Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to sell its first own-branded mobile phone in the UK, taking on manufacturers using Google Inc’s Android software in one of Europe’s most competitive handset markets.
Having initially focused on making handsets for carriers, China’s largest phone-equipment supplier will introduce the Blaze device as early as next month. Huawei is targeting a market share of 4 percent to 5 percent within 12 months, said Mark Mitchinson, the company’s UK executive vice president.
“We’re trying to establish the brand, almost from scratch,” Mitchinson, who previously worked for Samsung Electronics Co and Nokia Oyj, said in an interview in London. Huawei will compete with “anyone involved in Android.”
Huawei’s push into the UK, following its first mobile network deal in the country in May, marks the company’s biggest step into devices in western Europe. Sales outside of China accounted for 65 percent of Shenzhen, China-based Huawei’s revenue last year. Sales abroad grew three times faster than in its home market.
Huawei, benefiting from the rising popularity of Android, will compete with other manufacturers who use the software. LG Electronics Inc and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, the two smallest major brands in the UK, both use the system, the best-selling smartphone platform in the second quarter after a fourfold increase in global sales, Gartner said yesterday.
“We are seeing other players that unfortunately will continue to be challenged and Sony Ericsson is one of those,” said Roberta Cozza, a UK-based analyst at Gartner Inc.
Huawei has about 1 percent share of the UK device market and that may rise to 3 percent in a year, she estimates.
Huawei will need to invest “very heavily” to compete with HTC Corp (宏達電), Asia’s second-largest phone maker, which also initially suffered from a lack of brand awareness, she said. “The problem they have is the brand. It’s a limitation for them.”
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day