With an eye to doubling its laptop sales to Taiwan this year, Fujitsu Taiwan Ltd is planning to introduce a slew of notebooks that cater to the mainstream market, a company executive said yesterday.
"We have drawn up a product and pricing strategy to boost our shipments this year," Frank Hsieh (
The company sold only around 7,000 portable computers last year, accounting for less than 1 percent of the domestic market, he said.
But it aims to more than double sales to 17,000 units this year for a market share of 2 percent, he added.
The company, which used to focus on supplying premium laptops for corporate customers, is diversifying its offerings this year to target mainstream consumers.
At least three new lower-priced notebooks will hit local stores this year, lowering Fujitsu's average selling prices to below NT$50,000 (US$1,520), from between NT$50,000 to NT$60,000 in the past, Hsieh said.
One of the new models would come with a 3.5-generation module to cater to the booming telecom service here, he added.
Fujitsu yesterday launched its LifeBook P7230, an ultra-mobile laptop designed for frequent travelers and mobile workers.
With a screen size of 10.6 inches, it weighs only about 1.33kg, has 1GB of memory and 80GB of storage. It also comes with a built-in optical disk drive, a camera and a six-hour battery pack.
The domestic notebook market is expected to grow to 890,000 units from 790,000 units last year, thanks to the upcoming debut of Microsoft's Vista operating system, market researcher International Data Corp said.
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) and Acer Inc dominate the local laptop market, with the US' Hewlett-Packard Co ranking third.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”