Japan has enormous influence over the development of the global biotech industry. The country is the world’s third-largest pharmaceutical and biotech market after the U.S. and China. It is also ranked second globally in terms of R&D spending in pharmaceutical and biotech industry. One of the major trade exhibitions in Japan, Life Science World 2016, was held in Tokyo earlier this May.
The combined shipments of smartwatches and smart bands will reach 7.5 million units this year, and 90% of which will be equipped with optical sensor components used for pulse rate monitoring, according to the 2016 UV LED and IR LED Application Markets Report by LEDinside, a division of TrendForce. Shipments of smartwatches and smart bands together will total 170 million units by 2020, and all of them are expected to incorporate optical sensor components.
At this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC), the mobile payment industry took another significant step in progress with the reveal of several cross-device payment services. Visa, for example, announced that it has partnered up with smartwatch maker Pebble and auto giant Honda to bring Visa’s payment services into cars and wearable devices.
Currently, the healthcare sector can be divided into three major subfields – pharmaceuticals, medical devices and biotechnology. The medical device industry in particular has huge growth potential due to advances in information communication technology (ICT). “New technologies have significantly enhanced the capabilities of medical devices,” said Jason Huang, TrendForce’s research manager for the healthcare industry.
With major smartphone brands Apple and Samsung making a big entrance into the mobile payment business, the total revenue of the worldwide mobile payment market in 2015 reached US$450 billion, according to the global market research firm TrendForce. By the end of 2016, the total revenue is estimated to arrive at US$620 billion, representing a massive growth of 37.8% year on year.
