HTC Corp (宏達電), the Taiwanese maker of Android and Windows-based handsets, yesterday introduced its first tablet computer as it joins rivals in the chase to take market share from Apple Inc’s iPad.
The HTC Flyer tablet features a 7-inch screen and front and rear-facing cameras, mimicking the features of Samsung Electronics Co’s first Galaxy Tab, which the South Korean company introduced four months ago.
Samsung unveiled a newer tablet this week with a 10-inch screen, a higher-quality camera and the latest version of Android, which is also used in the HTC Flyer.
Photo: Wang I-hung, Taipei Times
HTC joins Samsung, Hewlett-Packard Co and Research in Motion Ltd in the market for tablets, now dominated by the iPad, with more than 15 million sold since its April release, Apple vice president Eddy Cue said on Feb. 2.
Global shipments of tablet devices are forecast to more than double this year, led by Apple and Google Inc Android-based models, market researcher IDC Corp said.
“We are not interested in rushing out another me-too device, and I don’t think any of you are either,” HTC chief executive Peter Chou (周永明) said at a press conference in Barcelona, Spain, where he introduced the new tablet.
HTC is looking to its own software to differentiate its devices from rival Android tablets. Its £30 million (US$48 million) acquisition of Saffron Media Group Ltd, which develops software for delivering content over the Internet, and its US$40 million investment in games-on-demand provider OnLive Inc may help HTC lure users to its tablets and smartphones.
The Flyer includes support for taking notes onscreen with a stylus, as well as playing back audio recordings from the time a note was written. Shipments will commence in the second quarter of this year, the company said.
HTC also unveiled five Android-based smartphones, including two that feature dedicated hardware connecting users to Facebook Inc’s social-networking service.
Global tablet sales reached 17 million units last year and are forecast to climb to 44.6 million this year, IDC said last month.
That figure could climb to 70.8 million units next year, it said.
HTC is the world’s fifth-largest smartphone vendor, shipping 8.6 million units in the fourth quarter, IDC said on Feb. 7. It trailed Nokia Oyj, Apple and Samsung, which was fourth with 9.7 million units, IDC said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by