The Asia-Pacific region will have more computer programmers and other professional developers than North America in two years' time, an industry monitor said yesterday.
North America was the region with the most developers in 2001, followed by the Asia Pacific which dislodged Europe from the number two slot. But strong growth in China and India would propel the region to the top of the list in 2005, International Data Corp (IDC) said.
Asia, particularly India, is a key source of professionals for the information-technology industry in North America.
"Growth is expected to be much stronger in [the] Asia Pacific than in North America over the next five years, particularly in the world's largest countries, China and India," IDC said.
There were 7.8 million IT developers in 2001 and the figure is projected to rise to 13.3 million by 2006, IDC said.
Asia had 1.7 million developers at the end of 2001, it said.
The drop in the number of IT professionals in North America was also partly due to the slump in the tech sector there, IDC said.
"The growth in the number of worldwide developers has been affected dramatically by the economic downturn and actually caused a decline in the number of employed professional developers in North America from 2000 to 2001," IDC said. "This comes as no surprise since the economic downturn has resulted in extensive layoffs among IT workers."
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by