04-09: Samsung has reportedly decided to drop the J series of phones and merge it with the A series; BOE has revealed that the price of foldable smartphones will drop to around CNY10,000 by 2021; etc.
Chipsets
Tsinghua Unigrou’s subsidy New H3C Group has signed collaboration with Chengdu High Tech Zone to establish New H3C Semiconductor, which amounts to about CNY5B investment. (CN Beta, EET China, ESM China, ICSmart, CSIA)
Huawei has completed its own processor and 5G modem Balong 5000. Huawei is allegedly now “open” to selling its 5G Balong 5000 chipsets, but only to one company: Apple. (Digital Trends, CN Beta, Engadget)
Touch Display
While Gartner expects foldable phones to potentially re-inject innovation in the smartphone market, they are cautious about their short-term uptake due to trade-offs. Gartner estimates that foldable phones will account for 5% of high-end phones by 2023, amounting to 30M units. (Neowin, Gartner, CN Beta)
TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expects Apple to launch 31.6” standalone display, 10”~12” iPad and 15”~17” MacBook adopting Mini LED-like backlight design. Epistar and Radiant are going to be beneficial from this. (CN Beta, UDN, TechNews, Mac Rumors)
Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha has applied for a patent at the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) for a ‘handheld electronic device’. It shows a foldable clamshell smartphone with 2 under-screen control surfaces (the circled areas), which suggest game controls with haptic and pressure-sensitive features. (GizChina, MS Poweruser, LetsGoDigital, CN Beta)
Zhang Yu, SVP of BOE, has revealed that the price of foldable smartphones will drop to around CNY10,000 (USD1,490) by 2021. For this trend, Zhang Yu believes that on the one hand, various display panel vendors will release production capacity, on the other hand, material costs will also drop significantly after 2 years. (GizChina, My Drivers)
Phone
Samsung has reportedly decided to drop the J series of phones and merge it with the A series. The Galaxy J series was Samsung’s lineup of entry-level affordable phones. (Android Central, YouTube)
According to Piper Jaffray with survey of 8,600 U.S. teens, a higher number than ever, 86%, are hoping to make Apple’s iPhone their next smartphone. Piper Jaffray also found that Netflix was the most popular source of daily video consumption, coming in at 38%. It surpassed YouTube’s 33%, despite the ubiquity of the free Google platform. (CN Beta, Piper Jaffray, Business Wire)
Xiaomi Group chairman Lei Jun said that it is more optimistic about 5G+AI+IoT, which is considered to be the next generation of the super Internet. Xiaomi has set a mobile phone + AIoT dual-engine strategy for the next ten years. The strategy is centered on mobile phones. Xiaomi is not just a mobile phone company. The original intention is to select 100 industries to start copying, popularizing and promoting Xiaomi mode. (GizChina, TechWeb)
Home
Swedish furniture maker IKEA has joined up forces with Sonos to create a new series of speakers called the SYMFONISK range. The line consists of two models and both of them are Wi-Fi-enabled. One is a table lamp speaker and the other is a bookshelf speaker. (The Verge, Neowin, TechCrunch, Engadget CN, Sina)
