Global sales of mobile phones that can take, send and receive photographs rose 65 percent in the fourth quarter, boosted by new models from companies including Sharp Corp and Nokia Oyj, a market research group said.
Sales rose to 8.6 million units from 5.2 million during the previous three months, according to Strategy Analytics, a research company. Asia accounted for 80 percent of total camera-phone sales in the fourth quarter. Sharp sold 4 million of the 17.9 million camera phones bought around the world last year.
Handset makers have introduced the new models to encourage consumers to replace their old phones and spend more taking pictures, playing games and talking. Phones with cameras accounted for 4 percent of worldwide handset sales last year, including 7 percent in the fourth quarter, the report said.
In the fourth quarter, Western Europe accounted for 13 percent of total camera-phone sales, with North America and Eastern Europe each accounting for 2.3 percent. More than 70 percent of the European population already has a mobile phone.
Nokia, the word's biggest mobile-phone maker, last year sold 91 percent of the 2.2 million camera phones sold based on the GSM, or global system for mobile communications, standard. Samsung Electronics Co sold the most camera phones based on CDMA, or code-division multiple access technology, selling a quarter of the 5 million handsets based on that standard.
The figures don't include phones that come with an optional snap-on camera, the report said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)