Sales of touch panels are expected to rise to US$3.5 million in 2010 on strong demand in emerging markets and electronics linked to creating a digital home, Taipei-based researcher Topology Research Institute (拓墣產研) forecast yesterday.
This year the sales are expected to increase 9 percent to US$2.76 billion from last year, Topology projected.
"Apple's iPhone featuring a touch screen has caused increases in demand for such screens this year as mobile phone brands are following Apple's suit. The spike in demand has also caused supply constraints recently," Topology analyst Harrison Po (
In China, in particular, numerous "no-brand" mobile phone suppliers, which play a big role in the market, started replacing traditional keypads with touch screens in the second half of the year, Po said.
"We did not expect the demand from China to grow so fast, though China is a very dynamic market," Po said.
Consumer electronics including handsets and car navigation systems would fuel demand followed by increased demand for larger-sized screens used in a wide variety of products from tablet PCs to medical equipment, Po said.
Demand for car navigation systems, for example, is expected to grow to 10 million units in 2010 from the estimated 8.5 million units for next year, riding on a growing trend of installing such devices in new cars in Europe and the US, Topology said.
To cope with rapidly-growing demand, local touch panel makers including J Touch Corp (
J Touch planned to boost annual output by 92 percent to 48 million 3.5-inch screens next year, while Transtouch aimed to expand production to 3 million units next year from 800,000 units this year.
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],”