■ China market share holds
Nokia Oyj, Motorola Inc and other international makers of mobile phones have stopped losing market share in China to local manufacturers, the Financial Times said, citing a report from research company GfK Asia.
The proportion of handsets sold in China under local brands between January and June fell to 46 percent of the total from 49 percent, the newspaper said. By sales value, the local brands' share of the market dropped to 37 percent from 42 percent, it said.
The overseas-based manufacturers regained market share after introducing new models developed specifically for the Chinese market, improving distribution and expanding their factories in the country, the newspaper said.
Local manufacturers, which gained market share from their international rivals starting in 1999, are struggling to keep up with new technology such as camera phones, the paper said, citing Sino-Market Research vice president Jeffrey Jiao.
■ Intel slashes chip prices
Semiconductor giant Intel Corp. cut the prices on some of its Pentium and Itanium chips on Sunday by as much as one-third.
Intel said the price moves do not reflect efforts to reduce inventory and are part of its normal business operations.
The price changes were available on Intel's Web site and reflect chips purchased in 1,000-unit lots by computer manufacturers.
The Santa Clara, California, chipmaker did not change the prices on its Centrino chips, which have built-in wireless functions.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained