Wearable Device to Take Center Stage in 2014 Global ICT Industry: IEK

The Industrial Economics & Knowledge Center (IEK) of Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute recently warned that the global information and communication technology (ICT) market is showing weak demand in 2014, in which the annual market growth of tablet PCs and smartphones are estimated to be lower than 10%, while desktop and notebook PC shipments are expected to continue falling. The overall consumer-electronics market is predicted to drop by 1% this year.

IEK made the statements at its press conference on the top-10 ICT industry issues for 2014, in which the center listed 10 development trends in the global ICT industry as possible guidelines for Taiwan in the "new-growth" period.

The center pointed out that 2014 is the first year for the global ICT industry to totally focus on development of  wearable devices. Smartwatches and smart wristbands are expected to lead the segment, while smart glasses and bioelectronics products would account for only a small part of the market.

IKE project manager J.Y. Ho noted that global shipments of wearable devices are expected to reach 31.7 million units in 2014, and rise to some 190 million by 2018; while  wearable device is expected to bring disruptive innovation to  industrial technology development, the center said.  Wearable devices are creating a new demand for flexible electronics, and flexible display will be formally commercialized this year, IEK added.

This year, Ho explained, most wearable device makers would try to accelerate product launches, rather than focus on researching market demand. Major product categories to be launched by makers this year will be mainly smartphone accessories and sport/fitness-oriented devices.

The disruptive innovation to be brought by wearable devices will be directed mainly at new technologies for embedding active and passive devices into flexible circuit boards, integration of different inertia, environment and imaging sensors, new types of displays (such as micro projector, flexible display, transparent display etc.).

T.M. Lin, IEK's display project manager, noted that flexible double-emission active matrix organic light-emit diode (AMOLED) will be the mainstream display technology by emerging from glass substrate based thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) or AMOLED, to  create a new type of display with flexibility and reliability that can be applied in flexible handheld and wearable devices.

In conjunction with the technology advancement in and yield-rate upgrading of flexible display, new-generation displays will evolve into reel-type products, and finally into  newspaper-like, foldable panels. Flexible display initially  will be applied mainly to handheld devices, while its applications will be extended into digital signage, mobile medical care, automotive etc. applications.

Stephen Su, general director of IEK, said that the 2014 ICT industry will focus on new technology development for simplicity, high stability, lightweight, lower power consumption and high environment tolerance, rather than high performance. With  such development trend, he added, wearable devices will become vital carriers to collect environmental information, and through backstage real-time analysis, wearable device users can get immediate services. This will be a killer application in 2014, Su said.

Another IEK researcher pointed out that the global economy is expected to gradually recover in 2014, but the ICT industry is facing slowing demand for smartphone, tablet PC etc. Such challenges, he added, are expected to further stimulate ICT makers' innovations in wearable devices, 3D printing technologies, smart terminals etc.

The increasingly popular infrastructures of 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE), cloud-computing applications, and Internet of Things are also expected to create more new business opportunities and drive makers' strategic changes, IEK said.