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Asustek hopes for more than 20% of smart phone market

Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), innovator of low-cost netbooks, expects to control more than 20 percent of the smart phone market in Taiwan by the end of the year, the company said at a media briefing yesterday.

The Taipei-based company released its second smart phone of the year, the P552w, featuring a touch-screen interface — called “glide” — and a 624 MHz processor running on Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0.

“This smart phone is aimed at the working professional as well as young adults interested in style and multi-faceted functionality,” Kevin Lin (林福能), vice president of Asustek’s sales department, told reporters yesterday.

Towards the end of the year, Asus will release a third smart phone, Lin said.

NEW PLATFORMS

Moreover, the information technology manufacturer does not rule out creating mobile phones based on other platforms, such as Google’s Android.

“So far, there has not been any definitive decision on this topic, but we are certainly engaged in intense discussions,” Lin said.

Despite the slowdown in the global economy, “the growth of smart phones is unstoppable,” Sylvia Kuo (郭念慈), a senior manager of mobile communication business at Microsoft Taiwan Corp, said at the same event.

The smart phone market is expected to grow at between 5 percent and 9 percent year-on-year through 2012. Industry players predict smart phones could represent up to one-third of the mobile phone market by 2013, Kuo said.

‘STRONG FORCE’

“Taiwan is a very strong force in the smart phone market. So far this year, the nation has shipped more than 50 million units to-date, which is one-third of the global smart phone volume”, Kuo said during a speech yesterday.

Before its release to retailers on Friday, the P552w had already won Japan’s Good Design Award. The third-generation mobile phone supports Google maps and a global positioning system (GPS) and comes in black and white. It retails at NT$15,888.
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