Samsung Electronics Co expects the penetration rate for smart TVs in Taiwan to reach as high as 40 percent this year, with the company planning to launch 15 LCD TVs here this year, more than 90 percent of them smart TVs.
Smart TVs feature Internet access, multimedia sharing with different handheld devices and application offerings.
Aaron Chen (陳志龍), a senior manager at Samsung Taiwan’s visual display group, said the “penetration rate [for smart TV] in Taiwan would be similar to that for the rest of the world.”
About 30 percent to 40 percent of LCD TVs around the world this year will be smart TVs, Samsung Taiwan president Moon Sung-hyun said yesterday. He did not provide last year’s figure.
However, Maxwell Chang (張乘維), an analyst with Topology Research Institute (拓墣產業研究所), said it “will surprise me, if the penetration rate for smart TVs reaches 10 percent in Taiwan as prices are still expensive for most people.”
An entry-level Samsung 32-inch smart TV costs NT$33,900 (US$1,130), 60 percent more than the average NT$20,000 for an LCD TV, Chang said.
Chang forecast that only 20 percent of the 115 million LCD TV units shipped this year would be smart TVs with demand mostly from developed countries in North America and Europe, thanks to widespread Internet access.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has secured three construction permits for its plan to build a state-of-the-art A14 wafer fab in Taichung, and is likely to start construction soon, the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau said yesterday. Speaking with CNA, Wang Chun-chieh (王俊傑), deputy director general of the science park bureau, said the world’s largest contract chipmaker has received three construction permits — one to build a fab to roll out sophisticated chips, another to build a central utility plant to provide water and electricity for the facility and the other to build three office buildings. With the three permits, TSMC
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
RSS