Google Taiwan is betting on mobile Internet, with the recent explosive growth in netbooks and smartphones, the company said on Thursday.
The company said it placed a dedicated team in Taiwan to look after its free Android mobile Internet platform — in close proximity to the world’s largest PC and smartphone contract manufacturers — and capitalize on the mobile trend, which it thinks will last for at least 10 years.
Research by Strategy Analytics Inc shows that Google could overtake Microsoft Corp as the No. 1 mobile operating system provider — with more than 50 million plus Android platform units — by 2012.
When Android was first introduced in the second half of last year, less than 10 million units were downloaded. This year the number is expected to grow to around 15 million units.
Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰), general manager of Google Taiwan, believes that for domestic technology companies to come out ahead, they need to develop their own brands, rather than be controlled by brand name vendors. Chien cited Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) and HTC Corp (宏達電) as examples.
Although the PC market is dominated by foreign companies, the netbook segment is 80 percent Taiwanese, which was a promising sign for local tech firms, Chien said at a press gathering in Taipei.
“Local original design manufacturers face razor-thin profit margins of 3 [percent] to 4 percent. We believe our free Android platform will give them more breathing room,” he said.
Following up on comments by Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, Chien said he truly believes the Internet will be a critical part of global economic recovery. The search giant makes its revenues from Web advertising via its search functions and YouTube.
Google Taiwan said revenue grew 59 percent last year and it was now the market leader in Internet video and online maps.
Google Taiwan had an arrival rate of 52 percent in 2006, but by last year it had increased to 80 percent. The arrival rate is calculated by estimating the percentage of users online during a set period of time who access a certain Web site.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
RSS