IF / News

Touch Display

The confirmation of Samsung Display (SDC) being Apple’s AMOLED panel supplier for the upcoming iPhone devices has spurred other smartphone brands and panel makers to aggressively invest in this display technology. TrendForce finds that AMOLED is set to become mainstream in the global smartphone market in the near future with the penetration rate reaching to almost 50% by 2020. (TrendForce, press, TrendForce[cn], press)

18:9 full display has become a new selling point of smartphone display. As size has increased, and mostly equipped with in-cell touch panel, thus its unit price is 10%~20% higher than the same size panel. Taiwan panel makers work hard to mass produce in 2Q17. AUO, Innolux, CPT, and Hannstar all have products waiting for customers. (Laoyaoba, China Times, EE World)

Apple is reportedly in talks with LG Display to invest about KRW2T~3T  (USD1.75M~2.62B) into the Korean display maker’s new OLED production lines exclusively dedicated to Apple orders.  (Apple Insider, The Investor, CN Beta)

Camera

Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy C (2017) and Galaxy A (2018) models will reportedly be equipped with dual rear cameras. The Samsung Galaxy C7 and Galaxy C5 Pro (2017) that is speculated to be driven either by Snapdragon 660 or Snapdragon 630 is also speculated to come with dual rear cameras.(Gizmo China, Android Headlines)

Biometrics

KGI Securities analyst Ming-chi Kuo indicates that Qualcomm’s ultrasonic fingerprint recognition installed on vivo’s prototype model still has a few technological challenges to be addressed, including: (1) scan-through ability still has room for improvement; (2) slower to enable; and (3) slower response.  He has suggested that Qualcomm is apparently nowhere close to shipping these components. (Ubergizmo, 9to5Mac, CN Beta)

Connectivity

Apple original lightning C48 connector has a component from NXP, model NXP20P3, which is for protection and on-off function. Apple currently is facing patent lawsuit with Qualcomm, and Qualcomm has acquired NXP. Now, NXP has stopped supply NXP20P3 to Apple, which causing shortage of Apple MFI-certified lightning connector. (Laoyaoba, My Drivers, CN Beta)

Smartphones

Adobe Digital Insights (ADI) surveyed 397 consumers about voice assistants in Jun 2017. In all, 37% of people surveyed for the study described interactions with voice assistants as either “not good” or “terrible”. The same percentage of people rated voice assistants positively, and the rest described them as “okay”.  (CNET, TechNews, Stone Temple, CMO)

According to Gartner’s analyst Adrian Lee, In Asia/Pacific, 44% of consumers use mobile shopping apps, the highest in the world. However, their purchase conversion rate using mobile apps remains low at only 1.27%, dwarfed by the 3.45% conversion rate with desktop PCs. Alibaba Group is the undeniable leader for consumer digital commerce in terms of gross merchandise volume (GMV) with a base of 537M active users. (Gartner, Laoyaoba)

Samsung Electronics witnessed a reduction in the number of employees in 2016 in its first manpower cut in 7 years due mainly to its restructuring in China, the company data has shown. The number of employees of Samsun gfell 5.2% to 308,745 last year from 325,677 the previous year, the data said.  (My Drivers, Korea Herald)

In these past years, Apple strives to expand its market share in India. In addition to manufacture iPhone SE locally, Apple also reduces the prices of its iPhone series, with the maximum drop rate of 7.5%. (Laoyaoba, Tencent)

A refurbished variant of Galaxy Note 7, Samsung Galaxy Fan Edition is launched in South Korea, planning to sell 400K units – 5.7” QHD Super AMOLED display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor, 12MP + 5MP cameras, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage, Android 6.0, 3200mAh battery, KRW699,000. (Android Central, Android Headlines, GSM Arena, 9to5Google, CN Beta)

Meizu A5 is official – 5” HD display, MediaTek MT6737 processor, 8MP + 5MP cameras, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, 3060mAh battery, CNY699. (GSM Arena, My Drivers)

Hisense H10 is launched – 5.5” FHD 2.5D curved display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor, rear 12MP + front 20MP cameras, 4GB RAM, 64GB ROM, Android 7.1, 3500mAh battery, CNY2299. (CN Beta, My Drivers, Sohu)

PCs / Tablets

LG G Pad IV 8.0 FHD LTE is launched – 8” 1920×1200 display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 processor, 5MP + 5MP cameras, 2GB RAM, 32GB storage, Android 7.0, 3000mAh battery, KRW352,000. (Android Headlines, GSM Arena, LG, Techandroids)

Wearables

Apple’s announcement of its ARkit for iOS this week as “the largest AR platform in the world” took the mobile AR war to the next level. They’re fighting over a market that could hit over 1B users and USD60B revenue globally by 2021. Over 80%of mobile AR revenue could come from mobile network data, eCommerce sales, advertising, consumer (non-games) apps and enterprise/B2B sales. (Laoyaoba, Digi-Capital, press, VentureBeat)

Sony launched a new version of its Wena Wrist smartwatch, called Three Hands Square. It is unique because the body is analog, but the strap is smart – it comes with LED and has NFC chip for mobile payments. (GSM Arena, CN Beta, Sony, The Verge)

Internet of Things

Tencent Digital, a unit of the Hong Kong-listed Tencent, has agreed to invest CNY450M (USD66.3M) in Shenzhen Thunderbird Network Technology, a smart television company backed by TCL Multimedia Technology Holdings. (Laoyaoba, SCMP, iFanr)