Lured by Taiwan's strong electronic manufacturing capabilities, TomTom NV, the world's biggest maker of portable navigation devices (PND), said yesterday it would set up its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Taiwan as a stepping stone to further expansion in the region.
The Amsterdam-based company made its first step into Asia yesterday by launching its first PND product in Taiwan after gaining strong footholds in Europe and North America.
"TomTom chose Taiwan as its Asia-Pacific headquarters not only because of the low penetration rate and high growth potential of the Taiwanese car navigation industry, but also because of the tremendous PND market potential in Asia," TomTom chief operating officer Alexander Ribbink told a press briefing yesterday in Taipei.
PHOTO: CHUO YI-CHUN, TAIPEI TIMES
Ribbink forecast TomTom's global shipments this year would rise to 8 million units, which would represent a growth of approximately 70 percent from the 4.7 million units shipped last year.
Taiwan's PND market is still in the nascent stage with a penetration rate of below 5 percent, compared with 10 percent to 15 percent in Europe, Charles Huang (黃昭穎), vice president of TomTom Asia Inc (通騰科技), told reporters.
The Taiwanese market would serve as a testing ground for TomTom's ventures into other Asian countrie, Huang said. No concrete plan has been set for further expansion in the region.
TomTom has successfully differentiated itself from other brands in Europe by providing real time traffic information and other services, said Lucy Ho (何心宇), an analyst with market researcher Market Intelligence Center (資訊市場情報中心) in Taipei.
"But, it would lose such advantages in the Taiwanese market in competing with local brands like Mio," Ho said, adding the market here could take longer to take off.
While domestic sales of PNDs are still low, Taiwanese companies are experiencing substantial growth in making PNDs for other big names such as TomTom, Ho said.
TomTom's plan to set up its regional headquarters in Taiwan may benefit local suppliers, Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) and Inventec Appliances Corp (英華達), Ho said.
This year, local companies led by MiTAC International Corp (神達) are forecast to account for half of the global supply of 17.45 million PNDs and global positioning system phones, Ho predicted, without providing comparative figures.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS