9-20: MediaTek 4G chipsets reportedly will be in tight supply till 2017; In 2016 Spreadtrum’s 3G share is believed to exceed MediaTek in the market; etc.
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Chipset |
| ARM announces Cortex-R52, the company’s first implementation of ARMv8-R aiming for IoT and autonomous automotive applications. The Cortex-R52 offers a 35% performance uplift compared to the Cortex-R5. (CN Beta, 91, My Drivers, AnandTech, article, Venture Beat)
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| Venkata Renduchintala, president of the Client and IoT Businesses and Systems Architecture Group at Intel indicates that Intel is still investing in IoT and modems also remains interested in mobile SoCs. (CN Beta, Win Beta, PC World, Liliputing) |
| MediaTek reportedly has misjudged the demand of its 3G chipsets, causing a tight supply, and the prices of MT6580 is doubled in the market. A lot of its customers have shifted to Spreadtrum 3G solutions. So far, MediaTek tight-supply situation is still severe, and its 4G chipsets will be in tight supply till 2017, 3G chipsets have a huge gap in Aug / Sept 2016, and the gap is as large as 50%. (OfWeek, Laoyaoba, 50CN Net) |
| In 2016 Spreadtrum’s 3G share is believed to exceed MediaTek in the market. According to Digitimes, Spreadtrum 3Q16 shipment would have 10.6% growth, and in 4Q16 it would have 6.5% growth. Spreadtrum also indicates that its 2016 shipment would reach 600 million units, of which LTE chipset would be more than 100 million units, i.e., a 10-fold growth. (OfWeek, Laoyaoba, Digitimes, press) |
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Touch Display |
| TrendForce shares its view on Micro LED development. Apple and Sony lead the commercialization so far. (TrendForce report)
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Battery |
| Samsung may have rushed the development of Galaxy Note 7 to beat a potentially bland Apple iPhone 7—Samsung SDI apparently tasked the packaging of its own battery cells to subcontractors, and shoehorned a slightly larger battery than the compartment it was made for. (Phone Arena, Bloomberg, My Drivers, Hexun) |
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Biometrics |
| University of Cambridge professor Sergei Skorobogatov worked for four months on a NAND cloning and passcode testing rig to successfully bypass the security protocols Apple built into iPhone 5c. (Apple Insider, BBC, CN Beta)
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Connectivity |
| Nokia Bell Labs, Deutsche Telekom T-Labs and the Technical University of Munich reached 1 terabit per second (1Tbps) data transmission speed over optical cable in a trial. (Gizmodo, Telecom Lead, NASDAQ, IT Pro, OfWeek, Cable ABC)
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Smartphones |
| According to CMR India, in 2Q16 4G LTE devices registered 18% QoQ growth registered with cumulative devices’ shipments touching 18.2 million. Of these, 97.8% were Smartphones followed by DataCards at 1.6% and Tablet PCs at 0.6%. Samsung, Micromax and LYF are the top three LTE devices players with 40%, 9% and 8% market shares, respectively. (199IT, CMR India, press)
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| According to BayStreet Research, Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was “off to an excellent start” in the United States when it was first released last month, enjoying 25% higher sales than its predecessor, the Galaxy Note 5 that was released at roughly the same time 2015. They have now lowered our Note 7 forecast to ~60% of the Note 5 after the battery incidents. (Android Headlines, Fierce Wireless) |
| According to Localytics, the first weekend of Apple iPhone 7 sales seems to have been on track with past iPhone launches, despite Apple’s decision not to announce official numbers. The iPhone 7 grabbed 1% of the device market share, while the iPhone 7 Plus accounts for 0.2%. (Apple Insider, Localytics, press, 163, CN Beta)
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| Financial analyst firm Piper Jaffray polled 83 people waiting in line for an Apple iPhone 7. The company found that 54% of launch buyers were looking at buying an iPhone 7, with the remaining 46% set on buying the iPhone 7 plus. Additionally, 98% of the buyers in line already owned an iPhone, with only 2% being switchers from Android. (Phone Arena, Apple Insider)
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| Survey Monkey recently reported than only 5% of consumers are extremely likely to buy and Apple iPhone 7. All of them must be disgruntled Samsung Galaxy Note 7 owners based on another piece of research Survey Monkey did the same day. 35% of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 owners want refunds. 26% want to buy an iPhone 7. (USA Today, CN Beta, Yahoo, 24/7 Wall St)
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| According to Mobile No. 1, using data from 3C Hub (the biggest China mobile phone retail chain in Africa covering cities including Nigeria’s Lagos, with more than 40 retail shops), African mobile phone ASP is about CNY647. In Aug 2016 top 20 brands, Tecno phones ASP is about CNY638. (N1 Mobile, press, Baijia)
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| Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime and J5 Prime, both Android 6.0, equipped with fingerprint sensor, supporting dual-SIM LTE, launched in India: J7 Prime – 5.5” FHD IPS LCD display, Samsung Exynos 7870 processor, 13MP + 8MP cameras, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, 3300mAh battery, INR18790. J5 Prime – 5” HD display, quad-core processor, 13MP + 5MP cameras, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, 2300mAh battery, INR14790. (Android Headlines, BGR, India.com, NDTV, GSM Arena)
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Wearables |
| Nikon KeyMission 360 is equipped with two 20MP sensors to capture 360° footage at 4K resolution. Each lens has an f/2.0 maximum aperture. It is waterproof to 98ft, and shockproof at heights up to 6.6ft. Priced at USD500. (Apple Insider, Nikon, Engadget, Tencent, 163)
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| Nikon KeyMission 170 has a 170° field of view. It is equipped with an 8.3MP sensor, capaale of recording video in 4K. Its aperture tops out at f/2.8, and waterproof to 33ft. Priced at USD400. (Apple Insider, Nikon, Engadget, Tencent, 163)
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| Nikon KeyMission 80 has an 80° field of view. It has a rear-facing 12MP camera with an f/2.0 lens, while a front-facing camera is scaled back to 5MP and f/2.2. For control, there is a 1.75” touchscreen. Priced at USD280. (Apple Insider, Nikon, Engadget, Tencent, 163)
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| GoPro HERO 5 is announced with 2 models Black and Session, both support 4K/30fps video recording, 10m waterproof, priced at USD399 and USD299, respectively. Black has a 12MP image sensor, while Session has a 10MP image sensor. (Ubergizmo, Pocket-Lint, CN Beta)
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Internet of Things |
| GoPro Karma is a portable drone as it features foldable wings. It also features a removable 3-axis camera stabilizer as well as a simple controller with a built-in display. It is priced at USD800. (Ubergizmo, CN Beta, Gizmodo, TechCrunch)
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| The Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan Solutions (AMS) has partnered with MIT, Delft University of Technology, and Wageningen University and Research. The project, called Roboat, has USD27 million in funding to see develop robot boats for a wide range of purposes. The group expects to have the initial prototypes on the canals by 2017. (Digital Trends, The Verge, Ubergizmo, iFeng)
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| LeEco founder Jia Yueting indicates that its auto division (“LeEco Auto”) has finished its first round of funding, successfully raised USD1.08 billion. The funding comes from Yingda Capital Management, Shenzhen government-backed Shenzhen Capital Group, Lenovo Group, China Minsheng Trust, Macrolink Group, etc. (CN Beta, Tencent, CN Stock, 163) |
| Grab, the largest company rivaling Uber in Southeast Asia, has confirmed that it has raised USD750 million in fresh capital, which was led by existing investor SoftBank with participation from undisclosed existing and new backers. (TechCrunch, Grab, 163)
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