Tablet computer shipments in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, will increase nearly 10 times from 2 million shipped last year to 21 million units in 2015, according to a US-based market research company.
The figure represents a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 54 percent, International Data Corp (IDC) said in a report on Friday on 13 markets: Taiwan, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, South Korea, New Zealand, the Philippines, China, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Mature countries such as Taiwan, South Korea and Australia are showing high interest in mobile devices like tablets, while China continues to demonstrate high purchasing power for new-tech products, the IDC report said.
Emerging economies such as Indonesia and Malaysia have more conservative attitudes toward tablet PCs and still prefer mini-notebooks.
“Over the next five years, Apple Inc will set the pace for the tablet category. Competitors to iPad must find innovate ways to differentiate their products, lest consumer interest wanes in favor of the next tech gadget,” said Melissa Chau, a research manager for client devices research at IDC Asia-Pacific.
“Some of this demand might be driven by the education sector, such as the Thai government’s recently announced plan to distribute 800,000 Android tablets to primary school students,” she said. “While this latest announcement has not yet been factored into the IDC’s forecast, there are certainly opportunities out there to keep driving media tablet growth.”
IDC said Apple became more active in Asia for the iPad 2 launch, as its aggressive pricing and strong branding left little room for other players to gain a toehold.
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co has focused on its 7-inch tablet, relying on its domestic brand strength to boost its numbers, while a host of local Chinese brands might survive in some niche markets with product-development speed being their key strength, IDC said.
On the other hand, e-readers will carry a lower 18 percent CAGR as tablets offer a better reading experience with color display for magazine content.
“Lack of localized content is an issue for e-readers in the region. In China, for example, some consumers are still relying on pirated Internet downloads. Online bookstores haven’t been earning device vendors wide margins on content, and face aggressive iPad pricing, squeezing them further,” said Dickie Chang (張祐菖), a senior market analyst for client devices research at IDC Asia-Pacific.
The e-reader market is largely driven by Hanvon (漢王) and SNDA (盛大) in the Chinese market, as they entered the market early. In China, however, more consumers are starting to consider tablets, IDC said.
The Amazon Kindle only sells in some Asia-Pacific countries and is popular in English-speaking countries such as Australia and New Zealand, the market tracker said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to