EnergyTrend, a division of TrendForce, estimates that the total PV demand worldwide for 2016 will reach 69.5GW. The installation rush in China during the year’s first half and significant market growth in the U.S. and India have been driving this year’s demand.
TrendForce’s latest market survey finds that VR devices will enjoy strong sales this Christmas season on account that game consoles are also going to be popular gift purchases. Based on TrendForce’s latest analysis, annual shipments of VR devices worldwide (excluding mobile VR device) are projected to reach 2.91 million units for 2016 and grow massively by 75% to 5.1 million units for 2017. In terms of ranking of brands by shipments, Sony is expected to take first place this year, followed by Oculus in second and HTC in third.
The global DRAM market has been on a roller coaster ride during 2016. Prices were on a steep slide in the year’s first half due to weak demand. However, the pickup in notebook shipments and the strong sales of Chinese branded smartphones since the start of the third quarter have not only reversed the price downtrend but also caused average selling prices of DRAM to make big jumps. Looking ahead to 2017, DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, forecasts that DRAM bit supply will expand by less than 20% annually. This growth rate will also be a new historical low for the industry. Assuming that there will be no significant weakening of demand, DRAM supply will generally remain tight next year. Thus, suppliers should continue to reap profits during the entire 2017 on account of rising prices.
The value of the global LED market is estimated to grow 3.4% annually to US$14.8 billion in 2016, according to LEDinside, a division of TrendForce. The LED industry will again be under tremendous competitive pressure in 2017, and participants will need to accelerate their entries into more profitable niche markets such as fine-pitch LED displays, UV LEDs and IR LEDs. LEDinside forecasts that the value of the global LED market will total US$15.4 billion, up 4% from 2016.
DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, reports that the global shortage of NAND Flash has reached its most severe phase for 2016 in this fourth quarter. Factors that aggravate the shortage include strong smartphone shipments, growing SSD demand and the increase in the average memory density of eMMCs and eMCPs.