Taiwan will play a leading role in the mobile device industry in the future because of its capabilities in the field of information and communications technology (ICT) manufacturing and integration, the government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) said yesterday.
As more mobile platforms are being geared toward ecosystem-based competition, the mobile device industry is focusing more on user-interface rather than on product development, said Stephen Su (蘇孟宗), general director of ITRI’s Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK).
Su said the trend toward innovative applications is leading the development of key components such as sensors, displays, memories and processors.
“Taiwan has top mobile device manufacturing capabilities and can supply most of those key components,” Su said in a recent keynote speech titled “How tablets will transform the landscape of the ICT industry.”
The next step will be to improve the technology of the key components, as well as terminal design, application platform and service innovation, he said.
ANDROID GROWTH
According to the center, the worldwide market share of Google’s Android operating system grew to 33 percent in the fourth quarter of last year from 9 percent in the same period in 2009 because of its largely open source license.
During that period, it replaced Nokia’s Symbian as the most popular smartphone platform, with Nokia’s market share dropping to 31 percent last year from 45 percent in 2009, the center said.
Su said that mobile phone usage has gone beyond talk functions to include heavy media content such as music, news and movies, which are also a feature of tablet computers.
FLOW-ON EFFECTS
He said that tablet PCs will mostly affect the netbook and e-reader market and gradually impact on notebook sales. Tablet PCs will become a new service platform for the integration of ICT and other industries, with Taiwanese ICT companies providing innovative applications and services, he said.
Worldwide tablet shipments are forecast to grow from 35 million units this year to 116 million units in 2014, representing a compound annual growth rate of 50.6 percent during that period, compared with 16.7 percent for notebooks, 3.8 percent for e-readers and 0.9 percent for netbooks.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is