With students now enjoying their summer vacation, information technology vendors are expecting them to provide a revenue boost at the Taipei Computer Applications Show.
"We estimate seven out of 10 MP3 players are sold to students, or parents buying for their kids," Gabriel Sun (孫瑰寶), media relations manager of Transcend Information Inc (創見資訊), told the Taipei Times at the show.
More students are now tuning into music on the go, and have gotten used to carrying around universal serial buses (USB) devices to transfer data. This means opportunities for Transcend, a Taiwanese maker of memory modules and USB devices.
In April, the maker unseated Apple Inc's iPod from No. 1 spot in the local digital music player market for the first time, with a line of attractively priced low-end models.
Transcend is showing off its latest model at the show, the T.sonic 840, which comes in a metallic case, weights only 70g, has a 1.8-inch screen and comes with an electronic book feature. It is priced from NT$2,899 (US$88) to NT$3,899, depending on the memory capacity.
The show, which opened on Thursday, is open through Monday at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 1.
In its 17th year, the show is expected to attract 400,000 visitors -- a substantial increase over last year's 350,000.
Justin Liang (梁百鋒), a sales executive at Lenovo Group Ltd's (聯想) Taiwan branch, said: "Speaking overall, buying sentiment has definitely been strong over the first two days."
BenQ Corp (
Customers who show their student IDs can receive a NT$1,000 discount on a 22-inch liquid-crystal-display (LCD) monitor with a NT$10,990 price tag.
"Students make up the majority of the crowd at the computer show, and we have a selection of products catering to their needs," BenQ public relations official Lydia Lin (林麗貞) said.
BenQ expects to sell 300 portable computers and 300 LCD televisions, two of its major offerings, during the five-day show, she said.
Computer vendors also expect the back-to-school season help boost notebook sales at the show.
Most of the machines on sale are using on the Centrino Duo platform, with those having the latest Intel Santa Rosa chipsets touted as the flagship machines. Computers running on the earlier Merom and Napa chipsets are being sold at a lower prices.
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