top average connection speed at 26.7Mbps, posting a 20% increase over 4Q14. (Akamai, report, Financial Express, MediaNama, TechNews)
|
|
Smartphones |
| Leaked product roadmap indicates that Meizu is planning to unveil 7 mobile devices in 2016: Meizu M3, M3 Note, Metal 2, MX6 Mini, MX6, PRO 6 Mini and PRO 6. (Android Headlines, TechWeb, TGBus)
|
| Google launches Android Pay in UK, will support MasterCard Inc and Visa Inc credit and debit cards issued by UK banks such as Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Lloyds Bank and M&S Bank. (CN Beta, CNET, Yahoo) |
| According to RIAA, streaming is now the biggest revenue stream for the music industry in the US, generating USD2.4 billion in 2015. In 2015, digital music subscription services reached new all-time highs, generating more than USD1 billion in revenues for the first time, and averaging nearly 11 million paid subscriptions for the year. (TechNews, The Verge, Medium, RIAA, report)
|
|
Tablets |
| According to Digitimes Research, Apple will ship an estimated 4 million 9.7” iPad Pros during 1H16. (Digitimes, press, Phone Arena, iFeng) |
|
Wearables |
| Samsung Australia announces brainBAND an accessory to track concussion and head trauma from sport. The device will track these impacts, in the hope of furthering research into head injuries and ‘set about finding a way to tackle the dangers of concussive forces in contact sports’. (CN Beta, Ausdroid, Samsung)
|
| Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky has revealed that Pebble is cutting 40 jobs, or 25% of its workforce. (Engadget, Tech Insider, Android Headlines, 163, Tencent) |
| Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster expects that Apple will begin working with 3rd-party manufacturers to enable iPhone-powered VR headsets within the next 2 years. He believes that Apple will expand its “Made for iPhone” program to include VR capabilities. He also believes “true VR experiences” will be enabled by device makers who are planning to release iPhone-compatible virtual reality hardware this fall. (Apple Insider, Bidnessetc, VR-World, iFeng) |
| Pornhub partnering with adult movie maker BaDoinkVR offering VR content to its viewers. (CN Beta, CNET, Daily Mail) |
|
Internet of Things |
| IoT has taken off, especially in smart city solutions that integrate IoT, cloud, and open data technologies. Overall IoT business value will grow at a CAGR of 17.2% over the next 5 years, says Pegatron chairman and Taipei Computer Association president TH Tung. (Digitimes, FM5) |
| Google will open data centers in Oregon and Japan in the coming months to support its cloud infrastructure and app (IaaS/PaaS) platform, and plans to open another 10 over the next 12-18 months. (Seeking Alpha, eWeek, CN Beta) |
