Approximately 14 million 4K2K – ultra-high definition (UHD) – television sets will be shipped globally in 2014, penetrating 6-7% of the overall TV market, according to WitsView, a subsidiary of the Taiwan-based market intelligence firm TrendForce.
When the iPad was launched in 2010, it was an instant hit and spurred a tablet PC craze. Such was the popularity of tablets that notebook PC sales stagnated and eventually began to fall as consumers increasingly switched to tablets.
Smartphone shipments are expected to reach 322 million in the third quarter of 2014, up 13% on quarter, and see flat shipment growth on year in the fourth quarter, while overall shipments in 2014 will reach 1.2 billion, up 29.2% on year, according to market intelligence firm TrendForce. Growth will be driven primarily by the release of the new iPhone and new units launched from Chinese vendors.
Despite Apple’s plans of launching the new generation of iPhone in late 2014, optical demands in handheld devices failed to generate price upticks in the sapphire substrate industry, according to LEDinside.
The global smartphone market is slowing down and entering a mature period where growth will be limited. Mature markets such as Europe and North America in particular are expected to see smartphone growth in the single digits. Amid an increasingly competitive smartphone market in China growth is expected to be more noticeable, vendors such as Xiaomi, Huawei and Lenovo have nevertheless gained a strong market share in the lower-priced smartphone segment.