Motorola Inc, the largest US mobile-phone maker, sold as many as 800,000 Droids since their Nov. 6 debut with Verizon Wireless, taking on Apple Inc’s iPhone for holiday sales, an analyst said.
The figures put Motorola’s smartphone, which runs on Google Inc’s Android operating system, on track to sell 1 million units in the fourth quarter, Mark Sue, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in New York, said in a note on Sunday.
The sales have been helped by Verizon’s advertising campaign and well-stocked store shelves, Sue said. Verizon is positioning the Droid to challenge a new version of the iPhone. Apple sold more than 1 million of the latest model in its first weekend in June.
“Verizon’s big marketing push for the Droid is strengthening as we close in on the holidays,” said Sue, who says Motorola shares will outperform peers. “Motorola for its part has done a good job on the production side, and our survey of over 100 stores indicates strong demand, limited stock-outs and very few returns.”
Apple’s iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd’s BlackBerry Curve led the US smartphone market in the second quarter, researcher NPD Group Inc said in August. The more advanced handsets allow users to send e-mails and edit documents.
Motorola fell US$0.19, or 2.3 percent, to US$8.01 in New York Stock Exchange composite on Monday. The stock has risen 81 percent this year. New York-based Verizon Communications Inc, which co-owns Verizon Wireless with Vodafone Group PLC, dropped US$0.17 to US$31.46 and has declined 7.2 percent 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
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