This Digitimes Research Special Report examines two aspects of the China smartphone market. The first part covers the China smartphone market, measuring local shipments in China from both China-based vendors and international vendors such as Samsung and Apple. The second portion of the Special Report covers the China smartphone industry and measures shipments from China-based makers and vendors in the local China market as well as their shipments to overseas markets.

Digitimes Research estimates that the production value for high brightness LED chips will have an annual growth rate of 12.9% and reach US$12.74 billion in 2014. The applications that will drive growth momentum are LED lighting, tablet, mobile, and automotive. For the global LED lighting market, the market size will reach US$25.82 billion in 2014 or a market penetration rate of 23.4%. This is attributable to exponential shipment growth for light bulbs, tubes, and directional lamps.

Taiwan's digital still camera (DSC) shipments dropped sharply in the fourth quarter of 2013 as challenges from camera-equipped smartphones continued. One of the major makers, Foxconn Electronics, has decided to quit the consumer DSC market.

Taiwan's handset shipments registered slight sequential growth in the fourth quarter of 2013. While brand vendor HTC remained the top player in Taiwan's handset industry, ODM Chi Mei Communication Systems narrowed its gap. The ODM is expected to leapfrog HTC in first-quarter 2014.

This Digitimes Research Special Report provides a market forecast of the 2014 application processor market (AP). In addition to shipment forecasts for each major vendor, Digitimes Research presents the various development trends in AP design, including the decision to implement 64-bit architecture, the development direction of eight core applications, the evolution of the bigLITTLE core designs, the advancements of GPU architecture, and overall software developments for supporting new processor architecture.

This Digitimes Research Special Report outlines the key factors in the rapid growth of the touch-panel industry in Greater China in recent years, as well as the technology trends and industry relationships that will affect touch panel makers moving forward. The report provides forecasts through 2015 for Greater China touch panel shipments with breakdowns based on technology (glass, film, resistive), application (smartphone, NB and tablet) and by firm.

Recovering demand in both the enterprise and consumer segments boosted Taiwan ODMs' notebook shipments by 2.5% sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2013, slightly weaker than the worldwide growth of 4.1%. Low-price tablets, Apple's new iPads and new smartphone models did not undermine demand for notebooks as much as originally feared.

In 2014, smartphones are expected to continue penetrating rapidly into emerging markets such as Russia, India, Indonesia and Latin America, while China's smartphone shipments will see weakened on-year growth in the year, but still enormous volume. This report will provide in-depth analyses to forecast whether global smartphone shipments in 2014 will maintain a growth similar to that of 2013 and what the global shipment scale will reach in 2014.

Digitimes Research estimates that in 2014 global tablet shipments will reach 289 million units. This report analyzes the main players, their strategies and shipments forecasts for 2014, as well as other factors contributing to either growth or decline in various segments within the tablet market, with a particular focus on Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft, along with whitebox vendors. Moreover, the report discusses Taiwan tablet EMS/ODM makers and their shipment forecasts, along with their related market shares and shipment growth.

Digitimes Research estimates that global notebook shipments in 2014 will reach around 160 million units, down from a peak of over 200 million in 2011, but the drop in 2014 will be lower than the on-year drop in 2013, with new market developments, new product opportunities, and changes in the major players' strategies all playing critical roles in the IT industry's future trends. This Digitimes Research Special Report forecasts global notebook shipments, the share of Taiwan makers, and the shipment breakdown by the top-10 global brands.

TD-LTE has become the mainstream global choice for the construction of 4G asymmetric frequency spectrum networks, with the GSA calculating that commercial TD-LTE services were already in operation by 21 carriers in 17 countries worldwide as of the third quarter of 2013. This Digitimes Research Special Report examines the current global status of TD-LTE, and forecasts developments in the TD-LTE supply chain in China and worldwide through 2016.

Companies such as Apple, Samsung Electronics and Google have become increasingly interested in over-the-top services as a means to connect ultra-mobile devices to TVs, increase cloud computing users, and boost various cloud and software services. This Digitimes Special Report examines the trends and strategies set top box (STB) makers are moving in, as well as taking a look at the plans of major companies for further adapting the technology into their products in order to better compete in the market.