Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s third-largest PC maker, said yesterday it aimed to ship 20 million handsets in 2012 and become one of the world’s top five smartphone providers.
The PC maker launched its first smartphone in April, 12 months after merging a local handheld device maker — E-Ten Information System Co (倚天) — as part of its diversification into the smartphone market, which offers faster growth and better margins.
“We want to be the world’s top 5 smartphone makers in the next three to four years,” Aymar de Lencquesaing, president of Acer’s Smart Handheld Business Group, told a media briefing in Taipei.
To reach this goal, Acer would have to grab about 6 percent or 7 percent of the market, Lencquesaing said.
By 2012, Acer hopes to sell 20 million smartphones, he said.
Smartphone shipments are expected to grow more than 22 percent next year after increasing by a mild 3.4 percent this year because of the global recession, market researcher IDC said.
In comparison, shipments of conventional phones are expected to rise 7.5 percent next year after contracting 10 percent this year, IDC said.
Acer is in talks with global telecom operator to sell its smartphones at an affordable price of between US$40 and US$50 per unit by bundling them with their services and subsidies, Acer vice president Roger Yuan (袁祖興) said.
The price could lure feature phone users to switch to smartphones, he said.
“Singapore will be the first market for Acer to sell its smartphones through local telecom operators. We see that happening this or next month,” Yuan said.
The company plans to launch 10 models this year, including one running Google’s Android system.
Acer said it hoped to sell half a million phones this year.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Taiwanese prosecutors suspect that three people successfully smuggled at least one shipment of Nvidia Corp artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China after first exporting them to Japan, people familiar with the matter said. The trio was detained last week by the Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office for allegedly falsifying documents related to exports of Super Micro Computer Inc servers containing advanced Nvidia chips, which the US has barred from sale to China without a license from Washington. The move marked Taiwan’s first public crackdown on AI chip diversion after years of pressure from the US to take a more active role in curtailing
RSS