Smartphones in Taiwan will account for nearly 30 percent of the nation’s total mobile phone shipments this year as more low-priced models are expected to be launched, consulting firm International Data Corp (IDC) said on Friday.
Worldwide smartphone shipments are forecast to reach 428 million units this year compared to 270 million units last year, an increase of more than 50 percent, according to IDC.
Smartphone shipments in Taiwan, which accounted for between 21 percent and 22 percent of total mobile phone shipments last year, will increase to between 29 percent and 30 percent this year, higher than the global average of 26 percent, IDC senior analyst Joey Yen (嚴蘭欣) told reporters at a news conference.
“Chinese OEM [original equipment manufacturing] phone makers, such as ZTE Co [中興] and Huawei Technologies Co [華為], are ready to unveil more smartphones at a price of NT$7,000 to NT$8,000 [US$240 to US$274] in Taiwan this year, providing more product choices for local consumers and improving the popularity of smartphones,” she said.
The move will also change the current ranking of smartphone shipments, particularly the top five brands, as the number of phones that run Google Inc’s Android operating system is increasing, Yen said.
In the third quarter last year, Nokia Corp, which uses the Symbian operating system on its smartphones, still topped the worldwide smartphone market with a 32.7 percent market share, followed by 17.4 percent for Apple Inc, 15.3 percent for Research In Motion, 8.9 percent for Samsung Electronics Co and 7.2 percent for HTC Corp (宏達電), said IDC.
Global smartphone shipments by Samsung, which launched a slew of Android-based models last year, grew to 7.2 million units in the third quarter of last year compared to 1.3 million units a year earlier, an increase of 453.8 percent that surpassed the performance of all other smartphone makers.
RECYCLE: Taiwan would aid manufacturers in refining rare earths from discarded appliances, which would fit the nation’s circular economy goals, minister Kung said Taiwan would work with the US and Japan on a proposed cooperation initiative in response to Beijing’s newly announced rare earth export curbs, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. China last week announced new restrictions requiring companies to obtain export licenses if their products contain more than 0.1 percent of Chinese-origin rare earths by value. US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday responded by saying that Beijing was “unreliable” in its rare earths exports, adding that the US would “neither be commanded, nor controlled” by China, several media outlets reported. Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato yesterday also
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) said it expects peak season effects in the fourth quarter to continue to boost demand for passenger flights and cargo services, after reporting its second-highest-ever September sales on Monday. The carrier said it posted NT$15.88 billion (US$517 million) in consolidated sales last month, trailing only September last year’s NT$16.01 billion. Last month, CAL generated NT$8.77 billion from its passenger flights and NT$5.37 billion from cargo services, it said. In the first nine months of this year, the carrier posted NT$154.93 billion in cumulative sales, up 2.62 percent from a year earlier, marking the second-highest level for the January-September
‘DRAMATIC AND POSITIVE’: AI growth would be better than it previously forecast and would stay robust even if the Chinese market became inaccessible for customers, it said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its full-year revenue growth outlook after posting record profit for last quarter, despite growing market concern about an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble. The company said it expects revenue to expand about 35 percent year-on-year, driven mainly by faster-than-expected demand for leading-edge chips for AI applications. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker in July projected that revenue this year would expand about 30 percent in US dollar terms. The company also slightly hiked its capital expenditure for this year to US$40 billion to US$42 billion, compared with US$38 billion to US$42 billion it set previously. “AI demand actually
RSS