The replacement of Windows XP systems and the promotion of low-priced notebooks by Microsoft and associated brands helped the 2014 notebook market recover from the bottoming out of the previous year. TrendForce’s newest report shows the total notebook shipments in 2014 reached 175.5 million, representing a year-on-year growth of 3.6%. The growth of the top seven brands were even higher at 14.1%.
TrendForce Corp., a global market intelligence firm, announced today (January 22) that it has become the majority shareholder of Topology Research Institute, with all the controlling stakeholder’s operating rights entailed. Kevin Lin, the CEO of TrendForce, will also hold the title of Chairman of Topology. Topology’s operations, brand, and managing staff will be under the same business model after the merger.
Global smartphone shipments totaled 1.167 billion units in 2014, a year-on-year increase of 25.9%, with combined shipments of Chinese brands reaching 453.4 million units. Chinese vendors thus managed to encompass almost 40% of the global shipments and represent six of the top ten smartphone brands worldwide.
In 2015, Samsung and LG, the two major Korean brands, may surpass 40% global market share, squeezing the market shares of Chinese and Japanese TV brands, according to a recent announcement from WitsView, a research division of TrendForce. Even though Korean brands are leading ahead of the pack in the global LCD TV market, a newly released “2014 China TV Brand Power Research Report” from AVANTI, a Chinese consumer research division of TrendForce, indicates that within the China market, Changhong, TCL and Hisense still possess an absolute geographical advantage in terms of brand image and visibility.
Propelled by economic recovery of major markets such as North America and China, and the promotions for large-sized products, the 2014 all-year LCD TV shipment is projected to reach 215 million units, with an annual growth rate of 5.4%, which is more optimistic than the original forecasts.