E-Ten Information Systems Co (倚天資訊), a leading handheld devices maker, aims to boost sales by 30 percent this year on the back of strong demand for mobile phones operating on Microsoft Corp's system in Europe, a company executive said yesterday.
E-Ten, which started as a software provider, is one of many Taiwanese electronics manufacturers attempting to duplicate local competitor High Tech Computer Corp's (
Sustainable gross margin for the niche products and diversified customers have sent shares of High Tech rallying around 77 percent since the beginning of the year
"With more PDA [personal digital assistant] phones to unveil later this year, we believe our shipments and sales will rise by 30 percent from last year," said James Lai (
Lai said that the company would focus on niche markets to avoid direct competition with big brands such as Nokia Ojy in the low-priced mobile phone market.
E-Ten reported NT$1.64 billion (US$52 million) in unconsolidated sales for last year by shipping a combined of 150,000 units of PDA phones and global positioning systems (GPS) last year.
"Demand for the product is the strongest in Europe," said company spokeswoman Abby Lee (
The growing popularity of PDA phones has prompted speculation about cooperation between E-Ten and the world's biggest contract notebook computer maker Quanta Computer Inc (
"We can't comment on any unconcluded deal," answered Lee to a question about the possibility of forming a joint venture with Quanta.
"We won't rule out any possibilities of cooperation in the long term," Lee said.
Quanta is currently a partner of E-Ten in the GPS component area as the laptop maker agreed to take a 40 percent share of E-Ten's affiliate Royaltek Co (
E-Ten planned to introduce three more PDA phones with, or without embedded
GPS function in the second half of this year after launching one phone
yesterday.
That would also boost PDA phone's contribution to the company's sales this
year to up to 70 percent, compared to some 50 percent last year, Lee said.
Shares in E-Ten have jumped approximately 64 percent since January to the
closing price of NT$38.15 yesterday, compared to 10-percent gain for the
benchmark TAIEX index during the same period.
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
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)
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