China-based vendors will together ship 151.8 million smartphones globally during the second quarter of 2017, increasing 13.0% on quarter but decreasing 2.7% on year and taking up 46.7% of the global total, according to Digitimes Research

April 2017 average retail price for 7W LED light bulbs (40W incandescent equivalents) in the China market decreased 11.3% from February 2017 to CNY23.5 (US$3.4), while that for 9W models (60W incandescent equivalents) increased 9.3% to CNY31.7, according to Digitimes Research

While 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) plans to decide on first-stage 5G standards in the second half of 2018, some mobile telecom carriers showcased field testing of 5G key technologies and telecom equipment vendors exhibited point-to-point 5G network solutions at the Mobile World Congress 2017 earlier this year. This signals that commercial use of 5G technologies will begin ahead of the original schedule, according to Digitimes Research

Among Japan-based exhibitors at Finetech Japan 2017 taking place in Tokyo during April 5-7, Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) cut a brilliant figure by showcasing several 8K OLED panels based on oxide semiconductor back planes, according to Digitimes Research

Taiwan-based makers together shipped 6.735 million LCD TVs in first-quarter 2017, the lowest quarterly level since first-quarter 2010. The volume represents decreases of 33.2% sequentially and 8.4% on year, according to Digitimes Resaerch

China-based panel makers exhibited small- to medium-size TDDI (touch and display driver integration) LTPS TFT-LCD panels and flexible AMOLED panels at China Information Technology Expo (CITE) 2017 in Shenzhen, southern China, during April 9-11, according to Digitimes Research

While LG Electronics has dominated the global OLED TV market, Japan-based Panasonic, Sony and Toshiba still launched OLED TVs in Japan in the first quarter of 2017, with panels supplied by LG Display. However, to differentiate from LG Electronics’ products, the Japan-based vendors are expected to focus on developing their own technologies for their OLED TVs

Taiwan's LCD monitor shipments dropped 6.2% on year to reach below 20 million units in the first quarter of 2017, while worldwide shipments also experienced a similar decline of 6.8% on year. For the second quarter, Taiwan's volume will continue to see an on-year decline of 8.4%, while worldwide shipments will drop 7.2%, showing the market has yet to recover

Biometric sensor technologies are mainly separated into two major categories: the static type such as fingerprint, iris, face, palm vein recognition; and the dynamic type such as voiceprint, heartbeat and gait recognition. In 2016, fingerprint recognition sensor shipments were around 780 million units, accounting for 96% of all biometric sensor product shipments. As more new sensor technologies will begin entering the market, biometric sensor product shipments are expected to achieve a CAGR of 31.2% from 2017-2020

IR (infrared) and UV-C (ultraviolet with wavelength of 240-290nm) LED, automotive headlights, Micro LED and OLED lighting were major attractions at Taiwan International Lighting Show (TILS) and LED Taiwan 2017 jointly taking place in Taipei during April 12-15, according to Digitimes Research

The China government began to implement the Broadband China policy in 2013 and consequently fiber-optic infrastructure has been widely established. The number of FTTH subscribers quickly increased to 227.7 million as of the end of 2016, accounting for 76.6% of all fixed-line broadband Internet-access subscribers, according to Digitimes Research

Nissan Motor launched new Serena, a sedan car equipped with in-house-developed ProPilot semi-autonomous driving technology designed for running in single-lane traffic along highways, in the Japan market in August 2016, and aims to upgrade the autonomous driving level of ProPilot to running in interchangeable-lane traffic along highways in 2018 and on urban roads with complicated traffic conditions in 2020