Nokia, the world’s top cellphone maker, plans to launch its own mobile phone service in Japan next year to break into a market dominated by three domestic companies, a report said yesterday.
The Finnish firm will become the first handset manufacturer to provide cellphone services in Japan, the mass-circulation Yomiuri Shimbun said. The market has been dominated by NTT Docomo Inc, KDDI Corp and SoftBank Mobile Corp.
Nokia is in talks to rent wireless communication networks from Docomo, the daily said.
It plans to sell handsets for the service in February — initially high-end Vertu terminals to boost its brand image — and start operating it in March, the report said.
Nokia, which sold 437 million mobile phones last year and accounted for a 37.8 percent global market share, will later provide cheaper mass-produced phones for the service, the Yomiuri said.
Vertu makes handsets that are often embellished with titanium, gold, jewels and crystal.
In Japan, NTT Docomo and Softbank Mobile Corp sell Nokia-made handsets. But Nokia’s market share is limited as many Japanese consumers are accustomed to models offered by domestic manufacturers.
In New York, Verizon Wireless, the second-largest US wireless carrier, reported long lines and sellouts for the new BlackBerry Storm smartphone, which went on sale on Friday.
Some East Coast stores drew lines of as many as 150 people, with customers showing up as early as 5:30am, spokeswoman Brenda Raney said in an interview. More stores may sell out in other time zones as the day goes on, she said.
Verizon is counting on the BlackBerry Storm to draw holiday shoppers, even as the recession and credit crunch stifle consumer spending.
The device, designed to compete with Apple Inc’s best-selling iPhone, has a media player and a clickable touch screen that lets users press down when they type on a virtual keyboard.
Customers who didn’t get a phone on Friday could place an order and receive it in four to five days, Raney said. Sold-out stores will be replenished as soon as possible, she said.
Toni Sacaro, who works in marketing in New York, couldn’t buy a Storm on her lunch break because the lines outside a Verizon store on Third Avenue were too long.
“I guess anything with a touch screen and a sleek look will cause a crowd these days,” Sacaro said.
The Storm, built by Research In Motion Ltd, costs US$199.99 with a two-year contract and a rebate.
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
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day